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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24930-8.txt b/24930-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8e8fad --- /dev/null +++ b/24930-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10891 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Glances at Europe, by Horace Greeley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Glances at Europe + In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, + Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. + +Author: Horace Greeley + +Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24930] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLANCES AT EUROPE *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + + + + + + + + + GLANCES AT EUROPE: + + IN A + + Series of Letters + + FROM + + GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, &c. + + DURING + + THE SUMMER OF 1851. + + + + INCLUDING NOTICES OF THE + + GREAT EXHIBITION, OR WORLD'S FAIR. + + + + BY HORACE GREELEY. + + + + NEW YORK: + DEWITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS. + 1851. + + + + ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by + + DEWITT & DAVENPORT, + + in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for + the Southern District of New York. + + + + _R. Craighead, Printer and Stereotyper,_ + _112 Fulton Street._ + + + + +NO APOLOGY. + + +If there be any reader impelled to dip into notes of foreign travel +mainly by a solicitude to perfect his knowledge of the manners and +habits of good society, to which end he is anxious to learn how my Lord +Shuffleton waltzes, what wine Baron Hob-and-nob patronizes, which tints +predominate in Lady Highflyer's dress, and what is the probable color of +the Duchess of Doublehose's garters, he will only waste his time by +looking through this volume. Even if the species of literature he +admires had not already been overdone, I have neither taste nor capacity +for increasing it. It was my fortune sometimes while in Europe to "sit +at good men's feasts," but I brought nothing away from them for the +public, not even the names of my entertainers and their notable guests. +If I had felt at liberty to sketch what struck me as the personal +characteristics of some gentlemen of note or rank whom I met, especially +in England, I do not doubt that the popular interest in those letters +would have been materially heightened. I did not, however, deem myself +authorized to do this. In a few instances, where individuals challenged +observation and criticism by consenting to address public gatherings, I +have spoken of the matter and manner of their speeches and indicated the +impressions they made on me. Beyond this I did not feel authorized to +go, even in the case of public men speaking to the public through +reports for the daily press; while those whom I only met privately or in +the discharge of kindred duties, as Jurors at the Exhibition, I have not +felt at liberty to bring before the public at all. Having thus explained +what will seem to many a lack of piquancy, in the following pages, +implying a privation of social opportunities, I drop the subject. + +No one can realize more fully than the writer the utter absence of +literary merit in these Letters. He does not deprecate nor seek to +disarm criticism; he only asks that his sketches be taken for what they +profess and strive to be, and for nothing else. That they are +superficial, their title proclaims; that they were hurriedly written, +with no thought of style nor of enduring interest, all whom they are +likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling +in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes of his +habitual readers or at least of their ancestors, cannot well refrain +from writing of what he sees and hears; his observations have a value in +the eyes of those readers which will be utterly unrecognized by the +colder public outside of the sympathizing circle. For the habitual +readers of The Tribune especially were these Letters written, and their +original purpose has already been accomplished. Here they would have +rested, but for the unsolicited offer of the publishers to reproduce +them in a book at their own cost and risk, and on terms ensuring a fair +share of any proceeds of their sale to the writer. Such offers from +publishers to authors who have no established reputation as book-makers +are rarely made and even more rarely refused. Therefore, Sir Critic! +whose dog-eared manuscript has circulated from one publisher's drawer to +another until its initial pages are scarcely readable, while the ample +residue retain all their pristine freshness of hue, you are welcome to +your revenge! Your novel may be tedious beyond endurance; your epic a +preposterous waste of once valuable foolscap; but your slashing review +is sure to be widely read and enjoyed. + +My aim in writing these Letters was to give a clear and vivid +daguerreotype of the districts I traversed and the incidents which came +under my observation. To this end I endeavored to sec, so far as +practicable, through my own eyes rather than those of others. To this +end, I generally shunned guide-books, even those of the "indispensable" +Murray, and relied mainly for routes and distances on the shilling +hand-book of Bradshaw. That I have been misled into many inaccuracies +and some gross blunders as to noted edifices, works of art, &c., is +quite probable; but that I have truthfully though hastily indicated the +topography, rural aspects, agricultural adaptations and more obvious +social characteristics of the countries I traversed, I am nevertheless +confident. I made a point of penning my impressions of each day's +journey within the succeeding twenty-four hours if practicable, for I +found that even a day's postponement impaired the distinctness of my +recollections of the ever-varying panorama of hill and dale, moor and +mountain, with long, level or undulating stretches of intermingled +woods, grain, grass, &c., &c. I trust the picture I have attempted to +give of out-door life in Western Europe, the workers in its fields and +the clusters in its streets, will be recognized by competent judges as +substantially correct. + +The opinions expressed with respect to national characteristics or +aptitude will of course appear crude and rash to those who regard them +as based exclusively on the few days' personal observation in which they +may seem to have originated. To those who regard them as grounded in +some knowledge of history and of the present political and social +condition of those nations, corrected and modified indeed by the +personal observation aforesaid, their crudity and audacity will be +somewhat less astounding. No one will doubt that other travelers in +Europe have been far better qualified to observe and to judge than I +was, yet I see and think, and am not forbidden to speak. We know already +how Europe appears in the eyes of the learned and wise; but if some +Nepaulese Embassador or vagrant Camanche were to publish his "first +impressions" of Great Britain or Italy, should we utterly refuse to open +it because Baird or Thackeray could give us more accurate information on +that identical theme? Would not the Camanche's criticisms possess some +value _as_ his, quite apart from their intrinsic worth or worthlessness? +Might they not afford some insight into Indian modes of thought, if none +into European modes of life? + +I deeply regret that the general impression made on me by the Italians +was such that my estimate of their character and capabilities gave +offence to their brethren now settled in this country. Their feeling is +a natural, creditable one; I will not reply to their strictures, yet I +must let what I wrote in Italy of the Italians stand unmodified. I shall +be most happy indeed to confess my mistake whenever it shall have been +proved such, but I cannot as yet perceive it. And to those who, not +unreasonably, dilate on the rashness of such judgment on the part of one +who was only some few weeks in Italy, and did not even understand its +people's language, I beg leave to commend a perusal of "Casa Guidi +Windows," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I had not seen it when I wrote, +and the coincidence of its estimate of the Italians with mine is of +course utterly unpremeditated. Mrs. Browning speaks Italian and knows +the Italians; she lived among them throughout the late eventful years; +she sympathizes with their sufferings and prays for their deliverance, +but without shutting her eyes to the faults and grave defects of +character which impede that deliverance if they do not render it +doubtful. To those who will read her brief but noble poem, I need say no +more; on those who refuse to read it, words from me would be wasted. +Believing that among the most imminent perils of the Republican cause in +Europe is the danger of a premature, sanguinary, fruitless insurrection +in Italy, I have done what I could to prevent any such catastrophe. When +Liberty shall have been re-vindicated in France and shall thereupon have +triumphed in Germany, the reign of despotism will speedily terminate in +Italy; until that time, I do not see how it can wisely be even resisted. + +A word of explanation as to the "World's Fair" must close this too long +introduction. The letters in this volume which refer to the great +Exhibition of Industry were mainly written when the persistent and +unsparing disparagement of the British Press had created a general +impression that the American Exposition was a mortifying failure, and +when even some of the Americans in Europe, taking their cue from that +Press, were declaring themselves "ashamed of their country" because of +such failure. Of course, these letters were written to correct the then +prevalent errors. More recently, the tide has completely turned, until +the danger now imminent is that of extravagant if not groundless +exultation, so that this Fair would be treated somewhat differently if I +were now to write about it. The truth lies midway between the extremes +already indicated. Our share in the Exhibition was creditable to us as a +nation not yet a century old, situated three to five thousand miles from +London; it embraced many articles of great practical value though +uncouth in form and utterly unattractive to the mere sight-seer; other +nations will profit by it and we shall lose no credit; but it fell far +short of what it might have been, and did not fairly exhibit the +progress and present condition of the Useful Arts in this country. We +can and must do better next time, and that without calling on the +Federal Treasury to pay a dollar of the expense. + +Friends in Europe! I may never again meet the greater number of you on +earth; allow me thus informally to tender you my hearty thanks for many +well remembered acts of unsought kindness and unexpected hospitality. +That your future years may be many and prosperous, and your embarkation +on the Great Voyage which succeeds the journey of life may be serene and +hopeful, is the fervent prayer of + + Yours, sincerely, + H. G. + + _New-York, October 1st, 1851._ + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + _Page_ + + I. Crossing the Atlantic, 9 + + II. Opening of the Fair, 19 + + III. The Great Exhibition, 29 + + IV. England--Hampton Court, 38 + + V. The Future of Labor--Day-Break, 47 + + VI. British Progress, 53 + + VII. London--New-York, 62 + + VIII. The Exhibition, 69 + + IX. Sights in London, 77 + + X. Political Economy, as Studied at the World's + Exhibition, 87 + + XI. Royal Sunshine, 96 + + XII. The Flax-Cotton Revolution, 107 + + XIII. Leaving the Exhibition, 113 + + XIV. London to Paris, 120 + + XV. The Future of France, 127 + + XVI. Paris, Social and Moral, 134 + + XVII. Paris, Political and Social, 141 + + XVIII. The Palaces of France, 149 + + XIX. France, Central and Eastern, 157 + + XX. Lyons to Turin, 164 + + XXI. Sardinia--Italy--Freedom, 174 + + XXII. Pisa--The Leaning Tower (Letter Missing), 184 + + XXIII. First Day in the Papal States, 186 + + XXIV. The Eternal City, 191 + + XXV. St. Peter's, 201 + + XXVI. The Romans of To-day, 208 + + XXVII. Central Italy--Florence, 214 + + XXVIII. Eastern Italy--The Po, 222 + + XXIX. Venice, 231 + + XXX. Lombardy, 238 + + XXXI. Switzerland, 248 + + XXXII. Lucerne to Basle, 256 + + XXXIII. Germany, 261 + + XXXIV. Belgium, 268 + + XXXV. Paris to London, 273 + + XXXVI. Universal Peace Congress, 279 + + XXXVII. America at the World's Fair, 286 + + XXXVIII. England, Central and Northern, 293 + + XXXIX. Scotland, 303 + + XL. Ireland--Ulster, 308 + + XLI. West of Ireland--Atlantic Mails, 312 + + XLII. Ireland--South, 320 + + XLIII. Prospects of Ireland, 328 + + XLIV. The English, 340 + + + + +GLANCES AT EUROPE. + + + + +I. + +CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. + + + LIVERPOOL (Eng.), April 28th, 1851. + +The leaden skies, the chilly rain, the general out-door aspect and +prospect of discomfort prevailing in New York when our good steamship +BALTIC cast loose from her dock at noon on the 16th inst., were not +particularly calculated to inspire and exhilarate the goodly number who +were then bidding adieu, for months at least, to home, country, and +friends. The most sanguine of the inexperienced, however, appealed for +solace to the wind, which they, so long as the City completely sheltered +us on the east, insisted was blowing from "a point _West_ of +North"--whence they very logically deduced that the north-east storm, +now some thirty-six to forty-eight hours old, had spent its force, and +would soon give place to a serene and lucid atmosphere. I believe the +Barometer at no time countenanced this augury, which a brief experience +sufficed most signally to confute. Before we had passed Coney Island, it +was abundantly certain that our freshening breeze hailed directly from +Labrador and the icebergs beyond, and had no idea of changing its +quarters. By the time we were fairly outside of Sandy Hook, we were +struggling with as uncomfortable and damaging a cross-sea as had ever +enlarged _my_ slender nautical experience; and in the course of the next +hour the high resolves, the valorous defiances, of the scores who had +embarked in the settled determination that they _would not_ be sea-sick, +had been exchanged for pallid faces and heaving bosoms. Of our two +hundred passengers, possibly one-half were able to face the dinner-table +at 4 P. M.; less than one-fourth mustered to supper at 7; while a stern +but scanty remnant--perhaps twenty in all--answered the summons to +breakfast next morning. + +I was not in any one of these categories. So long as I was able, I +walked the deck, and sought to occupy my eyes, my limbs, my brain, with +something else than the sea and its perturbations. The attempt, however, +proved a signal failure. By the time we were five miles off the Hook, I +was a decided case; another hour laid me prostrate, though I refused to +leave the deck; at six o'clock a friend, finding me recumbent and +hopeless in the smokers' room, persuaded and helped me to go below. +There I unbooted and swayed into my berth, which endured me, perforce, +for the next twenty-four hours. I then summoned strength to crawl on +deck, because, while I remained below, my sufferings were barely less +than while walking above, and my recovery hopeless. + +I shall not harrow up the souls nor the stomachs of landsmen, as yet +reveling in blissful ignorance of its tortures, with any description of +sea-sickness. They will know all in ample season; or if not, so much the +better. But naked honesty requires a correction of the prevalent error +that this malady is necessarily transient and easily overcome. Thousands +who imagine they have been sea-sick on some River or Lake steamboat, or +even during a brief sleigh-ride, are annually putting to sea with as +little necessity or urgency as suffices to send them on a jaunt to +Niagara or the White Mountains. They suppose they may very probably be +"qualmish" for a few hours, but that (they fancy) will but highten the +general enjoyment of the voyage. Now it is quite true that any green +sea-goer _may_ be sick for a few hours only; he may even not be sick at +all. But the _probability_ is very far from this, especially when the +voyage is undertaken in any other than one of the four sunniest, +blandest months in the year. Of every hundred who cross the Atlantic for +the first time, I am confident that two-thirds endure more than they had +done in all the five years preceding--more than they would do during two +months' hard labor as convicts in a State Prison. Of _our_ two hundred, +I think fifty did not see a healthy or really happy hour during the +passage; while as many more were sufferers for at least half the time. +The other hundred were mainly Ocean's old acquaintances, and on that +account treated more kindly; but many of these had some trying hours. + +Utter indifference to life and all its belongings is one of the +characteristics of a genuine case of sea-sickness No. 1. I enjoyed some +opportunities of observing this during our voyage. For instance: One +evening I was standing by a sick gentleman who had dragged himself or +been carried on deck and laid down on a water-proof mattress which +raised him two or three inches from the floor. Suddenly a great wave +broke square over the bow of the ship and rushed aft in a river through +either gangway--the two streams reuniting beyond the purser's and +doctor's offices, just where the sick man lay. Any live man would have +jumped to his feet as suddenly as if a rattlesnake were whizzing in his +blanket; but the sufferer never moved, and the languid coolness of eye +wherewith he regarded the rushing flood which made an island of him was +most expressive. Happily, the wave had nearly spent its force and was +now so rapidly diffused that his refuge was not quite overflowed. + +Of course, those who have voyaged and not suffered will pronounce my +general picture grossly exaggerated; wherein they will be faithful to +their own experience, as I am to mine. I write for the benefit of the +uninitiated, to warn them, not against braving the ocean when they must +or ought, but against resorting to it for pastime. Voyaging cannot be +enjoyment to most of them; it must be suffering. The sonorous rhymesters +in praise of "A Life on the Ocean Wave," "The Sea! the Sea! the Open +Sea!" &c. were probably never out of sight of land in a gale in their +lives. If they were ever "half seas over," the liquid which buoyed them +up was not brine, but wine, which is quite another affair. And, as they +are continually luring people out of soundings who might far better have +remained on terra firma, I lift up my voice in warning against them. "A +home on the raging deep," is _not_ a scene of enjoyment, even to the +sailor, who suffers only from hardship and exposure; no other laborer's +wages are so dearly earned as his, and his season of enjoyment is not +the voyage but the stay in port. He is compelled to work hardest just +when other out-door laborers deem working at all out of the question. To +him Night and Day are alike in their duties as in their exemptions; +while the more furious and blinding the tempest, the greater must be his +exertions, perils and privations. In fair weather his hours of rest are +equal to his hours of labor; in bad weather he may have _no_ hours of +rest whatever. Should he find such, he flings himself into his bunk for +a few hours in his wet clothes, and turns out smoking like a coal-pit at +the next summons to duty, to be drenched afresh in the cold affusions of +sea and sky--and so on. An old sea-captain assured me that his crew were +sometimes in wet clothing throughout an Atlantic voyage. + +Our weather was certainly bad, though not the worst. We started on our +course, after leaving Sandy-Hook, in the teeth of a North-Easter, and it +clung to us like a brother. It varied to East North-East, East +South-East, South East, and occasionally condescended to blow a little +from nearly North or nearly South, but we had not six hours of Westerly +or semi-Westerly wind throughout the passage. There may have been two +days in all, though I think not, in which some of the principal sails +could be made to draw; but they were necessarily set so sharply at +angles with the ship as to do little good. Usually, one or two trysails +were all the canvass displayed, and they rather served to steady the +ship than to aid her progress; while for days together, stripped to her +naked spars, she was compelled to push her bowsprit into the wind's very +eye by the force of her engines alone. And that wind, though no +hurricane, had a will of its own; while the waves, rolled perpetually +against her bow by so long a succession of easterly winds, were a +decided impediment to our progress. I doubt whether there is another +steamship which could have made the passage safely and without extra +effort in less time than the Baltic did. + +Our weather was not all bad, though we had no thoroughly fair day--no +day entirely free from rain--none in which the decks were dry +throughout. In fact, the spray often kept them thoroughly drenched, +especially aft, when there was no rain at all. During four or five of +the twelve days we had some hour or more of semi-sunshine either at +morning, midday or toward night. The only gales of much account were +those of our first night off Long Island and our last before seeing land +(Saturday), when on coming into soundings off the coast of Ireland, we +had a very decided blow and (the ship having become very light by the +consumption of most of her coal) the worst kind of a sea. It gave me my +sickest hour, though not my worst day. + +Our dreariest days were Wednesday and Thursday, 23d and 24th, when we +were a little more than half way across. With the wind precisely ahead +and very strong, the skies black and lowering, a pretty constant rain, +and a driving, blinding spray which drenched every thing above the +decks, themselves ankle-deep in water, I cannot well imagine how two +hundred fellow-passengers, driven down and kept down in the cabins and +state-rooms of a steamship, could well be treated to a more dismal +prospect. I thought the philosophy even of the card-players (who were by +far the most industrious and least miserable class among us) was tried +by it. + +Spacious as the Baltic is, two hundred passengers with fifty or sixty +attendants, confined for days together to her cabins, fill her quite +full enough. For those who are thoroughly well, there are society, +reading, eating, play and other pastimes; but for the sick and helpless, +who can neither read nor play, whom even conversation fatigues, and to +whom the under-deck smell, especially in connection with food, is +intensely revolting, I can imagine no heavier hours short of absolute +torture. Having endured these, I had nothing beyond them to dread, and +it was rather a satisfaction, on reaching the Irish coast, to be greeted +with a succession of hail-squalls--to work up the Channel against a wet +North-Easter, and be landed in Liverpool (after a tedious detention for +lack of water on the bar at the mouth of the Mersey) under sullen skies +and in a dripping rain. I wanted to see the thing out, and would have +taken amiss any deceitful smiles of Fortune after I had learned to +dispense with her favors. + +There yet remains the grateful duty of speaking of the mitigations of +our trials. And in the first place, the Baltic herself is unquestionably +one of the safest and most commodious sea-boats in the world. She is +probably not the fastest, especially with a strong head wind and sea, +because of her great bulk and the area of resistance she presents both +above and below the water-line; but for strength and excellence of +construction, steadiness of movement, and perfection of accommodations, +she can have no superior. Her wheels never missed a revolution from the +time she discharged her New-York pilot till the time she stopped them to +take on board his Liverpool counterpart, off Holyhead: and her sailing +qualities, tested under the most unfavorable auspices, are also +admirable. She needs but good weather to make the run in ten days from +dock to dock; she would have done it this time had the winds been the +reverse of what they were or as the Asia had them before her. The luck +cannot always be against her. + +Praise of commanders and officers of steamships has become so common +that it has lost all emphasis, all force. I presume this is for the most +part deserved; for it is not likely that the great responsibility of +sailing these ships would be entrusted to any other than the very +fittest hands; and this is a matter wherein mistakes may by care be +avoided. The qualities of a seaman, a commander, do not lie dormant; the +ocean tries and proves its men; while in this service the whole +traveling public are the observers and judges. But such a voyage as we +have just made tries the temper as well as the capacity, it calls into +exercise every faculty, and lays bare defects if such there be. To sweep +gaily on before a fresh, fair breeze, is comparatively easy, but few +landsmen can realize the patient assiduity and nautical skill required +to extract propelling power from winds determined to be dead ahead. How +nicely the sails must be set at the sharpest angle with the course of +the vessel, and sometimes that course itself varied a point or two to +make them draw at all; how often they must be shifted, or reefed, or +furled; how much labor and skill must be put in requisition to secure a +very slight addition to the speed of the ship--all this I am not seaman +enough to describe, though I can admire. And during the entire voyage, +with its many vicissitudes, I did not hear one harsh or profane word +from an officer, one sulky or uncivil response from a subordinate. And +the perfection of Capt. Comstock's commandership in my eyes was that, +though always on the alert and giving direction to every movement, he +did not need to command half so much nor to make himself anything like +so conspicuous as an ordinary man would. I willingly believe that some +share of the merit of this is due to the admirable qualities of his +assistants, especially Lieuts. Duncan and Hunter, of the U. S. Navy. + +In the way of food and attendance, nothing desirable was wanting but +Health and Appetite. Four meals per day were regularly provided--at 8, +12, 4 and 7 o'clock respectively--which would favorably compare with +those proffered at any but the very best Hotels; and some of the +dinners--that of the last Sunday especially--would have done credit to +the Astor or Irving. Of course I state this with the reservation that +the best water and the best milk that can be had at sea are to me +unpalatable, and that, even when I can eat under a deck, it is a penance +to do so. But these drawbacks are Ocean's fault, or mine; not the +Baltic's. Many of the passengers ate their four meals regularly, after +the first day out, with abundant relish; and one young New-Yorker added +a _fifth_, by taking a supper at ten each night with a capital appetite, +after doing full justice to the four regular meals. If he could only +patent his digestion and warrant it, he might turn his back on +merchandise evermore. + +The attendance on the sick was the best feature of all. Aside from the +constant and kind assiduities of Dr. Crary, the ship's physician, the +patience and watchfulness with which the sick were nursed and tended, +their wants sought out, their wishes anticipated, were remarkable. Many +had three meals per day served to them separately in their berths or on +deck, and even at unseasonable hours, and often had special delicacies +provided for them, without a demur or sulky look. As there was no extra +charge for this, it certainly surpassed any preconception on my part of +steamship amenity. I trust the ever-moving attendants received something +more than their wages for their arduous labors: they certainly deserved +it. + +The notable incidents of our passage were very few. An iceberg was seen +to the northward one morning about sunrise, by those who were on deck at +that hour; but it kept at a respectful distance, and we thought the +example worthy of our imitation. I understand that the rising sun's rays +on its surface produced a fine effect. A single school of whales +exhibited their flukes for our edification--so I heard. Several vessels +were seen the first morning out, while we were in the Gulf Stream: one +or two from day to day, and of course a number as we neared the entrance +of the Channel on this side; but there were days wherein we saw no sail +but our own; and I think we traversed nearly a thousand miles at one +time on this great highway of nations, without seeing one. Such facts +give some idea of the ocean's immensity, but I think few can realize, +save by experiment, the weary length of way from New-York to Liverpool, +nor the quantity of blue water which separates the two points. Friends +who went to California by Cape-Horn and were sea-sick, I proffer you my +heart felt sympathies!--It was some consolation to me, even when most +ill and impatient, to reflect that the gales, so adverse to us, were +most propitious to the many emigrant-freighted packets which at this +season are conveying thousands to our country's shores, and whose clouds +of canvas occasionally loomed upon us in the distance. What were our +"light afflictions" compared with those of the multitudes crowded into +_their_ stifling steerages, so devoid of conveniences and comforts! +Speed on, O favored coursers of the deep, bearing swiftly those +suffering exiles to the land of Hope and Freedom! + +We had a law trial by way of variety last Saturday--Capt. Comstock +having been duly indicted and arraigned for _Humbug_, in permitting us +to be so long beset by all manner of easterly winds with never a puff +from the westward. Hon. Ashbel Smith, from Texas, officiated as Chief +Justice; a Jury of six ladies and six gentlemen were empaneled; James T. +Brady conducted the prosecution with much wit and spirit; while Æolus, +Neptune, Capt. Cuttle, Jack Bunsby, &c. testified for the prosecution, +and Fairweather, Westwind, Brother Jonathan and Mr. Steady gave evidence +for the defence. The fun was rather heavy, but the audience was very +good natured, and whatever the witnesses lacked in wit, they made up +in extravagance of costume, so that two hours were whiled away quite +endurably. The Jury not only acquitted the Captain without leaving their +seats, but subjected the prosecutors to heavy damages (in wine) as +malicious defamers. The verdict was received with unanimous and hearty +approval. + +But I must stop and begin again. Suffice it, that, though we ought to +have landed here inside of twelve days from New York, the difference in +time (Liverpool using that of Greenwich for Railroad convenience) being +all but five hours--yet the long prevalence of Easterly winds had so +lowered the waters of the Mersey by driving those of the Channel +westerly into the Atlantic, that the pilot declined the responsibility +of taking our ship over the Bar till high water, which was nearly seven +o'clock. We then ran up opposite the City, but there was no dock-room +for the Baltic, and passengers and light baggage were ferried ashore in +a "steam-tug" which we in New York should deem unworthy to convey market +garbage. At last, after infinite delay and vexation, caused in good part +by the necessity of a custom-house scrutiny even of carpet-bags, because +men _will_ smuggle cigars ashore here, even in their pockets, we were +landed about 9 o'clock, and to-morrow I set my watch by an English sun. +There is promise of brighter skies. I shall hasten up to London to +witness the opening of the World's Fair; and so, "My Native Land, Good +Night!" + + + + +II. + +OPENING OF THE FAIR. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 1, 1851. + +Our Human Life is either comic or tragic, according to the point of view +from which we regard it. The observer will be impelled to laugh or to +weep over it, as he shall fix his attention on men's follies or their +sufferings. So of the Great Exhibition, and more especially its Royal +Inauguration, which I have just returned from witnessing. There can be +no serious doubt that the Fair has good points; I think it is a good +thing for London first, for England next, and will ultimately benefit +mankind. And yet, it would not be difficult so to depict it (and truly), +that its contrivers and managers would never think of deeming the +picture complimentary. + +But let us have the better side first by all means. The show is +certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the +excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto +seen. The Crystal Palace, which covers and protects all, is better than +any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of +inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not +merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet +built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and +varied utility. Depend on it, stone and timber will have to stand back +for iron and glass hereafter, to an extent not yet conceivable. The +triumph of Paxton is perfect, and heralds a revolution. + +The day has been very favorable--fair, bland and dry. It is now 4 P. M. +and there has been no rain since daylight, but a mere sprinkle at noon +unregarded by us insiders--the longest exemption from "falling weather" +I have known since I left New York, and I believe the daily showers or +squalls in this city reach still further back. True, even this day would +be deemed a dull one in New York, but there was a very fair imitation of +sunshine this morning, and we enjoy rather more than American moonlight +still, though the sky is partially clouded. [How can they have had the +conscience to tax _such_ light as they get up in this country?] Of +course the turn out has been immense; I estimate the number inside of +the building at thirty thousand, and I presume ten times as many went +out of their way to gaze at the Procession, though that was not much. Our +New York Fire Department could beat it; so could our Odd-Fellows.--Then +the most perfect order was preserved throughout; everything was done in +season and without botching; no accident occurred to mar the festivity, +and the general feeling was one of hearty satisfaction. If it were a new +thing to see a Queen, Court and aristocracy engaged in doing marked honor +to Industry, they certainly performed gracefully the parts allotted them, +and with none of the awkwardness or blundering which novel situations are +expected to excuse. But was the play well cast? + +The Sovereign in a monarchy is of course always in order: to be honored +for doing his whole duty; to be honored more signally if he does more +than his duty. Prince Albert's sphere as the Sovereign's consort is very +limited, and he shows rare sense and prudence in never evincing a desire +to overstep it. I think few men live who could hold his neutral and +hampered position and retain so entirely the sincere respect and esteem +of the British Nation. His labors in promoting this Exhibition began +early and have been arduous, persistent and effective. Any Inauguration +of the Fair in which he did not prominently figure would have done him +injustice. The Queen appears to be personally popular in a more direct +and positive sense. I cannot remember that any one act of her public +life has ever been condemned by the public sentiment of the Country. +Almost every body here appears to esteem it a condescension for her to +open the Exhibition as though it were a Parliament, and with far more of +personal exertion and heartiness on her part. And while I must regard +her vocation as one rather behind the intelligence of this age and +likely to go out of fashion at no distant day, yet I am sure that change +will not come through _her_ fault. I was glad to see her in the pageant +to-day, and hope she enjoyed it while ministering to the enjoyment of +others. + +But let us reverse the glass for a moment. The ludicrous, the dissonant, +the incongruous, are not excluded from the Exhibition: they cannot be +excluded from any complete picture of its Opening. The Queen, we will +say, was here by Right Divine, by right of Womanhood, by Universal +Suffrage--any how you please. The ceremonial could not have spared her. +But in inaugurating the first grand cosmopolitan Olympiad of Industry, +ought not Industry to have had some representation, some vital +recognition, in her share of the pageant? If the Queen had come in state +to the Horse-Guards to review the _élite_ of her military forces, no one +would doubt that "the Duke" should figure in the foreground, with a +brilliant staff of Generals and Colonels surrounding him. So, if she +were proceeding to open Parliament her fitting attendants would be +Ministers and Councillors of State. But what have her "Gentleman Usher +of Sword and State," "Lords in Waiting," "Master of the Horse," "Earl +Marshal," "Groom of the Stole," "Master of the Buckhounds," and such +uncouth fossils, to do with a grand Exhibition of the fruits of +Industry? What, in their official capacity, have these and theirs ever +had to do with Industry unless to burden it, or with its Products but +to consume or destroy them? The "Mistress of the Robes" would be in +place if she ever fashioned any robes, even for the Queen; so would the +"Ladies of the Bedchamber" if they did anything with beds except to +sleep in them. As the fact is, their presence only served to strengthen +the presumption that not merely their offices but that of Royalty itself +is an anachronism, and all should have deceased with the era to which +they properly belonged. It was well indeed that Paxton should have a +proud place in the procession; but he held it in no representative +capacity; he was there not in behalf of Architecture but of the Crystal +Palace. To have rendered the pageant expressive, congruous, and really a +tribute to Industry, the posts of honor next the Queen's person should +have been confided on this occasion to the children of Watt, of +Arkwright and their compeers (Napoleon's _real_ conquerors;) while +instead of Grandees and Foreign Embassadors, the heirs of Fitch, of +Fulton, of Jacquard, of Whitney, of Daguerre, &c., with the discoverers, +inventors, architects and engineers to whom the world is primarily +indebted for Canals, Railroads, Steamships, Electric Telegraphs, &c., +&c., should have been specially invited to swell the Royal cortege. To +pass over all these, and summon instead the descendants of some dozen +lucky Norman robbers, none of whom ever contemplated the personal doing +of any real work as even a remote possibility, and any of whom would +feel insulted by a report that his father or grandfather invented the +Steam Engine or Spinning Jenny, is not the fittest way to honor +Industry. The Queen's Horticulturists, Gardeners, Carpenters, +Upholsterers, Milliners, &c., would have been far more in place in the +procession than her "gold stick," "silver stick," and kindred +absurdities. + +And yet, empty and blundering as the conception of this pageant may seem +and is, there is nevertheless marrow and hope in it. "The world _does_ +move," O Galileo! carrying onward even those who forced you to deny the +truth you had demonstrated! We may well say that these gentlemen in +ribbons and stars cannot truly honor Labor while they would deem its +performance by their own sons a degradation; but the grandfathers of +these Dukes and Barons would have deemed themselves as much dishonored +by uniting in this Royal ovation to gingham weavers and boiler-makers as +these men would by being compelled to weave the cloth and forge the iron +themselves. Patience, impetuous souls! the better day dawns, though the +morning air is chilly. We shall be able to elect something else than +Generals to the Presidency before this century is out, and the Right of +every man to live by Labor--consequently, to a place where he _may_ +live, on the sole condition that he is willing to labor--stands high on +the general orders, and must soon be up for National and universal +discussion. The Earls and Dukes of a not distant day will train their +sons in schools of Agriculture, Architecture, Chemistry, Mineralogy, +&c., inspiring each to win fame and rank for himself by signal and +brilliant usefulness, instead of resting upon and wearing out the fame +won by some ancestor on the battle-field of the old barbarian time. Even +To-Day's hollow pageant is an augury of this. It is Browning, I think, +who says, + + "All men become good creatures, _but so slow_." + +Let us, taking heart from the reflection that we live in the age of the +Locomotive and the Telegraph, cheerfully press onward! + +We will consider the Fair opened. + +I shall venture no especial criticisms as yet--first because the +Exhibition is not ready for it; next because I am in the same +predicament. A few general observations must close this letter. + +Immense as the quantity of goods offered for exhibition is, it is not +equal to the enormous capacity of the building, to which Castle Garden +is but a dog-kennel. [I do hope we may have a Crystal Palace of like +proportions in New-York within two years; it would be of inestimable +worth as a study to our young architects, builders and artisans. If such +an edifice were constructed in some fit locality to be leased out in +portions, under proper regulations, for stores, I believe it would pay +handsomely. Each store might be separated from those next it by +partitions of iron and glass; the fronts might be made of movable plates +of glass or left entirely open; the entire building being opened at +eight in the morning, closed at eight at night, and carefully watched at +all times.] True, many things are yet to be received, and some already +in the building remain in the boxes; still, I think there will be some +nakedness, even a week hence. The opportunity for seeing every thing, +judging every thing, is all the better for this, and indeed is +unexampled. + +The display from different countries is very unequal, even in proportion: +Old England is of course here in her might; France has a vast collection, +especially of articles appealing to taste or fancy; but Germany and the +rest of the Continent have less than I expected to see; and the show from +the United States disappoints many by its alleged meagerness. I do not +view it in the same light, nor regret, with a New-York merchant whom I +met in the Fair to-day, that Congress did not appropriate $100,000 to +secure a full and commanding exhibition of American products at this +Fair. I do not see how any tangible and adequate benefit to the Nation +would have resulted from such a dubious disposition of National funds. +In the first place, our great Agricultural staples--at least, all such +as find markets abroad--are already accessible and well known here. +Bales of Cotton, casks of Hams or other Meats, barrels of Flour or +Resin, hogsheads of Tobacco, &c., might have been heaped up here as high +as St. Paul's steeple--to what end? Europeans already know that we +produce these staples in abundance and perfection, and when they want them +they buy of us. I doubt whether cumbering the Fair with them would have +either promoted the National interest or exalted the National reputation. +It would have served rather to deepen the impression, already too general +both at home and abroad, that we are a rude, clumsy people, inhabiting a +broad, fertile domain, affording great incitements to the most slovenly +description of Agriculture, and that it is our policy to stick to that, +and let alone the nicer processes of Art, which require dexterity and +delicacy of workmanship. We must outgrow this error. + +Our Manufacturers are in many departments grossly deficient, in others +inferior to the best rival productions of Europe. In Silks and Linens, +we have nothing now to show; I trust the case will be bravely altered +within a few years. In broad cloths, we are behind and going behind, but +in Satinets, Flannels, (woolen) Shawls, De Laines, Ginghams, Drills and +most plain Cottons, we are producing as effectively as our rivals, and +in many departments gaining upon them. But few of these are goods which +make much show in a Fair; three cases of Parisian gewgaws will outshine +in an exhibition a million dollars' worth of admirable and cheap +Muslins, Drills, Flannels, &c. And beside, our Manufacturers, who find +themselves met at every turn, and often supplanted at their own doors by +showy fabrics from abroad, are shy of calling attention in Europe to the +few articles which, by the help of valuable American inventions, they +are able to make and sell at a profit. I know this consideration has +kept some goods and more machinery at home which would otherwise have +been here. The manufacturers are here or are coming, to see what +knowledge or skill they can pick up, but they are not so ready to tell +all they know. They think the odds in favor of those who work against +them backed by the cheap Labor and abundant Capital of Europe, are +quite sufficient already. + +Still, there are some Yankee Notions that I wish had been sent over. I +think our Cut Nails, our Pins, our Wood Screws, &c. should have been +represented. India Rubber is abundant here, but I have seen no Gutta +Percha, and our New-York Company (Hudson Manufacturing) might have put a +new wrinkle on John Bull's forehead by sending over an assorted case of +their fabrics. The Brass and kindred fabrics of Waterbury (Conn.) ought +not to have come up missing, and a set of samples of the "Flint Enameled +Ware" of Vermont, I should have been proud of for Vermont's sake. A +light Jersey wagon, a Yankee ox-cart, and two or three sets of American +Farming Implements, would have been exactly in play here. Our Scythes, +Cradles, Hoes, Rakes, Axes, Sowing, Reaping, Threshing and Winnowing +machines, &c., &c., are a long distance ahead of the British--so the +best judges say; and where their machines are good they cost too much +ever to come into general use. There is a pretty good set of Yankee +Ploughs here, and they are likely to do good. I believe Connecticut +Clocks and Maine (North Wayne) Axes are also well represented. But +either Rochester, Syracuse, or Albany could have beaten the whole show +in Farming Tools generally. + +Yet there are many good things in the American department. In +Daguerreotypes, it seems to be conceded that we beat the world, when +excellence and cheapness are both considered--at all events, England is +no where in comparison--and our Daguerreotypists make a great show +here.--New Jersey Zinc, Lake Superior Copper, Adirondack Iron and Steel, +are well represented either by ores or fabrics, and I believe California +Gold is to be.--But I am speaking on the strength of a very hasty +examination. I shall continue in attendance from day to day and hope to +glean from the show some ideas that may be found or made useful. + +P. S.--The Official Catalogue of the Fair is just issued. It has been +got up in great haste, and must necessarily be imperfect, but it extends +to 320 double-column octavo pages on brevier type (not counting +advertisements) and is sold for a shilling--(24 cents). Some conception +of the extent of the Fair may be obtained from the following hasty +summary of a portion of the contents, showing the number of Exhibitors +in certain departments, as classified in the Official Catalogue, viz: + + GREAT BRITAIN. + + Coal, Slate, Grindstone, Limestone, Granite, &c. + (outside the building), 44 + + Mining and Mineral Products (inside), 366 + + Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products, 103 + + Substances used as Food, 133 + + Vegetable and Animal Substances + used in Manufactures, 94 + + Machines for Direct Use, including + Carriages, Railway and Marine Mechanism, 339 + + Manufacturing Machines and Tools, 225 + + Civil Engineering and Building Contrivances, 177 + + Naval Architecture, Guns, Weapons, &c. 260 + + Agricultural and Horticultural Machines + and Implements, 287 + + Philosophical, Musical, Horological and + Surgical Instruments, 535 + ---- + Total, so far, 2563 + +The foregoing occupy but 55 of the 300 pages devoted expressly to the +Catalogue, so that the whole number of Exhibitors cannot be less than +Ten Thousand, and is probably nearer Fifteen Thousand; and as two +articles from each would be a low estimate, I think the number of +distinct articles already on exhibition cannot fall below Thirty +Thousand, counting all of any class which may be entered by a single +exhibitor as one article. Great Britain fills 136 pages of the +Catalogue; her Colonies and Foreign possessions 48 more; Austria 16; +Belgium 8, China 2, Denmark 1, Egypt 2½, France and Algiers 35, Prussia +and the Zoll Verein States 19; Bavaria 2, Saxony 5, Wirtemburg 2, Hesse, +Nassau and Luxemburg 3, Greece 1, Hamburgh 1, Holland 2, Portugal 3½; +Madeira 1, Papal State ½, Russia 5, Sardinia 1½, Spain 5, Sweden and +Norway 1, Switzerland 5, Tunis 2½, Tuscany 2, United States 8½. So the +United States stands fifth on the list of contributing Countries, +ranking next after Great Britain herself, France, Austria, and Prussian +Germany, and far ahead of Holland and Switzerland, which have long been +held up as triumphant examples of Industrial progress and thrift under +Free Trade; and these, with all the countries which show more than we +do, are close at hand, while our country is on the average more than +4,000 miles off.--I am confirmed in my view that the cavils at the +meagerness of our contribution are not well grounded. + + + + +III. + +THE GREAT EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 6th, 1851. + +"The World's Fair," as we Americans have been accustomed to call it, has +now been open five days, but is not yet in complete order, nor anything +like it. The sound of the saw and the hammer salutes the visiter from +every side, and I think not less than five hundred carpenters and other +artisans are busy in the building to-day. The week will probably close +before the fixtures will have all been put up and the articles duly +arranged for exhibition. As yet, a great many remain in their +transportation boxes, while others are covered with canvas, though many +more have been put in order within the last two days. Through the great +center aisle very little remains unaccomplished; but on the sides, in +the galleries, and in the department of British Machinery, there is yet +work to do which another week will hardly see concluded. Meantime, the +throng of visiters is immense, though the unexampled extent of the +People's Palace prevents any crush or inconvenience. I think there +cannot have been less than Ten Thousand visiters in the building to-day. + +Of course, any attempt to specify, or to set forth the merits or defects +of particular articles, must here be futile. Such a universe of +materials, inventions and fabrics defies that mode of treatment. But I +will endeavor to give some general idea of the Exhibition. + +If you enter the building at the East, you are in the midst of the +American contributions, to which a great space has been allotted, which +they meagerly fill. Passing westward down the aisle, our next neighbor +is Russia, who had not an eighth of our space allotted to her, and has +filled that little far less thoroughly and creditably than we have. It +is said that the greater part of the Russian articles intended for the +Fair are yet ice-bound in the Baltic. France, Austria, Switzerland, +Prussia and other German States succeed her; the French contributions +being equal (I think) in value, if not in extent and variety, to those +of all the rest of the Continent. Bohemia has sent some admirable +Glassware; Austria a suit of apartments thoroughly and sumptuously +furnished, which wins much regard and some admiration. There is of +course a great array of tasteful design and exquisite workmanship from +France, though I do not just now call to mind any article of transcendent +merit. + +The main aisle is very wide, forming a broad promenade on each side with +a collection of Sculpture, Statuary, Casts, &c. &c. between them. +Foremost among these is Powers's Greek Slave, never seen to better +advantage; and I should say there are from fifty to a hundred other +works of Art--mainly in Marble or Bronze.--Some of them have great +merit. Having passed down this avenue several hundred Feet, you reach +the Transept, where the great diamond "Koh-i-Noor" (Mountain of Light) +with other royal contributions, have place. Here, in the exact center of +the Exhibition, is a beautiful Fountain (nearly all glass but the +water,) which has rarely been excelled in design or effect. The fluid is +projected to a height of some thirty feet, falling thence into a +succession of regularly enlarging glass basins, and finally reaching in +streams and spray the reservoir below. A hundred feet or more on either +side stand two stately, graceful trees, entirely included in the +building, whose roof of glass rises clear above them, seeming a nearer +sky. These trees (elms, I believe) are fuller and fresher in leaf than +those outside, having been shielded from the chilling air and warmed by +the genial roof. Nature's contribution to the Great Exhibition is +certainly a very admirable one, and fairly entitles her to a first-class +Medal. + +The other half of the main aisle is externally a duplicate of that +already described, but is somewhat differently filled. This is the +British end of the Exhibition, containing far more in quantity than all +the rest put together. The finest and costliest fabrics are ranged on +either side of this end of the grand aisle. + +The show of Colonial products is not vast but comprehensive, giving a +vivid idea of the wide extent and various climates of Britain's +dependencies. Corn, Wheat, &c., from the Canadas; Sugar and Coffee from +the West Indies; fine Wood from Australia; Rice, Cotton, &c., from +India; with the diversified products of Asia, Africa and America, fill +this department. Manufactured textile fabrics from Sydney, from India, +and from Upper Canada, are here very near each other; while Minerals, +Woods, &c., from every land and every clime are nearly in contact. I +apprehend John Bull, whatever else he may learn, will not be taught +meekness by this Exhibition. + +The Mineral department of the British display is situated on the south +side. I think it can hardly be less than five hundred feet long by over +one hundred wide, and it is doubtless the most complete ever thus set +before the public. Here are shown every variety and condition of Coal, +and of Iron, Copper, Lead, Tin, &c. Of Gold there is little, and of +Silver, Zinc, Quicksilver, &c., not a great deal. But not only are the +Ores of the metals first named varied and abundant, with Native Copper, +Silver, &c., but the metals are also shown in every stage of their +progress, from the rude elements just wrenched from the earth to the +most refined and perfect bars or ingots. This department will richly +reward the study of the mineralogists, present and future. + +Directly opposite, on the North side of the British half of the main +avenue, is the British exhibition of Machinery, occupying even more +space than the Minerals. I never saw one-fourth as much Machinery +together before; I do not expect ever to see so much again. Almost every +thing that a Briton has ever invented, improved or patented in the way +of Machinery is here brought together. The great Cylinder Press on which +_The Times_ is printed (not the individual, but the kind) may here be +seen in operation; the cylinders revolve horizontally as ours do +vertically; and though something is gained in security by the British +press, more must be lost in speed. Hoe's last has not yet been equaled +on this island. But in Spinning, Weaving, and the subsidiary arts there +are some things here, to me novelties, which our manufacturers must +borrow or surpass; though I doubt whether spinning, on the whole, is +effected with less labor in Great Britain than in the United States. +There are many recent improvements here, but I observe none of absorbing +interest. However, I have much yet to see and more to comprehend in this +department. I saw one loom weaving Lace of a width which seemed at least +three yards; a Pump that would throw very nearly water enough to run a +grist-mill, &c. &c. I think the American genius is quicker, more +wide-awake, more fertile than the British; I think that if our +manufactures were as extensive and firmly established as the British, we +should invent and improve machinery much faster than they do; but I do +not wish to deny that this is quite a considerable country. + + + Wednesday, May 7--4 P. M. + +I have just returned from another and my seventh daily visit to the +Great Exhibition. I believe I have thus far been among the most +industrious visitors, and yet I have not yet even glanced at one-half +the articles exhibited, while I have _only_ glanced at most of those I +have seen. Of course, I am in no condition to pronounce judgments, and +any opinion I may express must be taken subject to future revisal and +modification. + +I know well that so large and diversified a show of Machinery could not +be made up in the United States as is here presented in behalf of +British Invention; yet I think a strictly American Fair might be got up +which would evince more originality of creation or design. If I am wrong +in this, I shall cheerfully say so when convinced of it. Many of these +machines are very good of their kind without involving any novel +principle or important adaptation. With regard to Flax-Dressing, for +example, I find less here than I had hoped to see; and though what I +have seen appears to do its work well and with commendable economy of +material, I think there are more efficient and rapid Flax-Dressers in +the United States than are contained in this Exhibition. I have not yet +examined the machinery for Spinning and Weaving the dressed Flax fiber, +but am glad to see that it is in operation. The report that the +experiments in Flax-Cotton have "failed" does not in the least +discourage me. Who ever heard of a great economical discovery or +invention that had not been repeatedly pronounced a failure before it +ultimately and indubitably succeeded? + +I found one promising invention in the British department to-day, viz: +Henley's Magnetic Telegraph, or rather, the generator of its power. The +magnet, I was assured, _did not require nor consume any substance +whatever_, but generated its electricity spontaneously, and in equal +measure in all varieties of weather, so that the wildest storm of +lightning, hail, snow or rain makes no difference in the working of the +Telegraph. If such be the fact, the invention is one of great merit and +value, and must be speedily adopted in our country, where the liability +of Telegraphs to be interrupted by storms is a crying evil. I trust it +is now near its end. + +Switzerland has a very fine show of Fabrics in the Fair--I think more in +proportion to her numbers than any other Foreign Nation. Of Silks she +displays a great amount, and they are mainly of excellent quality. She +shows Shawls, Ginghams, Woolens, &c., beside, as well as Watches and +Jewelry; but her Silk is her best point. The Chinese, Australian, +Egyptian and Mexican contributions are quite interesting, but they +suggest little or nothing, unless it be the stolidity of their +contrivers. + +I see that _Punch_ this week reiterates _The Times's_ slurs at the +meagerness and poverty of the American contribution. This is meanly +invidious and undeserved. The inventors, artisans and other producers of +our Country who did not see fit to incur the heavy expense of sending +their most valuable products to a fair held three to five thousand miles +away are unaffected by this studied disparagement, and those who _have_ +sent certainly do not deserve it. They are in no manner responsible for +the setting apart for American contributions of more space than they +fill; they have rather deserved consideration and kind treatment on the +part of the London Press. Beside, the value of their contributions is +not at all gauged by the space they fill nor by the impression they make +on the wondering gaze; articles of great merit and utility often making +no figure at all compared with a case of figured silks or mantel +ornaments which answer no purpose here but the owner's. And when it is +considered that the manufacturers of France, Germany and Switzerland, as +well as England, are here displaying their wares and fabrics before the +eyes of thousands and tens of thousands of their customers--that their +cases in the Crystal Palace are in fact so many gigantic advertisements, +read and admired by myriads of merchants and other buyers from all parts +of the world, the unfairness of the comparison instituted by the London +Press becomes apparent. Our exhibitors can derive no such advantage from +the Fair--certainly not to any such extent. The "Bay State Mills," for +example, has a good display of Shawls here, hardly surpassed, considering +quality and price, by any other; yet nobody but Americans will thereby be +tempted to give them orders; while a British, Scotch, French or Swiss +shawl-manufacturer exhibiting just such a case, is morally certain of +gaining customers thereby in all parts of the world. But enough on this +head. + +I may add that many Americans have been deterred from sending by an +impression that nothing would be admitted that was not sent out in the +St. Lawrence, or at all events unless received early in April. But +articles are still acceptable, at least in our department; and I venture +to say that any invention, model, machine or fabric of decided merit +which may reach our Commissioner free of charge before the end of June +will have a place assigned it, although it will probably be too late to +have a chance for the prizes. + +These are to be mainly Medals of the finest Bronze, to cost $25, $12 +and $5 respectively. Probably about one thousand of the first class, +two thousand of the second and five thousand of the third will be +distributed. But they are not to be given for different grades of +excellence in the same field of exertion, but for radically diverse +merits. The first class will be mainly if not wholly given for +Inventions, Discoveries or Original Designs of rare excellence; the +second class for novel applications or combinations of principles +already known so as to produce articles of signal utility, cheapness or +beauty; the third class will be given for decided excellence of quality +or workmanship without regard to originality. By this course, it is +hoped that personal heart-burnings and invidious rivalries among +exhibitors may to a great extent be avoided. + +I cannot close without a word of acknowledgment to our Embassador, Hon. +Abbott Lawrence, for the interest he has taken and the labor he has +cheerfully performed in order that our Country should be creditably +represented in this Exhibition. For many months, the entire burthen of +correspondence, &c., fell on his shoulders; and I doubt whether the Fair +will have cost him less than five thousand dollars when it closes. That +he has exerted himself in every way in behalf of his countrymen +attending the Exhibition is no more than all who knew him anticipated; +and his convenient location, his wide acquaintance and marked popularity +here have enabled him to do a great deal. Every American voice is loud +in his praise. + +I walked through a good part of the galleries of the Crystal Palace this +morning, with attention divided between the costly and dazzling wares +and fabrics around me and the grand panorama below. Ten thousand men and +women were moving from case to case, from one theme of admiration to +another, in that magnificent temple of Art, so vast in its proportions +that these thousands no where crowded or jostled each other; and as many +more might have gazed and enjoyed in like manner without incommoding +these in the least. And these added thousands will come, when the +Palace, which is still a laboratory or workshop, shall have become what +it aims to be, and when the charge for daily admission shall have been +still farther reduced from five shillings (sterling) to one. Then will +the artisans, the cultivators, the laborers, not of London only, but to +a considerable extent of Great Britain, flock hither by tens of +thousands to gaze on this marvellous achievement of Human Genius, Skill, +Taste, and Industry, and be strengthened in heart and hope by its +contemplation. And as they observe and rejoice over these trophies of +Labor's might and beneficence, shall they not also perceive foreshadowed +here that fairer, grander, gladder Future for them and theirs, whereof +this show is a prelude and a prediction--wherein Labor shall build, +replenish and adorn mansions as stately, as graceful, as commodious as +this, not for others' delight and wonder, but for its own use and +enjoyment--for the life-long homes of the builders, their wives and +their children, who shall find within its walls not Subsistence merely, +but Education, Refinement, Mental Culture, Employment and seasonable +Pastime as well? Such is the vista which this edifice with its contents +opens and brightens before me. Heaven hasten the day when it shall be no +longer a prospect but a benignant and sure realization! + + + + +IV. + +ENGLAND--HAMPTON COURT. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, May 6, 1851. + +I have seen little yet of England, and do not choose to deal in +generalities with regard to it until my ignorance has lost something of +its density. Liverpool impressed me unfavorably, but I scarcely saw it. +The working class seemed exceedingly ill dressed, stolid, abject and +hopeless. Extortion and beggary appeared very prevalent. I must look +over that city again if I have time. + +We came up to London by the "Trent Valley Railroad," through Crewe, +Rugby, Tamworth, &c., avoiding all the great towns and traversing (I am +told) one of the finest Agricultural districts of England. The distance +is two hundred miles. The Railroads we traveled in no place cross a road +or street on its own level, but are invariably carried under or over +each highway, no matter at what cost; the face of the country is +generally level; hills are visible at intervals, but nothing fairly +entitled to the designation of mountain. I was assured that very little +of the land I saw could be bought for $300, while much of it is held at +$500 or more per acre. Of course it is good land, well cultivated, and +very productive. Vegetation was probably more advanced here than in +Westchester Co. N. Y., or Morris Co. N. J., though not in every respect. +I estimated that two-thirds of the land I saw was in Grass, one-sixth in +Wheat, and the residue devoted to Gardens, Trees, Oats or Barley, &c. +There are few or no forests, properly so called, but many copses, +fringes and clumps of wood and shrubbery, which agreeably diversify the +prospect as we are whirled rapidly along. Still, nearly all the wooded +grounds I saw looked meager and scanty, as though trees grew less +luxuriantly here than with us, or (more probably) the best are cut out +and sold as fast as they arrive at maturity. Friends at home! I charge +you to spare, preserve and cherish some portion of your primitive +forests; for when these are cut away I apprehend they will not easily be +replaced. A second growth of trees is better than none; but it cannot +rival the unconscious magnificence and stately grace of the Red Man's +lost hunting grounds, at least for many generations. Traversing this +comparatively treeless region carried my thoughts back to the glorious +magnificence and beauty of the still unscathed forests of Western +New-York, Ohio, and a good part of Michigan, which I had long ago +rejoiced in, but which I never before prized so highly. Some portions of +these fast falling monuments of other days ought to be rescued by public +forecast from the pioneer's, the woodman's merciless axe, and preserved +for the admiration and enjoyment of future ages. Rochester, Buffalo, +Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, &c., should each purchase for +preservation a tract of one to five hundred acres of the best forest +land still accessible (say within ten miles of their respective +centers), and gradually convert it into walks, drives, arbors, &c., for +the recreation and solace of their citizens through all succeeding time. +Should a portion be needed for cemetery or other utilitarian purposes, +it may be set off when wanted; and ultimately a railroad will afford the +poor the means of going thither and returning at a small expense. If +something of this sort is ever to be done, it cannot be done too soon; +for the forests are annually disappearing and the price of wood near our +cities and business towns rapidly rising. + +I meant to have remarked ere this the scarcity of Fruit throughout this +region. I think there are fewer fruit-trees in sight on the two hundred +miles of railway between Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles +of Harlem Railroad directly north of White Plains. I presume from +various indications that the Apple and Peach do not thrive here; and I +judge that the English make less account of Fruit than we do, though we +use it too sparingly and fitfully. If their climate is unfavorable to +its abundant and perfect production, they have more excuse than we for +their neglect of one of Heaven's choicest bounties. + +The approach to London from the West by the Trent Valley Railroad is +unlike anything else in my experience. Usually, your proximity to a +great city is indicated by a succession of villages and hamlets which +may be designated as more or less shabby miniatures of the metropolis +they surround. The City maybe radiant with palaces, but its satellites +are sure to be made up in good part of rookeries and hovels. But we were +still passing through a highly cultivated and not over-peopled rural +district, when lo! there gleamed on our sight an array of stately, +graceful mansions, the seeming abodes of Art, Taste and Abundance; we +doubted that this could be London; but in the course of a few moments +some two or three miles of it rose upon the vision, and we could doubt +no longer. Soon our road, which had avoided the costly contact as long +as possible, took a shear to the right, and charged boldly upon this +grand array of masonry, and in an instant we were passing under some +blocks of stately edifices and between others like them. Some mile or +two of this brought us to the "Euston-square Station," where our +Railroad terminates, and we were in London. Of course, this is not "the +City," specially so called, or ancient London, but a modern and +well-built addition, distinguished as Camden-town. We were about three +miles from the Bank, Post-Office, St. Paul's Church, &c., situated in +the heart of the City proper, though nearer the East end of it. + +I shall not attempt to speak directly of London. The subject is too +vast, and my knowledge of it too raw and scanty. I choose rather to give +some account of an excursion I have made to the royal palace at Hampton +Court, situated fifteen miles West of the City, where the Thames, which +runs through the grounds adjacent, has shrunk to the size of the Mohawk +at Schenectady, and I think even less. A very small steamboat sometimes +runs up as high as this point, but not regularly, and for all practical +purposes the navigation terminates at Richmond, four or five miles +below. + +Leaving the City by Temple Bar, you pass through the Strand, Charing +Cross, the Haymarket, Pall Mall and part of Regent-street into +Piccadilly, where you take an omnibus at "the White Horse Cellar" (I +give these names because they will be familiar to many if not most +American readers), and proceed down Piccadilly, passing St. James's Park +on the left, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens on the right, and so by +Kensington Road to a fine suspension bridge over the Thames; you cross, +and have passed westerly out of London. You traverse some two miles of +very rich gardens, meadows, &c., and thence through the village of +Barnes, composed mainly of some two or three hundred of the oldest, +shabbiest tumble-down apologies for human habitations that I ever saw so +close together. Thence you proceed through a rich, thoroughly cultivated +garden district, containing several fine country seats, to Richmond, a +smart, showy village ten miles above London, and a popular resort for +holiday pleasure-seekers from the great city, whether by steamboat, +railway, omnibus or private conveyance. Here is a fleet of rowboats kept +for hire, while "the Star and Garter" inn has a wide reputation for +dinners, and the scene from its second-story bow window is pronounced +one of the finest in the kingdom. It certainly does not compare with +that from the Catskill Mountain House and many others in our State, but +it is a good thing in another way--a lovely blending of wood, water and +sky, with gardens, edifices and other pleasing evidences of man's +handiwork. Pope's residence at Twickenham, and Walpole's Strawberry Hill +are near Richmond. + +Proceeding, we drove through a portion of Bushy Park, the royal +residence of the late Queen Dowager Adelaide, widow of William IV., who +here manages, having house, grounds, &c. thrown in, to support existence +on an allowance of only $500,000 a year. The Park is a noble one, about +half covered with ancient, stately trees, among which large herds of +tame, portly deer are seen quietly feeding. A mile or two further +brought us to the grounds and palace of Hampton Court, the end and aim +of our journey. + +This palace was built by the famous Cardinal Wolsey, so long the proud, +powerful, avaricious and corrupt favorite of Henry VIII. Wolsey +commenced it in 1515. Being larger and more splendid than any royal +palace then in being, its erection was played upon by rival courtiers to +excite the King to envy and jealousy of his Premier--whereupon Wolsey +gave it outright to the monarch, who gave him the manor of Richmond in +requital. Wolsey's disgrace, downfall and death soon followed; but I +leave their portrayal to Hume and Shakspeare. This palace became a +favorite residence of Henry VIII. Edward VI. was born here; Queen Mary +spent her honeymoon here, after her marriage with Philip of Spain; +Queen Elizabeth held many great festivals here; James I. lived and Queen +Anne his wife died here; Charles I. retired here first from the Plague, +and afterwards to escape the just resentment of London in the time of +the Great Rebellion. After his capture, he was imprisoned here. Cromwell +saw one daughter married and another die during his residence in this +palace. William III., Queen Anne, George I. and George II. occasionally +resided here; but it has not been a regal residence since the death of +the latter. Yet the grounds are still admirably kept; the shrubbery, +park, fish-pond, &c. are quite attractive; while a famous grape-vine, 83 +years old, bears some 1,100 pounds per annum of the choicest "Black +Hamburghs," which are reserved for the royal table, and (being under +glass) are said to keep fresh and sweet on the vine till February. A +fine avenue of trees leads down to the Thames, and the grounds are gay +with the flowers of the season. The Park is very large, and the location +one of the healthiest in the kingdom. + +Hampton Court Palace, though surrounded by guards and other +appurtenances of Royalty, is only inhabited by decayed servants of the +Court, impoverished and broken-down scions of the Aristocracy, &c. to +whom the royal generosity proffers a subsistence within its walls. I +suppose about two-thirds of it are thus occupied, while the residue is +thrown open at certain hours to the public. I spent two hours in +wandering through this portion, consisting of thirty-four rooms, mainly +attractive by reason of the Paintings and other works of Art displayed +on their walls. As a whole, the collection is by no means good, the best +having been gradually abstracted to adorn those Palaces which Royalty +still condescends to inhabit, while worse and worst are removed from +those and deposited here; yet it was interesting to me to gaze at +undoubted originals by Raphael, Titian, Poussin, Rembrandt, Teniers, +Albert Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, Tintoretto, Kneller, Lely, &c., though +not their master-pieces. The whole number of pictures, &c. here +exhibited is something over One Thousand, probably five-sixths +Portraits. Some of these have a strong Historical interest apart from +their artistic merit. Loyola, Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, Admiral +Benbow, William III., Mary Queen of Scots, Mary de Medicis, Louis XIV., +are a few among scores of this character. The Cartoons of Raphael and +some beautifully, richly stained glass windows are also to be seen. The +bed-rooms of William III., Queen Anne, and I think other sovereigns, +retain the beds as they were left; but little other furniture remains, +the mirrors excepted. I think Americans who have a day to spare in +London may spend it agreeably in visiting this Palace, especially as +British Royal Residences and galleries are reputed not very accessible +to common people. At this one, every reasonable facility is afforded, +and no gratuities are solicited or expected by those in attendance. I +should prefer a day for such a jaunt on which there are fewer squalls of +hail, snow and rain than we encountered--which in May can hardly be +deemed unreasonable--but if no better can be found, take such as may +come and make the best of it. This Palace is a good deal larger on the +ground than our Capitol--larger than the Astor House, but, being less +lofty, contains (I should judge) fewer rooms than that capacious +structure. It is built mainly of brick, and if it has great +Architectural merits I fail to discern them. + + +COUNSEL TO THE SEA-GOING. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, May 6th, 1851. + +I desire to address a few words of advice to persons about to cross the +Atlantic or any other ocean for the first time. I think those who follow +my counsel will have reason to thank me. + +I. Begin by providing yourself with a pair of stout, well-made thick +boots--the coarser and firmer the better. Have them large enough to +admit two pair of thick, warm stockings, yet sit easily on the feet. Put +them on before you leave home, and never take them off during the voyage +except when you turn in to sleep. + +II. Take a good supply of flannels and old woolen clothes, and +especially an overcoat that has seen service and is not afraid of seeing +more. Should you come on board as if just out of a band-box, you will +forget all your dandyism before your first turn of sea-sickness is over, +and will go ashore with your clothes spoiled by the salt spray and your +own careless lounging in all manner of places and positions. Put on +nothing during the voyage that would sell for five dollars. + +III. Endure your first day of sea-sickness in your berth; after that, if +you cannot go on deck whenever the day is fair, get yourself carried +there. You may be sick still--the chance is two to one that you will be; +but if you are to recover at all while on the heaving surge this is the +way. + +IV. Move about as much as possible; think as little as you can of your +sickness; but interest yourself in whatever (except vomiting) may be +going forward--the run of the ship, the management of her sails, &c. &c. +Keep clear of all sedentary games, as a general rule; they may help you +to kill a few hours, but will increase your headache afterwards. Talk +more than you read; and determine to walk smartly at least two hours +every fair day, and one hour any how. + +V. As to eating, you are safe against excess so long as you are sick; +and if you have bad weather and a rough sea, that will be pretty nearly +all the way. I couldn't advise you, though ever so well, to eat the +regular four times per day; though my young friend who constantly took +_five_ hearty meals seemed to thrive on that regimen. In the matter of +drink, if you can stick to water, do so; I could not, nor could I find +any palatable substitute. Try Congress Water, Seidlitz, any thing to +keep clear of Wines and Spirits. If there were some portable, healthful +and palatable acid beverage devoid of Alcohol, it would be a blessed +thing at sea. + +VI. Finally, rise early if you can; be cheerful, obliging, and +determined to see the sunny side of everything whereof a sunny side can +be discovered or imagined; and bear ever in mind that each day is +wearing off a good portion of the distance which withholds you from your +destination. The best point of a voyage by steam is its brevity; +wherefore, I pray you, Mr. Darius Davidson, to hurry up that new steamer +or screamer that is to cross the Atlantic in a week. I shall want to be +getting home next August or September. + +VII. Don't bother yourself to procure British money at any such rate as +$4.90 for sovereigns, which was ruling when I came away. Bring American +coin rather than pay over $4.86. You can easily obtain British gold here +in exchange for American, and I have heard of no higher rate than $4.87. + +VIII. Whatever may be wise at other seasons, never think of stopping at +a London hotel this summer unless you happen to own the Bank of England. +If you know any one here who takes boarders or lets rooms at reasonable +rates, go directly to him; if not, drive at once to the house of Mr. +John Chapman, American Bookseller, 142 Strand, and he will either find +you rooms or direct you to some one else who will. + +IX. If the day of your embarkation be fair, take a long, earnest gaze at +the sun, so that you will know him again when you return. They have +something they call the sun over here which they show occasionally, but +it looks more like a boiled turnip than it does like its American +namesake. Yet they cheer us with the assurance that there _will be_ real +sunshine here by-and-by. So mote it be! + + + + +V. + +THE FUTURE OF LABOR--DAY-BREAK. + + + LONDON, Friday, May 9, 1851. + +I have spent the forenoon of to-day in examining a portion of the Model +Lodging-Houses, Bathing and Washing establishments and Cooperative Labor +Associations already in operation in this Great Metropolis. My companions +were Mr. Vansittart Neale, a gentleman who has usefully devoted much time +and effort to the Elevation of Labor, and M. Cordonnaye, the actuary or +chosen director of an Association of Cabinet-Makers in Paris, who are +exhibitors of their own products in the Great Exposition, which explains +their chief's presence in London. We were in no case expected, and enjoyed +the fairest opportunity to see everything as it really is. The beds were +in some of the lodging-houses unmade, but we were everywhere cheerfully +and promptly shown through the rooms, and our inquiries frankly and +clearly responded to. I propose to give a brief and candid account of +what we saw and heard. + +Our first visit was paid to the original or primitive Model +Lodging-House, situated in Charles-st. in the heart of St. Giles's. The +neighborhood is not inviting, but has been worse than it is; the +building (having been fitted up when no man with a dollar to spare had +any faith in the project) is an old-fashioned dwelling-house, not very +considerably modified. This attempt to put the new wine into old bottles +has had the usual result. True, the sleeping-rooms are somewhat +ventilated, but not sufficiently so; the beds are quite too abundant, +and no screen divides those in the same room from each other. Yet these +lodgings are a decided improvement on those provided for the same class +for the same price in private lodging-houses. The charge is 4_d._ (eight +cents) per night, and I believe 2_s._ (50 cents) per week, for which is +given water, towels, room and fire for washing and cooking, and a small +cupboard or safe wherein to keep provisions. Eighty-two beds are made up +in this house, and the keeper assured us that she seldom had a spare one +through the night. I could not in conscience praise her beds for +cleanliness, but it is now near the close of the week and her lodgers do +not come to her out of band-boxes.--Only men are lodged here. The +concern pays handsomely. + +We next visited a Working Association of Piano Forte Makers, not far +from Drury Lane. These men were not long since working for an employer +on the old plan, when he failed, threw them all out of employment, and +deprived a portion of them of the savings of past years of frugal +industry, which they had permitted to lie in his hands. Thus left +destitute, they formed a Working Association, designated their own +chiefs, settled their rules of partnership; and here stepped in several +able "Promoters" of the cause of Industrial Organization of Labor, and +lent them at five per cent. the amount of capital required to buy out +the old concern--viz: $3,500. They have since (about six weeks) been +hard at work, having an arrangement for the sale at a low rate of all +the Pianos they can make. The associates are fifteen in number, all +working "by the piece," except the foreman and business man, who receive +$12 each per week; the others earn from $8 to $11 each weekly. I see +nothing likely to defeat and destroy this enterprise, unless it should +lose the market for its products. + +We went thence to a second Model Lodging House, situated near Tottenham +Court Road. This was founded subsequently to that already described, its +building was constructed expressly for it, and each lodger has a +separate apartment, though its division walls do not reach the ceiling +overhead. Half the lodgers have each a separate window, which they can +open and close at pleasure, in addition to the general provision for +ventilation. In addition to the wash-room, kitchen, dining-tables, &c., +provided in the older concern, there is a small but good library, a +large conversation room, and warm baths on demand for a penny each. The +charge is _2s. 4d._ (58 cents) per week; the number of beds is 104, and +they are always full, with numerous applications ahead at all times for +the first vacant bed. Not a single case of Cholera occurred here in +1849, though dead bodies were taken out of the neighboring alley +(Church-lane) six or eight in a day. So much for the blasphemy of +terming the Cholera, with like scourges, the work of an "inscrutable +Providence." The like exemption from Cholera was enjoyed by the two or +three other Model Lodging-Houses then in London. Their comparative +cleanliness, and the coolness in summer caused by the great thickness of +their walls, conduce greatly to this freedom from contagion. + +The third and last of the Model Lodging-Houses we visited was even more +interesting, in that it was designed and constructed expressly to be +occupied by Families, of which it accommodates forty-eight, and has +never a vacant room. The building is of course a large one, very +substantially constructed on three sides of an open court paved with +asphaltum and used for drying clothes and as a children's play-ground. +All the suits of apartments on each floor are connected by a corridor +running around the inside (or back) of the building, and the several +suits consist of two rooms or three with entry, closets, &c., according +to the needs of the applicant. That which we more particularly examined +consisted of three apartments (two of them bed-rooms) with the +appendages already indicated. Here lived a workman with his wife and six +young children from two to twelve years of age. Their rent is 6s. ($1.50 +per week, or $78 per annum); and I am confident that equal +accommodations in the old way cannot be obtained in an equally central +and commodious portion of London or New York for double the money. Suits +of two rooms only, for smaller families, cost but $1 to $1.25 per week, +according to size and eligibility. The concern is provided with a +Bath-Room, Wash-Room, Oven, &c., for the use of which no extra charge is +made. The building is very substantial and well constructed, is +fire-proof, and cost about $40,000. The ground for it was leased of the +Duke of Bedford for 99 years at $250 per annum. The money to construct +it was mostly raised by subscription--the Queen leading off with $1,500; +which the Queen Dowager and two Royal Duchesses doubled; then came +sundry Dukes, Earls, and other notables with $500 each, followed by a +long list of smaller and smaller subscriptions. But this money was given +to the "Society for Bettering the Condition of the Laboring Classes," to +enable them to try an experiment; and that experiment has triumphantly +succeeded. All those I have described, as well as one for single women +only near Hatton Garden, and one for families and for aged women near +Bagnigge Wells, which I have not yet found time to visit, are constantly +and thoroughly filled, and hundreds are eager for admittance who cannot +be accommodated; the inmates are comparatively cleanly, healthy and +comfortable; and _the plan pays_. This is the great point. It is very +easy to build edifices by subscription in which as many as they will +accommodate may have very satisfactory lodgings; but even in England, +where Public Charity is most munificent, it is impossible to build such +dwellings for _all_ from the contributions of Philanthropy; and to +provide for a hundredth part, while the residue are left as they were, +is of very dubious utility. The comfort of the few will increase the +discontent and wretchedness of the many. But only demonstrate that +building capacious, commodious and every way eligible dwellings for the +Poor is a safe and fair investment, and that their rents may be +essentially reduced thereby while their comfort is promoted, and a very +great step has been made in the world's progress--one which will not be +receded from. + +I saw in the house last described a newly invented Brick (new at least +to me) which struck me favorably. It is so molded as to be hollow in the +centre, whereby the transmission of moisture through a wall composed of +this brick is prevented, and the dampness often complained of in brick +houses precluded. The brick is larger than those usually made, and one +side is wedge-shaped. + +We went from the house above described to the first constructed Bathing +and Washing establishment, George-st. Euston-square. In the Washing +department there are tubs, &c., for one hundred and twenty washers, and +they are never out of use while the concern is open--that is from 9 +A. M. to 7 P. M. There is in a separate Drying Room an apparatus for +freeing the washed clothes from water (instead of Wringing) by whirling +them very rapidly in a machine, whereby the water is thrown out of them +by centrifugal force or attraction. Thence the clothes, somewhat damp, are +placed in hot-air closets and speedily dried; after which they pass into +the Ironing-room and are finished. The charge here is 4 cents for two +hours in the Washing-room and 2 cents for two hours in the Ironing-room, +which is calculated to be time enough for doing the washing of an average +family. Everything but soap is supplied. The building is not capacious +enough for the number seeking to use it, and is to be speedily enlarged. +I believe that the charges are too small, as I understand that the concern +merely supports itself without paying any interest on the capital which +created it. + +The Female part of the Bathing establishment is in this part of the +building, but that for men is entered from another street. Each has Hot +and Vapor Baths of the first class for 12 cents; second class of these +or first-class cold baths for 8 cents; and so down to cold water baths +for 2 cents or hot ditto for 4 cents each. I think these, +notwithstanding their cheapness, are not very extensively--at least not +regularly--patronized. The first class are well fitted up and contain +everything that need be desired; the others are more naked, but well +worth their cost. Cold and tepid Plunge Baths are proffered at 6 and 12 +cents respectively. + +I must break off here abruptly, for the mail threatens to close. + + + + +VI. + +BRITISH PROGRESS. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 15, 1851. + +Apart from the Great Exhibition, this is a season of intellectual +activity in London. Parliament is (languidly) in session; the +Aristocracy are in town; the Queen is lavishly dispensing the +magnificent hospitalities of Royalty to those of the privileged caste +who are invited to share them; and the several Religious and +Philanthropic Societies, whether of the City or the Kingdom, are +generally holding their Anniversaries, keeping Exeter Hall in blast +almost night and day. I propose to give a first hasty glance at +intellectual and general progress in Great Britain, leaving the subject +to be more fully and thoroughly treated after I shall have made myself +more conversant with the facts in the case. + +A spirit of active and generous philanthropy is widely prevalent in this +country. While the British pay more in taxes for the support of Priests +and Paupers than any other people on earth, they at the same time give +more for Religious and Philanthropic purposes. Their munificence is not +always well guided; but on the whole very much is accomplished by it in +the way of diffusing Christianity and diminishing Human Misery. But I +will speak more specifically. + +The _Religious Anniversaries_ have mainly been held, but few or none of +them are reported--indeed, they are scarcely alluded to--in the Daily +press, whose vaunted superiority over American journals in the matter +of Reporting amounts practically to this--that the debates in Parliament +are here reported _verbatim_, and again presented in a condensed form +under the Editorial head of each paper, while scarcely anything else +(beside Court doings) is reported at all. I am sure this is consistent +neither with reason nor with the public taste--that if the Parliamentary +debates were condensed one-half, and the space so saved devoted to +reports of the most interesting Public Meetings, Lectures, &c., after +the New-York fashion, the popular interest in the daily papers would +become wider and deeper, and their usefulness as aids to General +Education would be largely increased. To a great majority of the reading +class, even here, political discussions--and especially of questions so +trite and so unimportant as those which mainly engross the attention of +Parliament--are of quite subordinate interest; and I think less than one +reader in four ever peruses any more of these debates than is given in +the Editorial synopsis, leaving the _verbatim_ report a sheer waste of +costly print and paper.--I believe, however, that in the aggregate, the +collections of the last year for Religious purposes have just about +equaled the average of the preceding two or three years; some Societies +having received less, others more. I think the public interest in +comprehensive Religious and Philanthropic efforts does not diminish. + +For _Popular Education_, there is much doing in this Country, but in a +disjointed, expensive, inefficient manner. Instead of one all-pervading, +straight-forward, State-directed system, there are three or four in +operation, necessarily conflicting with and damaging each other. And yet +a vast majority really desire the Education of All, and are willing to +pay for it. John Bull is good at paying taxes, wherein he has had large +experience; and if he grumbles a little now and then at their amount as +oppressive, it is only because he takes pleasure in grumbling, and this +seems to afford him a good excuse for it. He would not be deprived of +it if he could: witness the discussions of the Income Tax, which every +body denounces while no one justifies it abstractly; and yet it is +always upheld, and I presume always will be. If the question could now +be put to a direct vote, even of the tax-payers alone--"Shall or shall +not a system of Common School Education for the United Kingdoms be +maintained by a National Tax?"--I believe Free Schools would be +triumphant. Even if such a system were matured, put in operation, and to +be sustained by Voluntary Contributions alone or left to perish, I +should not despair of the result. + +But there is a lion in the path, in the shape of the Priesthood of the +Established Church, who insist that the children shall be indoctrinated +in the dogmas of their creed, or there shall be no State system of +Common Schools; and, behind these, stand the Roman Catholic Clergy, who +virtually make a similar demand with regard to the children of +Catholics. The unreasonableness, as well as the ruinous effects of these +demands, is already palpable on our side of the Atlantic. If, when our +City was meditating the Croton Water Works, the Episcopal and Catholic +Priesthood had each insisted that those works should be consecrated by +their own Hierarchy and by none other, or, in default of this, we should +have no water-works at all, the case would be substantially parallel to +this. Or if there were in some city a hundred children, whose parents +were of diverse creeds, all blind with cataract, whom it was practicable +to cure altogether, but not separately, and these rival Priesthoods were +respectively to insist--"They shall be taught our Creed and Catechism, +and no other, while the operation is going on, or there shall be no +operation and no cure," that case would not be materially diverse from +this. In vain does the advocate of Light say to them, "Pray, let us give +the children the inestimable blessing of sight, and then _you_ may teach +your creed and catechism to all whom you can persuade to learn them," +they will have the closed eyes opened according to Loyola or to Laud, or +not opened at all! Do they not provoke us to say that their insisting on +an impossible, a suicidal condition, is but a cloak, a blind, a fetch, +and that their real object is to keep the multitude in darkness? I am +thankful that we have few clergymen in America who manifest a spirit +akin to that which to this day deprives half the children of these +Kingdoms of any considerable school education whatever. + +I think nothing unsusceptible of mathematical demonstration, can be +clearer than the imperative necessity of Universal Education, as a +matter simply of Public Economy. In these densely peopled islands, where +service is cheap, and where many persons qualified to teach are +maintaining a precarious struggle for subsistence, a system of General +Education need not cost half so much as in the United States, while +wealth is so concentrated that taxes bear less hardly here, in +proportion to their amount, than with us. Every dollar judiciously spent +on the education of poor children, would be more than saved in the +diminution of the annual cost of pauperism and crime, while the +intellectual and industrial capacity of the people would be vastly +increased by it. I do not see how even Clerical bigotry, formidable as +it deplorably is, can long resist this consideration among a people so +thrifty and saving, as are in the main the wielders of political power +in this country. + +_Political Reforms_ move slowly here. Mr. Hume's motion for Household +Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, &c. was denied a +consideration, night before last, by the concerted absence from the +House of nearly all the members--only twenty-one appearing when forty +(out of over six hundred) are required to constitute a quorum. So the +subject lost its place as a set motion, and probably will not come up +again this Session. The Ministry opposed its consideration now, +promising themselves to bring forward a measure for the Extension of +the Franchise _next Session_, when it is very unlikely that they will be +in a position to bring forward anything. It seems to me that the current +sets strongly against their continuance in office, and that, between the +hearty Reformers on one side and the out-spoken Conservatives on the +other, they must soon surrender their semblance of power. Still, they +are skillful in playing off one extreme against another, and may thus +endure or be endured a year longer; but the probability is against this. +To my mind, it seems clear that their retirement is essential to the +prosecution of Liberal Reforms. So long as they remain in power, they +will do, in the way of the People's Enfranchisement, as near nought as +possible. + + (----"Nothing could live + Twixt that and silence.") + +Their successors, the avowed Conservatives, will of course do nothing; +but they cannot hold power long in the Britain of to-day; and whoever +shall succeed them must come in on a popular tide and on the strength of +pledges to specific and comprehensive Reforms which cannot well be +evaded. Slow work, say you? Well, there is no quicker practicable. When +the Tories shall have been in once more and gone out again, there will +be another great forward movement like the Reform Bill, and I think not +till then, unless the Continent shall meantime be convulsed by the +throes of a general Revolution. + +I should like to see a chance for the defeat of that most absurd of all +Political stupidities, the _Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill_, but +I do not. Persecution for Faith's sake is most abhorrent, yet sincerity +and zeal may render it respectable; but this bill has not one redeeming +feature. While it insults the Catholics, it is perfectly certain to +increase their numbers and power; and it will do this without inflicting +on them the least substantial injury. Cardinal Wiseman will be the +local head of the Catholic Church in England, whether he is legally +forbidden to be styled "Archbishop of Westminster" or not, and so of the +Irish Catholic prelates. The obstacles which the ministerial bill +attempts to throw in the way of bequests to the Catholic Bishops as +such, will be easily evaded; these Bishops will exercise every function +of the Episcopate whether this Bill shall pass or fail: and their moral +power will be greatly increased by its passage. But the Ministry, which +has found the general support of the Catholics, and especially of the +Irish Catholic Members, very opportune at certain critical junctures, +will henceforth miss that support--in fact, it has already been +transformed into a most virulent and deadly hostility. Rural England was +hostile to the ministry before, on account of the depressing effect of +Free Trade on the agricultural interest; and now Ireland is turned +against them by their own act--an act which belies the professions of +Toleration in matters of Faith which have given them a great hold of the +sympathies of the best men in the country throughout the last half +century. I do not see how they can ride out the storm which they by this +bill have aroused. + +The cause of _Temperance_--of Total Abstinence from all that can +intoxicate--is here about twenty years behind its present position in +the United States. I think there are not more absolute drunkards here +than in our American cities, but the habit of drinking for drink's sake +is all but universal. The Aristocracy drink almost to a man; so do the +Middle Class; so do the Clergy; so alas! do the Women! There is less of +Ardent Spirits imbibed than with us; but Wines are much cheaper and in +very general use among the well-off; while the consumption of Ale, Beer, +Porter, &c. (mainly by the Poor) is enormous. Only think of £5,000,000 +or _Twenty-Five Millions of Dollars_, paid into the Treasury in a single +year by the People of these Islands as Malt-Tax alone, while the other +ingredients used in the manufacture of Malt Liquors probably swell the +aggregate to Thirty Millions of Dollars. If we suppose this to be a +little more than one-third of the ultimate cost of these Liquors to the +consumers, that cost cannot be less than _One Hundred Millions of +Dollars per annum!_--a sum amply sufficient, if rightly expended, to +banish Pauperism and Destitution for ever from the British Isles. And +yet the poor trudge wearily on, loaded to the earth with exactions and +burdens of every kind, yet stupifying their brains, emptying their +pockets and ruining their constitutions with these poisonous, +brutalizing liquors! I see no hope for them short of a System of Popular +Education which shall raise them mentally above their present low +condition, followed by a few years of systematic, energetic, omnipresent +Temperance Agitation. A slow work this, but is there any quicker that +will be effective? The Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge would greatly +contribute to the Education of the Poor, but that Reform has yet to be +struggled for. + +Of _Social Reform_ in England, the most satisfactory agency at present +is the Society for improving the Dwellings of the Poor. This Society has +the patronage of the Queen, is presided over (I believe) by her husband, +and is liberally patronized by the better portion of the Aristocracy and +the higher order of the Clergy. These, aided by wealthy or philanthropic +citizens, have contributed generously, and have done a good work, even +though they should stop where they are. The work would not, could not +stop with them. They have already proved that good, substantial, +cleanly, wholesome, tight-roofed, well ventilated dwellings for the Poor +are absolutely cheaper than any other, so that Shylock himself might +invest his fortune in the construction of such with the moral certainty +of receiving a large income therefrom, while at the same time rescuing +the needy from wretchedness, disease, brutalization and vice. Shall not +New-York, and all her sister cities, profit by the lesson? + +Of the correlative doings of the organized Promoters of Working Men's +Associations, Coöperative Stores, &c., I would not be justified in +speaking so confidently, at least until I shall have observed more +closely. My present impression is that they are both far less mature in +their operations, and that, as they demand of the Laboring Class more +confidence in themselves and each other, than, unhappily, prevails as +yet, they are destined to years of struggle and chequered fortunes +before they will have achieved even the measure of success which the +Model Lodging and the Bathing and Washing Houses have already achieved. +Still, I have not yet visited the strongest and most hopeful of the +Working Men's Associations. + +I spent last evening with the friends of ROBERT OWEN, who celebrated his +80th birthday by a dinner at the Cranbourne Hotel. Among those present +were Thornton Hunt, son of Leigh Hunt, and one of the Editors of "The +Leader;" Gen. Houg, an exile from Germany from Freedom's sake; Mr. +Fleming, Editor of the Chartist "Northern Star;" Mons. D'Arusmont and his +daughter, who is the daughter also of Frances Wright. Mr. Owen was of +course present, and spoke quite at length in reiteration and enforcement +of the leading ideas wherewith he has so long endeavored to impress the +world respecting the absolute omnipotence of circumstances in shaping the +Human Character, the impossibility of believing or disbelieving save as +one must, &c. &c. Mr. Owen has scarcely looked younger or heartier at any +time these ten years; he did not seem a shade older than when I last +before met him, at least three years ago. And not many young men are more +buoyant in spirit, more sanguine as to the immediate future, more genial +in temper, more unconquerable in resolution, than he is. I cannot see many +things as he does; it seems to me that he is stone blind on the side of +Faith in the Invisible, and exaggerates the truths he perceives until they +almost become falsehoods; but I love his sunny, benevolent nature, I admire +his unwearied exertions for what he deems the good of Humanity; and, +believing with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, that "Now abide Faith, +Hope, Charity: these three; but the greatest of these is Charity," I +consider him practically a better Christian than half those who, +professing to be such, believe more and do less. I trust his life may be +long spared, and his sun beam cloudless and rosy to the last. + + + + +VII. + +LONDON--NEW-YORK. + + + LONDON, Monday, May 15, 1851. + +I have now been fifteen days in this magnificent Babel, but so much +engrossed with the Exhibition that I have seen far less of the town than +I otherwise should. Of the City proper (in the center) I know a little; +and I have made my way thence out into the open country on the North and +on the West respectively, but toward the South lies a wilderness of +buildings which I have not yet explored; while Eastward the metropolitan +districts stretch further than I have ever been. The south side of Hyde +Park and the main line of communication thence with the City proper is +the only part of London with which I can claim any real acquaintance. +Yet, on the strength of what little I _do_ know, I propose to say +something of London as it strikes a stranger; and in so doing I shall +generally refer to New-York as a standard of comparison, so as to render +my remarks more lucid to a great portion of their readers. + +The _Buildings_ here are generally superior to those of our City--more +substantial, of better materials, and more tasteful. There are, I think, +as miserable rookeries here as anywhere; but they are exceptions; while +most of the houses are built solidly, faithfully, and with a thickness +of walls which would be considered sheer waste in our City. Among the +materials most extensively used is a fine white marble[A] of a +peculiarly soft, creamy appearance, which looks admirably until +blackened by smoke and time. Regent-street and several of the +aristocratic quarters west of it are in good part built of this marble; +but one of the finest, freshest specimens of it is St. George's +Hospital, Piccadilly, which to my eye is among the most tasteful +edifices in London. If (as I apprehend) St. Paul's Church, Somerset +House, and the similarly smoke-stained dwellings around Finsbury Oval +were built of this same marble, then the murky skies of London have much +to answer for. + +Throughout the Western and Northern sections of the Metropolis, the +dwellings are far less crowded than is usual in the corresponding or +up-town portion of New-York, are more diverse in plan, color and finish, +and better provided with court-yards, shrubbery, &c. In the matter of +Building generally, I think our City would profit by a study of London, +especially if our lot-owners, builders, &c., would be satisfied with +London rates of interest on their respective investments. I think four +per cent. is considered a tolerable and five a satisfactory interest on +money securely invested in houses in London. + +By the way: the apostles of Sanitary Reform here are anticipating very +great benefits from the use of the Hollow Brick just coming into +fashion. I am assured by a leading member of the Sanitary Commission +that the hollow brick cost much less than the solid ones, and are a +perfect protection against the dampness so generally experienced in +brick houses, and often so prejudicial to health. That there is a great +saving in the cost of their transportation is easily seen; and, as they +are usually made much larger than the solid brick, they can be laid up +much faster. I think Dr. Southwood Smith assured me that the saving in +the first cost of the brickwork of a house is _one-third_; if that is a +mistake, the error is one of misapprehension on my part. The hollow +brick is a far less perfect conductor of heat and cold than the solid +one; consequently, a house built of the former is much cooler in Summer +and warmer in Winter. It is confidently and reasonably hoped here that +very signal improvements, in the dwellings especially of the Poor, are +to be secured by means of this invention. Prince Albert has caused two +Model Cottages of this material to be erected at his cost in Hyde Park +near the Great Exhibition in order to attract general attention to the +subject. + +The _Streets_ of London are generally better paved, cleaner and better +lighted than those of New-York. Instead of our round or cobble stone, +the material mainly used for paving here is a hard flint rock, split and +dressed into uniform pieces about the size of two bricks united by their +edges, so as to form a surface of some eight inches square with a +thickness of two inches. This of course wears much more evenly and lasts +longer than cobble-stone pavements. I do not know that we could easily +procure an equally serviceable material, even if we were willing to pay +for it. One reason of the greater cleanness of the streets here is the +more universal prevalence of sewerage; another is the positive value of +street-offal here for fertilizing purposes. And as Gas is supplied here +to citizens at 4s. 6d. ($1.10) per thousand feet, while the good people +of New-York must bend to the necessity of paying $3.50, or more than +thrice as much for the like quantity, certainly of no better quality, it +is but reasonable to infer that the Londoners can afford to light their +streets better than the New-Yorkers. + +But there are other aspects in which _our_ streets have a decided +superiority. There are half a dozen streets and places here having the +same name, and only distinguished by appending the name of a neighboring +street, as "St. James-place, St. James-st.," to distinguish it from +several other St. James-places, and so on. This subjects strangers to +great loss of time and vexation of spirit. I have not yet delivered half +the letters of introduction which were given me at home to friends of +the writers in this city, and can't guess when I shall do it. Then the +numbering of the streets is absurdly vicious--generally 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., +up one side and down the other side, so that 320 will be opposite 140, +and 412 opposite 1, and so throughout. Of course, if any street so +numbered is extended beyond its original limit, the result is +inextricable confusion. But the Londoners seem not to have caught the +idea of numbering by lots at all, but to have numbered only the houses +that actually existed when the numbering was undertaken; so that, if a +street happened to be numbered when only half built up, every house +erected afterward serves to render confusion worse confounded. On this +account I spent an hour and a half a few evenings since in fruitless +endeavors to find William and Mary Howitt, though I knew they lived at +No. 28 Upper Avenue Road, which is less than half a mile long. I found +Nos. 27, 29, 30, and 31, and finally found 28 also, but in another part +of the street, with a No. 5 near it on one side and No. 16 ditto on the +other--and this in a street quite recently opened. I think New-York has +nothing equal to this in perplexing absurdity. + +The _Police_ here is more omnipresent and seems more efficient than +ours. I think the use of a common and conspicuous uniform has a good +effect. No one can here pretend that he defied or resisted a policeman +in ignorance of his official character. The London police appears to be +quite numerous, is admirably organized, and seems to be perfectly docile +to its superiors. Always to obey and never to ask the reason of a +command, is the rule here; it certainly has its advantages, but is not +well suited to the genius of our people. + +The _Hotels_ of London are decidedly inferior to those of New-York. I do +not mean by this that every comfort and reasonable luxury may not be +obtained in the London inns for money enough, but simply that the same +style of living costs more in this city than in ours. I think $5 per day +would be a fair estimate for the cost of living (servants' fees +included) as well in a London hotel as you may live in a first-class +New-York hotel for half that sum. One main cause of this disparity is +the smallness of the inns here. A majority of them cannot accommodate +more than twenty to forty guests comfortably; I think there are not four +in the entire Metropolis that could find room for one hundred each. Of +course, the expense of management, supervision, attendance, &c., in +small establishments is proportionably much greater than in large ones, +and the English habit of eating fitfully _solus_ instead of at a common +hour and table increases the inevitable cost. Considering the National +habits, it might be hazardous to erect and open such a hotel as the +Astor, Irving or New-York in this city; but if it were once well done, +and the experiment fairly maintained for three years, it could not fail +to work a revolution. _Wines_ (I understand) cost not more than half as +much here, in the average, as they do in New-York. + +In _Cabs_ and other Carriages for Hire, London is ahead of New-York. The +number here is immense; they are of many varieties, some of them better +calculated for fine weather than any of ours; while the legal rates of +fare are more moderate and not so outrageously exceeded. While the +average New-York demand is fully double the legal fare, the London +cabman seldom asks more than fifty per cent. above what the law allows +him; and this (by Americans, at least) is considered quite reasonable +and cheerfully paid. If our New-York Jehus could only be made to realize +that they keep their carriages empty by their exorbitant charges, and +really double-lock their pockets against the quarters that citizens +would gladly pour into them, I think a reform might be hoped for. + +The _Omnibuses_ of London are very numerous and well governed, but I +prefer those of New-York. The charges are higher here, though still +reasonable; but the genius of this people is not so well adapted to the +Omnibus system as ours is. For example: an Omnibus (the last for the +night) was coming down from the North toward Charing Cross the other +evening, when a lady asked to be taken up. The stage was full; the law +forbids the taking of more than twelve passengers inside; a remonstrance +was instantly raised by one or more of the passengers against taking +her; and she was left to plod her weary way as she could. I think that +could not have happened in New-York. In another instance, a stage-full +of passengers started eastward from Hyde Park, one of the women having a +basket of unwashed clothes on her knee. It was certainly inconvenient, +and not absolutely inoffensive; but the hints, the complaints, the +slurs, the sneers, with which the poor woman was annoyed and tortured +throughout--from persons certainly well-dressed and whom I should +otherwise have considered well-bred--were a complete surprise to me. In +vain did the poor woman explain that she was not permitted to deposit +her basket on the roof of the stage, as it was raining; the growls and +witticisms at her expense continued, and women were foremost in this +rudeness. I doubt that a woman was ever exposed to the like in New-York, +unless she was suspected of having Ethiopian blood in her veins. + +The _Parks_, _Squares_ and _Public Gardens_ of London beat us clean out +of sight. The Battery is very good, but it is not Hyde Park; Hoboken +_was_ delightful; Kensington Gardens _are_ and ever will remain so. Our +City ought to have made provision, twenty years ago, for a series of +Parks and Gardens extending quite across the island somewhere between +Thirtieth and Fiftieth streets. It is now too late for that; but all +that can be should be done immediately to secure breathing-space and +grounds for healthful recreation to the Millions who will ultimately +inhabit New-York. True, the Bay, the North and East Rivers, will always +serve as lungs to our City, but these of themselves will not suffice. +Where is or where is to be the Public Garden of New York? where the +attractive walks, and pleasure-grounds of the crowded denizens of the +Eastern Wards? These must be provided, and the work cannot be commenced +too soon. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] It seems that this plain marble is but an _imitation_--a stone or +brick wall covered with a composition, which gives it a smooth and +creamy appearance. + + + + +VIII. + +THE EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Wednesday, May 21, 1851. + +"All the world"--that is to say, some scores of thousands who would +otherwise be in London--are off to-day to the Epsom Races, this being +the "Derby Day," a great holiday here. Our Juries at the Fair generally +respect it, and I suppose I ought to have gone, since the opportunity +afforded for seeing out-door "life" in England may not occur to me +again. As, however, I have very much to do at home, and do not care one +button which of twenty or thirty colts can run fastest, I stay away; and +the murky, leaden English skies conspire to justify my choice. I +understand the regulations at these races are superior and ensure +perfect order; but Gambling, Intoxication and Licentiousness--to say +nothing of Swindling and Robbery--always did regard a horse-race with +signal favor and delight, and probably always will. Other things being +equal, I prefer that their delight and mine should not exactly coincide. + +I am away from the Exhibition to-day for the second time since it +opened; yet I understand that, in spite of the immense number gone to +Epsom (perhaps in consequence of the general presumption that few would +be left to attend), the throng is as great as ever. Yesterday there were +so many in the edifice that the Juries which kept together often found +themselves impeded by the eddying tide of Humanity; and yet there have +been no admissions paid for with so little as one dollar each. Next +Monday the charge comes down to _one_ shilling (24 cents), and it is +already evident that extraordinary measures must be taken to preserve +the Exhibition from choking up. I presume it will be decreed that no +more than Forty, Fifty or at most Sixty Thousand single admissions shall +be sold in one day, and that each apartment, lane or avenue in the +building shall be entered from one prescribed end only and vacated from +the other. The necessity for some such regulation is obviously +imperative. + +The immense pecuniary success of the Exhibition is of course assured. I +presume the Commissioners will be able to pay all fair charges upon +them, and very nearly, if not quite, clear the Crystal Palace from the +proceeds, over $15,000 having been taken yesterday, and an average of +more than $10,000 per day since the commencement. If we estimate the +receipts of May inclusive at $400,000 only, and those of June and July, +at $150,000 each, the total proceeds will, on the 1st of August, have +reached $700,000--a larger sum than was ever before realized in a like +period by any Exhibition whatever. But then no other was ever comparable +to this in extent, variety or magnificence. For example: a single London +house has _One Million Dollars'_ worth of the most superb Plate and +Jewelry in the Exhibition, in a by no means unfavorable position; yet I +had spent the better portion of five days there, roaming and gazing at +will, before I saw this lot. There are three Diamonds exhibited which +are worth, according to the standard method of computing the value of +Diamonds, at least Thirty millions of Dollars, and probably could be +sold in a week for Twenty Millions; I have seen but one of them as yet, +and that stands so conspicuously in the center of the Exhibition that +few who enter can help seeing it. And there are several miles of cases +and lots of costly wares and fabrics exposed here, a good share of which +are quite as attractive as the great Diamonds, and intrinsically far +more valuable. Is there cause for wonder, then, that the Exhibition is +daily thronged by tens of thousands, even at the present high prices? + +Yet very much of this immediate and indisputable success is due to the +personal influence and example of the Queen. Had she not seen fit to +open the display in person, and with unusual and imposing formalities, +there would have been no considerable attendance on that occasion; and +nothing less than her repeated and almost daily visits since, reaching +the building a little past nine in the morning (sometimes after being +engrossed with one of her State Balls or other festivities till long +after midnight), could have secured so general and constant an +attendance of the Aristocratic and Fashionable classes. No American who +has not been in Europe can conceive the extent of Royal influence in +this direction. What the Queen does every one who aspires to Social +consideration makes haste to imitate if possible. This personal +deference is often carried to an extent quite inconsistent with her +comfort and freedom, as I have observed in the Crystal Palace; where, +though I have never crowded near enough to recognize her, I have often +seen a throng blockading the approaches to the apartment or avenue in +which she and her cortege were examining the articles exhibited, and +there (being kept back from a nearer approach by the Police) they have +stood gaping and staring till she left, often for half an hour. This may +be intense loyalty, but it is dubious civility. Even on Saturday +mornings, when none but the Royal visiters are admitted till noon, and +only Jurors, Police and those Exhibitors whose wares or fabrics she +purposes that day to inspect are allowed to be present, I have noted +similar though smaller crowds facing the Police at the points of nearest +approach to her. At such times, her desire to be left to herself is +clearly proclaimed, and this gazing by the half hour amounts to positive +rudeness. + +I remarked the other evening to Charles Lane that, while I did not doubt +the sincerity of the Queen's interest in the articles exhibited, I +thought there was some purpose in these continual and protracted +visits--that, for England's sake and that of her husband, whose personal +stake in the undertaking was so great, she had resolved that it should +not fail if she could help it--and she knew how to help it. Lane +assentingly but more happily observed: "Yes: though she seems to be +standing on _this_ side of the counter, she is perhaps really standing +on _the other_."--As I regard such Exhibitions as among the very best +pursuits to which Royalty can addict itself, I should not give utterance +to this presumption if I did not esteem it creditable to Victoria both +as a Briton and a Queen. And it is very plain that her conduct in the +premises is daily, among her subjects, diffusing and deepening her +popularity. + + +DINNER AT RICHMOND. + +The London Commissioners gave a great Dinner at Richmond, yesterday, to +the foreign Commissioners in attendance on the Exhibition: Lord +Ashburton presiding, flanked by Foreign Ministers and Nobles. The feast +was of course superb; the speaking generally fair; the Music abundant +and faultless. Good songs were capitally given by eminent vocalists, +well sustained by instruments, between the several toasts with their +responses--a fashion which I suggest for adoption in our own country, +especially with the condition that the Speeches be shortened to give +time for the Songs. At this dinner, no Speech exceeded fifteen minutes +in duration but that of Baron Dupin, which may have consumed half an +hour, but in every other respect was admirable. The Englishmen who spoke +were Lords Ashburton and Granville, Messrs. Crace and Paxton; of the +Foreigners, Messrs. Dupin (France), Van de Weyer (Belgian Chargé), Von +Viebhan (Prussian), and myself. Lord Ashburton spoke with great good +sense and good feeling, but without fluency. Lord Granville's remarks +were admirable in matter but also defective in manner. Barons Van de +Weyer and Dupin were very happy. The contrast in felicity of expression +between the British and the Continental speakers was very striking, +though the latter had no advantage in other respects. + +I went there at the pressing request of Lord Ashburton, who had desired +that an American should propose the health of Mr. Paxton, the designer +of the Crystal Palace, and Mr. Riddle, our Commissioner, had designated +me for the service; so I spoke about five minutes, and my remarks were +most kindly received by the entire company; yet _The Times_ of to-day, +in its report of the festival, suppresses not merely what I said, but +the sentiment I offered and even my name, merely stating that "Mr. +Paxton was then toasted and replied as follows." The _Daily News_ does +likewise, only it says Mr. Paxton's health was proposed by a Mr. +_Wedding_ (a Prussian who sat near me). I state these facts to expose +the falsehood of the boast lately made by _The Times_ in its +championship of dear newspapers like the British against cheap ones like +the American that "In this country fidelity in newspaper reporting is a +religion, and its dictates are never disregarded," &c. The pains taken +to suppress not merely what I said but its substance, and even my name, +while inserting Mr. Paxton's response, refutes the Pharisaic assumption +of The Times so happily that I could not let it pass.--Nay, I am willing +to brave the imputation of egotism by appending a faithful transcript of +what I _did_ say on that occasion, that the reader may guess _why_ The +Times deemed its suppression advisable: + +After Baron Dupin had concluded, + +HORACE GREELEY, being next called upon by the chair, arose and said: + + "In my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where Nature is still + so rugged and unconquered, where Population is yet so scanty + and the demands for human exertion are so various and urgent, + it is but natural that we should render marked honor to Labor, + and especially to those who by invention or discovery + contribute to shorten the processes and increase the + efficiency of Industry. It is but natural, therefore, that + this grand conception of a comparison of the state of Industry + in all Nations, by means of a World's Exhibition, should there + have been received and canvassed with a lively and general + interest--an interest which is not measured by the extent of + our contributions. Ours is still one of the youngest of + Nations, with few large accumulations of the fruits of + manufacturing activity or artistic skill, and these so + generally needed for use that we were not likely to send them + three thousand miles away, merely for show. It is none the + less certain that the progress of this great Exhibition from + its original conception to that perfect realization which we + here commemorate, has been watched and discussed not more + earnestly throughout the saloons of Europe, than by the + smith's forge and the mechanic's bench in America. Especially + the hopes and fears alternately predominant on this side with + respect to the edifice required for this Exhibition--the + doubts as to the practicability of erecting one sufficiently + capacious and commodious to contain and display the + contributions of the whole world--the apprehension that it + could not be rendered impervious to water--the confident + assertions that it could not be completed in season for + opening the Exhibition on the first of May as promised--all + found an echo on our shores; and now the tidings that all + these doubts have been dispelled, these difficulties removed, + will have been hailed there with unmingled satisfaction. + + "I trust, gentlemen, that among the ultimate fruits of this + Exhibition we are to reckon a wider and deeper appreciation of + the worth of Labor, and especially of those 'Captains of + Industry' by whose conceptions and achievements our Race is so + rapidly borne onward in its progress to a loftier and more + benignant destiny. We shall not be likely to appreciate less + fully the merits of the wise Statesman, by whose measures a + People's thrift and happiness are promoted--of the brave + Soldier who joyfully pours out his blood in defense of the + rights or in vindication of the honor of his Country--of the + Sacred Teacher by whose precepts and example our steps are + guided in the pathway to heaven--if we render fit honor also + to those 'Captains of Industry' whose tearless victories + redden no river and whose conquering march is unmarked by the + tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. I give you, + therefore, + + "_The Health of Joseph Paxton, Esq._, _Designer of the Crystal + Palace_--Honor to him whose genius does honor to Industry and + to Man!" + +If the reader shall discern in the above (which is as nearly literal as +may be--I having only recollection to depend on) the _reason_ why _The +Times_ saw fit to suppress not merely the remarks, but the words of the +toast and the name of the proposer, I shall be satisfied; though I think +the exposure of that journal's argument for dear newspapers as +preferable to cheap ones, on the ground that the former always gave fair +and accurate reports of public meetings while the latter never did, is +worth the space I have given to this matter. I am very sure that if my +remarks had been deemed discreditable to myself or my country, they +would have been fully reported in _The Times_. + + +EXHIBITION ITEMS. + +The Queen and Prince Albert spent an hour in the American department a +few mornings since, and appeared to regard the articles there displayed +with deep interest. Prince Albert (who is esteemed here not merely a man +of sterling good sense, but thoroughly versed in mechanics and +manufactures) expressed much surprise at the variety of our +contributions and the utility and excellence of many of them. I mention +this because there are some Americans here who declare themselves +_ashamed of their country_ because of the meagerness of its share in the +Exhibition. I do not suppose their country will deem it worth while to +return the compliment; but I should have been far more ashamed of the +prodigality and want of sense evinced in sending an indiscriminate +profusion of American products here than I am of the actual state of the +case. It is true, as I have already stated, that we are deficient in +some things which might have been sent here with advantage to the +contributors and with credit to the country; but for Americans to send +here articles of luxury and fashion to be exhibited in competition with +all the choicest wares and fabrics of Europe, which must have beaten +them if only by the force of mere quantity alone, would have evinced a +want of sense and consideration which I trust is not our National +characteristic. If I ever _do_ feel ashamed in the American department, +it is on observing a pair of very well shaped and exquisitely finished +oars, labeled, "A Present for the Prince of Wales," or something of the +sort. Spare me the necessity of blushing for what we _have_ there, and I +am safe enough from shame on account of our deficiencies. + +Mr. A. C. Hobbs, of the lock-making concern of Day & Newell, has +improved his leisure here in picking a six-tumbler Bank Lock of Mr. +Chubb, the great English locksmith, and he now gives notice that he can +pick _any_ of Chubb's locks, or any other based on similar principles, +as he is willing to demonstrate in any fair trial. I trust he will have +a chance. + +The Queen quits the Exhibition for a time this week, and retires to her +house on the Isle of Wight, where she will spend some days in private +with her family. I presume the Aristocracy will generally follow her +example, so far as the Exhibition is concerned, leaving it to the poorer +class, to whom five shillings is a consideration. Absurd speculations +are rife as to what "the mob" will do in such a building--whether they +will evacuate it quietly and promptly at night--whether there will not +be a rush made at the diamonds and other precious stones by bands of +thieves secretly confederated for plunder, &c. &c. I do not remember +that like apprehensions were ever entertained in our country; but faith +in Man abstractly is weak here, while faith in the Police, the +Horse-Guards and the Gallows, is strong.--There are always two hundred +soldiers and three hundred policemen in the building while it is open to +the public; and in case of any attempt at robbery, every outlet would +(by means of the Telegraph) be closed and guarded within a few seconds, +while hundreds if not thousands of soldiers are at all times within +call. But they will not be needed. + + + + +IX. + +SIGHTS IN LONDON. + + LONDON, Friday, May 23, 1851. + +I have been much occupied, through the last fortnight, and shall be for +some ten days more, with the Great Exhibition, in fulfillment of the +duties of a Juror therein. The number of Americans here (not exhibitors) +who can and will devote the time required for this service is so small +that none can well be excused; and the fairness evinced by the Royal +Commissioners in offering to place as many foreigners (named by the +Commissioners of their respective countries) as Britons on the several +Juries well deserves to be met in a corresponding spirit. I did not, +therefore, feel at liberty to decline the post of Juror, to which I had +been assigned before my arrival, though it involves much labor and care, +and will keep me here somewhat longer than I had intended to stay. On +the other hand, it has opened to me sources of information and +facilities for observation which I could not, in a brief visit to a land +of strangers, have otherwise hoped to enjoy. I spend each secular day at +the Exhibition--generally from 10 to 3 o'clock--and have my evenings for +other pursuits and thoughts. I propose here to jot down a few of the +notes on London I have made since the sailing of the last steamship. + + +WESTMINSTER ABBEY. + +I attended Divine worship in this celebrated edifice last Sunday +morning. Situated near the Houses of Parliament, the Royal Palaces of +Buckingham and St. James, and in the most aristocratic quarter of the +city, its external appearance is less imposing than I had expected, and +what I saw of its interior did not particularly impress me. Lofty +ceilings, stained windows, and a barbaric profusion of carving, groining +and all manner of costly contrivances for absorbing money and labor, +made on me the impression of waste rather than taste, seeming to give +form and substance to the orator's simile of "the contortions of the +sibyl without her inspiration." A better acquaintance with the edifice, +or with the principles of architecture, might serve to correct this +hasty judgment; but surely Westminster Abbey ought to afford a place of +worship equal in capacity, fitness and convenience to a modern church +edifice costing $50,000, and surely it does not. I think there is no one +of the ten best churches in New York which is not superior to the Abbey +for this purpose. + +I supposed myself acquainted with all the approved renderings of the +Episcopal morning service, but when the clergyman who officiated at the +Abbey began to twang out "Dearly beloved brethren," &c., in a nasal, +drawling semi-chant, I was taken completely aback. It sounded as though +some graceless Friar Tuck had wormed himself into the desk and was +endeavoring, under the pretense of reading the service, to caricature as +broadly as possible the alleged peculiarity of Methodistic pulpit +enunciation superimposed upon the regular Yankee drawl. As the service +proceeded, I became more accustomed and more reconciled to this mode of +utterance, but never enough so to like it, nor even the responses, which +were given in the same way, but much better. After I came away, I was +informed that this semi-chant is termed _intoning_, and is said to be a +revival of an ancient method of rendering the church service. If such be +the fact, I can only say that in my poor judgment that revival was an +unwise and unfortunate one. + +The Service was very long--more than two hours--the Music excellent--the +congregation large--the Sermon, so far as I could judge, had nothing bad +in it. Yet there was an Eleventh-Century air about the whole which +strengthened my conviction that the Anglican Church will very soon be +potentially summoned to take her stand distinctly on the side either of +Romanism or of Protestantism, and that the summons will shake not the +Church only but the Realm to its centre. + + +RAGGED SCHOOLS + +In the evening I attended the Ragged School situated in Carter's-field +Lane, near the Cattle-Market in Smithfield [where John Rogers was burned +at the stake by Catholics, as Catholics had been burned by Protestants +before him. The honest, candid history of Persecution for Faith's sake, +has never yet been written; whenever it shall be, it must cause many +ears to tingle]. + +It was something past 7 o'clock when we reached the rough old building, +in a filthy, poverty-stricken quarter, which has been rudely fitted up +for the Ragged School--one of the first, I believe, that was attempted. +I should say there were about four hundred pupils on its benches, with +about forty teachers; the pupils were at least two-thirds males from +five to twenty years old, with a dozen or more adults. The girls were a +hundred or so, mainly from three to ten years of age; but in a separate +and upper apartment ascending out of the main room, there were some +forty adult women, with teachers exclusively of their own sex. The +teachers were of various grades of capacity; but, as all teach without +pay and under circumstances which forbid the idea of any other than +philanthropic or religious attractiveness in the duty, they are all +deserving of praise. The teaching is confined, I believe, to rudimental +instruction in reading and spelling, and to historic, theologic and +moral lessons from the Bible. As the doors are open, and every one who +sees fit comes in, stays so long as he or she pleases, and then goes +out, there is much confusion and bustle at times, but on the whole a +satisfactory degree of order is preserved, and considerable, though very +unequal, progress made by the pupils. + +But such faces! such garments! such daguerreotypes of the superlative of +human wretchedness and degradation! These pupils were gathered from +among the outcasts of London--those who have no family ties, no homes, +no education, no religious training, but were born to wander about the +docks, picking up a chance job now and then, but acquiring no skill, no +settled vocation, often compelled to steal or starve, and finally +trained to regard the sheltered, well fed, and respected majority as +their natural oppressors and their natural prey. Of this large class of +vagrants, amounting in this city to thousands, Theft and (for the +females) Harlotry, whenever the cost of a loaf of bread or a night's +lodging could be procured by either, were as matter-of-course resorts +for a livelihood as privateering, campaigning, distilling or (till +recently) slave-trading was to many respected and well-to-do champions +of order and Conservatism throughout Christendom. And the outcasts have +ten times the excuse for their moral blindness and their social misdeeds +that their well-fed competitors in iniquity ever had. They have simply +regarded the world as their oyster and tried to open its hard shells as +they best could, not indicating thereby a special love of oysters but a +craving appetite for food of some kind. It was oyster or nothing with +them. And in the course of life thus forced upon them, the males who +survived the period of infancy may have averaged twenty-five years of +wretched, debased, brutal existence, while the females, of more delicate +frame and subjected to additional evils, have usually died much younger. +But the gallows, the charity hospitals, the prisons, the work-houses +(refuges denied to the healthy and the unconvicted), with the unfenced +kennels and hiding-places of the destitute during inclement weather, +generally saw the earthly end of them all by the time that men in better +circumstances have usually attained their prime. And all this has been +going on unresisted and almost unnoticed for countless generations, in +the very shadows of hundreds of church steeples, and in a city which +pays millions of dollars annually for the support of Gospel +ministrations. + +The chief impression made on me by the spectacle here presented was one +of intense sadness and self-reproach. I deeply realised that I had +hitherto said too little, done too little, dared too little, sacrificed +too little, to awaken attention to the infernal wrongs and abuses which +are inherent in the very structure and constitution, the nature and +essence, of civilised Society as it now exists throughout Christendom. +Of what avail are alms-giving, and individual benevolence, and even the +offices of Religion, in the presence of evil so gigantic and so inwoven +with the very framework of Society? There have been here in all recent +times charitable men, good men, enough to have saved Sodom, but not +enough to save Society from the condemnation of driving this outcast +race before it like sheep to the slaughter, as its members pressed on in +pursuit of their several schemes of pleasure, riches or ambition, +looking up to God for His approbation on their benevolence as they +tossed a penny to some miserable beggar after they had stolen the earth +from under his feet. How long shall this endure? + +The School was dismissed, and every one requested to leave who did not +choose to attend the prayer-meeting. No effort was made to induce any to +stay--the contrary rather. I was surprised to see that three-fourths (I +think) staid; though this was partly explained afterwards by the fact +that by staying they had hopes of a night's lodging here and none +elsewhere. That prayer-meeting was the most impressive and salutary +religious service I have attended for many years. Four or five prayers +were made by different teachers in succession--all chaste, appropriate, +excellent, fervent, affecting. A Hymn was sung before and after each by +the congregation--and well sung. Brief and cogent addresses were made by +the superintendent and (I believe) an American visitor. Then the School +was dismissed, and the pupils who had tickets permitting them to sleep +in the dormitory below filed off in regular order to their several +berths. The residue left the premises. We visiters were next permitted +to go down and see those who staid--of course only the ladies being +allowed to look into the apartment of the women. O the sadness of that +sight! There in the men's room were perhaps a hundred men and boys, +sitting up in their rags in little compartments of naked boards, each +about half-way between a bread-tray and a hog-trough, which, planted +close to each other, were to be their resting-places for the night, as +they had been for several previous nights. And this is a very recent and +very blessed addition to the School, made by the munificence of some +noble woman, who gave $500 expressly to fit up some kind of a +sleeping-room, so that those who had attended the School should not +_all_ be turned out (as a part still necessarily are) to wander or lie +all night in the always cold, damp streets. There are not many hogs in +America who are not better lodged than these poor human brethren and +sisters, who now united, at the suggestion of the superintendent, in a +hymn of praise to God for all His mercies. Doubtless, many did so with +an eye to the shelter and hope of food (for each one who is permitted to +stay here has a bath and six ounces of bread allowed him in the +morning); yet when I contrasted this with the more formal and stately +worship I had attended at Westminster Abbey in the morning, the +preponderance was decidedly not in favor of the latter. + +It seemed to me a profanation--an insult heaped on injury--an +unjustifiable prying into the saddest secrets of the great prison-house +of human woe--for us visiters to be standing here; and, though I +apologised for it with a sovereign, which grain of sand will, I am sure, +be wisely applied to the mitigation of this mountain of misery, I was +yet in haste to be gone. Yet I leaned over the rail and made some +inquiry of a ragged and forlorn youth of nineteen or twenty who sat next +us in his trough, waiting for our departure before he lay down to such +rest as that place could afford him. He replied that he had no parents +nor friends who could help him--had never been taught any trade--always +did any work he could get--sometimes earned six-pence to a shilling per +day by odd jobs, but could get no work lately--had no money, of +course--and had eaten nothing that day but the six ounces of bread given +him on rising here in the morning--and had only the like six ounces in +prospect between him and starvation. That hundreds so situated should +unite with seeming fervor in praise to God shames the more polished +devotion of the favored and comfortable; and if these famishing, +hopeless outcasts were to pilfer every day of their lives (as most of +them did, and perhaps some of them still do), I should pity even more +than I blamed them. + +The next night gave me a clearer idea of + + +BRITISH ANTI-SLAVERY. + +The Annual meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was +held on Monday evening, in Freemasons' Hall--a very fine one. There were +about One Thousand persons present--perhaps less, certainly not more. I +think JOSEPH STURGE, Esq., was Chairman, but I did not arrive till after +the organization, and did not learn the officers' names. At all events, +Mr. Sturge had presented the great practical question to the Meeting--"What +can we Britons do to hasten the overthrow of Slavery?"--and Rev. H. H. +GARNETT (colored) of our State was speaking upon it when I entered. He +named me commendingly to the audience, and the Chairman thereupon invited +me to exchange my back seat for one on the platform, which I took. Mr. +Garnett proceeded to commend the course of British action against Slavery +which is popular here, and had already been shadowed forth in the set +resolves afterward read to the meeting. The British were told that they +could most effectually war against Slavery by refusing the courtesies of +social intercourse to slaveholders--by refusing to hear or recognise +pro-slavery clergymen--by refusing to consume the products of Slave Labor, +&c. Another colored American--a Rev. Mr. CRUMMILL, if I have his name +right,--followed in the same vein, but urged more especially the duty of +aiding the Free Colored population of the United-States to educate and +intellectually develop their children. Mr. S. M. PETO, M. P. followed in +confirmation of the views already expressed by Mr. Garnett, insisting that +he could not as a Christian treat the slaveholder otherwise than as a +tyrant and robber. And then a very witty negro from Boston (Rev. Mr. +Heuston, I understood his name), spoke quite at length in unmeasured +glorification of Great Britain, as the land of _true_ freedom and +equality, where simple Manhood is respected without regard to Color, and +where alone he had ever been treated by all as a man and a brother. + +By this time I was very ready to accept the Chairman's invitation to say +a few words. For, while all that the speakers had uttered with regard to +Slavery was true enough, it was most manifest that, whatever effect the +course of action they urged might have in America, it could have no +other than a baneful influence on the cause of Political Reform in this +country. True, it did not always say in so many words that the Social +and Political institutions of Great Britain are perfect, but it never +intimated the contrary, while it generally implied and often distinctly +affirmed this. The effect, therefore, of such inculcations, is not only +to stimulate and aggravate the Phariseeism to which all men are +naturally addicted, but actually to impede and arrest the progress of +Reform in this Country by implying that nothing here needs reforming. +And as this doctrine of "Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou," +was of course received with general applause by a British audience, the +vices of speaker and hearer reäcted on each other; and, judging from the +specimens I had that evening, I must regard American, and especially +Afric-American lecturers against Slavery in this country as among the +most effective upholders of all the enormous Political abuses and wrongs +which are here so prevalent. + +When the stand was accorded me, therefore, I proceeded, not by any means +to apologize for American Slavery, not to suggest the natural obstacles +to its extinction, but to point out, as freely as the audience would +bear, some modes of effective hostility to it in addition to those +already commended. Premising the fact that Slavery in America now +justifies itself mainly on the grounds that the class who live by rude +manual toil always are and must be degraded and ill-requited--that there +is more debasement and wretchedness on their part in the Free States and +in Great Britain itself than there is in the Slave States--and that, +moreover, Free laborers will not work in tropical climates, so that +these must be cultivated by slaves or not at all--I suggested and +briefly urged on British Abolitionists the following course of action: + +1. Energetic and systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labor +and the comfort and consideration of the depressed Laboring Class here +at home; and to diffuse and cherish respect for Man as Man, without +regard to class, color or vocation. + +2. Determined efforts for the eradication of those Social evils and +miseries _here_ which are appealed to and relied on by slaveholders and +their champions everywhere as justifying the continuance of Slavery; And + +3. The colonization of our Slave States by thousands of intelligent, +moral, industrious Free Laborers, who will silently and practically +dispel the wide-spread delusion which affirms that the Southern States +must be cultivated and their great staples produced by Slave Labor or +not at all. + +I think I did not speak more than fifteen minutes, and I was heard +patiently to the end, but my remarks were received with no such +"thunders of applause" as had been accorded to the more politic efforts +of the colored gentlemen. There was in fact repeatedly evinced a +prevalent apprehension that I _would_ say something which it would be +incumbent on the audience to resent; but I did not. And I have a faint +hope that some of the remarks thus called forth will be remembered and +reflected on. I am sure there is great need of it, and that +denunciations of Slavery addressed by London to Charleston and Mobile +will be far more effective after the extreme of destitution and misery +uncovered by the Ragged Schools shall have been banished forever from +this island--nay, after the great body of those who here denounce +Slavery so unsparingly shall have earnestly, unselfishly, thoroughly +_tried_ so to banish it. + + + + +X. + +POLITICAL ECONOMY, AS STUDIED AT THE WORLD'S EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, May 27, 1851. + +To say, as some do, that the English hate the Americans, is to do the +former injustice. Even if we leave out of the account the British +millions who subsist by rude manual toil, and who certainly regard our +country, so far as they think of it at all, with an emotion very +different from hatred, there is evinced by the more fortunate classes a +very general though not unqualified admiration of the rapidity of our +progress, the vastness of our resources, and the extraordinary physical +energy developed in our brief, impetuous career. Dense as is the +ignorance which widely prevails in Europe with regard to American +history and geography, it is still very generally understood that we +were, only seventy years since, but Three Millions of widely scattered +Colonists, doubtfully contending, on a narrow belt of partially cleared +sea-coast, with the mother country on one side and the savages on the +other, for a Political existence; and that now we are a nation of +Twenty-three Millions, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and +from the cane-producing Tropic to the shores of Lake Superior where snow +lies half the year--from Nantucket and the Chesapeake to the affluents +of Hudson's Bay and the spacious harbors and sheltered roadsteads of +Nootka Sound. And this vast extent of country, the Briton remarks with +pride, we have not merely overrun, as the Spanish so rapidly traversed +South America, but have really appropriated and in good degree +assimilated, so that the far shores of the Pacific, which have but for +three or four years felt the tread of the Anglo-American, are now dotted +with energetic and thriving marts of Commerce, into whose lap gold mines +are pouring their lavish treasures, while a profusion of steamers, ships +and smaller watercraft link them closely with each other, with the +Atlantic States and the Old World, while their numerous daily journals +are aiding to diffuse the English language through the isles of the +immense Pacific, and their "merchant princes" are coolly discussing the +advantages of establishing a direct communication by lines of steamships +with China and opening the wealth of Japan to the commerce of the +civilized world. All this is marked with something of wonder but more of +pride by the ruling classes in Great Britain--the pride of a father +whose son has beaten him and run away, but who nevertheless hears with +interest and gratification that the unfilial reprobate is conquering +fame and fortune, and who with beaming eye observes to a neighbor, "A +wild boy that of mine, sir, but blood will tell!" If the United States +were attacked by any power or alliance strong enough to threaten their +subjugation, the sympathy felt for them in these islands would be +intense and all but universal. + +And yet there is another side of the picture, which in fairness must +also be presented. The favored classes in Great Britain, while they +heartily admire the American energy and its fruits, do and must +nevertheless _dread the contagion of our example_; and this dread must +increase and be diffused as the rapidly increasing power, population and +wealth of our country commend it more and more to the attention of the +world. While we were some sixty days distant, and heard of mainly in +connection with Indian fights or massacres, fatal steamboat explosions +or insolvent banks, this contagion was not imminent and did not +seriously alarm; but, now that New-York is but ten days from London, and +New-Orleans (by Telegraph) scarcely more, the case is bravely altered, +and it becomes daily more and more palpable that the United States and +Great Britain cannot both remain as they are. If we in America can have +a succession of capable and reputable Chief Magistrates for £5,000 a +year, of Chief Justices for £1,000, and of Cabinets at a gross cost of +less than £10,000, it is manifest that John Bull, who, loyal as he is, +has a strong instinct of thrift and a pride in getting the worth of his +money, will not long be content to pay a hundred times as much for his +Chief Executive and ten times as much for his Judiciary and Ministry as +we do. It is a question, therefore, of the deepest practical interest to +the British Nation whether the Americans do really enjoy the advantages +of peace, order and security for the rights of person and property +through instrumentalities so cheap, and so dependent on moral force +only, as those devised and established by Washington and his +compatriots. If we have these with a Civil List of less than £1,000,000 +sterling, an Army of less than Ten Thousand men, and a Navy (why won't +it die and get decently buried?) of a dozen or two active vessels, why +should John tax and sweat himself as he does to maintain a Political +establishment which costs him over $150,000,000 a year beside the +interest on his enormous National Debt? If we, without any Church +endowed by law, have as ample and widely diffused provision for Divine +worship and Religious instruction as he has, why should he pay tithes to +endow Lord Bishops with incomes of £10,000 to £80,000 per annum?--These +and similar questions are beginning to be widely pondered here: they +refuse to be longer drowned by the blare of trumpets and the resonant +melody of "God save the Queen!" I know nobody who objects to that last +quoted sentiment, but there are many here, and the number is increasing, +who think there is an urgent and practical need of salvation also for +the People--salvation from heavy exactions, unjust burthens and galling +distinctions. And, as the interest of the Many in the reform of abuses +and the removal of impositions becomes daily more obvious and palpable, +so does the instinctive grasp of the Few to keep what they have and get +what they can become likewise more muscular and positive. And this +instinct absolutely demands a perversion or suppression of the truth +with regard to America--with regard especially to the prevalence of +order, justice and tranquillity within her borders. And not this only: +it is important to this class that it be made to appear that, while +Republican institutions may possibly answer for a time in a rude and +semi-barbarous community of scattered grain-growers and herdsmen, they +are utterly incompatible with a dense population, with general +refinement, the upbuilding of Manufactures and the prevalence of the +arts of civilized life. + +Here, then, is the cue to the cry so early and generally raised, so +often and invidiously renewed by the London daily press, of surprise at +the meagerness of our country's share in the Great Exhibition. Had any +other young nation of Twenty Millions, located three to five thousand +miles off, sent a collection so large and so creditable to its +industrial proficiency and inventive power, it would have been warmly +commended by these same journals; but it is deemed desirable to make an +impression on the public mind of Europe adverse to American skill and +attainment in the Arts, and hence these representations and sneers. + +Yet, gentlemen! what would you have? For years you have been devoting +your energies to the task of convincing our people that they should be +content to grow Food and Cotton and send them hither in exchange for +Wares and Fabrics, especially those of the finer and costlier varieties. +You have written reams of essays intended to prove that this course of +Industry and Trade is dictated by Nature, by Providence, by Public +good; and that only narrow and short-sighted selfishness would seek to +overrule it. Well: here are American samples of all the staples you say +our Country _ought_ to produce and be content with, in undeniable +abundance and excellence--Cotton, Wool, Wheat, Flour, Indian Corn, Hams, +Beef, &c., &c., yet these you run over with a glance of cool contempt, +and say we have nothing in the Exhibition! Is this kind or politic +treatment of the supporters of your policy in the States? If a seeming +approximation to your Utopia should subject them to such compliments, +what may they expect from its perfect consummation? Let all our States +become as purely Agricultural as the Carolinas or the lower valley of +the Mississippi, and what would then be your estimation of us? If a +half-way obedience to your counsels exposes us to such disparagement, +what might we fairly expect from a thorough submission? + +The vital truth, everywhere demonstrable, is nowhere so palpable as +here--that a diversification of Industrial pursuits is essential not +only to the prosperity and thrift, but also to the education and +intellectual activity of a People. A community which witnesses from year +to year the processes of Agricultural labor only, lacks a stimulus to +mental cultivation of inestimable value. If Europe were to say to +America, "Sit still, and we will send you from year to year all the +Wares and Fabrics you need for nothing, on the simple condition that you +will not attempt to produce any yourselves," it would be most unwise and +suicidal to accept the offer. For we need not more the Wares and Fabrics +than the skill which fashions and the taste which beautifies them. We +need that multiform capacity and facility of hand and brain which only +experience in the Arts can bestow and diffuse. The National Industry is +the People's University; to confine it to a few and those the ruder +branches is to stunt and stagnate the popular mind--is to arrest the +march of improvement in Agriculture itself. Hence, nearly or quite all +the modern improvements in Cultivation have been made in immediate +proximity to a dense Manufacturing population; hence Belgium is now a +garden, while Ireland (except the manufacturing North) is to a great +extent stagnant and decaying. Other causes doubtless conspire, as in +England contrasted with Italy and Spain, to produce these results, but +they do not unsettle the general truth that Industry advances through a +symmetric and many-sided development or does not advance at all. + +We have yet much to learn in the Arts, but the first lesson of all is a +well-founded confidence in our own artisans, our own capacities, with a +patriotic resolution to encourage the former and develop the latter. And +this confidence is abundantly justified even by what is exhibited here. +While our show of products is much less than it might and less even than +it should have been, those who have really studied it draw thence hope +and courage. No other nation exhibits within a similar compass so great +a diversity of excellence--no other exhibits so large a proportion of +inventions and valuable improvements. Even in the vast apartment devoted +to British Machinery, the number and importance of the American +inventions exhibited (some of them adapted to new uses or improved upon +in this country; others merely incorporated with British improvements), +is very striking. I doubt whether England during the last half century +has borrowed so many inventions from all the world beside--I am sure she +has not from all except France--as she has from the United States. And +yet we are blessed with the presence of sundry Americans here who, +without having examined our contributions, without knowing anything more +about them than they have gleaned from _The Times_ and _Punch_, aided by +a hurried walk through the department, are busily proclaiming that this +show makes them ashamed of their country! + +Here is the great source of our weakness--a want of proper pride in and +devotion to our own Industrial interests. Every sort of patriotism is +abundant in America but that which is most essential--that which aids to +develop and strengthen the Nation's productive energies. No other people +buy Foreign fabrics extensively in preference to the equally cheap and +more substantial products of their own looms, yet ours do it habitually. +I had testimony after testimony from American merchants on the voyage +over, as well as before and since, that foreign fabrics habitually sell +in our markets for ten to twenty per cent. more than is asked for +equally good American products, while thousands of pieces of the latter +are readily sold on the strength of fabricated Foreign marks at prices +which they would not command to customers who would not buy them, if +their origin were known. This is certainly disgraceful to the +seller--what is it to the buyer? The mercantile interest naturally leans +toward the more distant production--the margin for profit is larger +where an article is brought across an ocean, while the cost of a home +made article is so notorious that there is little chance of putting on a +large profit. Give American producers the prices now readily paid +throughout our country for Foreign fabrics and they will grow rich by +manufacturing articles in no respect inferior to the former. But with +only a share of the American market, and this mainly for the coarsest +and cheapest goods, while the purchasers of the more costly and +fanciful, on which the larger profits are made, must have "Fabrique de +Paris" or some such label affixed to render them current, our +manufacturers have no fair chance. While fools could be found to buy +"Cashmere Shawls," costing fifty to a hundred dollars, for five hundred +to a thousand, under the absurd delusion that they came from Eastern +Asia, the fabrication and the profits were European; let an American +begin to make just such Shawls and the secret is out, so the price sinks +at once to the neighborhood of the cost of production. So with De +Laines, Counterpanes, Brussels Carpetings and fabrics generally; and yet +Americans will talk as though the encouragement given by protective +Duties to home Manufacturers were given at the expense of our consumers. +Vainly are they challenged from day to day to name one single article +whereof the production has been transplanted from Europe to America +through Protection, which has not thereby been materially cheapened to +the American consumer; it suits them better to assume that the duty is a +tax on the consumer than to examine the case and admit the truth. But +delusion cannot be eternal. + +That our Country would at some future day work its way gradually out of +its present semi-Colonial dependence on European tastes, European +fashions, European fabrication, even though all Legislative +encouragement were withheld, I firmly believe. The genius, the activity, +the energy, the enterprise of our people conspire to assure it. So the +thief, the burglar, the forger, are certain to suffer for their misdeeds +though all the penalties of human laws were repealed, and yet I consider +state prisons and houses of correction salutary if not indispensable. It +is difficult for even an ingenious and inventive race to make +improvements in an art or process which has no existence among them. +Whitney's Cotton-Gin presupposed the growth of Cotton; Fulton's +steamboat the existence of internal commerce and navigation; without +Lowell, Bigelow might have invented a new trap for muskrats but not +looms for weaving Carpets, Ginghams, Coach-Lace, &c. I deeply feel that +our Country owes to mankind the duty of so sustaining her Manufacturing +Industry that further and more signal triumphs of her inventive genius +may yet be evolved and realised, not merely in the domain of Fabrics but +in that of Wares and Metals also, and especially in that of the chief +metal, Iron. Had Iron enjoyed for twenty years such a measure of +Protection among us as Plain Cottons obtained from 1816 through Mr. +Calhoun's minimum of six cents per square yard, we should, in all +probability, have been producing Iron by this time as cheaply as drills +and sheetings--that is, as cheaply (quality considered) as any nation on +the globe--as cheaply as we produce School-Books, Newspapers, and nearly +every article whereof the American maker is shielded by circumstances +from Foreign competition. Had the Tariff of 1842 but stood unaltered +till this time, who believes that even the greenest and silliest +American could have fancied himself blushing for the meagerness of his +country's share in the Great Exhibition? + + + + +XI. + +ROYAL SUNSHINE. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 29, 1851. + +I have now been four weeks in this metropolis, and, though confined +throughout nearly every day to the Crystal Palace, I have enjoyed large +and various opportunities for studying the English People. I have made +acquaintances in all ranks, from dukes to beggars--all ranks, I should +say, but that which is esteemed the highest. I have of course seen the +Royal family repeatedly at the Exhibition, which is open at all hours to +Jurors, and the Queen times her visits so as to be there mainly while it +is closed to the public. But I have barely seen her party, as I passed +it with a double row of gazers interposed, all eager to catch the +sunlight of Majesty, appearing to care little how much she might be +annoyed or they abased by their unseemly gaping. I hope no Americans +contributed to swell these groups, but after what I have seen here I am +by no means sure of it. + +A young countrywoman who has not yet been long enough in Europe to +forget what it cost our forefathers to be rid of all this, but who had +in her own case adequate reasons for desiring a presentation at Court, +gave me some days since a graphic account of the ceremonial, which I +wish I had committed to paper while it was freshly remembered. It is of +course understood that every one presented to her Majesty must appear in +full dress--that of gentlemen (not Military) being a Court suit alike +costly, fantastic and utterly useless elsewhere, while ladies are +expected to appear in rich --> _British_ silk (Free Trade +notwithstanding) with a train three yards long (perhaps it is only three +feet), with plumes, &c. Thus equipped, they proceed to the Palace, where +at the appointed hour the Queen makes her appearance, with her family by +her side and backed by a double row of maids of honor, attendants, &c. +Each palpitating aspirant to the honor of presentation awaits his or her +turn standing, and may thus wait two hours. The Foreign Embassadors have +precedence in presenting; others follow; in due season your name is +called out; you pass before the Royal presence, make your bow or +courtesy, receive the faint suggestion of a response, and pass along and +away to make room for the next customer. Unless you belong essentially +to the Diplomatic circle (being presented by an Embassador will not +answer), you are not allowed to remain and see those behind you take the +plunge, but must hasten forthwith from the presence. And, as ordinary +Humanity has but one aspect in which it is fit to be gazed on by Royal +eyes, you must contrive to quit the presence with your face constantly +turned toward it. Now this need not be difficult for those in masculine +attire, but to the wearers of the rich Spitalfields silks and trains +aforesaid, even though the trains be but three feet long instead of +three yards, the evolution must require no moderate share of feminine +tact and dexterity. It is consoling to hear that all manage to +accomplish it, by dint of severe training through the week preceding the +event; though some are so frightened when the awful moment arrives that +their ghastly visages and tottering frames evince how narrowly they +escape swooning. The fact that it is over in a moment serves materially +to mitigate the torture! + +"What ridiculous formalities!--What absurd requirements!" exclaims +Brother Jonathan. No, sir! You are judging without knowledge or without +consideration. These and kindred formalities, considered apart, may be +ludicrous, but, regarded as portions of a system, they are essential. In +a country where everything gravitates so intensely toward the Throne, +there must be impediments to presentation at Court, if the Sovereign is +to enjoy any leisure, peace, comfort, or even time for the most pressing +public duties. There is and should be no absolute barrier to the +presentation of any well-bred, well-behaved person, whether subject or +foreigner; and, if it were as easy as visiting the Exhibition, the Queen +would be required to hold a drawing-room every day, and devote the whole +of it to unmeaning and useless introductions. As the matter is actually +managed, those who have any good reason for it undergo the ceremony, +with many who have none; while the great majority are content with the +knowledge that they _might be_ admitted to the august presence if they +chose to incur the bother and expense. Those who cherish a moth-like +reverence for Royalty indulge it at their own cost and to the advantage +of Trade; weavers, costumers and shop-keepers are very glad to pocket +the money which the presentee must disburse; and even those ladies who +have the _entrée_, and so attend half a dozen drawing-rooms per annum, +are expected to appear at each in a new dress--thus the interests of the +shop are never lost sight of. These Court formalities, Brother J., are +_not_ absurd--very far from it. They are rational, politic, beneficent, +indispensable. Whether it is wise or unwise for _your_ young folks to +subject themselves to the inevitable expense and vexation for the sake +of standing a few feet nearer a Queen, is another affair altogether. +When I contrast these presentations with the freedom and ease (except +when there is a jam) of our Presidential receptions--when I remember +that any whole dress is good enough for the White House, and any honest +man or woman (with some not so honest) may go up on a levee night and be +introduced to the President and his lady, saunter through the rooms, +converse with friends and pass in review half the notables of the +Nation--I deeply realize the superiority of Republicanism to Royalty, +but without seeking to put the new wine into old bottles. The forms +appropriate to our simpler institutions would be utterly unsuitable +here--nay, they would be found impossible. + +The Queen left London last week for her private residence on the Isle of +Wight, I supposed for weeks; but she was back in the Exhibition early on +Tuesday morning, and has since been holding a Drawing-Room, giving +Dinners, a Concert, &c. with her accustomed activity. She seems resolved +to make the Exhibition Summer an agreeable one for the Foreigners in +attendance, many of whom are included in her invitations. As the +"shilling days" opened meagerly on Monday, to the disappointment +(perhaps because) of the general apprehension of a crush, and as the +numbers thronging thither have rapidly increased ever since, the Queen's +renewed countenance receives a good share of the credit, and her +condescension in coming on a "shilling day" is duly commended. It is +already plain enough that the attendance consequent on the cheap +admission is destined to be enormous. To-day over Fifty Thousand paid +their shilling each, over six thousand per hour--to say nothing of the +thousands who came in on season tickets, or as exhibitors, jurors, &c. +The money taken at the doors to-day must have exceeded $12,000, though +no "excursion trains" have yet come in from the Country. These will +begin to pour in next week, by which time it is to be hoped that the +Juries will have completed their examinations if not their awards; for +they will have scanty elbow-room afterward except at early hours in the +morning. I presume there will be Fifty Thousand admissions paid for +during each of the four "shilling days," of next week. Fridays +henceforth the admission is to be 2s. 6d. (60 cents), and Saturdays 5s. +($1.20), and many believe the Palace will be as crowded on these as on +other days. I doubt. + + +THE LITERARY GUILD. + +"The Guild of Literature and Art" will have already been heard of in +America. It is an undertaking of several fortunate authors and their +friends to make some provision for their unsuccessful brethren--for +those who had the bad luck to be born before their time, as well as +those who would apparently have done better by declining to be born at +all. The world overflows with writers who would fain transmute their +thoughts into bread, and lacking the opportunity, have a slim chance for +any bread at all, even the coarsest. No other class has less worldly +wisdom, less practical thrift; no other suffers more keenly from "the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than unlucky authors. If +anything can be done to mitigate the severity of their fate, and +especially if their more favored brethren can do it, there ought to be +but one opinion as to its propriety. + +And yet I fear the issue of this project. The world is scourged by +legions of drones and adventurers who have taken to Literature as in +another age they would have taken to the highway--to procure an easy +livelihood. They write because they are too lazy to work, or because +they would scorn to live on the meager product of manual toil. Of +Genius, they have mainly the eccentricities--that is to say, a strong +addiction to late hours, hot suppers and a profusion of gin and water, +though they are not particular about the water. What Authorship needs +above all things is purification from this Falstaff's regiment, who +should be taught some branch of honest industry and obliged to earn +their living by it. So far, therefore, am I from regretting that every +one who wishes cannot rush into print, and joining in the general +execration of publishers for their insensibility to unacknowledged +merit, that I wish no man could have his book printed until he had +earned the cost thereof by _bona fide_ labor, and that no one could +live by Authorship until after he had practically demonstrated both his +ability and willingness to earn his living in a different way. I greatly +fear the proposed "Guild," even under the wisest regulations, will do as +much harm as good, by aggravating the prevalent tendency toward +Authorship among thousands who never asked whether the world is likely +to profit by their lucubrations, but only whether _they_ may hope to +profit by them. If the "Guild" should tend to increase the number of +aspirants to the honors and rewards of Authorship, it will incite more +misery than it is likely to overcome. + +However, this is an attempt to mend the fortunes of unlucky British +Authors; and as we Americans habitually steal the productions of British +Authorship, and deliberately refuse them that protection to which all +producers are justly entitled, I feel myself fairly indebted to the +class, by the amount of my reading of their works to which Copyright in +America is denied. I meant to have attended the first dramatic +entertainment given at Devonshire House in aid of this enterprise, but I +did not apply for a ticket (price £5) till too late; so I took care to +be in season for next time--that is, Tuesday evening of this week. + +The play (as before) was "Not so Bad as We Seem, or Many Sides to a +Character," written expressly in aid of the "Guild" by Bulwer, and +performed at the town mansion of the Duke of Devonshire, one of the most +wealthy and popular of the British nobility. On the former evening the +Queen and Royal Family attended, with some scores of the Nobility; this +time there was a sprinkling of Duchesses, &c., but Commoners largely +preponderated, and the hour of commencing was changed from 9 to 7½ +P. M. The apartment devoted to the performance is a very fine +one, and the whole mansion, though common-place enough in its exterior, +is fitted up with a wealth of carving, gilding, sculpture, &c., which +can hardly be imagined. The scenes were painted expressly in aid of the +"Guild," and admirably done. The Duke's private band played before and +between the acts, and nothing had been spared on his part to render the +entertainment a pleasant one. Every seat was filled, and, at $10 each +and no expenses out, a handsome sum must have been realized in aid of +the benevolent enterprise. + +The male performers, as is well understood, are all Literary amateurs; +the ladies alone being actresses by profession. Charles Dickens had the +principal character--that of a profligate though sound-hearted young +Lord--and he played it very fairly. But stateliness sits ill upon him, +and incomparably his best scene was one wherein he appears in disguise +as a bookseller tempting the virtue of a poverty-stricken author. +Douglas Jerrold was for the nonce a young Mr. Softhead, and seemed quite +at home in the character. It was better played than Dickens's. The +residue were indifferently good--or rather, indifferently bad--and on +the whole the performance was indebted for its main interest to the +personal character of the performers. I was not sorry when it was +concluded. + +After a brief interval for refreshments, liberally proffered, a comic +afterpiece, "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," was given with far greater +spirit. Dickens personated the principal character--or rather, the four +or five principal characters--for the life of the piece is sustained by +his appearance successively as a lawyer, a servant, a vigorous and +active gentleman relieved of his distempers by water-cure, a feeble +invalid, &c., &c. It is long since I saw much acting of any account, but +this seemed to me perfect; and I am sure the raw material of a capital +comedian was put to a better use when Charles Dickens took to +authorship. The other characters were fairly presented, and the play +heartily enjoyed throughout. + +The curtain fell about half an hour past midnight amidst tumultuous and +protracted applause. The company then mainly repaired to the supper +room, where a tempting display of luxuries and dainties was provided for +them by the munificence of their noble host. I did not venture to +partake at that hour, but those who did would be quite unlikely to +repent of it--till morning. Thence they were gradually moving off to +another superb apartment, where the violins were beginning to give note +of coming melody, to which flying feet were eager to respond; but I +thought one o'clock in the morning quite late enough for retiring, and +so came away before the first set was made up. I do not doubt the +dancing was maintained with spirit till broad daylight. + + +THE FISHMONGERS' DINNER. + +A sumptuous entertainment was given on Wednesday (last) evening by the +"Ancient and Honorable Company of Fishmongers"--this being their regular +annual festival. The Fishmongers' is among the oldest and wealthiest of +the Guilds of London, having acquired, by bequest or otherwise, real +estate which has been largely enhanced in value by the city's extension. +Originally an association of actual fishmongers for mutual service as +well as the cultivation of good fellowship, it has been gradually +transformed by Time's changes until now no single dealer in fish (I +understood) stands enrolled among its living members, and no fish is +seen within the precincts of its stately Hall save on feast-days like +this. Still, as its rents are ample, its privileges valuable, its +charities bounteous, its dinners superlative, its cellars stored with +ancient wines, and its leaning decided toward modern ideas, its roll of +members is well filled. Most of them are city men extensively engaged in +business, two or three of the City's Members of Parliament being among +them. There were perhaps a dozen Members present, including Lord +Palmerston, Foreign Secretary of State, and Joseph Hume, the +world-known Economist. The chair was filled by "Sir John Easthope, Prime +Warden." The chairmen of the several Juries at the Exhibition were among +the guests. + +Having recently described the Dinner to the Foreign Commissioners at +Richmond, I can dispatch this more summarily, only noting what struck me +as novel. Suffice it that the company, three hundred strong, was duly +seated, grace said, the dinner served, and more than two hours devoted +to its consumption. It was now ten o'clock, and Lord Palmerston, who was +expected to speak and reputed to be rarely gifted with fluency, was +obliged to leave for the Queen's Concert. Up to this time, no man had +been plied with more than a dozen kinds of wine, each (I presume) very +good, but altogether (I should suppose) calculated to remind the drinker +of his head on rising in the morning. The cloth was now removed and +after-grace sung by a choir, for even _with_ two prayers this sort of +omnivorous feasting at night is not quite healthy. I trust there is no +presumption involved in the invocation of a blessing on such +indulgences, yet I could imagine that an omission of one of the prayers +might be excused if half the dinner were omitted also. + +But the eatables were removed, silence restored, and three enormous +flagons, apparently of pure gold, placed on the table near its head. The +herald or toast-master now loudly made proclamation: "My Lord Viscount +Ebrington, my Lord de Mauley, Baron Charles Dupin (&c. &c., reciting the +names and titles of all the guests), the honorable Prime Warden, the +junior Wardens and members of the ancient and honorable Company of +Fishmongers bid you welcome to their hospitable board, and in token +thereof beg leave to drink your healths"--whereupon the Prime-Warden +rose, bowing courteously to his right-hand neighbor (who rose also), and +proceeded to drink his health, wiping with his napkin the rim of the +flagon, and passing it to the neighbor aforesaid, who in turn bowed and +drank to _his_ next neighbor and passed the wine in like manner, and so +the flagons made the circuit of the tables. Then the festive board was +re-covered with decanters, and the intellectual enjoyments of the +evening commenced, the vinous not being intermitted. + +The toasts were, "The Queen," "Prince Albert and the Royal Family," "The +Foreign Commissioners to the World's Exhibition," "The Royal +Commissioners," "The Army and Navy," "The House of Lords," "The House of +Commons," "The Health of the Prime Warden," "Civil and Religious +Liberty," "The Ministry," "The Bank of England," &c. The responsive +speeches were made by Baron Dupin for the Foreign Commissioners, Earl +Granville for the Royal ditto, Lord de Mauley for the Peers, Viscount +Ebrington for the Commons, Gen. Sir Hugh de Lacy Evans for the Army, +Solicitor General Wood (in the absence of Lord Palmerston) for the +Ministry, the Deputy-Governor in behalf of the Governor of the Bank of +England, Dr. Lushington in response to Civil and Religious Liberty, and +so on. When Baron Dupin rose to respond for the Foreign Commissioners, +they all rose and stood while he spoke, and so in turn with the Royal +Commissioners, Members of the House of Commons, &c. Earl Granville's was +the most amusing, Dr. Lushington's the most valuable speech of the +evening. It briefly glanced at past struggles in modern times for the +extension of Freedom in England, and hinted at similar struggles to +come, pointing especially to Law Reform. Dr. L. is a very earnest +speaker, and has won a high rank at the Bar and in public confidence. + +I was more interested, however, in the remarks of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, +author of "Ion," and of Sir James Brooke, "Rajah of Sarawak" (Borneo, E. +I.), who spoke at a late hour in reply to a personal allusion. I do not +mean that Mr. Talfourd's remarks especially impressed me, for they did +not, but I was glad of this opportunity of hearing him. The Rajah is a +younger and more vivacious man than I had fancied him, rather ornate in +manner, and spoke (unlike an Englishman) with more fluency than force, +in self-vindication against the current charge of needless cruelty in +the destruction of a nest of pirates in the vicinity of his Oriental +dominions. From reading, I had formed the opinion that he is doing a +good work for Civilization and Humanity in Borneo, but this speech did +not strengthen my conviction. + +Farther details would only be tedious. Enough that the Fishmongers' +Dinner ended at midnight, when all quietly and steadily departed. In +"the good old days," I presume a considerable proportion both of hosts +and guests would by this time have been under the table. Let us rejoice +over whatever improvement has been made in social habits and manners, +and labor to extend it. + + + + +XII. + +THE FLAX-COTTON REVOLUTION. + + + LONDON, Wednesday, June 4, 1851. + +Although I have not yet found time for a careful and thorough +examination of the machinery and processes recently invented or adopted +in Europe for the manufacture of cheap fabrics from Flax, I have seen +enough to assure me of their value and importance. I have been +disappointed only with regard to machinery for Flax-Dressing, which +seems, on a casual inspection, to be far less efficient than the best on +our side of the Atlantic, especially that patented of late in Missouri +and Kentucky. That in operation in the British Machinery department of +the Exhibition does its work faultlessly, except that it turns out the +product too slowly. I roughly estimate that our Western machines are at +least twice as efficient. + +M. CLAUSSEN is here, and has kindly explained to me his processes and +shown me their products. He is no inventor of Flax-dressing Machinery at +all, and claims nothing in that line. In dressing, he adopts and uses the +best machines he can find, and I think is destined to receive important +aid from American inventions. What he claims is mainly the discovery of a +cheap chemical solvent of the Flax fiber, whereby its coarseness and +harshness are removed and the fineness and softness of Cotton induced in +their stead. This he has accomplished. Some of his Flax-Cotton is scarcely +distinguishable from the Sea Island staple, while to other samples he has +given the character of Wool very nearly. I can imagine no reason why this +Cotton should not be spun and woven as easily as any other. The staple may +be rendered of any desired length, though the usual average is about two +inches. It is as white as any Cotton, being made so by an easy and cheap +bleaching process. M. Claussen's process in lieu of Rotting requires but +three hours for its completion. It takes the Flax as it came from the +field, only somewhat dryer and with the seed beaten off, and renders it +thoroughly fit for breaking. The plant is allowed to ripen before it is +harvested, so that the seed is all saved, while the tediousness and injury +to the fiber, not to speak of the unwholesomeness, of the old-fashioned +Rotting processes are entirely obviated. Where warmth is desirable in the +fabrics contemplated, the staple is made to resemble Wool quite closely. +Specimens dyed red, blue, yellow, &c., are exhibited, to show how readily +and satisfactorily the Flax-Cotton takes any color that may be desired. +Beside these lie rolls of Flannels, Feltings, and almost every variety of +plain textures, fabricated wholly or in good part from Flax as prepared +for Spinning under M. Claussen's patent, proving the adaptation of this +fiber to almost every use now subserved by either Cotton or Wool. The +mixtures of Cotton and Flax, Flax-Cotton and Wool, are excellent and +serviceable fabrics. + +The main question still remains to be considered--will it _pay_? Flax +may be grown almost anywhere--two or three crops a year of it in some +climates--a crop of it equal to three times the present annual product +of Cotton, Flax and Wool all combined could easily be produced even next +year. But unless cheaper fabrics, all things considered, can be produced +from Flax-Cotton than from the Mississippi staple, this fact is of +little worth. On this vital point I must of course rely on testimony, +and M. Claussen's is as follows: + +He says the Flax-straw, or the ripe, dry plant as it comes from the +field, with the seed taken off, may be grown even here for $10 per tun, +but he will concede its cost for the present to be $15 per tun, +delivered, as it is necessary that liberal inducements shall be given +for its extensive cultivation. Six tuns of the straw or flax in the +bundle will yield one tun of dressed and clean fiber, the cost of +dressing which by his methods, so as to make it Flax Cotton, is $35 per +tun. (Our superior Western machinery ought considerably to reduce this.) +The total cost of the Flax-Cotton, therefore, will be $125 per tun or +six cents per pound, while Flax-straw as it comes from the field is +worth $15 per tun; should this come down to $10 per tun, the cost of the +fiber will be reduced to $95 per tun, or less than five cents per pound. +At that rate, good "field-hands" must be rather slow of sale for +Cotton-planting at $1,000 each, or even $700. + +Is there any doubt that Flax-straw may be profitably grown in the United +States for $15 or even $10 per tun? Consider that Flax has been +extensively grown for years, even in our own State, for the seed only, +the straw being thrown out to rot and being a positive nuisance to the +grower. Now the seed is morally certain to command, for two or three +years at least, a higher price than hitherto, because of the increased +growth and extended use of the fiber. Let no farmer who has Flax growing +be tempted to sell the seed by contract or otherwise for the present; +let none be given over to the tender mercies of oil-mills. We shall need +all that is grown this year for sowing next Spring, and it is morally +certain to bear a high price even this Fall. The sagacious should +caution their less watchful neighbors on this point. I shall be +disappointed if a bushel of Flax-seed be not worth two bushels of Wheat +in most parts of our Country next May. + +Our ensuing Agricultural Fairs, State and local, should be improved for +the diffusion of knowledge and the attainment of concert and mutual +understanding with regard to the Flax-Culture. For the present, at any +rate, few farmers can afford or will choose to incur the expense of the +heavy machinery required to break and roughly dress their flax, so as to +divest it of four-fifths of its bulk and leave the fiber in a state for +easy transportation to the central points at which Flax-Cotton machinery +may be put in operation. If the Flax-straw has to be hauled fifty or +sixty miles over country roads to find a purchaser or breaking-machine, +the cost of such transportation will nearly eat up the proceeds. If the +farmers of any township can be assured beforehand that suitable +machinery will next Summer be put up within a few miles of them, and a +market there created for their Flax, its growth will be greatly +extended. And if intelligent, energetic, responsible men will now turn +their thoughts toward the procuring and setting up of the best +Flax-breaking machinery (not for fully dressing but merely for +separating the fibre from the bulk of the woody substance it incloses) +they may proceed to make contracts with their neighboring farmers for +Flax-straw to be delivered in the Autumn of next year on terms highly +advantageous to both parties. The Flax thus roughly dressed may be +transported even a hundred miles to market at a moderate cost, and there +can be no reasonable doubt of its commanding a good price. M. Claussen +assures me that he could now buy and profitably use almost any quantity +of such Flax if it were to be had. The only reason (he says) why there +are not now any number of spindles and looms running on Flax-Cotton is +the want of the raw material. (His patent is hardly yet three mouths +old.) Taking dressed and hetcheled Flax, worth seven to nine cents per +pound, and transforming it into Flax-Cotton while Cotton is no higher +than at present, would not pay. + +Of course, there will be disappointments, mistakes, unforeseen +difficulties, disasters, in Flax-growing and the consequent fabrications +hereafter as heretofore. I do not presume that every man who now rushes +into Flax will make his fortune; I presume many will incur losses. I +counsel and urge the fullest inquiry, the most careful calculations, +preliminary to any decisive action. But that such inquiry will lead to +very extensive Flax-sowing next year,--to the erection of Flax-breaking +machinery at a thousand points where none such have ever yet +existed--and ultimately to the firm establishment of new and most +important branches of industry, I cannot doubt. Our own country is +better situated than any other to take the lead in the Flax-business; +her abundance of cheap, fertile soil and of cheap seed, the intelligence +of her producers, the general diffusion of water or steam power, and our +present superiority in Flax-breaking machinery, all point to this +result. It will be unfortunate alike for our credit and our prosperity +if we indolently or heedlessly suffer other nations to take the lead in +it. + +_P. S._--M. Claussen has also a Circular Loom in the Exhibition, wherein +Bagging, Hosiery, &c., may be woven without a seam or anything like one. +This loom may be operated by a very light hand-power (of course, steam +or water is cheaper), and it does its work rapidly and faultlessly. I +mention this only as proof of his inventive genius, and to corroborate +the favorable impression he made on me. I have seen nothing more +ingenious in the immense department devoted to British Machinery than +this loom. + +I understand that overtures have been made to M. Claussen for the +purchase of his American patent, but as yet without definite result. +This, however, is not material. Whether the patent is sold or held, +there will next year be parties ready to buy roughly dressed Flax to +work up under it, and it is preparation to grow such Flax that I am +urging. I believe nothing more important or more auspicious to our +Farming Interest has occurred for years than this discovery by M. +Claussen. He made it in Brazil, while engaged in the growth of Cotton. +It will not supersede Cotton, but it will render it no longer +indispensable by providing a substitute equally cheap, equally +serviceable, and which may be grown almost everywhere. This cannot be +realized too soon. + + + + +XIII. + +LEAVING THE EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Friday, June 6, 1851. + +The great "Exposition" (as the French more accurately term it) has now +been more than five weeks open, and is nearly complete. You may wander +for miles through its richly fringed avenues without hearing the sound +of saw or hammer, except in the space allotted to Russia, which is now +boarded up on all sides, and in which some twenty or thirty men are at +work erecting stands, unpacking and arranging fabrics, &c. I visited it +yesterday, and inferred that the work is pushed night and day, since a +part of the workmen were asleep (under canvas) at 2 o'clock. This +apartment promises to be most attractive when opened to the public. Its +contents will not be numerous, but among them are very large and showy +manufactures of Porcelain, Bronze, &c., and tables of the finest +Malachite, a single piece weighing (I think) nearly or quite half a ton. +Not half the wares are yet displayed, but "Russia" will be the center of +attraction for some days after it is thrown open. + +The Exhibition has become a steady, business-like concern. The four +"shilling days" of each week are improved and enjoyed by the common +people, who quietly put to shame the speculation of the Aristocratic +oracles as to their probable behavior in such a magazine of wealth and +splendor--whether they might not make a general rush on the precious +stones, plate and other valuables here staring them in the face, with +often but a single policeman in sight--whether they might not refuse to +leave at the hour of closing, &c., &c. The gates are surrounded a little +before ten in the morning by a gathering, deepening crowd, but all +friendly and peaceable; and when they open at the stroke of the clock, a +dense column pours in through each aperture, each paying his shilling as +he passes (no tickets being used and no change given--the holders of +season, jurors' and exhibitors' tickets have separate entrances), and +all proceeding as smoothly as swiftly. Within half an hour, ten thousand +shillings will have thus been taken: within the next hour, ten thousand +more; thence the admissions fall off; but the number ranges pretty +regularly from Forty to Fifty Thousand per day, making the daily +receipts from $10,000 to $12,000. Yesterday was a great Race Day at +Ascot, attended by the Queen and Royal Family, as also by most of the +habitual idlers, with a multitude beside (and a miserably raw, rainy, +chilly day they had of it, with very poor racing), yet I should say that +the attendance at the Exhibition was greater than ever before. Certainly +not less than fifty thousand shillings, or $12,000, can have been taken. +For hours, the Grand Avenue, which is nearly or quite half a mile long +and at least thirty feet wide, was so filled with the moving mass that +no vacant spaces could be seen from any position commanding an extensive +prospect, though small ones were occasionally discoverable while +threading the mazes of the throng. The visiters were constantly turning +off into one or another department according to their several tastes; +but their places were as constantly supplied either by new-comers or by +those who, having completed their examinations in one department, were +hastening to another, or looking for one especially attractive. Turn +into whatever corner you might, there were clusters of deeply interested +gazers, intent on making the most of their day and their shilling, while +in the quieter nooks from 1 to 3 o'clock might be seen families or +parties eating the lunch which, with a prophetic foresight of the +miserable quality and exorbitant price of the viands served to you in +the spacious Refreshment Saloons, they had wisely brought from home. But +these saloons were also crowded from an early to a late hour, as they +are almost every day, and I presume the concern which paid a high price +for the exclusive privilege of ministering to the physical appetites +within the Crystal Palace will make a fortune by it, though the +interdiction of Wines and Liquors must prove a serious drawback. It must +try the patience of some of the visiters to do without their beer or ale +from morning to night; and if you leave the building on any pretext, +your shilling is gone. Every actual need of the day is provided for +inside, even to the washing of face and hands (price 2d.). But Night +falls, and the gigantic hive is deserted and closed, leaving its fairy +halls, its infinite wealth, its wondrous achievements, whether of Nature +or of Art, to darkness and silence. Of course, a watch is kept, and, +under pressing and peculiar circumstances, work has been permitted; but +the treasures here collected must be guarded with scrupulous vigilance. +If a fire should consume the Crystal Palace, the inevitable loss must +exceed One Hundred Millions of Dollars, even supposing that a few of the +most precious articles should be snatched from the swift destruction. +Ten minutes without wind, or five with it, would suffice to wrap the +whole immense magazine in flames, and not a hundredth part of the value +of building and contents would remain at the close of another hour. + + +POPULAR EDUCATION. + +The Exhibition is destined to contribute immensely to the Industrial and +Practical Education of the British People. The cheap Excursion Trains +from the Country have hardly commenced running yet; but it is certain +that a large proportion of the mechanics, artisans and apprentices of +the manufacturing towns and districts will spend one or two days each in +the Palace before it closes. Superficial as such a view of its contents +must be, it will have important results. Each artisan will naturally be +led to compare the products of his own trade with those in the same line +from other Nations, especially the most successful, and will be +stimulated to discern and master the point wherein his own and his +neighbor's efforts have hitherto comparatively failed. Of a million who +come to gaze, only an hundred thousand may come with any clear idea of +profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back +more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army; +and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing +such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it, +cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more +fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here +demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; and the simple +adaptation of the forces now attained, the principles established, the +machines already invented, to all the beneficent uses of which they are +capable, would speedily transform the Industrial and Social condition of +mankind. I am perfectly satisfied, for example, that Boots and Shoes may +be cut out and made up by machinery with less than one-fourth the labor +now required--that this would require no absolutely new inventions, but +only an adaptation of those already well known. So in other departments +of Industry. There is no reason for continuing to sew plain seams on +thick cloth by hand, when machinery can do the work even better and +twenty times as fast. I shall be disappointed if this Exhibition be not +speedily followed by immense advances in Labor-Saving Machinery, +especially in this country. + +But out of the domain of Industry, British Progress in Popular Education +is halting and partial. And the chief obstacle is not a want of means, +nor even niggardliness; for the Nation is wealthy, sagacious and +public-spirited. I think the influential classes generally, or at least +very extensively, realize that a well managed system of Common Schools, +supported by taxation on Property, would save more in diminishing the +burthen of Pauperism than it would cost. I believe the Ministry feel +this. And yet Mr. Fox's motion looking to such a system was voted down +in the House of Commons by some three to one, the Ministry and their +reliable supporters vieing with the Tories in opposing it! So the Nation +is thrown back on the wretched shift of Voluntaryism, or Instruction for +the poor and ignorant children to be provided, directed and paid for by +their poor, ignorant and often vicious parents, with such help and +guidance as self-constituted casual associations may see fit to give +them. The result is and will be what it ever has been and must be--the +virtual denial of Education to a great share of the rising generation. + +For this suicidal crime, I hold the Episcopal and Roman Catholic +Priesthoods mainly responsible, but especially the former. If they would +only stand out of the way, a system of efficient Common Schools for the +whole Nation might be speedily established. But they will not permit it. +By insisting that no Nationally directed and supported system shall be +put in operation which does not recognize and affirm the tenets of their +respective creeds, they render the adoption of any such system +impossible. They see this; they know it; they _mean_ it. And nothing +moves me to indignation quicker than their stereotyped cant of "Godless +education," "teaching infidelity," "knowledge worthless or dangerous +without Religion," &c. &c. Why, Sirs, it is very true that the People +need Religious as well as purely Intellectual culture, but the former +has been already provided for. You clergymen of the Established Church +have been richly endowed and beneficed expressly for this work--_why +don't you_ DO _it?_ Why do you stand here darkening and +stopping the gateway of secular instruction with a self-condemning +assumption that your own duties have been and are criminally neglected, +and that therefore others shall likewise remain unperformed? Teach the +children as much Religion as you can; very few of you ever lack pupils +when you give your hearts to the work; and if they prove less apt or +less capable learners because they have been taught reading, writing, +grammar, geography and arithmetic in secular schools, it argues some +defect in your theology or its teachers. If you really wanted the +children taught Religious truth, you would be right glad to have them +taught letters and other rudimental lessons elsewhere, so as to be +fitted to apprehend and retain your inculcations. It should suffice for +the condemnation of all Established Churches ever more, that the +State-paid Priesthood of Great Britain is to-day the chief impediment to +a system of Common Schools throughout the British Isles. + +The Catholic Clergy have more excuse. They, too unite in the +impracticable requirement that the dogmas of their Church shall be +taught in the schools attended by Catholic children, when they ought to +teach them these dogmas out of School-hours, and be content that no +antagonist dogmas are taught in the secular Schools. But _they_ receive +nothing from the State, and have good reason to regard it as hostile to +their faith, therefore to suspect its purposes and watch narrowly its +movements. If they would only take care to have a good system of Common +School Education established and efficiently sustained in Spain, +Portugal, Italy, Mexico, and other Countries wherein they are the +conscience-keepers of the great majority and practically omnipotent in +the sphere of moral and social effort, I could better excuse their +unfortunate attitude here. As it is, the difference between them and +their State-paid rivals here seems one of position rather than of +principle. And, in spite of either or both, this generation will yet see +Common Schools free and universal throughout this realm. But even a year +seems long to wait for it. + + +TOWN GOSSIP. + +Preparations are on foot for a grand banquet at Birmingham to the Royal +Commissioners, the Foreign Commissioners and the Jurors at the +Exhibition, to take place on or about the 16th. This is to be followed +by one still more magnificent given by the Mayor and Council of London, +which the Queen is expected to attend. The East India Company give one +to-morrow evening, but I hope then to be in France, as I intend to leave +for Paris to-morrow. The advertisements promise to put us "through in +eleven hours" by the quickest and dearest route. Others take twice as +many. + +Miss CATHARINE HAYES, a Vocalist of European reputation, who sang the +last winter mainly in Rome, means to visit America in September. She is +here ranked very high in her profession, and profoundly esteemed and +respected in private life. I have heard her but once, having had but two +evenings' leisure for public entertainments since I came here. There is +but one Jenny Lind, but Miss Hayes need not shrink from a comparison with +any other singer. She is very highly commended by the best Musical critics +of London. I cannot doubt that America will ratify their judgment. + +We have had tolerably fair, pleasant weather for some time until the +last two days, when clouds, chilly winds and occasional rain have +returned. The "oldest inhabitant" don't remember just such weather at +this season--as he probably observed last June. I shall gladly leave it +for dryer air and brighter skies. + + + + +XIV. + +LONDON TO PARIS. + + + PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851. + +I left London Bridge at 11½ on Saturday for this City, via South-Eastern +Railway to Dover, Steamboat to Calais and Railroad again to Paris. This +is the dearest and quickest route between the two capitals, and its +advertisements promised for $13½ to take us "Through in Eleven Hours," +which was a lie, as is quite usual with such promises. We came on quite +rapidly to Dover--a very mean, old town--but there lost about an hour in +the transfer of our baggage to the steamboat, which was one of those +long, black, narrow scow contrivances, about equal to a buttonwood +"dug-out," which England appears to delight in. They would not be +tolerated as ferry-boats on any of our Western rivers, yet they are made +to answer for the conveyance of Mails and Passengers across an arm of +the sea on the most important route in Europe. In this wretched concern, +which was too insignificant to be slow, we went cobbling and wriggling +across the Channel (27 miles) in something less than two hours, often +one gunwale nearly under water and the other ten or twelve feet above +it, with no room under deck for half our passengers, and the spray +frequently dashing over those above it, three fourths of the whole +number deadly sick (this individual of course included), when with a +decent boat the passage might be regularly made, in spite of such a +smartish breeze as we encountered, in comparative comfort. Perhaps we +felt glad enough on reaching the shore to pay for this needless misery, +and I readily believe that an hour or two of sea-sickness may be harshly +wholesome, yet I do think that a good boat on such a route might well be +afforded and cannot reputably be withheld. That part of England through +which we passed on this route is much like that I have already described +on the other side of London. The face of the country is very moderately +undulating; there is a fair proportion of trees and shrubbery, though no +considerable forest that I noticed; perhaps an eighth of the land may be +sowed with Wheat, but Grass is the general staple. I should say three +fourths of all the land in sight from this railway is covered with it, +while very little is planted or devoted to gardening after the few miles +next to London. Hops engross considerable attention, and I presume pay +well, being demanded by the national addiction to beer drinking. Still, +Grass, Cattle and Sheep are the Staples; and these require so much less +human labor per acre than Grain and Vegetables that I cannot see how the +rural, laboring population can find adequate employment or subsistence. +It looks as though the gradual substitution of Grass for Grain since the +repeal of the Corn-laws must deprive a large portion of the best British +peasantry of work, compelling them to emigrate to America or Australia +for a subsistence. Such emigration is already very active, and must +increase if the present low prices of Breadstuffs prove permanent. + +I was again disappointed in seeing so little attention to Fruit Culture. +I know this is not the Fruit region of England, but the destitution of +fruit trees is quite universal. Since it is plain that an acre of choice +Apple trees will yield at least a hundred bushels of palatable food, +with little labor, and grass enough beside to pay for all the care it +requires, I cannot see why Fruit is so neglected. The peach, I hear, +does poorly throughout the kingdoms, requiring extra shelter and +sunshine, yet yielding indifferent fruit in return, which is reason +enough for neglecting it; but the Apple is hardier, and does well in +other localities no more genial than this. I think it has been unwisely +slighted. + +An important and profitable business, I think, might be built up in our +country in the production of Dried Fruits, especially peaches, and their +exportation to Europe, or at any rate to England. I was among those who +"sat at good men's feasts," both rich and poor (the men, not the +feasts), during the six weeks I was in England, yet I cannot remember +that Dried Apples or Peaches were ever an element of the repast, though +Gooseberries, Rhubarb, Raisins, Currants, &c., are abundantly resorted +to. If some American of adequate capital and capacity would embark in +the growth and curing of Apples, Peaches, &c., expressly for the English +market, drying them perfectly, preparing them with scrupulous neatness, +and putting them up in clean wooden boxes of twenty-five, fifty and one +hundred pounds, I think he might do well by it. For such a purpose, +cheap lands and cheap labor (that of aged persons and young children) +might be made available, while in years of bountiful Peach harvests, +like the last, even New-Jersey and Delaware could be drawn upon for an +extra supply. The miscellaneous exportation of any Dried Fruits that +might happen to be on the market would probably involve loss, because +time and expenditure are required to make these products known to the +great majority of British consumers, and assure them that the article +offered them has been prepared with scrupulous cleanliness. With proper +exertion and outlay, I believe an advantageous market might thus be +opened for several Millions' worth of American products of which little +or nothing is now known in Europe. + +We were detained a long hour in Calais--a queer old town, with little +trade and only a historical importance--although our baggage was not +examined there, but sealed up for custom-house scrutiny at Paris. They +made a few dollars out of us by charging for extra baggage, one of them +out of me, though my trunk contained only clothing and three or four +books. Small business this for a Railroad, though it will do in stage +transportation. Our passports were scrutinized--mine not very +thoroughly--we (the green ones) obtained an execrable dinner for 37½ +cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which +was not atrocious. Finally, we were all let go. + +The face of the country inland from Calais is flat and marshy--more like +Holland, as we conceive it, than like England or France. Of course, the +railroad avoids the higher ground, but I did not see a cliff nor steep +acclivity until darkness closed us in, though some moderate hills were +visible from time to time, mainly on the right. Here, too, as across the +Channel, Grass largely predominated, but I think there was a greater +breadth of Wheat. I saw very few Fruit-trees, though much more growing +Timber than I had expected, from the representations I had read of the +treeless nakedness of the French soil. I think trees are as abundant for +fifty miles southward from Calais as in any part of England, but they +are mainly Elms and Willows, scarcely an orchard anywhere, and of course +no vineyards, for the Grape loves a more Southern sun. The cultivation +is scarcely equal to the English, though not strikingly inferior, and +the evidences of a minute subdivision of the soil are often palpable. +Fences are very rare, save along the sides of the railway; ditches serve +their purpose near Calais, and nothing at all answers afterward. I +presume wood becomes much scarcer as we approach Paris, but darkness +forbade observation. + +By the terms of the enticing advertisement, we should have been here at +10½ P. M., but, though we met with none other than the ordinary +detentions, it was half-past two on Sunday morning when we actually +reached the station at the barrier of the city. Here commenced the +custom-house search, and I must say it was conducted with perfect +propriety and commendable energy, though with determined rigor. Our +trunks and valises were all arranged on a long table according to the +numbers affixed to them respectively at Calais, and each, being opened +by its owner, was searched in its turn, and immediately surrendered, if +found "all right." I had been required to pay smartly on my books at +Liverpool, though nobody could have suspected that they were for any +other than my own use; so I left most of them at London and had no +difficulty here. [One unlucky wight, who had pieces of linen in his +trunk, had to see them taken out and put safely away for farther +consideration.] I did not at first comprehend that the number on my +trunk, standing out fair before me in honest, unequivocal Arabic +figures, could possibly mean anything but "fifty-two," but a friend +cautioned me in season that those figures spelled "cinquante-deux," or +phonetically "sank-on-du" to the officer, and I made my first attempt at +mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself +intelligible. + +It was fair daylight when we left the railway station for our various +destinations. Mine was the "Hotel Choiseul," Rue St. Honoré, which had +been warmly commended to me, and where I managed to stop _pro tem._ +though there was not an unoccupied bed in the house. Paris, by the way, +is quite full--scarcely a room to be had in any popular hotel, and, +where any is to be found, the price is very high or the accommodations +quite humble. London, on the contrary, where the keepers of hotels and +lodging-houses had been induced to expect a grand crush, and had +aggravated their prices accordingly, is comparatively empty. Thousands +after thousands go there, but few remain for any time; consequently the +hotels make what money is spent, while the boarding and lodging-houses +are often tenantless. Many sharp landladies have driven away their old +lodgers to the Country or the Continent by exorbitant charges, in the +hope of extorting many times as much from visiters to the Exhibition; +and have thus far been bitterly disappointed. I presume it will be so to +the end. Sixty thousand people are as many as the Crystal Palace will +comfortably hold, in addition to its wares and their attendants, and +these make no impression on the vast capacity of London, while they go +away as soon as they have satisfied their curiosity and ceased to attend +the Fair, giving place to others, who require no more room than they +did. I suspect theirs are not the only calculations which will be +disappointed by the ultimate issues of the World's Exhibition. + + +THE MADELEINE. + +My first day in Paris was Sunday, so, after breakfast, I repaired to the +famous modern Church of the Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in +Europe. This was the day of Pentecost, and fitly commemorated by the +Church. The spacious edifice was filled in every part, though at least a +thousand went out at the close of the earlier service, before the +attendance was fullest. + +I think I was never in a place of worship so gorgeous as this. Over the +main altar there is a magnificent picture on the largest scale, +purporting to represent the Progress of Civilization from Christ's day +to Bonaparte's, Napoleon being the central figure in the foreground, +while the Saviour and the Virgin Mary occupy a similar position in the +rear. In every part, the Church is very richly and I presume tastefully +ornamented. + +I did not comprehend the service, and cannot intelligibly describe it. +The bowings and genuflexions, the swinging of censers and ringing of +bells, the frequent appearance and disappearance of a band of gorgeously +dressed priests or assistants bearing what looked like spears, were +"inexplicable dumb show" to me, and most of them unlike anything I +remember to have seen in American Catholic Churches. The music was +generally fine, especially that of a chorus of young boys, and the +general bearing of the people in attendance, that of reverence and +interest. + + "Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds, + With all who send up holy thoughts on high." + +But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of +several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents +for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of +the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded +the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have +been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one +o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may +have been one afterward. + + + + +XV. + +THE FUTURE OF FRANCE. + + + PARIS, Wednesday, June 11, 1851. + +"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a +question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not +of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even +fettered and stifled as the Republic now is--a shorn and blind Samson in +the toils of the Philistines--it is still a potent fact, and its very +name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who +are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the +debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French +Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the +Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his +vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,--it is the overthrow of the French +Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which +engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout +Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general +aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably +moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility, +only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as +Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to +be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far +sooner see her bloody, turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest +than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton, +Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the +Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully +pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or +Lamartine. + +While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by +the Press and readily credited as well as diffused by the fortunate +classes with regard to the deplorable condition of France and the +absolute necessity existing for some radical change in her Government. +"O yes, you get along very well with a Republic in the United States, +where you had cheap lands, a vast and fertile wilderness, common schools +and a general reverence for Religion and Order to begin with; but just +look at France!"--such was and is a very general line of argument. If +the French had been equally divisible into felons, bankrupts, paupers +and lunatics, their hopeless state could hardly have been referred to +more compassionately. All this time France was substantially as tranquil +as England herself, and decidedly more prosperous, though annoyed and +impeded by the incessant plottings of traitors in her councils and other +exalted stations to resubject her to kingly sway. A thrifty, provident, +frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his +dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much +plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does; +but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and +the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade, +France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a +division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently +amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. The Californian +digs gold, which mainly comes to New-York in payment for goods; but on +that gold England has a mortgage running fast to maturity, for the goods +were in part bought of her and we owe her for Millions' worth beside. +But France has a similar mortgage on it for the Grain supplied to +England to feed the fabricators of the goods, and it has hardly reached +the Bank of England before it is on its way to Paris. A great share of +the golden harvests of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin +now find their resting-place here. + +"But what," asks a Say-Bastiat economist, "if they do? Isn't all +Commerce an exchange of equivalents? Must we not buy in order to sell? +Isn't Gold a commodity like any other? If our Imports exceed our +Exports, doesn't that prove that we are obtaining more for our Exports +than their estimated value?" &c. &c. &c. + +No, Sir! commerce is _not_ always an exchange of genuine equivalents. +The savage tribe which sells its hunting grounds and its ancestors' +graves for a few barrels of firewater, whereby its members are +debauched, diseased, rendered insanely furious, and set to cutting each +other's throats, receives no real equivalent for what it parts with. Nor +is it well for ever so civilized a people to be selling its Specie and +mortgaging its Lands and Houses for Silks, Liquors, Laces, Wines, +Spices, &c.--trading off the essential and imperishable for the +factitious and transitory--and so eating itself out of house and home. +The farmer who drinks up his farm at the cross-roads tavern may have +obtained "more for his exports" (of produce from his farm), than they +were worth in the market--at least, it would seem so from the fact that +he has run over head and ears in debt--but he has certainly done a +pernicious, a losing business. So does any Nation which buys more wares +and fabrics than its exports will pay for, and finds itself in debt at +the year's end for imports that it has eaten, drunk or worn out. The +thrifty household is the true model of the Nation. And, thus tested, +France, in spite of her enormous, locust-like Army and other relics of +past follies which the National mind is outgrowing though the Nation's +rulers still cling to them, is this day one of the most prosperous +countries on earth. + +But when I hear the aristocratic plotters talk of the necessity of a +Revision of the Constitution in order to restore to France tranquillity +and prosperity, I am moved not to mirth but to indignation. For these +plotters and their schemes are themselves the causes of the mischiefs +they affect to deplore and the dangers they pretend to be bent on +averting. Whatever is now feverish and ominous in French Politics grows +directly out of two great wrongs--the first positive and +accomplished--the law of the 31st May, whereby Three Millions of +Electors were disfranchised--the other contingent and meditated--the +overthrow of the Republic. All the agitation, the apprehension, the +uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the +last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the +Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented +discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and +bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy _might_ have done, had they +been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact +is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of +Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their +faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into +convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the +factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have +been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined, +watchful, intrepid attitude of the calumniated Democracy. + +The law of the 31st May still stands on the statute-book, and I +apprehend is destined to remain (though many who are better informed are +sanguine that it will be repealed before the next Presidential +Election), but the Republic will endure and its Constitution cannot be +overthrown. All the Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists in the +Assembly combined are insufficient to change the Constitution legally; +and if a bare majority sufficed for that purpose (instead of +three-fourths), they could not to-day command a working majority for any +practical measure of Revision. It is easy to club their votes and +vaguely declare _some_ change necessary--but _what_ change? A Bourbon +Restoration? An Orleans Middle-Class Royalty? A Napoleonic Empire? For +no one of these can a majority even of this Reäctionist Assembly be +obtained. What, then, is their chance with the People? + +As to the signing of Petitions for Revision, that is easily understood. +The Prefect, the Mayor, &c., of a locality readily procure the +signatures of all the Government _employés_ and hangers-on, who +constitute an immense army in France; the great manufacturers circulate +the petitions among their workmen, and most of them sign, not choosing +to risk their masters' displeasure for a mere name more or less to an +unmeaning paper. But the plotters know perfectly well that the People +are _not_ for Revision in _their_ sense of the word; if they did not +fear this, they would restore Universal Suffrage. By clinging with +desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually +confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of +Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they +prate, therefore, of _the people's_ desire for Revision, the Republican +retort is ready and conclusive--"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can +then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain +that law, you confess that you dare not abide the verdict of the whole +People. You appeal to a Jury which you have packed--one whose right to +try this question we utterly deny. Restore Universal Suffrage, and we +can then tell what the People really do wish and demand; but until you +do this, we shall resist every attempt to change the Constitution even +by as much as a hair." Who can doubt that this is right? + +"Therefore, Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily +says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army +will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a +Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout +the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; +the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the +popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. +It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be +attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread +the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are +on their side--that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed +to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, +are all for the Republic--that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an +Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique +is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain +Military officers, mainly relics of the Empire; the class includes a +good part of the lucky Parisian shop-keepers and Government _employés_ +during the reign of Louis Philippe; the party embraces the remnants of +the anti-Revolutionary Aristocracy, most of the influential Priesthood, +and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may +number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is +France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether +by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open +attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a +prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have +the same effect. Four years more of tranquil though nominal +Republicanism would only render a return to Monarchy more difficult; +wherefore the Royalist party will never assent to it, and without their +aid the project has no chance. To obtain that aid, "the Prince" must +secretly swear that after four years more he will turn France over to +Henry V.; this promise only the last extreme of desperation could extort +from him, and then to no purpose, since he could not fulfill it and the +Legitimists could not trust him. And thus, alike by its own strength and +by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured. + + + + +XVI. + +PARIS, SOCIAL AND MORAL. + + + PARIS, Thursday, June 12, 1851. + +A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen +a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built +around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is +entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the +minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining +their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of +goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of +the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most +celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue +Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and +"Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a +considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, +"restaurants," "cafés," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think +of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in +Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss +his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here +it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds +sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise +during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink +or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his +newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in +one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. +which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly +necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is +Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere +is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or +paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or +forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have +signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, +vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but +willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same +time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the +Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere +are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old +Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would +eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but +no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred +stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of +Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as +Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of +by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to +those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very +cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18¾ +cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the +comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is +very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is +scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor +girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a +man of wealth, or one who can support her in luxury and idleness, is +the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by +which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly +designated, involve the idea of demoralization--no man would apply them +to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In +no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so +great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else +is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of +London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris--that is, +they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in +view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active +there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. +Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and +Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, +and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with +that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to +strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in +the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself. + + +SIGHTS OF PARIS. + +The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the COLUMN OF NAPOLEON +in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning +of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, was formed of +cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories which +irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was Emperor +of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the pyramid; +it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and a resolute +attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too firmly +rooted. The Statue was not replaced till after the Revolution of 1830. +The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately +Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and +especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should +not regard it very highly. + +Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, +is the OBELISK OF LUXOR, which for thousands of years had overshadowed +the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of +Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the +Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed +me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious +inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand +years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but yesterday. The +removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from Egypt to Paris is +one of the most marvelous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for +me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor. + +The TUILERIES strikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with little +pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great capacity, and +nothing more. The LOUVRE is much finer, yet still not remarkable, but its +wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all time surprised as well as +delighted me. I never saw anything at all comparable to it. But of this +another time. + + +THE FRENCH OPERA. + + + PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851. + +Having the evening on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the +Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her +Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National +institution, but a National trait, and as such I visited it. + +The house is very spacious, admirably planned, superbly fitted up, and +every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience +large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their +business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's +"L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften +into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and +indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken +from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. +There were no great singers included in the cast for this evening, not +even Alboni who remains here, while most of her compeers are in London. +I am a poor judge, but I should say the music is not remarkable. + +This is a drama of Action and of Spectacle, however, to which the Music +is subordinate. Such a medley of drinking and praying, dancing and +devotion, idol-worship and Delilah-craft, I had not before encountered. +At least three hundred performers were at once on the stage. The +dancing-girls engaged were not less than one hundred in number, +apparently all between fourteen and eighteen years of age, generally +good-looking, and with that aspect of innocence and freshness to which +the Stage is so fatal. The most agile and eminent among them was a Miss +Plunkett, said to be an American, with a face of considerable beauty and +a winning, joyous manner. I should say that half the action of the +piece, nearly half the time, and more than half the attention of the +audience, were engrossed by these dancing demoiselles. + +France is the cradle and home of the Ballet. In other lands it is an +exotic, here a natural outgrowth and expression of the National mind. Of +the spirit which conceived it, here is the abode and the Opera Français +the temple; and here it has exerted its natural and unobstructed +influence on the manners and morals of a People. If you would comprehend +the Englishman, follow him to his fireside; if a Frenchman, join him at +the Opera and contemplate him during the performance of the Ballet. + +I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the Dance. Restricted to proper +hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. +Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. +Why the dancing of the Theater should be rendered disgusting, I can not +yet comprehend. The "poetry of motion," of harmonious evolutions and the +graceful movement of "twinkling feet," I think I appreciate. All these +are natural expressions of innocent gaiety and youthful elasticity of +spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more +of them. + +But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, +in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot +to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of +muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the +capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts and at the +cost of much suffering. Why is it kept on the stage? Admit that it is +not lascivious; who will pretend that it is essentially graceful? I was +glad to see that the more extravagant distortions were not specially +popular with the audience--that nearly all the applause bestowed on +those ballet-feats which seem devised only to favor a liberal display of +the person came from the little knot of hired "claqueurs" in the center +of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so +shameless as to applaud. + +If the Opera is ever to become an element of Social life and enjoyment +in New-York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may +take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do +not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one; I know +_this_ is not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency, is "earthly, +sensual, devilish." In none was the instinct of Purity ever strengthened +by beholding it; in many, it must, in the nature of things, be weakened +with each repetition of the spectacle. It is no marvel that the French +are reputed exceedingly reckless of the sanctions and obligations of +Marriage, if this is a part of their State-supported education. + +I came away at the close of the third act, leaving two more to be +performed. The play is transcendent in spectacle, and has had a very +great success here. + + + + +XVII. + +PARIS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. + + + PARIS, Sunday, June 15, 1851. + +I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing +in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic and the +restoration of Monarchy. Such prophets must belong essentially to that +school which teaches the omnipotence of paper Constitutions and dilates +with bristling hair on the appalling possibility that Washington, or +Hamilton, or Franklin, might not have been chosen to the Convention +which framed our Federal Constitution, and that Constitution +consequently have remained unperfected or unadopted. The true view I +understand to be that if the Constitution had thus failed to be +constructed in '87 or adopted in '88, the necessity for it would still +have existed, growing daily more urgent and palpable, so that Convention +after Convention would from time to time have been called, and sooner or +later a Constitution would have been elaborated and adopted; and the +longer this consummation was delayed the stronger and more controlling +the Constitution ultimately formed would have been. So with the French +Republic. It is simply an expression of the intellectual convictions and +social instincts of the French People. You meet it on the Boulevards and +in the cafés where the wealthy and luxurious most do congregate; your +cabman and boot-black, though perfectly civil and attentive, let you +understand, if you have eyes, that they are Republicans; while in the +quarters tenanted or frequented only by the Artisan and the Laborer you +meet none but devotees of "the Republic Democratic and Social." The +contrast between the abject servility of the Poor in London and their +manner here cannot be realized without actual observation. A hundred +Princes or illustrious Dukes in Paris would not attract as much +attention as any one of them would in London. Democracy triumphed in the +drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the +streets; and all subsequent efforts in behalf of Monarchy here have +produced and can produce only a fitful, spasmodic, unnatural life. If +three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have +not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will +be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the +immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate +ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange +Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary +caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other +than Republican, though the possessors of power, controlling the Press, +the Bureaux, the Assembly and the Army, may fancy that their personal +interests would be promoted by a less popular system, and so be seen for +a season following strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will +speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind. + +The immediate peril of the Republic is the Election of May, '52, in view +of the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the Democratic +voters, the manacled condition of the Press, the denial to the People of +the Right of Meeting for deliberation and concert, and the betrayal of +all the enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the +Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a +Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be +promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract +and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential +candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or +meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and +fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, +passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice +should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a +character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope +to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional +overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should +fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis +Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be no further apprehension. + +I hear, as from an official source, that there are now Three Thousand +Americans in Paris, most of them residing here for months, if not for +years. It gives me pleasure to state that, contrary to what I have often +heard of the bearing of our countrymen in Europe, a large majority of +these, so far as I may judge from meeting a good many and learning the +sentiments of more, are warmly and openly on the side of the Republic +and opposed to the machinations of the motley host who seek its +overthrow. + +The conviction of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' +imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in the _Evénement_ +in condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I +think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party +of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated +institution. The _Times'_ Paris correspondent, I perceive, takes up the +tale of Hugo's article having been calculated to expose the ministers of +the law to popular odium, and naively protests against a line of +argument by which "those who _execute_ the law are stigmatized as +_executioners_." I suppose we must call them _executors_ hereafter to +obviate the hardship complained of. How singular that those who glory in +the deed should shrink indignantly from the name? + +American attention will naturally be drawn to the recent debate in the +Assembly involving the principle of the _Higher Law_. The subject was a +bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as +clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a +nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical +conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier +solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert +menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets +and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of +France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a +"Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its +bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the +Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such +commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a +violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay +d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the +proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the +deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his +being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order," +having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very +little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further +discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the +tribune that _No one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it +would be wrong for him to do as a man_--that, no matter what human +rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of +God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order +to do so from any functionary or potentate whatever. The idea is a +fruitful one, and France is now pondering it. + +I attended divine worship to-day at NOTRE DAME, which seems to me not +only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. The +Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and +got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all +the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion +to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a +fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York +City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with +ample space and a rare position, which most of the Paris edifices want, +seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers +proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect surpassed. +It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less extensive. As a +place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, which has the +damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre Dame. I trust +no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, and on the +Sabbath if possible. + + +AMERICAN ART AND INDUSTRY--BRITISH JOURNALISM. + +Since I left London, _The Times_ has contained two Editorials on +American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require +comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general +tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the +London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds +of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the +people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are +now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the +whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous by attempting to do and +to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions +could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be +America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe +also, &c., &c. + + "It is the _attempt_, and not the _deed_, confounds me." + +But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our +countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the +production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been +content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently +invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their +art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if +they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here; +since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is +best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest +mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia, +have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands +have examined with eager and gratified interest--an interest as real as +that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe, +though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing +these products of a more primitive industry; all have welcomed and been +instructed by them. And so ours would have been treated had they been in +fact the wretched affairs which the London Commercial press has +represented them. It is precisely because they are quite otherwise that +it has been deemed advisable systematically to disparage them--to +declare our Pianos "gouty" structures--"mere wood and iron;" our +Calicoes beneath the acceptance of a British servant-girl; our Farming +Tools half a century behind their British rivals; our Hats "shocking +bad," &c., &c.,--all this, in the first months of the Exhibition, while +the Jurors appointed to judge and report upon the merits of rival +fabrics were making the requisite investigations. Their verdict is thus +substantially forestalled, and the millions who visit the Exhibition are +invited to look at the American department merely to note the bad taste +and incapacity therein displayed, and learn to avoid them. + +But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that +Art is not their province--that they should be content to grow Corn and +Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent +necessities, their secondary wants--are they impartial advisers? Are +they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of +Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would +they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were +really the miserable abortions they represent them? + +These indications of paternal care for American Industry, in danger of +being warped and misdirected, are not quite novel. An English friend +lately invited me to visit him at his house in the neighborhood of +Birmingham, holding out as an inducement the opportunity of inspecting +the great Iron and Hardware manufactories in that neighborhood. A moment +afterward he recollected himself and said, "I am not quite sure that I +could procure you admittance to them, because the rule has been that +_Americans were not to be admitted_. Gentlemen taking their friends to +visit these works were asked, at the door, 'Is your friend an American?' +and if the answer was affirmative, he was not allowed to enter--but I +think this restriction has been generally abrogated." Here you see, was +a compassionate regard for American Industry, in danger of being misled +and deluded into unprofitable employments, which neither The Times nor +any of its co-laborers has been able to more than humbly imitate. + +To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than the intimation that, in +attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of +Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought +to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of +Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her +Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her +Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot," +&c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and +who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the +rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy +disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various +Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they +have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European +and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an +impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate +that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country +has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be +instructed and benefited than our own. + + + + +XVIII. + +THE PALACES OF FRANCE. + + + PARIS, Monday, June 16, 1851. + +France, now the most Democratic, was long the most absolutely governed +and the most loyally infatuated among the great Nations of Europe. Her +cure of the dust-licking distemper was Homoeopathic and somewhat slow, +but it seems to be thorough and abiding. Those who talk of the National +passion for that bloody phantom Glory--for Battle and Conquest--speak of +what was, rather than of what is, and which, even in its palmiest days, +was rather a _penchant_ of the Aristocratic caste than a characteristic +of the Nation. The Nobles of course loved War, for it was their high +road to Royal favor, to station and renown; all the spoils of victory +enured to them, while nine-tenths of its calamities fell on the heads of +the Peasantry. But, though all France rushed to arms in 1793 to defend +the National liberties and soil, yet Napoleon, in the zenith of his +power and glory, could only fill the ranks of his legions by the +abhorred Conscription. The great body of the People were even then +averse to the din of the camp and the clangor of battle: the years of +unmixed disaster and bitter humiliation which closed his Military +career, served to confirm and deepen their aversion to garments rolled +in blood; and I am confident that there is at this moment no Nation in +Europe more essentially peaceful than France. Her Millions profoundly +sympathise with their brethren of Germany, Italy and Hungary, groaning +beneath the heavy yoke of the Autocrat and his vassals; but they +realize that the deliverance of Nations must mainly be wrought out from +within, and they would much rather aid the subject Nations to recover +their rights by the influence of example and of a Free Press than by +casting the sword of Brennus into the scale where their liberties and +happiness hang balanced and weighed down by the ambition and pride of +their despots. The establishment of the Democratic and Social Republic +is the appointed end of war in Europe. It will not erase the boundaries +of Nations, but these boundaries will no longer be overshadowed by +confronted legions, and they will be freed from the monster nuisance of +Passports. Then German, Frank, Briton, Italian, will vie with each +other, as now, in Letters, Arts and Products, but no longer in the +hideous work of defacing and desecrating the image of God; for Liberty +will have enlightened and Fraternity united them, and a permanent +Congress of Nations will adjust and dispose of all causes of difference +which may from time to time arise.--Freedom, Intelligence and Peace are +natural kindred: the ancient Republics were Military and aggressive only +because they tolerated and cherished Human Slavery; and it is this which +recently fomented hostilities between the two Republics of North +America, and now impotently threatens the internal peace of our own. +Liberty, if thorough and consistent, always did and must incline to +Peace; while Despotism, being founded in and only maintainable by Force, +inevitably fosters a martial spirit, organizes Standing Armies, and +finds delight and security in War. + +These reflections have been recalled by my walks through several of the +late Royal (now National) Palaces of France, the most striking monuments +which endure of long ages of absolute kingly sway. How many there are of +these Palaces I have forgotten or never knew; but I recall the names of +the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, the Elisée Bourbon, St. Germain, St. +Cloud, Versailles, Meudon, and Rambouillet. These do not include the +Palais Royal, which was built by the Orleans branch of the Bourbon +family, nor any of the spacious edifices erected for the several +Ministers of State and for the transaction of public business. The +Palaces I have named were all constructed from time to time to serve as +residences for the ten to thirty persons recognized as of the blood +Royal, who removed from one to the other as convenience or whim may have +suggested. They are generally very spacious, probably averaging one to +two hundred apartments each, all constructed of the best materials and +furnished and adorned with the most lavish disregard of cost. I roughly +estimate the cost of these Palaces, if they were now to be built and +furnished in this style, at One Hundred Millions of Dollars; but the +actual cost, in the ruder infancy of the arts when most of them were +erected, was probably much more. Versailles alone cost some Thirty +Millions of Dollars at first, while enormous sums have since been +expended in perfecting and furnishing it. It would be within the truth +to say that France, from the infancy of Louis XIV. to the expulsion of +Louis Philippe, has paid more as simple interest on the residences of +her monarchs and their families than the United States, with a larger +population and with far greater wealth than France has averaged through +that period, now pays for the entire cost of the Legislative, Executive +and Judicial departments of her Government. All that we have paid our +Presidents from Washington inclusive, adding the cost of the +Presidential Mansion and all the furniture that has from time to time +been put into it, would not build and furnish one wing of a single Royal +Palace of France--that of Versailles. + +But the point to which I would more especially call attention is that of +the unwearied exertions of Royalty to foster and inflame the passion for +Military glory. I wandered for hours through the spacious and +innumerable halls of Versailles, in which Art and Nature seem to have +been taxed to the utmost to heap up prodigies of splendor. At least one +hundred of these rooms would each of itself be deemed a marvel of +sumptuous display anywhere else; yet here we passed over floors of the +richest Mosaic and through galleries of the finest and most elaborately +wrought Marble as if they had been but the roughest pavement or the +rudest plaster. The eye is fatigued, the mind bewildered, by an almost +endless succession of sumptuous carving, gilding, painting, &c., until +the intervention of a naked ante-room or stair-case becomes a positive +relief to both. And the ideas everywhere predominant are War and its +misnamed Glory. Here are vast, expensive paintings purporting to +represent innumerable Sieges and Battles in which the French arms were +engaged, many of them so insignificant that the world has wisely +forgotten them, yet here preserved to inflame and poison the minds of +hot-blooded, unreflecting youth, impelling them to rush into the +manufacture of cripples and corpses under the horrible delusion that +needless, aimless Slaughter, if perpetrated by wholesale, can really be +honorable and glorious. These paintings, as a whole, are of moderate +value as works of Art, while their tendency is horrible and their +details to me revolting. Carriages shattered and overturned, animals +transfixed by spear-thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men +riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls and ghastly with +coming death, such are the spectacles which the more favored and +fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire +and enjoy. These battle-pieces have scarcely more Historic than Artistic +value, since the names of at least half of them might be transposed and +the change be undetected by ninety-nine out of every hundred who see +them. If _all_ the French battles were thus displayed, it might be urged +with plausibility that these galleries were historical in their +character; but a full half of the story, that which tells of French +disaster and discomfiture--is utterly suppressed. The Battles of +Ptolemais, of Ivry, of Fontenoy, of Rivoli, of Austerlitz, &c., are here +as imposing as paint can make them, but never a whisper of Agincourt, +Crecy, Poictiers, Blenheim, or Ramillies, nor yet of Salamanca, of +Vittoria, of Leipsic, or Waterloo. Even the wretched succession of +forays which the French have for the last twenty years been prosecuting +in Algerine Africa here shines resplendent, for Vernet has painted, by +Louis Philippe's order and at France's cost, a succession of +battle-pieces wherein French numbers and science are seen prevailing +over Arab barbarism and irregular valor in combats whereof the very +names have been wisely forgotten by mankind, though they occurred but +yesterday. One of these is much the largest painting I ever saw, and is +probably the largest in the world, and it seems to have been got up +merely to exhibit one of Louis Philippe's sons in the thickest of the +fray. Last of all, we have the "Capture of Abd-el-Kader," as imposing as +Vernet could make it, but no whisper of the persistent perfidy wherewith +he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the +express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its +general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit +War as always glorious and France as uniformly triumphant. It is by +means like these that the business of shattering knee-joints and +multiplying orphans is kept in countenance. + +Versailles is a striking monument of the selfish profligacy of +King-craft and the long-suffering patience of Nations. Hundreds of +thousands of laborers' children must have gone hungry to their straw +pallets in order that their needy parents might pay the inexorable taxes +levied to build this Palace. Yet after all it has stood mainly +uninhabited! Its immense extent and unequalled splendor require an +immeasurable profusion in its occupant, and the incomes even of kings +are not absolutely without limit. So Versailles, with six or eight other +Royal Palaces in and around Paris, has generally stood empty, entailing +on the country an enormous annual expense for its simple preservation. +And now, though France has outgrown Royalty, it knows not what to do +with its costly, spacious, glittering shells. A single Palace +(Rambouillet) standing furthest from Paris, was converted (under Louis +Philippe) into a gigantic storehouse for Wool, while its spacious Parks +and Gardens were wisely devoted to the breeding and sustenance of the +choicest Merino Sheep. The others mainly stand empty, and how to dispose +of them is a National perplexity. Some of them may be converted into +Hospitals, Insane Retreats, &c., others into Libraries or Galleries of +Art and Science; but Versailles is too far from Paris for aught but a +Retreat as aforesaid, and has cost so immense a sum that any use which +may be made of it will seem wasteful. I presume it could not be sold as +it stands for a tenth of its actual cost. Perhaps it will be best, +therefore, to convert all the others into direct uses and preserve this +for public inspection as a perpetual memorial of the reckless +prodigality and all-devouring pomp of Kings, and as a warning to Nations +never again to entrust their destinies to men who, from their very +education and the influences surrounding them through life, must be led +to consider the Toiling Millions as mainly created to pamper their +appetites, to gratify their pride, and to pave with their corpses their +road to extended dominion. + +ST. CLOUD is a much smaller but more pleasantly situated, more tastefully +furnished and decorated Palace, some miles nearer than Versailles to +Paris, and commanding an admirable view of the city. The LUXEMBOURG, +situated in the southern section of the city, is externally a chaste and +well-proportioned edifice, containing some fine pictures by living artists, +and surrounded by spacious and delightful woods, shrubbery, &c., termed +"the Gardens of the Luxembourg." The TUILERIES, in the heart of the city, +near the Seine, I have not seen internally, and the exterior seems low, +straggling, and every way unimposing. Its extent is almost incredible by +those who have not seen it--scarcely less than that of Versailles. The +LOUVRE is the finest structure of all, and most worthily devoted. Its +lower story is filled with Sculptures of no considerable merit, but its +galleries contain more strikingly good Paintings than I shall ever again +see under one roof. I have spent a good part of two days there, and mean +to revisit it on my return. + + +PASSPORTS, ETC. + +If each American could spend three days on this continent, his love of +Country and of Liberty could not fail to be quickened and intensified, +if only by an experience of the enormity of the Passport nuisance. It +has cost me precious hours already, not to speak of dollars, and is +certain to cost many more of each. I have nearly concluded to given up +Germany on account of it, while Italy fairly swarms with petty +sovereignties and with Yankee Consuls, the former afraid of their own +black shadows, the latter intent on their beloved two dollars each from +every American traveler. Such is the report I have of them, and I +presume the reality is equal to the foreshadowing. It is a shame that +Republican France stands far behind Aristocratic Britain in this +respect, but I trust the contrast will not endure many more years. + +Two Americans who arrived here last week caused some perplexity to their +landlord. Every man who lodges a stranger here must see forthwith that +he has a Passport in good condition, in default of which said host is +liable to a penalty. Now, these Americans, when applied to, produced +Passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not +transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly +designated in his Passport as a "_Loafer_" the other as a "_Rowdy_" and +they informed him, on application, that, though these professions were +highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French +synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content +with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirming that all was right, +applied to an American friend for a translation of the inexplicable +professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully +enlightened with regard to them. + +I am off to-day (I hope) for Lyons and Italy. + + + + +XIX. + +FRANCE, CENTRAL AND EASTERN. + + + LYONS, Tuesday, June 17, 1851. + +I came out of Paris through the spacious _Boulevards_,[B] which, under +various second appellations, stretch eastward from the Madeleine Church +nearly to the barrier, and then bend southward, near the beautiful +column which marks the site and commemorates the fall of the Bastile, so +long the chief dungeon wherein Despotism stifled Remonstrance and tamed +the spirit of Freedom. Liberty in France is doomed yet to undergo many +trials--nay, is now enduring some of them--but it is not within the +compass of probability that another Bastile should ever rear its head +there, nor that the absolute power and abject servitude which it fitly +symbolized should ever be known there hereafter. Very near it on the +south lies the famous Faubourg St. Antoine, inhabited mainly by bold, +free-souled working-men, who have repeatedly evinced their choice to die +free rather than live slaves, and in whom the same spirit lives and +rules to-day. I trust that dire alternative will never again be forced +upon them, but if it should be there is no Bastile so impregnable, no +despotism so fortified by prescription, and glorious recollections, and +the blind devotion of loyalty, as those they have already leveled to the +earth. + +The Paris Station of the Lyons Railway is at the eastern barrier of the +City. I received here another lesson in French Railroad management. I +first bought at the office my ticket for Chalons on the Saone, which is +the point to which the road is now completed. The distance is 243 miles; +the fare (first-class) $7.50. But the display of my ticket did not +entitle me to enter the passengers' sitting-room, much less to approach +the cars. Though I had cut down my baggage, by two radical +retrenchments, to two light carpet-bags, I could not take these with me, +nor would they pass without weighing. When weighed, I was required to +pay three or four sous (cents) for extra baggage, though there is no +stage-route in America on which those bags would not have passed +unchallenged and been accounted a very moderate allowance. Now I was +permitted to enter the sacred precincts, but my friend, who had spent +the morning with me and come to see me off, was inexorably shut out, and +I had no choice but to bid him a hasty adieu. Passing the entrance, I +was shown into the apartment for first-class passengers, while the +second-class were driven into a separate fold and the third-class into +another. Thus we waited fifteen minutes, during which I satisfied myself +that no other American was going by this train, and but three or four +English, and of these the two with whom I scraped an acquaintance were +going only to Fontainbleau, a few miles from Paris. They were required +to take their places in a portion of the train which was to stop at +Fontainbleau, and so we moved off. + +The European Railway carriages, so far as I have yet seen them, are more +expensive and less convenient than ours. Each is absolutely divided into +apartments about the size of a mail-coach, and calculated to hold eight +persons. The result is thirty-two seats where an American car of equal +length and weight would hold at least fifty, and of the thirty-two +passengers, one-half must inevitably ride backward. I believe the +second-class cars are more sociable, and mean to make their +acquaintance. I should have done it this time, but for my desire to meet +some one with whom I could converse, and Americans and Englishmen are +apt to cling to the first-class places. My aim was disappointed. My +companions were all Frenchmen, and, what was worse, all inveterate +smokers. They kept puff-puffing, through the day; first all of them, +then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon +near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the +atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and +went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules +posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or +decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women +are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by +the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope of it. + +The Railroad from Paris to Chalons passes through a generally level +region, watered by tributaries of the Seine and of the Saone, with a +range of gentle hills skirting the valleys, generally on the right and +sometimes on either hand. As in England, the track is never allowed to +cross a carriage-road on its own level, but is carried either under or +over each. The soil is usually fertile and well cultivated, though not +so skillfully and thoroughly as that of England. There are places, +however, in which the cultivation could not easily be surpassed, but I +should say that the average product would not be more than two-thirds +that of England, acre for acre. There are very few fences of any kind, +save a slight one inclosing the Railway, beyond which the country +stretches away as far as the eye can reach without a visible landmark, +the crops of different cultivators fairly touching each other and +growing square up to the narrow roads that traverse them. You will see, +for instance, first a strip of Grass, perhaps ten rods wide, and +running back sixty or eighty rods from the Railroad; then a narrower +strip of Wheat; then one of Grape-Vines; then one of Beans; then one of +Clover; then Wheat again, then Grass or Oats, and so on. I saw very +little Rye; and if there were Potatoes or Indian Corn, they were not up +sufficiently high to be distinguished as we sped by them. The work going +forward was the later Weeding with the earlier Hay-making, and I saw +nearly as many women as men working in the fields. The growing crops +were generally kept pretty clear of weeds, and the grass was most +faithfully but very slowly cut. I think one Yankee would mow over more +ground in a day than two Frenchmen, but he would cut less hay to the +acre. Of course, in a country devoid of fences and half covered with +small patches of grain, there could not be many cattle: I saw no oxen, +very few cows, and not many horses. The hay-carts were generally drawn +by asses, or by horses so small as not to be easily distinguished from +asses as we whirled rapidly by. The wagons on the roads were generally +drawn by small horses. I judge that the people are generally industrious +but not remarkably efficient, and that the women do the larger half of +the work, house-work included. The hay-carts were wretchedly small, and +the implements used looked generally rude and primitive. The dwellings +are low, small, steep-roofed cottages, for which a hundred dollars each +would be a liberal offer. Of course, I speak of the rural habitations; +those in the villages are better, though still mainly small, +steep-roofed, poor, and huddled together in the most chaotic confusion. +The stalls and pastures for cattle were in the main only visible to the +eye of faith; though cattle there must be and are to do the ploughing +and hauling. I suspect they are seldom turned loose in summer, and that +there is not a cow to every third cottage. I think I did not see a yoke +of oxen throughout the day's ride of 243 miles. + +I was again agreeably disappointed in the abundance of Trees. Wood +seems to be the peasants' sole reliance for fuel, and trees are planted +beside the roads, the streams, the ditches, and often in rows or patches +on some arable portion of the peasants' narrow domain. This planting is +mainly confined to two varieties--the Lombardy Poplar and what I took to +be the Pollard, a species of Willow which displays very little foliage, +and is usually trimmed up so as to have but a mere armful of leaves and +branches at the top of a trunk thirty to fifty feet high, and six to +twelve inches through. The Lombardy Poplar is in like manner preferred, +as giving a large amount of trunk to little shade, the limbs rarely +extending three feet from the trunk, while the growth is rapid. Such are +the means employed to procure fuel and timber with the least possible +abstraction of soil from the uses of cultivation. There are some +side-hills so rocky and sterile as to defy human industry, and these are +given up to brush-wood, which I presume is cut occasionally and bound +into faggots for fuel. Some of it may straggle up, if permitted, into +trees, but I saw little that would fairly justify the designation of +Forest. Of Fruit-trees, save in the villages, there is a deplorable +scarcity throughout. + +We passed through few villages and no town of note but DIJON, the capital +of ancient Burgundy, where its Parliament was held and where its Dukes +reigned and were buried. Their palace still stands, though they have +passed away. Dijon is 200 miles from Paris, and has 25,000 inhabitants, +with manufactures of Cotton, Woolen and Silk. Here and henceforth the +Vine is more extensively cultivated than further Northward. + +We reached CHALONS on the Saone (there is another Chalons on the Marne) +before 9 P. M. or in about ten hours from Paris. Here a steamboat was +ready to take us forthwith to Lyons, but French management was too much +for us. Our baggage was all taken from the car outside and carried piece +by piece into the dépôt, where it was very carefully arranged in order +according to the numbers affixed to the several trunks, &c., in Paris. +This consumed the better part of half an hour, though half as many +Yankees as were fussing over it would have had it all distributed to the +owners inside of ten minutes. Then the holders of the first three or four +numbers were let into the baggage-room, and when they were disposed of as +many more were let in, and so on. Each, as soon as he had secured his +baggage, was hustled into an omnibus destined for the boat. I was among +the first to get seated, but ours was the last omnibus to start, and when +the attempt was made, the carriage was overloaded and wouldn't start! At +last it was set in motion, but stopped twice or thrice to let off +passengers and baggage at hotels, then to collect fare, and at last, when +we had got within a few rods of the landing, we were cheered with the +information that "_Le bateau est parti!_" The French may have been better +than this, but its purport was unmistakable--the boat was gone, and we +were done. I had of course seen this trick played before, but never so +clumsily. There was no help for us, however, and the amount of useless +execration emitted was rather moderate than otherwise. Our charioteers +had taken good care to obtain their pay for carrying us some time before, +and we suffered ourselves to be taken to our predestined hotel in a frame +of mind approaching Christian resignation. In fact, when I had been shown +up to a nice bed-room, with clean sheets and (for France) a fair supply +of water, and had taken time to reflect that there is no accommodation +for sleeping on any of these European river-boats, I was rather glad we +had been swindled than otherwise. So I am still. But you may travel the +same route in a hurry; so look out! + +We rose at 4 and made for the boat, determined not to be caught twice in +the same town. At five we bade good-bye to Chalons-sur-Saone (a pleasant +town of 13,000 people), under a lowering sky which soon blessed the +earth with rain--a dubious blessing to a hundred people on a steamboat +with no deck above the guards and scarcely room enough below for the +female passengers. However, the rain soon ceased and the sky gradually +cleared, so that since 9 o'clock the day has been sunny and delightful. + +The distance from Chalons to Lyons by the Saone is some 90 miles. The +river is about the size of the Connecticut from Greenfield to Hartford, +but is sluggish throughout, with very low banks until the last ten or +fifteen miles. After an intervale of half a mile to two miles, the land +rises gently on the right to an altitude of some two to five hundred +feet, the slope covered and checkered the whole distance with vineyards, +meadows, woods, &c. The Poplar and the Pollard are still planted, but +the scale of cultivation is larger and the houses much better than +between Paris and Dijon. The intervale (mainly in meadow) is much wider +on the left bank, the swell beyond it being in some places scarcely +visible. The scenery is greatly admired here, and as a whole may be +termed pretty, but cannot compare with that of the Hudson or Connecticut +in boldness or grandeur. There are some craggy hill-sides in the +distance, but I have not yet seen an indisputable mountain in France, +though I have passed nearly through it in a mainly southerly course for +over five hundred miles. + +As we approach Lyons, the hills on either side come nearer and finally +shut in the river between two steep acclivities, from which much +building-stone has been quarried. Elsewhere, these hill-sides are +covered with tasteful country residences of the retired or wealthy +Lyonnais, surrounded by gardens, arbors, shrubbery, &c. The general +effect is good. At last, houses and quays begin to line and bridges to +span the river, and we halt beside one of the quays and are in Lyons. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] _Boulevard_ means, I presume, rampart or fortified works (hence our +English _bulwark_). The rampart was long ago removed, as the city +outgrew it, but the name is retained by the ample street which took its +place. Our _Battery_ at New-York illustrates this origin of a name. + + + + +XX. + +LYONS TO TURIN. + + + TURIN (Italy), June 20, 1851. + +LYONS, though a French city, and the second in the Republic, wears a sad, +disheartened aspect. In '91 a stronghold of decaying Loyalty, it is +to-day the very focus of Democratic Socialism, being decidedly more "Red" +than Paris.--Here is concentrated the Sixth Military Division of the +French Army, under chiefs not chary of using the sabre and bayonet, and +with instructions to apply efficient poultices of grape and canister on +the first palpable appearance of local inflammation. Should Louis Napoleon +be enabled to override the Constitution and prolong his sway, it is +possible that, by the aid of the act of May 31st, 1850, whereby more than +half the Artisans of France are disfranchised, the spirit of Lyons may in +time be subdued, and partisans of "Order" substituted for her present +Socialist Representatives in the Assembly; but, should the popular cause +triumph in the ensuing Elections, I shall be agreeably disappointed if +that triumph is as temperately and forbearingly enjoyed here as was that +of February, 1848. + +Lyons is now undergoing one of those periodical revulsions or +depressions which are the necessary incidents of the false system of +Industry and Trade which the leaders of Commercial opinion are bent on +fortifying and extending.--Here, at the confluence of the Rhone and the +Saone, is concentrated a population of nearly 200,000 souls, half of +whom attempt to live by spinning, weaving and dyeing Silks, while the +residue in good part busy themselves in collecting and buying the raw +material or in exporting and selling the product. But it is not best for +themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 Silk-workers should be clustered +on any square mile or two of earth; if they were distributed over the +world's surface, in communities of five to fifty thousand souls--if the +raw Silk were grown in the various countries wherein the fabrics are +required, where the climate and soil do not forbid, and taken there to +be manufactured where they do--the workers would have space, air, +activity, liberty, development, which are unattainable while they are +cooped within the walls of a single city. If those Silk-weavers, for +instance, whose fabrics are consumed in the United States, were now +located in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, &c. instead of being mainly +crowded into Lyons, they would there obtain many of the necessaries of +life at half the prices they now give for them, while the consumers of +their fabrics would pay for them in good part with Fruits, Vegetables, +Fuel, &c. which, because of their bulk or their perishable nature, they +cannot now sell at all, or can only sell at prices below the cost of +production. No matter if the Silks were held in money a fifth, a fourth, +or even a third higher than now, the great body of our consumers would +obtain them much cheaper, estimating the cost not in dollars but in +days' labor. The workers on both sides would be benefited, because they +would share between them at least three-fourths of the enormous tax +which Commerce now levies upon their Industry through the sale and +resale of its products, to distribute among its importers, shippers, +jobbers, retailers and lackeys of infinite variety. The bringing +together of Producer and Consumer, where Nature has interposed no +barrier, so that their diverse needs may be supplied by direct +interchange, or with the fewest possible intermediates, is the simple +and only remedy for one of the chief scourges under which Industry now +suffers throughout the world. + +"Very true," says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."--Will it, +indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual +agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong +side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk +trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the +manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the +Importer, the Jobber of our own country, has a like interest in keeping +the point of production as distant from their customers as possible. +Very often have I been told by wholesale merchants, "We prefer to sell +Foreign rather than Home-made fabrics, because the profit on the former +is usually much greater." This consideration is active and omnipresent +in Trade generally. The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple +Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is +unorganized, inert, and individually impotent. These Silk-Weavers of +Lyons are no more capable of removing to Virginia or Missouri and +establishing their business there than the Alps are of making an +American tour. Our consumers of Silks, acting as individuals, cannot +bring them over and establish them among us. But the great body of +consumers, animated by Philanthropy and an enlightened Self-Interest, +acting through their single efficient organism, the State, can make it +the interest of Capital and Capacity to bring them over and plant them +in the most eligible localities among us, and ought immediately and +persistently to do so. The inconveniences of such a policy are partial +and transitory, while its blessings are permanent and universal. + + +A RIDE ACROSS THE ALPS. + +Railroads are excellent contrivances for dispatch and economy; +Steamboats ditto, and better still for ease and observation or reading; +Steamships are to be endured when Necessity compels; but an +old-fashioned Coach-and-Four is by no means to be despised, even in +this age of Progress and Enlightenment. While I stay in Europe, I wish +to see as much land and to waste as little time on blue water as +possible. So I turned aside at Lyons from the general stream of +Italy-bound travellers--which flows down the Rhone to Avignon and +Marseilles, thence embarking for Genoa and Leghorn,--and booked myself +for a ride across the Lower Alps by diligence to Turin. And glad am I +that my early resolve to do so was not shaken. + +The European, but more especially French, diligence has often been +described. Ours consisted of a long carriage divided into the _coupé_ or +foremost apartment, directly under the driver, and with an outlook on +each side and in front over the backs of the horses; the middle +apartment, which is much like the interior of our ordinary stage-coach; +and the rumble or rear apartment, calculated for servants or other cheap +travelers. Two-thirds of the roof was covered with a tun or two of +baggage and merchandise; and in front of this, behind and above the +driver's seat, is the _banquette_, a single seat across the top, +calculated to hold four persons, with a chaise top to be thrown back in +fine weather and a glass front to be let down by night or in case of +rain. I chose my seat here, as affording the best possible view of the +country. At 8 P. M. precisely, the driver cracked his whip, and four +good horses started our lumbering vehicle at a lively pace on the road +to Turin, some two hundred miles away in the south-east. + +The road from Lyons to the frontier is one of the best in the world, and +traverses a level, fertile, productive country. I should say that Grass, +Wheat and the Vine are the chief staples. A row of trees adorns either +side of the road most of the way, not the trim, gaunt, limbless +skeletons which are preferred throughout Central France, but +wide-spreading, thrifty shade-trees, which I judged in the darkness to +be mainly Black Walnut, with perhaps a sprinkling of Chestnut, &c. +Through this noble avenue, we rattled on at a glorious pace, a row of +small bells jingling from each horse, and no change of teams consuming +more than two minutes, until we reached the little village on the French +side of the boundary between France and Savoy, some fifty miles from +Lyons. Here our Passports were taken away for scrutiny and _visé_, and +we were compelled to wait from 2½ till 5 o'clock, as the Sardinian +officers of customs would not begin to examine our baggage till the +latter hour. At 5 we crossed the little, rapid river (a tributary of the +Rhone) which here divides the two countries, a French and a Sardinian +sentinel standing at either end of the bridge. We drove into the court +of the custom-house, dismounted, had our baggage taken off and into the +rude building, where half a dozen officers and attendants soon appeared +and went at it. They searched rigidly, but promptly, carefully and like +gentlemen. In half an hour we were pronounced all right; our diligence +was reloaded, and, our passports having been returned, we rattled out of +the village and on our way, in the sunshine of as bright a June morning +as I ever hope to enjoy. + +France is a land of plains, and glades, and gentle acclivities; Savoy is +a country of mountains. They rose before and around us from the moment +of our crossing the boundary--grim, rugged and precipitous, they formed +a striking contrast to all of Europe I had hitherto seen. Throughout the +day and night following, we were rarely or never out of sight of +snow-covered peaks; nay, I have not yet lost sight of them, since they +are distinctly visible in the clear Italian atmosphere from the streets +of this sunny metropolis, at a distance of some thirty miles north. Our +route lay through Savoy for about a hundred miles, and not one acre in +thirty within sight of it can ever be plowed. Yet the mountains are in +good part composed of limestone, so that the narrow, sheltered valleys +are decidedly fertile; and the Vine is often made to thrive on the +steep, rocky hill sides, where the plow could not be forced below the +surface, and where an ox could not keep his footing. Every inch of +ground that can be, is cultivated; little patches of Wheat, or Grass, or +Vines are got in wherever there is a speck of soil, though no larger +than a cart-body; and far up the sides of steep mountains, wherever a +spot is found so moderately inclined that soil will lie on it, there +Grass at least is grown. + +Human Labor, in such a region, fully peopled, is very cheap and not very +efficient. The grape is the chief staple and Wine must be the principal +and probably is the only export, at least one third of the arable soil +being devoted to the Vine. Wheat is pretty extensively sown and is now +heading very thriftily, but I suspect the average size of the patches is +not above a quarter of an acre each. The Grass is good; and not much of +it cut yet. Indian Corn and Potatoes are generally cultivated, but in +deplorable ignorance of their nature. At least four times the proper +quantity of seed is put in the ground, neither Corn nor Potatoes being +allowed more than eighteen inches between the rows, making the labor of +cultivation very great and the chance of a good yield none at all. + +I think I saw quite as many women as men at work in the fields +throughout Savoy. A girl of fourteen driving a yoke of oxen attached to +a cart, walking barefoot beside the team and plying the goadstick, while +a boy of her own age lay idly at length in the cart, is one of my +liveliest recollections of Savoyard ways. Nut-brown, unbonneted women, +hoeing corn with an implement between an adze and a pick-axe (and not a +bad implement, either, for so rugged an unplowed soil), women driving +hogs, cows, &c., to or from market, we encountered at every turn. So +much hard, rough work and exposure are fatal to every trace of beauty, +and I do not remember to have seen a woman in Savoy even moderately +good-looking, while many were absolutely revolting. That this is not +Nature's fault is proved by the general aspect of the children, who, +though swarthy, have often good forms and features. + +We drove down into CHAMBERY, the capital of ancient Savoy, about 9 A. M. +This is a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, pleasantly situated +in the valley of a much larger tributary of the Rhone than that we crossed +at the boundary, and with a breadth of arable soil of perhaps two miles +between the mountains. No where else in Savoy did we traverse a valley +even half a mile wide for any distance. Here is an old ducal palace, with +fine spacious grounds, shrubbery, &c. The road from Geneva and the Baths +of Aix to Turin comes down this valley and here intersects that from Lyons. +We were allowed twenty-five minutes for breakfast, which would have been +very well but that the time required for cooking most of the breakfast had +to come out of it. + +There was enough and good enough to eat, and (as usual throughout all +this region) Wine in abundance without charge, but Tea, Coffee or +Chocolate must be ordered and paid for extra. Even so, I was unable to +obtain a cup of Chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to +make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than +others for breakfast; but to talk English against French or Italian is +to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and +came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had +traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ventured to +expose my ignorance as follows: + +"Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of +you but two and a half?" + +"Don't know--perhaps you had Tea or Coffee." + +"No, Sir--don't drink either." + +"Then perhaps you washed your face and hands." + +"Well, it would be just like me." + +"O, then, that's it! The half franc was for the basin and towel." + +"Ah, _oui, oui_." So the milk in _that_ cocoa-nut was accounted for. + +Our road, though winding constantly among mountains, was by no means a +rugged one. On the contrary, I was surprised to find it so nearly level. +Three or four times during the day we came to a hard hill, and usually a +yoke of oxen, an extra horse or span, stood at the foot, ready to hitch +on and help us up. Of course, we were steadily rising throughout, but so +gradually and on so capital a road as to offer little impediment to our +progress. A better road made of earth I never expect to see. Every mile +of it is plainly under constant supervision, and any defect is instantly +repaired. The only exception to its excellence is caused by the +villages, which occur at an average of ten miles apart, and consist each +of fifty to two hundred poor dwellings, mainly of stone, huddled +chaotically together along the two sides of the road, which is twisted +and turned by them in every direction, and often crowded into a width of +not more than eight or ten feet. It is absolutely impossible that two +carriages should pass each other in these narrow, crooked lanes, and +dangerous for even a pedestrian to stand outside of a house while the +diligence is threading one of these gorges. + +There is no town except Chambery on the whole route from Lyons to Turin; +but we passed about noon through a village in which a Fair was +proceeding. I did not suspect that two thousand people could live within +ten miles of the spot; yet I think fully two thousand were here +collected, with half as many cows, asses, hogs, &c., which had been +brought hither for sale, and about which they were jabbering and +gesticulating. Dealers in coarse chip hats and a few kindred fabrics +were also present; but it looked as if sellers were more abundant and +eager than buyers. It was only by great effort and by the most +exemplary patience that our driver and guard were enabled to clear the +road so that we passed through without inflicting any injury. + +Wilder and narrower was the gorge, nearer and bleaker rose the +mountains, steeper and more palpable became the ascent, keener and +crisper grew the air, as the evening fell upon us pursuing our devious +way. The valleys were not only insignificant but widely separated by +tracts through which the road had with difficulty and at much expense +been cut out of the mountain side without infringing on the impetuous +torrent that tumbled and foamed by our side; and even where little +valleys or glens still existed it was clear that Nature no longer +responded with alacrity and abundance to the summons of human industry. +The Vine no longer clung to the steep acclivities; the summer foliage of +the lower valleys had given place to dark evergreens where shrubbery +could still find foot-hold and sustenance. The snow no longer skulked +timorously behind the peaks of distant mountains, showing itself only on +their northern declivities, but stood out boldly, unblenchingly on all +sides, and seemed within a musket-shot of our path. From slight +depressions in the brows of the overhanging cliffs, streamlets leaped +hundreds of feet in silvery recklessness, falling in feathery foam by +our side. I think I saw half a dozen of these cascades within a distance +of three miles. + +At length, near ten o'clock, we reached the foot of Mount Cenis, where +sinuosity of course could avail us no further. We must now face the +music. Our five tired horses were exchanged for eight fresh ones, and we +commenced the slow, laborious ascent of some six or eight miles. Human +habitations had already become scattered and infrequent; but we passed +three or four in ascending the mountain. Their inmates of course live +upon the travel, in one way or another, for Sterility is here the +inexorable law. Yet our ascent was not so steep as might be expected, +being modified, when necessary, by zig-zags from one direction or one +side of the chasm we followed to the other. The horses were stopped to +breathe but once only; elsewhere for three hours or more they pursued +their firm, deliberate, decided, though slow advance. The shrubbery +dwindled as we ascended and at length disappeared, save in the sheltered +gorges; the snow came nearer and spread over still larger spaces; at +length, it lay in heavy beds or masses, half melted into ice, just by +the side of the road and on its edge, though I think there was none +actually under the wheels. Finally, a little before one o'clock, we +reached the summit, and the moon from behind the neighboring cliff burst +upon us fully two hours high. Two or three houses stood here for the use +of travelers; around them nothing but snow and the naked planet. Before +us lay the valley of the Po, the great plain of Upper Italy. + +Six of our horses were here detached and sent back to the Savoy base of +the mountain, while with the two remaining we commenced our rapid and +dashing descent. Mount Cenis is decidedly steeper on this side than on +the other; it is only surmounted by a succession of zig-zags so near +each other that I think we traveled three miles in making a direct +progress of one, during which we must have descended some 1,500 feet. +Daylight found us at the foot with the level plain before us, and at 8 +o'clock, A. M. we were in Turin. + + + + +XXI. + +SARDINIA--ITALY--FREEDOM. + + + GENOA (Italy), June 22, 1851. + +The Kingdom of Sardinia was formed, after the overthrow of Napoleon, by +the union of Genoa and its dependencies, with the former Kingdom of +Piedmont and Savoy including the island of Sardinia, to whose long +exiled Royal house was restored a dominion thus extended. That dominion +has since stood unchanged, and may be roughly said to embrace the +North-Western fourth of Italy, including Savoy, which belongs +geographically to Switzerland, but which forms a very strong barrier +against invasion from the side of France. Savoy is almost entirely +watered by tributaries of the Rhone, and so might be said to belong +naturally to France rather than to Italy, regarding the crests of the +Alps as the proper line of demarcation between them. Its trade, small at +any rate, is of necessity mainly with France; very slightly, save on the +immediate sea-coast, with Genoa or Piedmont. Its language is French. +Though peopled nearly to the limit of its capacity, the whole number of +its inhabitants can hardly exceed Half a Million, nine-tenths of its +entire surface being covered with sterile, intractable mountains. Savoy +must always be a poor country, with inconsiderable commerce or +manufactures (for though its water-power is inexhaustible, its means of +communication must ever be among the worst), and seems to have been +created mainly as a barrier against that guilty ambition which impels +rulers and chieftains to covet and invade territories which reject and +resist their sway. Alas that the Providential design, though so +palpable, should be so often disregarded! Doubtless, the lives lost from +age to age by mere hardship, privation and exposure, during the passage +of invading armies through Savoy, would outnumber the whole present +population of the country. + +Descending the Alps to the east or south into PIEDMONT, a new world lies +around and before you. You have passed in two hours from the Arctic +circle to the Tropics--from Lapland to Cuba. The snow-crested mountains +are still in sight, and seem in the clear atmosphere to be very near you +even when forty or fifty miles distant, but you are traversing a spacious +plain which slopes imperceptibly to the Po, and is matched by one nearly +as level on the other side. This great plain of upper Italy, with the Po +in its center, commences at the foot of the lower Alps very near the +Mediterranean, far west of Turin and of Genoa, and stretches across the +widest portion of the peninsula till it is lost in the Adriatic. The +western half of this great valley is Piedmont; the eastern is Lombardy. +Its fertility and facility of cultivation are such that even Italian +unthrift and ignorance of Agriculture are unable to destroy the former +or nullify the latter. I never saw better Wheat, Grass, and Barley, than +in my journey of a hundred miles across this noble valley of the Po, or +Piedmont, and the Indian Corn, Potatoes, &c., are less promising only +because of the amazing ignorance of their requirements evinced by +nine-tenths of the cultivators. In the first place, the land is not plowed +half deep enough; next, most of it is seldom or never manured; thirdly, it +is planted too late; and fourthly, three or four times as much seed is +planted as should be. I should judge that twenty seed potatoes, or kernels +of corn, to each square yard is about the average, while five of either is +quite enough. Then both, but especially Corn, are hilled up, sugar-loaf +fashion, until the height of each hill is about equal to its breadth at +the base, so that two days' hot sun dries the hill completely through, +while there is no soil a foot from each stalk for its roots to run in. +From such perverse cultivation, a good yield is impossible. There has been +no rain of consequence here for some weeks, whence Wheat and Barley are +ripening too rapidly, while Corn, Potatoes and Vegetables suffer severely +from drouth, when with deeper plowing and rational culture everything +would have been verdant and flourishing. Yet this great plain in some +parts is and in most might be easily and bountifully irrigated from the +innumerable mountain streams which traverse it on their way to the Po. I +never saw another region wherein a few Sub-soil Plows, with men qualified +to use them and to set forth the nature and advantages of skillful +cultivation generally, are so much wanted as in Piedmont. + +The Vine is of course extensively cultivated in Piedmont, as everywhere +in Italy, but not so universally as in the hilly, rocky region extending +from the great valley to this city (some thirty or forty miles). This +has a warm though a thin soil, which must be highly favorable to the +Vine to induce so exclusive a devotion to it. I think half of the arable +soil I saw between this and Arquata, where the plain and (for the +present) the Railroad stop, and the hills and the diligence begin, was +devoted to the Grape; while from the steeple of the Carignani Church, +which I ascended last evening, the semi-circle of towering, receding +hill-sides which invests Genoa landward, seems covered with the Vine, +and even the Gardens within the town are nearly given up to it. The Fig, +the Orange, the Almond, are also native here or in the vicinity. + +This kingdom is to-day, after France, the chief point of interest in +continental Europe for lovers of Human Liberty. Three years ago, under +the impulse of the general uprising of the Nations, its rulers entered +upon a course of policy in accordance with the wants and demands of the +age, and that policy is still adhered to, though meantime the general +aspect of affairs is sadly changed, and Sardinia herself has experienced +the sorest reverses. The weak, unstable King whose ambition first +conspired to throw her into the current of the movement for the +liberation of Italy, has died defeated and broken-hearted, but his wiser +son and heir has taken his stand deliberately and firmly on the liberal +side, and cannot be driven from his course. His policy, as proclaimed in +his memorable Speech from the Throne on the assembling of the present +Chambers, is "to rear Free Institutions in the midst of surrounding +ruins." A popular Assembly, in which the Ministry have seats, directs +and supervises the National Policy, which is avowedly and efficiently +directed toward the vigorous prosecution of Reforms in every department. +Absolute Freedom in matters of Religion has already been established, +and the long crushed and persecuted Vaudois or Waldenses rejoice in the +brighter day now opening before them. Their simple worship is not only +authorized and protected in their narrow, secluded Alpine valleys, but +it is openly and regularly conducted also in Turin, the metropolis, +where they are now endeavoring to erect a temple which shall fitly set +forth the changed position of Protestantism in Northern Italy. They are +still few and poor, and will apply to their brethren in America for +pecuniary aid, which I trust will be granted expressly on condition that +the church thus erected shall be open, when not otherwise required, to +any Protestant clergyman who produces ample testimonials of his good +standing with his own denomination at home. Such a church in Turin would +be of incalculable service to the cause of Human Emancipation from the +shackles of Force, Prescription and Tradition throughout Italy and the +Eastern World. + +The Freedom of the Press is established in this kingdom, yet no single +journal of the Reäctionist type is issued, because there is no demand +for one. The only division of political sentiment is that which +separates the more impetuous Progressives, or avowed Democrats, from the +larger number (apparently) who believe it wiser and safer to hold fast +by King and Constitution, especially since the Monarch is among the most +zealous and active in the cause of Progress and Reform. I think these +are right, though their opponents have ample justification in History, +even the most recent, for their distrust of the liberal professions and +seemings of Royalty. But were the King and all his House to abdicate and +leave the country to-morrow, I believe that would be a disastrous step +for Sardinia and for Human Liberty. For this kingdom is almost walled in +by enemies--Austria, Tuscany, Rome (alas!) and Naples--all intensely +hating it and seeking its downfall because of the Light and Hope which +its policy and its example are diffusing among the nations. With the +Pope it is directly at variance, on questions of contested jurisdiction +deemed vital alike by the Spiritual and the Temporal power; and repeated +efforts at adjustment have only resulted in repeated failures. This feud +is of itself a source of weakness, since ninety-nine in every hundred of +the population are at least nominally Roman Catholic, and the great mass +of the Peasantry intensely so, while the Priesthood naturally side with +the Ecclesiastical as against the Political contestant. And behind +Austria, notoriously hostile to the present policy of Sardinia, stands +the black, colossal shadow of the Autocrat, with no power east of the +Rhine and the Adriatic able or willing to resist him, and only waiting +for an excuse to pour his legions over the sunny plains of Southern +Europe. A Democratic Revolution in Sardinia, no matter how peacefully +effected, would inevitably, while France is crippled as at present, be +the signal (as with Naples and Spain successively some twenty-five to +thirty years ago) for overwhelming invasion in the interest and by the +forces of utter Despotism. Well-informed men believe that if the present +King were to abdicate to-morrow, he would immediately be chosen +President by an immense majority of the People. + +Yet there is an earnest, outspoken Democratic party in Sardinia, and +this city is its focus. Genoa, in fact, has never been reconciled to the +decree which arbitrarily merged her political existence in that of the +present Kingdom. She fondly cherishes the recollection of her ancient +opulence, power and glory, and remembers that in her day of greatness +she was the center and soul of a Republic. Hence her Revolutionary +struggle in 1848; hence the activity and boldness of her Republican +propaganda now. To see Italy a Federal Republic, whereof Piedmont, +Savoy, Genoa and Sardinia should be separate and sovereign States, along +with Venice, Lombardy, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, &c., would best satisfy +her essential aspirations. + +Yet Genoa is clearly benefited by her present political connection. From +her lovely bay, she looks out over the Mediterranean, Corsica, Sardinia, +Africa and the Levant, but has scarcely a glimpse of the continent of +Italy. No river bears its products to her expectant wharves; only the +most insignificant mill-streams brawl idly down to her harbor and the +adjacent shore; steep, naked mountains rise abruptly behind her, +scarcely allowing room for her lofty edifices and narrow streets; while +from only a few miles back the waters are hurrying to join the Po and be +borne away by that rapid, unnavigable stream to the furthest limit of +Italy. No commercial City was ever more hardly dealt with by Nature on +the land side than Genoa; no one ever stood more in need of intimate +political connections suggestive of and cemented by works of Internal +improvement. These she is now on the point of securing. A very tolerable +Railroad has already been constructed from Turin to Arquata, some +seventy miles on the way to Genoa, and the remaining thirty odd miles +are now under contract, to be completed in 1852. The portion +constructed was easy, while the residue is exceedingly difficult, +following the valleys of impetuous mountain torrents, which to-day +discharge each minute five gallons and to-morrow five thousand +hogsheads. These valleys (or rather clefts) are quite commonly so narrow +and their sides so steep and rock-bound that the Railroad track has to +be raised several feet on solid masonry to preserve it from being washed +away by the floods which follow every violent or protracted rain. +Expensive arches to admit the passage of the streams whenever crossed, +and of the roads, are also numerous, so that these thirty miles, in +spite of the abundance and cheapness of Labor here, will cost at least +Three Millions of Dollars. Yet the road will pay when in full operation, +and will prove a new day-spring of prosperity to Genoa. From Turin, +branches or feeders will run to the Alps in various directions, +benefiting that city considerably, but Genoa infinitely more, since +nine-tenths of the produce even of Piedmont will run past Turin, without +unloading, to find purchasers and exporters here. A coal-mine of promise +has just been discovered at Aosta, at the foot of the Alps, to which one +of these branches is to be constructed. Genoa is now jealous of Turin's +political ascendency, which is just as sensible as would be jealousy of +Albany on the part of New-York. Even already, though it has not come +near her, the Railroad is sensibly improving her trade and industry; and +whenever it shall have reached her wharves every mile added to its +extent or to that of any of its branches will add directly and largely +to the commerce and wealth of this city. In time this Road will connect +with those of France and Germany, by a tunnel through some one of the +Alps (Mount Cenis is now under consideration), but, even without that, +whenever it shall have reached the immediate base of the Alps on this +side and been responded to by similar extensions of the French and +Rhine-valley Railroads on the other, Genoa will supplant Marseilles +while continuing preferable to Trieste as the point of embarkation for +Cairo and Suez on the direct route from England and Paris for India, +China and Southern Asia generally, and can only be superseded in that +preëminence by a railroad running hence or from Lake Maggiore and Milan +direct to Naples or Salerno--a work of whose construction through so +many petty and benighted principalities there is no present probability. + +Still, Sardinia has very much before her unaccomplished. She needs first +of all things an efficient and comprehensive system of Popular +Education. With the enormous superabundance of Sixty Thousand Priests +and other Ecclesiastics to a generally poor population of Four Millions, +she has not to-day five thousand teachers, good, bad and indifferent, of +elementary and secular knowledge. These black-coated gentry fairly +overshadow the land with their shovel hats, so that Corn has no fair +chance of sunshine. The Churches of this City alone must have cost Ten +Millions of Dollars--for you cannot walk a hundred steps without passing +one; and the wealth lavished in their construction and adornment exceeds +all belief--while all the common school-houses in Genoa would not bring +fifty thousand dollars. The best minds of the country are now pondering +the urgent necessity of speedily establishing a system of efficient +Popular Education. + +But the Nation is deeply in debt, and laboring under heavy burdens. Its +Industry is inefficient, its Commerce meager, its Revenues slender, +while the imminent peril of Austrian invasion compels the keeping up of +an Army of Fifty Thousand effective men ready to take the field at a +moment's warming. But for the notorious and active hostility of +three-fourths of Continental Europe to the liberal policy of its rulers, +Sardinia might dispense with three-fourths of this force and save its +heavy cost for Education and Internal Improvement. As things are, women +must toil in the fields while Physical and Mental Improvement must wait +in order that the Nation may sustain in virtual idleness Fifty Thousand +Soldiers and Sixty Thousand Priests. + +Yet mighty are the blessings of Freedom, even under the greatest +disadvantages. Turin is now increasing in Industry and Population with a +rapidity unknown to its former history. Looking only at the new +buildings just erected or now in progress, you might mistake it for an +American city. Unless checked by future wars, Turin will double its +population between 1850 and 1860. Genoa has but recently and partially +felt the new impulse, yet even here the march of improvement is visible. +Three years more of peace will witness the substitution for its long +period of stagnation and decay of an activity surpassed by that of no +city in Europe. + +Turin is eligibly located and well built, most of the houses being +large, tall, and the walls of decided strength and thickness; but Genoa +is even superior in most respects if not in all. I never saw so many +churches so admirably constructed and so gorgeously, laboriously +ornamented as the half dozen I visited yesterday and this morning. My +guide says there are sixty churches in Genoa (a city about the size of +Boston, though with fewer houses and a much smaller area than Brooklyn), +and that they are nearly all built and adorned with similar if not equal +disregard of cost. A modest, graceful monument to Christopher Columbus, +the Genoese discoverer of America, was one of the first structures that +met my eye on entering the city, and an eating-house in the square of +the chief theater is styled "Café Restaurant à l'Immortel Chr. Columbo," +or something very near that. I never before saw so many admirable +specimens of costly and graceful architecture as have arrested my +attention in wandering through the streets of Genoa. At least half the +houses were constructed for the private residences of "merchant princes" +in the palmy days of "Genoa the Superb," and their wealth would seem to +have been practically boundless. The "Hotel de Londres," in which I +write, was originally a convent, and no house in New-York can vie with +it in the massiveness of its walls, the hight of its ceilings, &c. My +bed-room, appropriately furnished, would shame almost any American +parlor or drawing-room. All around me testifies of the greatness that +has been; who shall say that it is not soon to return? The narrow +streets (very few of them passable by carriages) and uneven ground-plot +are the chief drawbacks on this magnificence; but the city rises so +regularly and gracefully from the harbor as to seem like a glorious +amphitheater, and the inequality, so wearisome to the legs, is a beauty +and a pleasure to the eye. It gives, besides, opportunity for the finest +Architectural triumphs. The Carignani Church is approached by a massive +bridge thrown across a ravine, from which you look down on the tops of +seven-story houses, and I walked this morning in a public garden which +looks down into a private one some sixty feet below it. The +perpendicular stone wall which separates these gardens is at least five +feet thick at the top, and must have cost an immense sum; but in fact +the whole city has been three times completely walled in, and the latest +and most extensive of these walls is still in good condition, and was +successfully defended by Massena in the siege of 1800, until Famine +compelled him to surrender. May that stand recorded to the end of human +history as the last siege of Genoa! + + + + +XXII. + + +[This letter, written and mailed at Leghorn on the 24th, has never come +to hand, having been entrusted to the tender mercies of the _French_ +mail which was to leave Leghorn next day by steamer for Marseilles, and +thence be taken, via Paris, to Havre, and by steamship to this city. The +wretched old apology for a steamship whereon I had reached Leghorn (80 +miles) in eighteen hours from Genoa may not yet have completed her +return passage between those ports, though I think she has; but whether +her officers know enough to receive and deliver a Mail-bag is +exceedingly doubtful. If they did, I see not how my letter can have been +stopped this side of Marseilles. I remember that it did particular +justice to French Government steamships in the Mediterranean and to +American Consuls in Italy, showing how our traveling countrymen are +crucified between the worthlessness of the former and the rapacity of +the latter. Our Consuls may well rejoice that said Letter XXII. comes up +missing, and perhaps the Tuscan Police has cause to join in their +exultation. + +This letter also gave some account of Leghorn, a well-built modern city, +the only port of Tuscany, situated on a flat or marsh scarcely raised +above the surface of the Mediterranean, and containing some 80,000 +inhabitants. It has few or no antiquities, and not much to attract a +traveler's attention. + +Some thirty miles inland in a north-easterly direction, is _Pisa_, once +a very wealthy and powerful emporium of commerce, now a decaying inland +town of no political importance, with perhaps 30,000 inhabitants. It +lies on both sides of the Arno, several miles from the sea, and I +presume the river-bed has been considerably filled or choked up by +sediment and rains since the days of Pisa's glory and power. Her +wonderful Leaning Tower is worthy of all the fame it has acquired. It is +a beautiful structure, though owing its dignity, doubtless, to some +defect in its foundation or construction. The Cathedral of Pisa is a +beautiful edifice, most gorgeous in its adornments, and with by far the +finest galleries I ever saw. Near these two structures is an extensive +burial-place full of sculptures and inscriptions in memory of the dead, +some of them 2500 years old, and thence reaching down to the present +day. Had I not extended my trip to Rome, I should have brought home far +more vivid and lasting impressions of Pisa, which has nevertheless an +abiding niche in my memory. + +The day before my visit was the anniversary of the Patron Saint of Pisa, +which is celebrated every fourth year with extraordinary pomp and +festivity. This time, I was informed, the fire-works exploded at the +public charge, in honor of this festival, cost over $100,000, though +Pisa _cannot afford_ to sustain Free Common Schools, or make any +provision for the Education of her Children. Of course, she can afford +to die, or is certain to do it, whether she can afford it or not. Pisa +is located on a beautiful and fertile plain, and is surrounded by +gardens, with fruit and ornamental trees; but much of the soil between +it and Leghorn is the property of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who keeps +it entirely in grass, affording subsistence to extensive and beautiful +herds of Cattle, whence he derives a large income, being the chief +milk-seller in his own dominions. So, at least, I was informed.] + + + + +XXIII. + +FIRST DAY IN THE PAPAL STATES. + + + ROME, Thursday, June 26, 1851. + +I left Leghorn night before last in the French steamer Languedoc, which +could not obtain passengers in America, but is accounted one of the best +boats on the Mediterranean. The fare to Civita Vecchia (125 miles) was +40 francs, but 4 added for dinner (without saying "By your leave") made +it $825. There were perhaps twenty-five passengers, mainly for Naples, +but eight or ten for Civita Vecchia and Rome, although it is everywhere +said that "Nobody goes to Rome at this season," meaning nobody that is +anybody--none who can afford to go when they would choose. The night was +fair; the sea calm; we left Leghorn at 6 (nominally 5) and reached +Civita Vecchia about 5 next morning; but were kept on board waiting the +pleasure of the Police until about 7, when we were graciously permitted +to land, our Passports having been previously sent on shore for +inspection. No steamboat in these waters is allowed to come alongside of +the wharf; so we paid a franc each for being rowed ashore; then as much +more to the porters who carried our baggage on their backs to the +custom-house, where a weary hour was spent in overhauling and sealing +it, so that it need not be overhauled again on entering the gate of +Rome. For this service a trifle only was exacted from each. Meantime a +"commissionaire" had gone after our Passports, for which we paid first +the charge of the Papal Police, which I think was about three francs; +then for the _visé_ of our several Consuls, we Americans a dollar each, +which (though but half what is charged by our Consuls at other Italian +ports) is more than is charged by those of any other nation. Then came +the charge of our "commissionaire" for his services. We took breakfast; +but that, though a severe, was not a protracted infliction; hired places +in the Diligence (13 francs in the _coupé_, 10 in the body of the +stage), and at half-past 10 were to have been on our way to Rome. But +the start was rather late, and on reaching the gates of that wretched +village, which seems to subsist mainly on such petty swindles as I have +hastily described, our Passports, which had been thrice scrutinized that +morning within sixty rods, had to run the gauntlet again. I do not +remember paying for this, but while detained by it the ostlers from the +stables of our Diligence were all upon us, clamoring for money. I think +they got little. But we changed horses thrice on the way to Rome, and +each postillion was down upon us for money, and out of all patience with +those passengers who attempted to put him off with copper. + +Aside from those engaged in fleecing us as aforesaid, I saw but three +sorts of men in Civita Vecchia--or rather, men pursuing three several +avocations--those of Priests, Soldiers and Beggars. Some united two of +these callings. A number of brown, bare-headed, wretched-looking women +were washing clothes in the hot sun of the sea-side, but I saw no trace +of masculine industry other than what I have described. The place is +said to contain 7,000 inhabitants, but I think there is scarcely a +garden outside its walls. + +Half the way thence to Rome, the road runs along the shore of the +Mediterranean, through a naturally fertile and beautiful champaign +country, once densely peopled and covered with elegant structures, the +homes of intelligence, refinement and luxury. Now there is not a garden, +scarcely a tree, and not above ten barns and thirty human habitations in +sight throughout the whole twenty-five miles. Such utter desolation and +waste, in a region so eligibly situated, can with difficulty be realized +without seeing it. I should say it can hardly here be unhealthy, with +the pure Mediterranean directly on one side, the rugged hills but two to +five miles distant on the other, and the plain between very much less +marshy than the corresponding district of New-Jersey stretching along +the coast from New-York to Perth Amboy. A few large herds of neat cattle +are fed on these plains, considerable grass is cut, and some summer +grain; but stables for post-horses at intervals of five or six miles, +with perhaps as many dilapidated stone dwellings and a few wretched +herdsmen's huts of straw or rubbish, are all the structures in sight, +save the bridges of the noble "Via Aurelia" which we traversed, the +ruins of some of the stately edifices once so abundant here, and the +mile-stones. There is not even one tavern of the half dozen pretenders +to the name between Civita Vecchia and Rome which would be considered +tolerable in the least civilized portion of Arkansas or Texas. + +Half way to Rome, the road strikes off from the sea, and there is +henceforth more cultivation, more grain, better crops (though all this +land produces excellently both of Wheat and Barley, and of Indian Corn +also where the cultivation is not utterly suicidal), but still there are +very few houses and those generally poor, the wretchedest caricatures of +taverns on one of the great highways of the world, no gardens nor other +evidences of aspiration for comfort and natural beauty, few and ragged +trees, and the very few inhabitants are so squalid, so abject, so +beggarly, that it seems a pity they were not fewer. And this state +continues, except that the grain-crops grow larger and better, up to +within a mile or two of the gates of Rome, which thus seems another +Palmyra in the Desert, only that this is a desert of man's making. I +presume the twenty-five or thirty miles at this end is unhealthy, even +for natives, but it surely need not be so. All this Campagna, with the +more pestilent Pontine Marshes on the south, which are now scourging +Rome with their deadly malaria and threaten to render it ultimately +uninhabitable, were once salubrious and delightful, and might readily be +made so again. If they were in England, Old or New, near a city of the +size of this, they would be trenched, dyked, drained, and reconverted +into gardens, orchards and model-farms within two years, and covered +with dwellings, mansions, country-seats, and a busy, energetic, thrifty +population before 1860. A tenth part of the energy and devotedness +displayed in the attempts to wrest Jerusalem from the Infidels would +rescue Rome from a fate not less appalling. + +We ought by contract to have arrived here at half past six last evening; +we actually reached the gates at half past eight or a little later. +There our Passports were taken from us, and carried into the proper +office; but word came back that all was not right; we must go in +personally. We did so, and found that what was wanted to make all right +was money. There was not the smallest pretext for this--no Barbary +pirate ever had less--as we were not to get our Passports, but must wait +their approval by a higher authority and then go and pay for it. We +submitted to the swindle, however, for we were tired, the hour late, we +had lodgings yet to seek, and the night-air here is said to be very +unwholesome for strangers. This difficulty obviated, another presented +itself. The Custom-House stood on the other side of the street, and word +came that we were wanted there also, though our slender carpet-bags had +been regularly searched and sealed by the Roman functionaries at Civita +Vecchia expressly to obviate any pretext for scrutiny or delay here. No +use--money. By this time, change and patience were getting scarce in our +company. We tried to get off cheap; but it wouldn't do. Finally, rather +than stay out till midnight in the malaria, I put down a +five-franc-piece, which was accepted and we were let go. Still for +form's sake, our baggage was fumbled over, but not opened, and one or +two more heads looked in at the window for "_qualche cosa_," but we gave +nothing, and soon got away. + +We had paid thirteen francs each for a ride of fifty miles over a +capital road, where horses and feed are abundant, and must be cheap; but +now our postillion came down upon us for more money for taking us to a +hotel; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs +to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one +hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or +four rough customers jumped unbidden on the vehicle, and, when we +reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which +we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled +with the postillion, who grumbled and scolded though we paid him more +than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be +paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but +others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, +which the "_facchini_" rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up +stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their +imprecations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of +Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light +carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh +demand for porterage. "Don't you belong to the hotel?" "Yes." "Then +vanish instantly!" I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his +heart's content; and thus closed my first day in the more especial +dominions of His Holiness Pius IX. + + + + +XXIV. + +THE ETERNAL CITY. + + + ROME, Friday, June 27, 1851. + +ROME is mighty even in her desolation. I knew the world had nothing like +her, and yet the impression she has made on me, at the first view, is +unexpectedly great. I do not yet feel able to go wandering from one +church, museum, picture or sculpture gallery to another, from morning +till night, as others do: I need to pause and think. Of course, I shall +leave without seeing even a tenth part of the objects of decided interest; +but if I should thus be enabled to carry away any clear and abiding +impression of a small part, I shall prefer this to a confused and foggy +perception of a greater multiplicity of details. + +That single view of the Eternal City, from the tower of the Capitol, is +one that I almost wish I had given up the first day to. The entire of +Rome and its inhabited suburbs lies so fully and fairly before the eye, +with the Seven Hills, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Obelisks, the +Pillars, the Vatican, the Castle of St. Angelo, the various Triumphal +Arches, the Churches, &c., &c., around you, that it seems the best use +that could be made of one day to simply move from look-out to look-out +in that old tower, using the glass for a few moments and then pausing +for reflection. I have half a mind thus to spend one of my three +remaining days. True, the Coliseum will seem vaster close at hand, but +from no point can it be seen so completely and clearly, in its immensity +and its dilapidation combined, as from that. The Tarpeian Rock seems an +absurd fable--its fatal leap the daily sport of infants--but in all +ancient cities the same glaring discrepancy between ancient and modern +altitudes is presented, and especially, we hear, at Jerusalem. The Seven +Hills whereon Rome was built are all distinguishable, visible to-day; +but they are undoubtedly much lower than at first, while all the +intervening valleys have been filling up through centuries. Monkish +traditions say that what is now the basement of the Church of Sts. Peter +and Paul (not the modern St. Peter's) was originally on the level of the +street, and this is quite probable: though I did not so readily +lubricate the stories I was told in that basement to-day of St. Peter, +Paul and Luke having tenanted this basement, Paul having lived and +preached here for the first two years of his residence in Rome; and when +they showed me the _altar_ at which St. Paul was wont to minister, I +stopped short and didn't _try_ to believe any more. But this soil is +thickly sown with marvels and very productive. + +St. Peter's, or at least its Dome, was in sight through the greater part +of the last eleven or twelve miles of our journey to the city; from most +other directions it is doubtless visible at a much greater distance. I +have of course seen the immense structure afar off, as well as glanced +at it in passing by night; but I am not yet prepared to comprehend its +vast proportions. I mean to visit it last before leaving Rome, so as to +carry away as unclouded an impression of it as possible. + +Of the three hundred and sixty-five Churches of Rome, I have as yet +visited but four, and may find time to see as many more of the most +noteworthy. They seem richer in Sculpture, Porphyry, Mosaic, Carving, +Tapestry, &c. than anything elsewhere well can be; but not equal in +Architecture to the finest Churches in Genoa, the Cathedral at Pisa, and +I think not externally to Notre Dame at Paris. Indeed, though large +portions of the present Rome are very far from ruinous, and some of them +quite modern and fresh-looking, yet the general Architecture of the city +is decidedly inferior to that of Genoa, and I should say even to that of +Leghorn. In making this comparison, I of course leave out of the account +St. Peter's and the Churches of both cities, and refer mainly to private +architecture, in which Rome is not transcendent--certainly not in Italy. +The streets here are rather wide for an Italian city but would be deemed +intolerably narrow in America. + +As to _Sculpture_ and _Painting_, I am tempted to say that if mankind +were compelled to choose between the destruction of what is in Rome or +that of all the rest in the world, the former should be saved at the +expense of the latter. Adequate conception of the extent, the variety, +the excellence of the works of Art here heaped together is impossible. +If every house on Broadway were a gallery, the whole six miles of them +(counting both sides of the street) might be filled from Rome with +Pictures, Statues, &c. of decided merit. + +What little I have seen does not impress me with the superiority of +Ancient over Modern Art. Of course, if you compare the dozen best things +produced in twenty centuries against a like number chosen from the +productions of the last single century, you will show a superiority on +the part of the former; but that decides nothing. The Capitoline Venus +is a paragon, but there is no collection of ancient sculpture which will +compare with the extensive gallery of heads by Canova alone. When +benignant Time shall have done his appointed work of covering with the +pall of oblivion the worse nineteen twentieths of the productions of the +modern chisel, the genuine successes of the Nineteenth Century will +shine out clearer and brighter than they now do. So, I trust, with +Painting, though I do not know what painter of our age to place on a +perilous eminence with Canova as the champion or representative of +Modern as compared with Ancient Art. + +It is well that there should be somewhere an Emporium of the Fine Arts, +yet not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the +limbs destitute. I think Rome has been grasping with regard to works of +Art, and in some instances unwisely so. For instance, in a single +private gallery I visited to-day, there were not less than twenty +decidedly good pictures by Anibal Caracci--probably twice as many as +there are in all the world out of Italy. That gallery would scarcely +miss half of these, which might be fully replaced by as many modern +works of equal merit, whereby the gallery and Rome would lose nothing, +while the world outside would decidedly gain. If Rome would but consider +herself under a sort of moral responsibility to impart as well as +receive, and would liberally dispose of so many of her master-pieces as +would not at all impoverish her, buying in return such as could be +spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by +diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service +and earn the gratitude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her +own permanent well-being. It is in her power to constitute herself the +center of an International Art-Union really worthy of the name--to +establish a World's Exhibition of Fine Arts unequaled in character and +beneficence. Is it too much to hope that she will realize or surpass +this conception? + +These suggestions, impelled by what I have seen to-day, are at all +events much shorter than I could have made any detailed account of my +observations. I have no qualifications for a critic in Art, and make no +pretensions to the character, even had my observations been less hurried +than they necessarily were. I write only for the great multitude, as +ill-instructed in this sphere as I cheerfully admit myself, and who yet +are not unwilling to learn what impression is made by the treasures of +Rome on one like themselves. + + +THE COLISEUM. + + _Evening._ + +I spent the forenoon wandering through the endless halls of the Vatican, +so far as they were accessible to the public, the more important +galleries being only open on Monday, and two or three of the very finest +not at all. I fear this restriction will deprive me of a sight of the +Apollo Belvedere, the Sistine Chapel, and one or two others of the +world's marvels. I know how ungracious it is to "look a gift horse in +the mouth," and yet, since these works exist mainly to be seen, and as +Rome derives so large a share of her income from the strangers whom +these works attract to her, I must think it unwise to send any away +regretting that they were denied a sight of the Apollo or of some of +Raphael's master-pieces contained in the Vatican. I know at what vast +expense these works have been produced or purchased, and, though all who +visit Rome are made to pay a great deal indirectly for the privileges +they enjoy here, yet I wish the Papal Government would frankly exact, as +I for one should most cheerfully pay, a fair price for admission to the +most admirable and unrivaled collections which are its property. If, for +instance, it would abolish all Passport vexations, encourage the opening +of Railroads, and stimulate the establishment of better lines of +Diligences, &c., so that traveling in the Papal States would cease to be +twice as dear and infinitely slower than elsewhere in Italy, in France +or Germany, and would then charge each stranger visiting Rome on errands +other than religious something like five dollars for all that is to be +seen here, taking care to let him see it, and to cut off all private +importunities for services rendered in showing them, the system would be +a great improvement on the present, and the number of strangers in Rome +would be rapidly doubled and quadrupled. There might be some calumny +and misrepresentation, but these would very soon be dispelled, and the +world would understand that the Papacy did not seek to make money out of +its priceless treasures, but simply to provide equitably and properly +for their preservation and due increase. Here, as we all see, have +immense sums been already spent by this Government in excavating, +preserving, and in some cases partially restoring such decayed but +inimitable structures as the Coliseum, the Capitol, the various +Triumphal Arches, the Baths of Titus, Caracalla, &c., all of which +labors and expenditures we who visit Rome share the benefit, and it is +but the simplest justice that we should contribute to defray the cost, +especially when we know that every dollar so paid would be expended in +continuing these excavations, &c., and in completing the galleries and +other modern structures which are already so peerless. Rome is too +commonly regarded as only a ruin, or, more strictly, as deriving all its +eminence from the Past, while in fact it has more inestimable treasures, +the product of our own century, our own day, than any other city, and I +suspect nearly as many as all the rest of the world. Even the Vatican is +still unfinished; workmen were busy in it to-day, laying additional +floors of variegated marble, putting up new book-cases, &c., none of +them restorations, but all extensions of the Library, which, apart from +the value of its books and manuscripts, is a unique and masterly +exposition of ancient and modern Art. Here are single Vases, Tables, +Frescoes, &c., which would be the pride of any other city: one large +vase of Malachite, a present to Pius IX. from the Russian Autocrat, and +unequaled out of Russia, if in the world. I should judge that +three-fourths of the Frescoes which nearly cover the walls and ceiling +of the fifteen or twenty large halls devoted to the Library are less +than two centuries old. This part of the Vatican is approached through a +magnificent corridor, probably five hundred feet long, with an arched +ceiling entirely inlaid with beautiful Mosaic, and the same is +continued through another gallery some two hundred feet long, which +leads at right angles from this to another wing of the edifice; but the +corridor leading down this wing, and facing that first named, has a +naked, barren-looking ceiling, evidently waiting to be similarly inlaid +when time and means shall permit. This is but a specimen of what is +purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome +could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead +of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, +official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. +It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so +little of it should be devoted to those still progressing works, from +which are derived all this instruction and intellectual enjoyment. + +Here let me say one word in justice to the princely families of Rome, +whose palaces and immense collections of Paintings and Sculptures are +almost daily open to strangers without charge, save the trifle that you +choose to give the attendant who shows you through them. I looked for +hours to-day through the ten spacious apartments of the Palace of the +Orsini family devoted to the Fine Arts, as I had already done through +that of the Doria family, and shall to-morrow do through others, and +doubtless might do through hundreds of others--all hospitably open to +every stranger on the simple condition that he shall deport himself +civilly and refrain from doing any injury to the priceless treasures +which are thus made his own without the trouble even of taking care of +them. I know there are instances of like liberality elsewhere; but is it +anywhere else the rule? and is it in our country even the exception? +What American ever thought of spending half an immense fortune in the +collection of magnificent galleries of Pictures, Statues, &c., and then +quietly opening the whole to the public without expecting a word of +compliment or acknowledgment in return?--without being even personally +known to those whom he thus benefited? We have something to learn of +Rome in this respect. Some of the English nobility whom the Press has +shamed into following this munificent example have done it so grudgingly +as to deprive the concession of all practical value. By requiring all +who wish to visit their galleries to make a formal written application +for the privilege, and await a written answer, they virtually restrict +the favor to persons of leisure, position and education. But in Rome not +even a card nor a name is required; and you walk into a strange private +palace as if you belonged there, lay down your stick or umbrella, and +are shown from hall to hall by an intelligent, courteous attendant, +study at will some of the best productions of Claude, Raphael, Salvator +Rosa, Poussin, Murillo, &c., pay two shillings if you see fit, to the +attendant, and are thanked for it as if you were a patron; going thence +to another such collection, and so for weeks, if you have time. If +wealth were always thus employed, it were a pity that great fortunes are +not more numerous. + +But I purpose to speak of the COLISEUM. I will assume that most +of my readers know that this was an immense amphitheater, constructed in +the days of Rome's imperial greatness, used for gladiatorial combats of +men with ferocious beasts and with each other, and calculated to afford +a view of the spectacle to about one hundred thousand persons at once. +The circuit of the building is over sixteen hundred feet; the arena in +its center is about three hundred and eighty by two hundred and eighty +feet. Most of the walls have fallen for perhaps half their height, +though some part of them still retain very nearly their original +altitude. In the darker ages, after this vast edifice had fallen into +ruin, its materials were carried away by thousands and tens of thousands +of tuns to build palaces and churches, and one side of the exterior wall +was actually for ages drawn upon as if it were a quarry. But in later +years the Papal Government has disbursed thousands upon thousands in the +uncovering and preservation of this stupendous ruin, and with the +amplest success. The fall of its roof and a great portion of its walls +had filled and buried it with rubbish to a depth of some twenty to forty +feet, all of which has been taken away, so that the floor of the +interior is now the veritable sand whereon the combatants fought and +bled and rendered up their lives, while the forty or fifty entrances for +emperors, senators and people, and even the underground passage for the +introduction of the wild beasts, with a part of their cages, are now +palpable. In some places, restorations have been made where they were +necessary to avert the danger of further dilapidation, but as sparingly +as possible; and, though others think differently, the Coliseum seems to +me as majestic and impressive in its utter desolation as it ever could +have been in its grandeur and glory. + +We were fortunate in the hour of our visit. As we slowly made the +circuit of the edifice, a body of French cavalry were exercising their +horses along the eastern side of it, while at a little distance, in the +grove or garden at the south, the quick rattle of the drum told of the +evolutions of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away to the +southward, and our attention was drawn to certain groups of Italians in +the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. We entered, and +were witnesses of a strange, impressive ceremony. It is among the +traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were +compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as +gladiators as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable +resistance to the "lower law" then in the ascendant, which the high +priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and +charges to demonstrate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen +to obey, no matter what might be his private, personal convictions with +regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen +little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed +around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are +offered for the eternal bliss of the martyred Christians of the +Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this occasion. Some twenty +or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare-headed, but as +many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks which left +only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a larger number of +women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the +way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, +kneeling and praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the +next oratory, and so on until they had repeated the service before every +one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the +ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much +more numerous. The praying was fervent and I trust excellent,--as the +music decidedly was not; but the whole scene with the setting sun +shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, +with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely +picturesque and to me affecting. I came away before it concluded, to +avoid the damp night-air; but many chequered years and scenes of +stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sunset +and those strange prayers in the Coliseum. + + + + +XXV. + +ST. PETER'S. + + + ROME, Saturday, June 29, 1851. + +St. Peter's is the Niagara of edifices, having the same relation to +other master-pieces of human effort that the great cataract bears to +other terrestrial effects of Divine power. In either case, the first +view disappoints, because the perfection of symmetry dims the +consciousness of magnitude, and the total absence of exaggeration in the +details forbids the conception of vastness in the aggregate. In viewing +London's St. Paul's, you have a realization of bulk which St. Peter's +does not give, yet St. Paul's is but a wart beside St. Peter's. I do not +know that the resemblance has been noticed by others, but the +semi-circle of gigantic yet admirably proportioned pillars which +encloses the grand square in front of St. Peter's reminds me vividly of +the general conformation of our great water-fall, while the column or +obelisk in the center of the square (which column is a mistake, in my +humble judgment, and should be removed) has its parallel in the +unsightly tower overlooking the main cataract from the extreme point of +Goat Island. Eternal endurance and repose may be fitly typified by the +oceans and snow-crested mountains, but power and energy find their best +expressions in the cataract and the dome. Time and Genius may produce +other structures as admirable in their own way and regarded in +connection with their uses; but, viewed as a temple, St. Peter's will +ever stand unmatched and unapproachable. + +I chose the early morning for my first visit. The sky was cloudless, as +it mainly is here save in winter, but the day was not yet warm, for the +summer nights are cooler here than in New-York, and the current English +talk of the excessive heat which prevails in Rome at this season is +calculated to deceive Americans. No one fails to realize from the first +the great beauty and admirable accessories of this edifice, with the +far-stretching but quite other than lofty pile of the Vatican on its +right and its own magnificent colonnade in front, but you do not feel +that it is lofty, nor spacious, nor anything but perfect. You ascend the +steps, and thus gain some idea of the immense proportions prevailing +throughout; for the church seems scarcely at all elevated above the +square, and yet many are the steps leading up to the doors. Crossing a +grand porch with an arched roof of glorious mosaic, you find yourself in +the body of the edifice, which now seems large and lofty indeed, but by +no means unparalleled. But you walk on and on, between opposing pillars +the grandest the world ever saw, the space at either side between any +two pillars constituting a separate chapel with its gorgeous altar, its +grand pictures in mosaic, its sculptured saints and angels, each of +these chapels having a larger area than any church I ever entered in +America; and by the time you have walked slowly and observingly to the +front of the main altar you realize profoundly that Earth has nothing +else to match with St. Peter's. No matter though another church were +twice as large, and erected at a cost of twice the Thirty Millions of +dollars and fifty years expended upon this, St. Peter's would still +stand unrivaled. For every detail is so marvellously symmetrical that no +one is dwarfed, no one challenges special attention. Of one hundred +distinct parts, any one by itself would command your profoundest +admiration, but everything around and beyond it is no less excellent, +and you soon cease to wonder and remain to appreciate and enjoy. + +I devoted most of the day to St. Peter's, seeing it under many different +aspects, but no other view of the interior is equal to that presented in +the stillness and comparative solitude of the early morning. The +presence of multitudes does not cloud your consciousness of its +immensity, for ten thousand persons occupy no considerable portion of +its area and might very easily be present yet wholly invisible to one +who stood just inside the entrance and looked searchingly through the +body of the edifice to find them; but there are usually very few seats, +and those for the privileged, so that hundreds are constantly moving +from place to place through the day, which distracts attention and mars +the feeling of repose and delighted awe which the naked structure is +calculated to inspire. Go very early some bright summer morning, if you +would see St. Peter's in its calm and stately grandeur. + +I ascended to the roof, and thence to the summit of the dome, but, apart +from a profounder consciousness of the vastness and admirable +proportions of the edifice, this is of little worth. True, the entire +city and its suburbs lie clearly and fully beneath and around you; but +so they do from the tower of the Capitol. Views from commanding heights +are obtained in almost every city. The ascent, however, as far as the +roof, is easier than any other I ever found within a building. Instead +of stairs, here is a circular road, more like the ascent of a mountain +than a Church. One single view is obtained, however, which richly +compensates for the fatigue of the ascent. It is that from the interior +of the dome down into the body of the Church below. The Alps may present +grander, but I never expect to have another like this. + +Here I had personal evidence of the mean, reckless selfishness wherewith +public edifices are regarded by too many, and the absolute necessity of +constant, omnipresent watchfulness to preserve them from wanton +dilapidation. Five or six French soldiers had been permitted to ascend +the dome just before I did, and came down nearly at the same time with +me. As I stood gazing down from this point into the church below, two of +these soldiers came in on their way down, and one of them, looking +around to see that no one was present but a stranger, whipped the +bayonet he wore out of its sheath, forced the point into the mosaic +close behind as well as above us, pried out one of the square pieces of +agate or some such stone of which that mosaic is composed, put it in his +pocket and made off. I had no idea that he would deface the edifice +until the moment he did it, and then hastily remonstrated, but of course +without avail. I looked at the wall on which he operated, and found that +two or three had preceded him in the same work of paltry but most +outrageous robbery. Of course, each will boast of his exploit to his +comrades of kindred spirit, and they will be tempted to imitate it, +until the mischief done becomes sufficiently serious to attract +attention, and then Nobody will have a serious reckoning to encounter. A +few acts of unobserved rapine as trifling as these may easily occasion +some signal disaster. In an edifice like this, there should be no point +accessible to visiters unwatched by a faithful guardian even for one +hour. + +In the afternoon, I attended the Celebration of High Mass, this being +observed by the Catholic world as St. Peter's Day, and the Pope himself +officiating in the great Cathedral. Not understanding the service, I +could not profit by it, and the spectacle impressed me unfavorably. Such +a multiplicity of spears and bayonets seem to me strangely out of +keeping in a place of worship; if they belong here, why not bring in a +regiment of horse and a park of artillery as well? There is ample room +for them in St. Peter's, and the cavalry might charge and the cannoniers +fire a few volleys with little harm to the building, and with great +increase both to the numbers and interest of the audience. I am not +pretending to judge this for others, but simply to state how it +naturally strikes one educated in the simple, sober observances of +Puritan New-England. I have heard of Protestants being converted in +Rome, but it seems to me the very last place where the great body of +those educated in really Protestant ways would be likely to undergo +conversion. I have seen very much here to admire, and there is doubtless +many times more such that I have not seen, but the radical antagonism of +Catholic and Protestant ideas, observances and tendencies never before +stood out in a light so clear and strong as that shed upon it by a few +days in Rome. I obtained admission yesterday to the Sistine Chapel of +the Vatican, and saw there, among the paintings in fresco, a +representation of the death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of St. +Bartholomew; and if this were not intended to express approval of that +horrible massacre, I would like to know what was meant by having it +painted and placed there. + +But to return to St. Peter's. The entrance of the grand procession from +the Vatican was a very slow process. In its ranks were the Noble Guard, +the Swiss Guard, the Cardinals, and many other divisions, each in its +own imposing and picturesque costume. At length came the Pope, seated in +a magnificent chair on a raised platform or palanquin, the whole borne +on the shoulders of some ten or twelve servitors. This was a capital +arrangement for us strangers, who wished a good view of His Holiness; +but I am sure it was very disagreeable to him, and that he would much +rather have walked like the rest. He passed into the church out of my +sight, dismounted, and I (having also entered) next saw him approach one +of the altars on the right, where he knelt and silently prayed for some +minutes. He was then borne onward to his throne at the further end, and +the service commenced. + +The singing of the Mass was very good. The Pope's reading I did not +hear, nor was I near enough even to see him, except fitfully. I think +there were more than five thousand persons present, including a +thousand priests and a thousand soldiers. There would doubtless have +been many more, but for the fact that a smart shower occurred just +before and at the hour (5 o'clock), while no public notice had been +given that the Pope would officiate. + +In the evening, St. Peter's and its accessories were illuminated--by far +the most brilliant spectacle I ever saw. All was dark and silent till, +at the first stroke of the bell, light flashed from a hundred thousand +burners, and the entire front of the Church and Dome, up to the very +summit of the spire, was one magnificent galaxy, while the double row of +gigantic pillars or columns surrounding the square was in like manner +radiant with jets of flame. I thought the architecture of St. Peter's +Rome's greatest glory when I had only seen it by daylight, yet it now +seemed more wondrous still. The bells rang sweetly and stirringly +throughout the evening, and there was a like illumination on the summit +of the Pincian Hill, while most of the shops and dwellings displayed at +least one row of burning candles, and bonfires blazed brightly in the +streets, which were alive with moving, animated groups, while the square +of St. Peter's and the nearest bridges over the Tiber were black with +excited thousands. To-night we have fire-works from the Pincian in honor +of St. Peter, which would be thought in New England an odd way of +honoring an Apostle, especially on Sunday evening; but whether Rome or +Boston is right on this point is a question to be pondered. + +_P. S. Monday._--I did not see the Fire-Works last evening, but almost +every one else in Rome did, and the unanimous verdict pronounces them +admirable--extraordinary. Great preparations had been made, and the +success must have been perfect to win so general and hearty a +commendation. The display was ushered in by a rousing salute of +artillery; but this was not needed to assemble in and around the Piazza +del Popolo all the population of Rome that could be spared from their +homes. The Piazza is the great square of Rome, in front of the Pincian +Hill, whence the rockets, wheels, stars, serpents, &c., were let off. +The display was not concluded till after 10 o'clock. + +This day I have devoted to famous private galleries of Paintings and +Sculpture, having been again disappointed in attempting to gain a sight +of the Apollo Belvedere and Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The time for +opening these treasures to the public has lately been changed from 10 +A. M. to noon, and they are only open regularly on Mondays; so +that I was there a little before noon to be ready; but after waiting +(with many others) a full hour, in front of an inexorable gate, without +being able to learn why we were shut out or when the embargo would +cease, I grew weary of the uncertainty and waste of time, and left. A +little past 1 (I now understand), the gate was opened, but too late for +me, as I did not return, and leave Rome for Florence to-morrow. Had the +simplest notice been given that such a delay would take place, or had +the officers at the gates been able to give any information, I should +have had different luck. "They manage these things better in France." + + + + +XXVI. + +THE ROMANS OF TO-DAY. + + + ROME, Monday, June 30, 1851. + +The common people of Rome generally seem to me an intelligent, vivacious +race, and I can readily credit the assurance of well-informed friends +that they are mentally superior to most other Italians. It may be deemed +strange that any other result should be thought possible, since the very +earth around them, with all it bears, is so vivified with the spirit of +Heroism, of Genius, and of whatever is most memorable in History. But +the legitimate influences of Nature, of Art, and of Ancestry, are often +overborne by those of Institutions and Laws, as is now witnessed on all +the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, and I was rather +disappointed in finding the present Romans a race of fully average +capacities, intellectual and physical. A face indicating mental +imbecility, or even low mediocrity, is very rarely met in those streets +where the greater portion of the Romans seem to work and live. The women +are brown, plain, bare-headed, and rather careless of personal +appearance, but ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with +flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and +character. I do not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have +been painted where the women were common-place and unideal. + +But all with whom I can converse, and who are qualified to speak by +residence in the country, give unfavorable accounts of the moral +qualities of the Romans especially, and in these qualities I include +Patriotism and all the civic virtues. That Italians, and those of Rome +especially, are quite commonly sensual, selfish, indolent, fickle, +dishonest, vicious, is the general report of the foreigners residing +among them. Zealous Protestants will readily account for it by their +Catholicism. My own prepossessions naturally lead me to the conclusion +that much of the religious machinery in operation here is unfavorable to +the development of high moral character. Whatever the enlightened and +good may mean by these observances, it does seem to me that the ignorant +and vulgar understand that the evil consequences of pleasant sins may be +cheaply avoided by a liberal use of holy water, by bowings before the +altar and reverent conformity to rituals and ceremonies.--This is +certainly the great danger (in my sight) of the Catholic system, that it +may lead its votaries to esteem conformity to outward and ceremonial +requirements as essentially meritorious, and in some sense an offset for +violations of the moral law. Not that this error is by any means +confined to Catholics, for Christendom is full of Protestants who, +though ready enough to proclaim that kissing the toe of St. Peter's +statue is a poor atonement for violating the Commandments, and Adoration +of the Virgin a very bad substitute for Chastity, do yet themselves +prefer bad Christians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the +conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no +improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such +conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but +how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of +Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries +better husbands, brothers, children, neighbors, kindred, citizens? To my +Protestant eyes, it seems that the general error on this point is more +prevalent and more vital at Rome than elsewhere; and I have been trying +to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary +I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the +Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the +Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. +&c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a +representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the +Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God +is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and +worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." I presume such a +representation must exist in a city where there are so many hundreds if +not thousands of pictures of St. Peter doing, receiving or suffering; +but this certainly is not a favorite subject here, or I should have seen +it many times depicted. Who knows a Protestant city in which the +aforesaid lesson given to Peter has been adequately dwelt on and heeded? + +That the prevalence of Catholicism is not inconsistent with general +uprightness and purity of morals is demonstrated in Ireland, in +Switzerland, in Belgium, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. The testimony of +the great body of travelers and other observers with regard to the +countries just named, affirms the general prevalence therein of those +virtues which are the basis of the Family and the Church. And yet, the +acknowledged state of things here is a grave fact which challenges +inquiry and demands explanation. In the very metropolis of Catholic +Christendom, where nearly all believe, and a great majority are at least +ceremonially devout--where many of the best intellects in the Catholic +communion have flourished and borne sway for more than fifteen +centuries, and with scarcely a divided empire for the last thousand +years--where Churches and Priests have long been more abundant than on +any other spot of earth, and where Divine worship and Christian +ordinances are scarcely intermitted for an hour, but are free and +welcome to all, and are very generally attended--what is the reason that +corruption and degeneracy should be so fearfully prevalent? If only the +enemies of Rome's faith affirmed this degeneracy, we might fairly +suppose it invented or exaggerated; but even the immediate Priesthood of +this people, who may be presumed most unwilling and unlikely to deny +their virtues or magnify their vices, declare them unfit to be trusted +with power over their own political destinies, and indeed incapable of +self-government. Such is the fundamental basis and essential +justification of the rule now maintained in Rome, under the protection +of foreign bayonets. This is a conquered city, virtually if not +nominally in a state of siege, without assignable period. The Pope's +guards are partly Swiss and partly native, that is, chosen from the +families of the Nobility; but the "power behind the throne" is +maintained by the thousands of French soldiers who garrison the city, +and the tens of thousands of Austrian, Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers +who would be pushed here upon the first serious attempt of the Romans to +assert their right of self-government. Thus, "Order reigns in Warsaw," +while Democracy bites its lip and bides its time. + +Has Human Nature degenerated under Christian ministrations? There surely +_was_ a Roman people, some twenty-odd centuries ago, who were capable of +self-government, and who maintained it long and creditably. Why should +it be otherwise with the Romans of to-day? I do not believe it is. They +have great vices I admit, for all testimony affirms it; that they might +somewhat abuse Freedom I fear, for the blessed sunshine is painful and +perilous to eyes long used to the gloom of the dungeon. But the +experience of Freedom must tend to dispel the ignorance and correct the +errors of its votaries, while Slavery only leads from bad to worse. If +ten centuries of such rule as now prevails here have nowise qualified +this people for Self-Government, what rational hope is there that ten +more such would do it? If a reform is ever to be effected, it cannot be +commenced too soon. + +As to the actual government of Rome and her dependencies, it could not +well be worse. The rulers fully understand that they are under no +obligation to the people for the power they exercise, nor for the +submission which it commands. The despotism which prevails is unmodified +even by the hereditary despot's natural desire to secure the throne to +his descendants by cultivating the good will of his people. The Pope is +nominally sovereign, and all regard him as personally a pure and good +man; but he exerts no actual power in the State, his time and thoughts +being wholly devoted to the various and complicated cares of his vast +Spiritual empire. Meantime, the Reäctionist influences so omnipotent +with his predecessor, but which were repressed for a time after the +present Pontiff's accession, have unchecked sway in the political +administration. The way the present rulers of Rome read History is +this--"Pius IX. came into power a Liberal and a Reformer, and did all he +could for the promotion of Republican and Progressive ideas; for all +which his recompense was the assassination of his Prime Minister, and +his own personal expulsion from his throne and territories--which is +quite enough of Liberalism for one generation; we, at least, will have +no more of it." And they certainly live up to their resolution. It is +currently reported that there are now _Seventeen Thousand_ political +prisoners confined here, but nobody who would tell can know how many +there are, and I presume this statement is a gross exaggeration, +significant only as an index of the popular feeling. The essential fact +is that there _might_ be Seventeen or Seventy Thousand thus imprisoned +without publicity, known accusation or trial, save at the convenience of +those ordering their arrest; and with no recognized right of the +arrested to Habeas Corpus or any kindred process. Many of the best +Romans of the age are in exile for Liberty's sake. I was reliably +informed at Turin that there are at this time _Three Hundred Thousand_ +Political Refugees in the Kingdom of Sardinia, nearly all, of course, +from the despotism of Lower Italy. Thus Europe is kept tranquil by a +system of terror, which is efficient while the spell holds; but let it +break at any point, and all will go together. + +The Cardinals are the actual directors of State affairs here, and are +popularly held responsible for all that is disliked in the Government. +They would be likely to fare roughly in case of another revolution. They +are privately accused of flagrant immoralities, as men so powerful and +so unpopular would naturally be, whether with or without cause. I know +no facts that sustain the accusation. + +A single newspaper is now published in Rome, but I have heard it +inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a +Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and +would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed +sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to +the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. +There are very few foreign journals taken or read in the Roman States. +Lynn or Poughkeepsie probably, Newark or New-Haven certainly, buys and +reads more newspapers than the entire Three Millions of People who +inhabit the Papal States. I could not learn to relish such a state of +things. I have just paid $3.70 (more than half of it to our American +Consul) for the privilege of leaving the dominions of His Holiness, and +shall speedily profit by the gracious permission. + + + + +XXVII. + +CENTRAL ITALY--FLORENCE. + + + BOLOGNA, July 6, 1851. + +"See Naples and die!" says the proverb: but I am in no hurry to "shuffle +off this mortal coil," and rather weary of seeing. I think I should have +found a few choice friends in Naples, but my time is limited, and the +traveling through Southern Italy neither pleasant nor expeditious. Of +Vesuvius in its milder moods I never had a high opinion; and, though I +should have liked to tread the unburied streets of Pompeii, yet Rome has +nearly surfeited me with ruins. So I shortened my tour in Italy by +cutting off the farther end of it, and turned my face obliquely homeward +from the Eternal City. What has the world to show of by-gone glory and +grandeur which she cannot at least equal? + +Let no one be sanguine as to his good resolutions. I as firmly resolved, +when I first shook from my feet the dust of Civita Vecchia, that I never +again would enter its gates, as I ever did to do or forbear any act +whatever. But, after a tedious and ineffectual attempt to make up a +party of Americans to come through from Rome to Florence direct, I was +at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on +that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to +wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send +one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly +unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any obligation on the part of +proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra +number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be +found to express it. So some dozen or more who would gladly have gone +through by land to Florence were driven back upon Civita Vecchia and +Leghorn--I among the number. + +Three of us left Rome in a private carriage at noon on Tuesday the 1st, +and reached Civita Vecchia at 10 minutes past 9 P. M.--the +inner gate having been closed at 9. One of my companions was known and +responsibly connected at the port, and so was enabled to negotiate our +admission, though the process was a tedious one, and our carriage had to +be left in the outer court, or between the two walls. Here I left it at +10; it may have been got in afterward. We found all the rooms taken at +the best Hotel (Orlandi), and were driven to accept such as there were +left. The boat (Languedoc) was advertised to start for Leghorn at 7 next +morning, by which time I succeeded in getting my Passport cleared (for +no steamboat in these waters will give you a permit to embark until you +have handed in your Passport, duly cleared, at its office, as well as +paid for your passage); but the boat was coolly taking in water long +after its advertised hour, and did not start until half past eight. + +We had an unusually large number of passengers, about one hundred and +fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number +of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and +propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a +more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of +the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in +the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should +have been well and hearty. We made Leghorn (120 miles) in about eleven +hours, which is very good time for the Mediterranean. But reaching the +harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour +or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of +the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a +powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the +Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was +unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the +medicine I required, and from the moment of taking it I began to +recover. By seasonable effort, I recovered my Passport from the Police +office, duly _viséd_, at 10 A. M. and left by Railroad for +Florence at 10½, reaching the capital of Tuscany (60 miles) about 1 +o'clock, P. M. + +Florence (Italian _Firenzé_) is pleasantly situated on both sides of the +Arno, some forty miles in a direct line from its mouth. The river is +here about the size of the Hudson at Sandy Hill or the Mohawk at +Canajoharie, but subject to rapid swellings from rains in the Apennines +above. One such occurred the night I was there, though very little rain +fell at Florence. I was awakened in the night by the rushing and roaring +of its waters, my window having only a street between it and the river, +which subsided the next day, without having done any material damage. + +That day was the 4th of July, and I spent most of it, under the guidance +of friends resident at Florence, in looking through the galleries +devoted to Paintings and Statuary in the two famous palaces of the +reigning family and in the Academy. Although the collections embrace the +Venus de Medicis and many admirable Paintings, I cannot say that my +expectations were fully realized. Ill health may in part account for +this; my recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treasures of +Art at Rome may also help explain my obtuseness at Florence. And yet I +saw nothing in Rome with greater pleasure or profit than I derived from +the hour I spent in the studio of our countryman POWERS, whose fame is +already world-wide, and who I trust is now rapidly acquiring that generous +competence which will enable him to spend the evening of his days in ease +and comfort in his native land. The abundance of orders constantly pouring +in upon him at his own prices does not induce him to abandon nor postpone +his efforts in the ideal and more exalted sphere of his art, but rather to +redouble those efforts; and it will yet be felt that his "Greek Slave" and +"Fisher Boy," so widely admired, are not his loftiest achievements. I defy +Antiquity to surpass--I doubt its ability to rival--his "Proserpine" and +his "Psyche" with any models of the female head that have come down to us; +and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I +feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will +fulfill his destiny. If for those who talk of America quitting her proper +sphere and seeking to be Europe when she wanders into the domain of Art, +we had no other answer than POWERS, that name would be conclusive. + +GREENOUGH is now absent from Florence. I met him at Turin, on his way to +America, on account (I casually heard) of sickness in his family. But I +obtained admission to his studio in Florence, and saw there the unfinished +group on which he is employed by order of Congress, to adorn one of the +yet empty niches in the Capitol. His execution is not yet sufficiently +advanced to be judged, but the design is happy and most expressive. + +I saw something of three younger American Sculptors now studying and +working at Florence--HART of Kentucky, GALT of Virginia, and ROGERS of +New-York. (IVES is absent--at Rome, I believe, though I did not meet him +there.) I believe all are preparing to do credit to their country. HART +has been hindered by a loss of models at sea from proceeding with the +Statue of HENRY CLAY which he is commissioned by the Ladies of Virginia +to fashion and construct; but he is wisely devoting much of his time to +careful study and to the modeling of the Ideal before proceeding to commit +himself irrevocably by the great work which must fix his position among +Sculptors and make or mar his destiny. I have great confidence that what +he has already carefully and excellently done is but a foretaste of what +he is yet to achieve, and that his seeming hesitation will prove the +surest and truest efficiency. + +I think there are but few American painters in Florence. I met none but +PAGE, who is fully employed and expects to spend some time in Italy. His +health is better than during his last year in New-York. + + * * * * * + +The strong necessity of moving on compelled me to tear myself away from +a pleasant party of Americans assembled at dinner in Florence last +evening to celebrate the 76th Anniversary of American Independence, and +take the Diligence at 8 o'clock for this place on the road to Venice, +though no other American nor even an Englishman came along. I have found +by experience that I cannot await the motions of others, nor can I find +a party ready to take post-horses and so travel at rational hours. The +Diligence or stage-coach traveling in Italy appears to be organized on +purpose to afford the least possible accommodation at the most +exorbitant cost. This city, for example, is 63 miles from Florence on +the way to Padua and Venice, and the Diligence leaves Florence for +Bologna at no other hour than 8 P. M. arriving here at 1½ o'clock next +day; fare 40 to 45 Tuscan pauls or $4.45 to $5. But when you reach +Bologna at midday, after an all-night ride, you find no conveyance for +any point beyond this until ten o'clock next morning, so that you must +wait here twenty-one hours; and the Diligence might far better, so far +as the travelers' convenience and comfort is concerned, have remained in +Florence till an early hour in the morning, making the passage over the +Apennines by day and saving their nights' rest. Three or four travelers +may break over this absurd tyranny by taking post-horses; a single one +has no choice but to submit. And, having reached Bologna, I tried to +gain time, or at least avoid another night-ride, by taking a private +carriage (_vetturino_) this afternoon for Ferrara, thirty miles further +on, sleep there to-night, and catch a Diligence or Mail-Coach to-morrow +morning, so as to reach Padua in the evening: but no--there is no coach +out of Padua Venice-ward till 4 to-morrow afternoon, and I should gain +nothing but extra fatigue and expense by taking a carriage to Ferrara, +so I give it up. I must make most of the journey from Ferrara to Padua +by night, and yet take as much time as though I traveled only by +day,--for I am in Italy. + +The valley of the Arno, especially for some miles on either side of +Florence, is among the most fertile portions of this prolific land, and +is laboriously though not efficiently cultivated. All the Grains grow +luxuriantly throughout Italy, though Indian Corn is so thickly planted +and so viciously cultivated that it has no chance to ear or fill well. +There is enough labor performed on the average to insure sixty bushels +of shelled grain to the acre, but the actual yield will hardly exceed +twenty-five. And I have not had the first morsel of food prepared from +this grain offered me since I reached the shores of Europe. Wheat is the +favorite grain here, and, requiring less depth of soil than Indian corn, +and having been much longer cultivated here, yields very fairly. Barley +and Oats are grown, but to a limited extent; of Rye, still less. The +Potato is planted very sparingly south of Piedmont, and not so commonly +there as in Savoy. The Vine is a universal favorite, and rarely out of +view; while it often seems to cover half the ground in sight. But it is +not grown here in close hills as in France and around Cincinnati, but +usually in rows some twenty or thirty feet apart, and trained on trees +kept down to a hight of eight to twelve feet. Around Rome, a species of +Cane is grown wherewith to support the vines after the manner of +bean-poles, which, after serving a year or two in this capacity, is used +for fuel, and new stalks of cane replace those which have been enfeebled +by exposure and decay. The plan of training the vines on dwarfed trees +(which seems to me by far the most natural) prevails here as well as on +the other side of the Apennines; so that the vine-stalks are large and +may be hundreds of years old, instead of being (apparently) fresh from +the ground every year or two. The space between the vine-rows is usually +sown with Wheat, but sometimes planted with Corn or laid down to Grass, +and a moderate crop realized. + +Crossing the Apennines mainly in the night, they seemed a little higher +than the Green Mountains of Vermont, but lacking the thrifty forests of +which I apprehend the proximity of Railroads is about to despoil that +noble range. But the Apennines, though cultivated wherever they can be, +are far more precipitous and sterile than their American counterpart, +and seem to be in good degree composed of a whitish clay or marl which +every rain is washing away, rendering the Arno after a storm one of the +muddiest streams I ever saw. I presume, therefore, that the Apennines +are, as a whole, less lofty and difficult now than they were in the days +of Romulus, of Hannibal, or even of Constantine. + +We crossed the summit about daylight, and began rapidly to descend, +following down the course of one of the streams which find the Adriatic +together near the mouth of the Po. At 5 A. M. we passed the boundary of +Tuscany and entered the Papal territory, so that our baggage had to be +all taken down and searched, and our Passports re-scrutinized--two +processes to which I am becoming more accustomed than any live eel ever +was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the +pecuniary swindle trifling. But though the hour was early and there were +few habitations in sight, there soon gathered around us a swarm of most +importunate beggars--brown, withered old women spinning on distaffs held +in the hand (a process I fancied the world had outgrown), and stopping +every moment to hold out a dirty claw, with a most disgusting grimace +and whine--"For the love of God, Signor"--with ditto old men, and +children of various sizes, the youngest who could walk seeming as apt at +beggary as their grandames who have followed it, "off and on," for +seventy or eighty years. If the ancient Romans had equaled their living +progeny in begging, they need not have dared and suffered so much to +achieve the mastery of the world--they might have begged it, and saved +an infinity of needless slaughter. These people have no proper pride, no +manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, +owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only +required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York +shilling or eighteen pence per day, and themselves the virtual serfs of +great landholders who live in Rome or Bologna and whom they rarely or +never see--is it a wonder that they stoop to plead and whine for coppers +around every carriage that traverses their country? That they fare +miserably, their scanty rags and pinched faces sufficiently attest; that +they are indolent and improvident I can very well believe: for when were +uneducated, unskilled, hopeless vassals anything else? Italy, beautiful, +bounteous land! is everywhere haggard with want and wretchedness, but +these seem nowhere so general and chronic as in the Papal territories. +Every political division of Italy but this has at least some section of +Railroad in operation; Rome, though in the heart of all and the great +focus of attraction for travelers, has not the first mile and no +prospect of any, though it would seem a good speculation to build one if +it were to be used only in transporting hither the Foreign troops +absolutely essential here to keep the people quiet in their chains. "And +this, too, shall pass away!" + + + + +XXVIII. + +EASTERN ITALY--THE PO. + + + VENICE, Tuesday, July 8. + +I never saw and cannot hope to see hereafter a region more blessed by +Nature than the great plain of Upper Italy, whereof the Po is the +life-blood. It is very fertile and beautiful where I first traversed it +near its head, from the foot of Mount Cenis by Turin to Alessandria and +Novi, on my way down to Genoa; yet it is richer and lovelier still where +I have just recrossed it from the foot of the Apennines by Bologna, +Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua on my way from Florence to Venice. Irrigation, +which might easily be almost universal in Piedmont, seems there but an +occasional expedient, while here it is the breath of life. From Bologna +to Rovigo (and I presume on to Padua, though there night and drowsiness +prevented my observing clearly), the whole country seems completely +intersected by Canals constructed in the palmier days of Italy on +purpose to distribute the fertilizing waters of the Po and the Adige +over the entire face of the country and dispense them to every field and +meadow. The great highway generally runs along the bank of one of these +Canals, which are filled from the rivers when they have just been raised +by rains and are thus surcharged with fertilizing matter, and drawn off +from day to day thereafter to refresh and enrich the remarkably level +plain they traverse. Thus not only the plain and the glades lying nearer +the sources of the rivers, but the sterile, rugged crests of the Alps +and Apennines which enclose this great basin are made to contribute +evermore to the fruitfulness of its soil, so that Despotism, Ignorance, +Stolidity, Indolence and Unthrift of all kinds vainly strive to render +it other than the Garden of Europe. The banks of the Canals and the +sides of the highways are generally lined with trees, rows of which also +traverse many if not most of the fields, so that from certain points the +whole country seems one vast, low forest or "timbered opening" of +Poplar, Willow, Mulberry, Locust, &c. There are a few Oaks, more Elms, +and some species I did not recognize, and the Vine through all this +region is trained on dwarfed or shortened trees, sometimes along the +roadside, but oftener in rows through one-fourth of the fields, while in +a few instances it is allowed thus to obtain an altitude of thirty or +forty feet. Of Fruit, I have seen only the Apricot and the Cherry in +abundance, but there are some Pears, while the Orange and Lemon are very +plentiful in the towns, though I think they are generally brought from +Naples and the Mediterranean coast. But finer crops of Wheat, Grass, +Hemp, &c., can grow nowhere than throughout this country, while the +Indian Corn which is abundantly planted, would yield as amply if the +people knew how to cultivate it. Ohio has no better soil nor climate for +this grain. Of Potatoes or other edible roots I have seen very little. +Hemp is extensively cultivated, and grows most luxuriantly. Man is the +only product of this prolific land which seems stunted and shriveled. +Were Italy once more a Nation, under one wise and liberal government, +with a single tariff, coinage, mail-post, &c., a thorough system of +common school education, a small navy, but no passports, and a public +policy which looked to the fostering and diversifying of her industry, +she might easily sustain and enrich a population of sixty millions. As +it is, one-half of her twenty-five millions are in rags, and are pinched +by hunger, while inhabiting the best wheat country in Europe, from which +food is constantly and largely exported. There are at least one hundred +millions of dollars locked up in useless decorations of churches, and +not one common school-house from Savoy to Sicily. A little education, +after a fashion, is fitfully dispensed by certain religious and +charitable foundations, so that the child lucky enough to be an orphan +or illegitimate has a chance to be taught to read and write; but any +such thing as a practical recognition of the right to education, or as a +public and general provision for imparting it, is utterly unknown here. +Grand and beautiful structures are crowded in every city, and are +crumbling to dust on every side; a single township dotted at proper +intervals with eight or ten school-houses would be worth them all. With +infinite water power, cheaper labor, and cheaper food than almost any +other country in the civilized world, and millions of children at once +naked and idle because no one will employ them at even six-pence a day, +she has not one cotton or woolen factory that I have yet seen, and can +hardly have one at all, though her mountains afford vast and excellent +sheep-walks, and Naples can grow cotton if she will. England and Germany +manufacture nearly all the few fabrics of cotton or wool worn here, +because those who should lead, instruct, and employ this people, are +blind to their duty or recreant to its obligations. Italy, once the +light of the world, is dying of aristocratic torpor and popular +ignorance, whence come indolence, superstition, and wide-spread +demoralization and misery. + +Bologna is a walled city of Seventy Thousand inhabitants, with about as +much trade and business of all kinds as an American village of ten to +twenty thousand people. I doubt that thirty persons per day are carried +into or brought out of it by all public conveyances whatever. It is well +built on narrow streets, like nearly all Italian cities, and manifests +considerable activity in the way of watching gates and _visé_ing +Passports. Though in the Papal territory, it is under Austrian +guardianship; an Austrian sentinel constantly paced the court-yard of +the "Hotel Brun" where I stopped. Though the second town in the Pope's +temporal dominions, strongly walled, it has no Military strength, being +commanded by a hill a short mile south of it--the last hill I remember +having seen till I reached Venice and looked across over the lagoons to +the Euganian hills on the main land to south-west. The most notable +thing I saw in Bologna was an awning of sheeting or calico spread over +the centre of the main street on a level with the roofs of the houses +for a distance of half a mile or so. I should distrust its standing a +strong gust, but if it would, the idea is worth borrowing. + +After a night-ride over the Apennines from Florence, and a detention of +twenty-one hours at Bologna, I did hope that our next start would be +"for good"--that there would be no more halt till we reached Padua. But +I did not yet adequately appreciate Italian management. A Yankee +stage-coach running but once a day between two such cities as Bologna +and Ferrara would start at daylight and so connect at the latter place +as to set down its passengers beside the Railroad in Padua (86 to 90 +miles of the best possible staging from Bologna) in the evening of the +same day. We left Bologna at 10 A. M., drove to Ferrara, arrived +there a little past 2; and then came a halt of _four hours_--till six +P. M. when the stage started for a night-trip to Padua--none +running during the day. But a Yankee stage would have one man for +manager, driver, &c., who would very likely be the owner also of the +horses and a partner in the line; we started from a grand office with +two book-keepers and a platoon of lackeys and baggage-smashers, with a +"guard" on the box, and two "postillions" riding respectively the nigh +horses of the two teams, there being always three horses at the pole and +sometimes three on the lead also, at others only two. We had half a +dozen passengers to Ferrara; for the rest of the way, I had this +extensive traveling establishment to myself. I do not think the average +number of passengers on a corresponding route in our country could be so +few as twenty. Such are some of the points of difference between America +and Italy. + +We crossed the Po an hour after leaving Ferrara, and here passed out of +the Papal into the unequivocally Austrian territory--the Kingdom of +Venice and Lombardy. There were of course soldiers on each side (though +all of a piece), police officers, a Passport scrutiny and a fresh look +into my carpet-bags, mainly (I understand) for Tobacco! When any +tide-waiter finds more of that about me than the chronic ill breeding of +traveling smokers compels me to carry in my clothes, he is welcome to +confiscate all I possess. But they found nothing here to cavil at, and I +passed on. + +There is no town where we crossed the Po, only a small village on either +side, and we followed down the left bank in a north-easterly direction +for several miles without seeing any considerable place. The river has +here, as through nearly its whole course, a strong, rapid current, and +was swollen and rendered turbid by recent rains. I judge that its +surface was decidedly above the level of the adjacent country, which is +protected from inundation (like the region of the Lower Mississippi) by +strong embankments or levees, at first natural doubtless--the product of +the successive overflows of centuries but subsequently strengthened and +perfected by human labor. The force of the current being strongest in +the center of the river, there is either stillness or an eddy near the +banks, so that the sediment with which the current is charged tends +constantly to deposition on or against the banks. When the river rises +so as to overflow those banks, the downward current is entirely unfelt +there and the deposition becomes still more rapid, the proportion of +earthy matter to that of water being much greater then than at other +times. Thus great, rapid rivers running through vast plains like these +gradually form levees in the course of many centuries, their channels +being defined and narrowed by their own deposits until the surface of +their waters, at least in times of flood, is raised above the level of +the surrounding country, often several feet. When the great swamps of +Louisiana shall have been drained and cultivated for ages, they too will +doubtless be fertilized and irrigated by canals, as the great plain +traversed by the Po now is. And here too, though the acres are generally +well cared for, I saw tracts of considerable extent which, from original +defect or unskillful management, stand below the water level of the +country, and so are given over to flags, bogs and miasma, when only a +foot or two of elevation is needed to render them salubrious and most +productive. + +There are many more good dwellings on this plain than in the rural +portion of Lower Italy. These are generally built of brick, covered with +stucco or cement and white-washed, and, being nearly square in form, two +stories high, and without the long, sloping roofs common with us, are +rather symmetrical and graceful, in appearance. Their roofs are tiled +with a long, cylindrical brick, of which a first course is laid with the +hollow upward, and another over the joints of this with the hollow down, +conducting the water into the troughs made by the former and so off the +house. The peasants' cottages are thatched with flags or straw, and +often built of the latter material. Of barns there are relatively few, +most of the wheat being stacked when harvested, and trodden out by oxen +on floors under the open sky. I have not seen a good harness nor a +respectable ox-yoke in Italy, most of the oxen having yokes which a +Berkshire hog of any pretensions to good breeding would disdain to look +through. These yokes merely hold the meek animals together, having no +adaptation to draft, which is obtained by a cobbling filigree of ropes +around the head, bringing the heaviest of the work upon the horns! The +gear is a little better than this--as little as you please--while for +Carts and Waggons there are few school-boys of twelve to fifteen in +America who would not beat the average of all I have seen in Italy. +Their clumsiness and stupidity are so atrocious that the owners do well +in employing asses to draw them: no man of feeling or spirit could +endure the horse-laughs they must extort from any animal of tolerable +sagacity. To see a stout, two-handed man coming home with his +donkey-load of fuel from a distant shrubbery, half a day of the two +having been spent in getting as much as would make one good +kitchen-fire, is enough to try the patience of Job. + +Although the Po must be navigable and has been navigated by steamboats +for many miles above this point, until obstructed by rapids, yet nothing +like a steamboat was visible. The only craft I saw attempting to stem +its current was a rude sort of ark, like a wider canal-boat, drawn by +three horses traveling on a wide, irregular tow-path along the levee or +bank. I presume this path does not extend many miles without meeting +impediments. Quite a number of ruinous old rookeries were anchored in +the river at intervals, usually three to six abreast, which I found to +be grist-mills, propelled by the strong current, and receiving their +grain from the shore and returning the flour by means of small boats. +Our ferry-boat was impelled by what is termed (I think) a "rope +ferry"--a series of ropes and boats made fast to some anchorage in the +stream above, and moving it vigorously and expeditiously from one bank +to the other by the mere force of the current. It is quite evident that +modern Italy did not originate this contrivance, nor even the idea that +a rapid river could be induced to move a large boat obliquely up its +stream as well as down it. I should say the Po is here rather more than +half a mile wide. + +Three hours later, we crossed in like manner at Rovigo the Adige, a much +smaller but still a large river, about the size of the Connecticut at +Hartford. It has its source exclusively in the Tyrolean Alps, but for +the last hundred miles of its course runs parallel with the Po, through +the same plain, at a medium distance of about twenty miles, and has the +same general characteristics. It was quite high and muddy when we +crossed it. + +As midnight drew on, I grew weary of gazing at the same endless +diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, &c., though the +bright moon was now shining, and, shutting out the chill night-air, I +disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a +drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it +into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the +uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a +disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort +shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I +fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch +drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water: then I was in a rude +scuffle and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn; +anon I had lost my hat in a strange place and could not begin to find +it; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders who +were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at +last became unbearable and I awoke.--But where? I was plainly in a +tight, dark box, that needed more air: I soon recollected that it was a +stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I +threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postillions and guard were +all gone: the moon, the fields, the road were gone: I was in a close +court-yard, alone with Night and Silence: but where? A church clock +struck three; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by +four, and I, making the usual discount on such promises, had set down +five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more +deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian +sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before +me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an +Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made +out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian +_Padova_), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three +hours yet. I followed him into a convenient _Café_, which was all open +and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate and proceeded +leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all +gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. +The _Café_ tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the +sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the +coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared; I hailed +him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to +wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly +a mile distant; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the dépôt, I +discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with +ample leisure for reflection. At six o'clock I felt once more the +welcome motion of a Railroad car, and at eight was in Venice. + + + + +XXIX. + +VENICE. + + + MILAN, Wednesday, July 9, 1851. + +Venice! Queen of the Adriatic! "City of the Heart!" how can I ever +forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures, +but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations, and my first +day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished +recollections of my life. + +Venice lies so absolutely and wholly on the water's bosom that the +landward approach to her is not imposing and scarcely impressive. The +view from the sea-side may be somewhat better, but not much--not +comparable to that of Genoa from the Mediterranean. No part of the +islets upon and around which Venice was built having been ever ten feet +above the surface of the Adriatic, while the adjacent mainland for +miles is also just above the water level, you do not see the city from +any point of observation outside of it--only the distant outline of a +low mass of buildings perhaps two miles long, but which may not be three +blocks wide, for aught you can see. Formerly two miles of shallow lagoon +separated the city from the land; but this has been overcome by the +heavy piling and filling required for the Railroad which now connects +Venice with Verona, via Vicenza, and is to reach this city via Brescia +whenever the Austrian Government shall be able to complete it. At +present a noble enterprise, through one of the richest, most populous +and most productive Agricultural regions of the earth, and connecting +the Political with the Commercial metropolis of Austrian Italy, is +arrested when half-finished, entailing a heavy annual charge on the +Treasury for the interest of the sum already expended, yet yielding +little or no net revenue in return, because of its imperfect condition. +The wisdom of this would be just equal to that of our ten years' halt +with the Erie Canal Enlargement, except for the fact that the Austrians +would borrow and complete if they could, while New York has had no such +excuse for her slothful blunder. + +The approach to Venice across the Lagoon is like that of Boston across +the Charles River marshes from the West, though of course on a much +grander scale. The embankment or road-bed was commenced by gigantic +piling, and is very broad and substantial. You reach the station just in +the edge of the city, run the Passport gauntlet, and are let out on the +brink of a wide canal, where dozens of gondoliers are soliciting your +custom. I engaged one, and directed him (at a venture) to row me to the +Hotel l'Europe. This proved (like nearly or quite all the other great +Hotels) to be located on the same line or water-front with the Ducal +Palace, Church of St. Mark, and most of the notabilities of modern +Venice, with the inner harbor and shipping just on the left and the +Adriatic in plain sight before us, only two or three little islets +covered with buildings partially intervening. Of course, my first row +was a long one, quite through the city from west to east, including +innumerable turnings and windings. After this, whomsoever may assert +that the streets of Venice are dusty or not well watered, I shall be +able to contradict from personal observation. + +After outward renovation and breakfast, I hired a boat for the day, and +went in search of American friends--a pursuit in which I was ultimately +successful. With these I visited the various council-rooms and galleries +in the Ducal Palace, saw the "Lion's Mouth," descended into the ancient +dungeons, now tenantless, and crossed the "Bridge of Sighs." These last +are not open to the public, but a silver key gives access to them. +Thence we visited the famous picture-gallery of the Manfrini Palace, and +after that the Academy, thus consuming the better part of the day. + +The works of Art in the Grand Palace did not, as a whole, impress me +strongly. Most of the larger ones are historical illustrations of the +glories of Venice; the battle of Lepanto; the taking of Zara; the Pope +and Venice uniting against or triumphing over the Emperor, &c., &c. Some +of the most honorable achievements of Venice, including her long and +memorable defense of Candia (or Crete) against the desperate and finally +successful attacks of the Turks, are not even hinted at. But these +galleries are palpably in a state of dilapidation and decay, which +implies that the Austrian masters of Venice, though they cannot stoop to +the meanness of demolishing or mutilating the memorials of her ancient +glories, will be glad to see them silently and gradually perish. The +whole Palace has a dreary and by-gone aspect, seeming conscious that +either itself or the Austrian soldiers drilling in front of it must be +an anachronism--that both cannot belong to the same place and time. + + "The traitor clock forsakes the hours, + And points to times, O far away!" + +The paintings in the Manfrini Palace seem to me by no means equal to +those in the Orsini, Doria, and some other private collections of Rome; +even of those extravagantly praised by Lord Byron, I failed to perceive +the admirable qualities apparent to his more cultivated taste. The +collection in the Academy I thought much better, but still far enough +behind similar galleries in Rome. The fact is, modern Italy is +poverty-stricken in Art and Genius as well as in Industry, and lives +upon the trophies and the memory of her past greatness. I have not heard +in all this land the name of one living Italian mentioned as likely to +attain eminence in Painting, nor even in Sculpture. + +Toward evening, my friend and I ascended the Campanile or Bell-Tower of +St. Mark's, some 330 feet high, and had thence a glorious view of the +city and its neighborhood. From this tower, the houses might almost be +counted, though of the Canals which separate them only a few of the +largest are discerned. But the port, the shipping outside, the gardens +(naturally few and contracted), the adjacent main-land, the Railroad +embankment across the Lagoon, the blue Euganian hills in the distance, +&c., &c., are all as palpable as Boston Harbor from Bunker Hill +Monument. Immediately beneath is the Place of St. Mark, the Wall-street +of Venice; just beside you is the old Palace and the famous Cathedral +Church of St. Mark; to the north is the Armory, one of the largest and +most interesting in Europe; while the dome of every Church in Venice and +all the windings of the Grand Canal are distinctly visible. An Austrian +steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north +end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the +panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer +day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a +wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to +tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent +of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower. + +In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely +from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true +Rialto--a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in +good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was +industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of cucumbers, which +he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile +for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee +cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in +Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full +of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best +construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the +assaults of time, I have never seen. + +We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto--the ancient Exchange of +Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place +prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of +Venice--the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the +"stone of shame"--an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to +take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the +confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and +his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient +focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market +vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next +morning's trade when we visited it. + +Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions +and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an +average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri, +mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one +of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the +dancer Taglioni, it is said, owns four, and so on. Cheap as they are, +they are a poorer speculation than even corner lots in a lithographic +city of Nebraska or Oregon. + +That evening in the gondola, with one old and two newer friends, is +marked with a white stone in my recollection. To bones aching with rough +riding in Diligences by night as well as day, the soft cushions and +gliding motion of the boat were soothing and grateful as "spicy gales +from Araby the blest." The breeze from the Adriatic was strong and +refreshing after the fervid but not excessive heat of the day, and the +clear, mild moon seemed to invest the mossy and crumbling palaces with a +softened radiance and spiritual beauty. Boats were passing on every +side, some with gay parties of three to six, others with but two +passengers, who did not seem to need the presence of more, nor indeed to +be conscious that any others existed. The hum of earnest or glad voices +here contrasted strongly with silence and meditation there. Venice is a +City of the Past, and wears her faded yet queenly robes more gracefully +by night than by day. + +Yes, the Venice of to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were, +but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul; +then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her +independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made +his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient +enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, though it was her +assistance rendered or proffered to Austria in 1798-9 which gave +Napoleon his pretext for crushing her. Her recent struggle for +independence, though fruitless, was respectable, and protracted beyond +the verge of Hope; and not even Royalist mendacity has yet pretended +that _her_ revolt from Austria, or her prolonged defence under +bombardment and severe privation was the work of foreigners. But the +Croat again lords it in her halls; Trieste is stealing away her remnant +of trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are +postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not +until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of +her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original +uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. +Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, +though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally +resist the relentless tooth of Time. Full of interest as is everything +in Venice, I do not remember to have detected there the effectual +working of a single idea of the last century, save in the Railroad, +which barely touches without enlivening her, the solitary steamboat +belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondolas marked +"_Omnibus_" this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of +passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth +of the price which the same journey _solus_ cost me. The Omnibus +typifies ASSOCIATION--the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is +destined to renovate the world of Industry and Production, substituting +Abundance and Comfort for Penury and Misery. For Man, I trust, this +quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too late. It is far +easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead one. Fallen Queen +of the Adriatic! a long and mournful Adieu! + + + + +XXX. + +LOMBARDY. + + + MILAN, Thursday, July 10, 1851. + +Lombardy is of course the richest and most productive portion of Italy. +Piedmont alone vies with her, and is improving far more rapidly, but +Lombardy has great natural capacities peculiarly her own. Her soil, +fertile and easily tilled from the first, was long ago improved by a +system of irrigation which, probably from small and casual beginnings, +gradually overspread the whole table land, embracing, beside that of the +Adige, the broad valley of the Po and the narrower intervals of its many +tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west +and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize +the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence +drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower, +flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can +be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the +square mile than Lombardy. + +American Agriculture has just two arts to learn from Lombardy--IRRIGATION +and TREE-PLANTING. Nearly all our great intervales might be irrigated +immensely to the profit of their cultivators. Even where the vicinity of +mountains or other high grounds did not afford the facility here taken +advantage of, I am confident that many plains as well as valleys might be +profitably irrigated by lifting water to the requisite height and thence +distributing it through little canals or ditches as here. Where a head of +water may be obtained to supply the requisite power, the cost need not be +considerable after the first outlay; but, even though steam-power should +be requisite, in connection with the admirable Pumping machinery of our +day, Irrigation would pay liberally in thousands of cases. Such easily +parched levels as those of New-Jersey and Long Island would yield at least +double their present product if thoroughly irrigated from the turbid +streams and marshy ponds in their vicinity. Water itself is of course +essential to the growth of every plant, but the benefits of Irrigation +reach far beyond this. Of the fertilizing substances so laboriously and +necessarily applied to cultivating lands, at least three times as great +a proportion is carried off in running water as is absorbed and exhausted +by the crops grown by their aid; so that if Irrigation simply returned to +the land as much fertility as the rains carry off, it would, with decent +husbandry, increase in productiveness from year to year. The valley of +the Nile is one example among many of what Irrigation, especially from +rivers at their highest stage, will do for the soil, in defiance of the +most ignorant, improvident and unskillful cultivation. Such streams as the +Raritan, the Passaic and most of the New Jersey rivers, annually squander +upon the ocean an amount of fertilizing matter adequate to the comfortable +subsistence of thousands. By calculation, association, science, labor, +most of this may be saved. One hundred thousand of the poor immigrants +annually arriving on our shores ought to be employed for years, in +New-Jersey alone, in the construction of dams, canals, &c., adequate to +the complete irrigation of all the level or moderately sloping lands in +that State. Farms are cheaper there to-day than in Iowa for purchasers +who can pay for and know how to use them. Long Island can be rendered +eminently fertile and productive by systematic and thorough Irrigation; +otherwise I doubt that it ever will be. + +Much of Lombardy slopes very considerably toward the Po, so that the +water in the larger or distributing canals is often used to run mills +and supply other mechanical power. It might be used also for +Manufacturing if Manufactures existed here, and nearly every farmer +might have a horse-power or so at command for domestic uses if he chose. +We passed yesterday the completely dry beds of what seemed to be small +rivers, their water having been entirely drawn away into the irrigating +canals on either side, while on either hand there were grist-mills +busily at work, and had been for hundreds of years, grinding by +water-power where no stream naturally existed. If I mistake not, there +are many such in this city, and in nearly all the cities and villages of +Lombardy. If our farmers would only investigate this matter of +Irrigation as thoroughly as its importance deserves, they would find +that they have neglected mines of wealth all around them more extensive +and far more reliable than those of California. One man alone may not +always be able to irrigate his farm except at too great a cost; but let +the subject be commended to general attention, and the expense would be +vastly diminished. Ten thousand farms together, embracing a whole +valley, may often be irrigated for less than the cost of supplying a +hundred of them separately. I trust our Agricultural papers will agitate +this improvement. + +As to Tree-Planting, there can be no excuse for neglecting it, for no +man needs his neighbor's coöperation to render it economical or +effective. We in America have been recklessly destroying trees quite +long enough; it is high time that we began systematically to reproduce +them. There is scarcely a farm of fifty acres or over in any but the +very newest States that might not be increased in value $1,000 by $100 +judiciously expended in Tree-Planting, and a little care to protect the +young trees from premature destruction. All road-sides, steep +hill-sides, ravines and rocky places should be planted with Oak, +Hickory, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, &c., at once, and many a farm would, +after a few years, yield $100 worth of Timber annually, without +subtracting $10 from the crops otherwise depended on. By planting +Locust, or some other fast-growing tree, alternately with Oak, Hickory, +&c., the former would be ready for use or sale by the time the latter +needed the whole ground. Utility, beauty, comfort, profit, all combine +to urge immediate and extensive Tree-Planting; shall it not be +commenced? + +Here in Lombardy there is absolutely no farm, however small, without its +rows of Mulberry, Poplar, Walnut, Cherry, &c., overshadowing its canals, +brooks, roads, &c., and traversing its fields in all directions. The +Vine is very generally trained on a low tree, like one of our Plum or +small Cherry trees, so that, viewed at a distance or a point near the +ground, the country would seem one vast forest, with an undergrowth +mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown, +but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass. +There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides, +which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan, +are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if +permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass; +so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious +crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently +spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted, +will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres +with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is +made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and +the blunder far less vital. + +This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and +their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater +number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at +work; and nearly all work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings +are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading +out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other +signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is +the garden of sunny, delicious Italy! + + +THE ITALIANS. + +I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I +brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the +obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an +insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the +"Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of +Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a +Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a +division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would +consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge +her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population; +Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive +commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I +should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse +decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the +stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs! + +And it is too true that ages of subjugation have demoralized, to a +fearful extent, the Italian People. Those who would rather beg, or +extort, or pander to others' vices, than honestly work for a living, +will never do anything for Freedom; and such are deplorably abundant in +Italy. Then, like most nations debased by ages of Slavery, these people +have little faith in each other. The proverb that "No Italian has two +friends" is of Italian origin. Every one fears that his confederate may +prove a traitor, and if one is heard openly cursing the Government as +oppressive and intolerable in a café or other public resort, though the +sentiment is heartily responded to, the utterer is suspected and avoided +as a Police stool-pigeon and spy. Such mutual distrust necessarily +creates or accompanies a lack of moral courage. There are brave and +noble Italians, but the majority are neither brave nor noble. There were +gallant spirits who joyfully poured out their blood for Freedom in +1848-9, but nine-tenths of those who wished well to the Liberal cause +took precious good care to keep their carcases out of the reach of +Austrian or French bullets. Even in Rome, where, next to Venice, the +most creditable resistance was made to Despotism, the greater part of +the actual fighting was done by Italians indeed, but refugees from +Lombardy, Tuscany and other parts of Italy. Had the Romans who heartily +desired the maintenance of the Republic shown their faith by their +works, Naples would have been promptly revolutionized and the French +driven back to their ships. On this point, I have the testimony of +eye-witnesses of diverse sentiments and of unimpeachable character. Rome +is heartily Republican to-day; but I doubt whether three effective +regiments could be raised from her large native population to fight a +single fair battle which was to decide the fate of Italy. So with the +whole country except Piedmont, and perhaps Genoa and Venice. I wish the +fact were otherwise; but there can be no use in disguising or +mis-stating it. Italy is not merely enslaved but debased, and not till +after years of Freedom will the mass of her people evince consistently +the spirit or the bearing of Freemen. She must be freed through the +progress of Liberal ideas in France and Germany--not by her own inherent +energies. Not till her masses have learned to look more coolly down the +throats of loaded and hostile cannon in fair daylight and be a little +less handy with their knives in the dark, can they be relied on to do +anything for the general cause of Freedom. + + +THE AUSTRIANS. + +I have not been able to dislike the Austrians personally. Their simple +presence in Italy is a grievous wrong and mischief, since, so long as +they hold the Italians in subjection, the latter can hardly begin the +education which is to fit them for Freedom. Yet it is none the less true +that the portion of Italy unequivocally Austrian is better governed and +enjoys, not more Liberty, for there is none in either, but a milder form +of Slavery, than that which prevails in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and the +paltrier native despotisms. I can now understand, though I by no means +concur in, the wish of a _quasi_ Liberal friend who prays that Austria +may just take possession of the whole Peninsula, and abolish the dozen +diverse Tariffs, Coinages, Mails, Armies, Courts, &c. &c., which now +scourge this natural Paradise. He thinks that such an absorption only +can prepare Italy for Liberty and true Unity; I, on the contrary, fear +that it would fix her in a more hopeless Slavery. Yet it certainly would +render the country more agreeable to strangers, whether sojourners or +mere travelers. + +The Austrian soldiers, regarded as mere fighting machines, are certainly +well got up. They are palpably the superiors, moral and physical, of the +French who garrison Rome, and they are less heartily detested by the +People whom they are here to hold in subjection. Their discipline is +admirable, but their natural disposition is likewise quiet and +inoffensive. I have not heard of a case of any one being personally +insulted by an Austrian since I have been in Italy.--Knowing themselves +to be intensely disliked in Italy and yet its uncontrolled masters, it +would seem but natural that they should evince something of bravado and +haughtiness, but I have observed or heard of nothing of the kind. In +fact, the bearing of the Austrians, whether officers or soldiers, has +seemed to evince a quiet consciousness of strength, and to say, in the +least offensive manner possible--"We are masters here by virtue of our +good swords--if you dispute the right, look well that you have a sharper +weapon and a vigorous arm to wield it!" To a rule which thus answers all +remonstrances against its existence by a quiet telling off of its ranks +and a faultless marching of its determined columns, what further +argument can be opposed but that of bayonet to bayonet? I really cannot +see how the despot-governed, Press-shackled, uneducated Nations are ever +to be liberated under the guidance of Peace Societies and their World's +Conventions; and, horrible as all War is and ever must be, I deem a few +battles a lesser evil than the perpetuity of such mental and physical +bondage as is now endured by Twenty Millions of Italians. When the Peace +Society shall have persuaded the Emperor Nicholas or Francis-Joseph to +disband his armies and rely for the support of his government on its +intrinsic justice and inherent moral force, I shall be ready to enter +its ranks; but while Despotism, Fraud and Wrong are triumphantly upheld +by Force, I do not see how Freedom, Justice and Progress can safely +disclaim and repudiate the only weapons that tyrants fear--the only +arguments they regard. + + +LEAVING ITALY. + +I have not been long in Italy, yet I have gone over a good share of its +surface, and seen nearly all that I much desired to see, except Naples +and its vicinity, with the Papal territory on the Perugia route from +Rome to Florence. I should have liked more time in Genoa, Rome, Florence +and Venice; but sight-seeing was never a passion with me, and I soon +tire of wandering from ruin to ruin, church to church, and gallery to +gallery. Yet when I stop gazing the next impulse is to move on; for if I +have time to rest anywhere, why not at home? Hotel life among total +strangers was never agreeable to me--(was it to any one?)--and I do not +like that of Italy so well as I at first thought I should. The +attendance is well enough, and as to food, I make a point of never +quarreling with that I have; though meals far simpler than those served +at the regular hotel dinners here would suit me much better. The charges +in general are quite reasonable, though I have paid one or two absurd +bills. It was at first right pleasant to lodge in what was once a +palace, and I still deem a large, high, airy sleeping-room, such as we +seldom have in American hotels, but are common here, a genuine luxury. +But when with such rooms you have doors that don't shut so as to stay, +windows that won't open, locks that won't hold, bolts that won't slide +and fleas that won't--ah! _won't_ they bite!--the case is somewhat +altered. I should not like to end my days in Italy. + +As to the People, if I shall seem to have spoken of them disparagingly, +it has not been unkindly. I cherish an earnest desire for their +well-being. They do not need flattery, and do not, as a body, deserve +praise. Of what are sometimes called the "better classes" (though I +believe they are here _no_ better), I have seen little, and have not +spoken specially. Of the great majority who, here, as everywhere, must +exert themselves to live, whether by working, or begging, or petty +swindling, I have seen something, and of these certain leading +characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems +to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual +commingling of the awful with the paltry--the sacred and the +sensual--Madonna and Circé--Christ on the Cross and Venus in the +Bath--which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an +expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the +perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as +the Crucifixion is calculated first to shock but ultimately to weaken +the religious sentiment? Of the hundreds of pictures of the infant +Jesus I have seen in Italy, there are not five which did not strike me +as utterly unworthy of the subject, allowing that it ought to be +represented at all. "Men of Athens!" said the straight-forward Paul, "I +perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." I think the +Italians, quite apart from what is essential to their creed, have this +very failing, and that it exerts a debilitating influence on their +National character. They need to be cured of it, as well as of the vices +I have already indicated, in order that their magnificent country may +resume its proper place among great and powerful Nations. I trust I am +not warring on the faith of their Church, when I urge that "To do +justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than +sacrifice"--that no man can be truly devout who is not strictly upright +and manly--and that one living purpose of diffusive, practical +well-doing, is more precious in the sight of Heaven, than the bones of +all the dead Saints in Christendom. + +Farewell, trampled, soul-crushed Italy! + + + + +XXXI. + +SWITZERLAND. + + + LUCERNE, July 12, 1851. + +I left Milan at 5 o'clock, on the morning of the 10th, via Railroad to +Como, at the foot of the Lake of like name, which we reached in an hour +and a half, thence taking the Swiss Government Diligence for this place, +via the pass of St. Gothard. Even before reaching Como (only some twenty +miles from Milan), the spurs of the Alps had begun to gather around us, +and the little Lake itself is completely embosomed by them. Barely +skirting its southern border, we crossed the Swiss frontier and bade +adieu to the Passport swindle for a season, crossed a ridge into the +valley of Lake Lugano, which we skirted for two-thirds its length, +crossing it by a fine stone bridge near its center. (All the Swiss lakes +I have seen are very narrow for a good part of their length, of a +greenish blue color, derived from the mountain snows, very irregular in +their form, being shut in, narrowed and distorted by the bold cliffs +which crowd them on one side or on both, often reducing them to a +crooked strait, resembling the passage of the Highlands by the Hudson.) +Threading the narrow streets of the pleasant village of Lugano, we +struck boldly up the hill to the east, and over it into the valley of +the little river Ticino, which we reached at Bellinzona, a smart town of +some five to ten thousand inhabitants, and followed the river thence to +its source in the eternal snows of Mount St. Gothard. All this is, I +believe, in the Canton of Ticino, in which Italian is the common +language, and of which Bellinzona is the chief town. + +Although in Switzerland, shut in by steep mountains, often snow-crowned, +which leave it an average width of less than half a mile, this valley is +Italian in many of its natural characteristics. For two-thirds of its +length, Wheat, Indian Corn and the Vine are the chief objects of +attention, and every little patch of level ground, save the rocky bed of +the impetuous mountain torrent, is laboriously, carefully cultivated. +Such mere scraps of earth do not admit of efficient husbandry, but are +made to produce liberally by dint of patient effort. I should judge that +a peck of corn is about the average product of a day's work through all +this region. There is some pasturage, mainly on the less abrupt +declivities far up the mountains, but not one acre in fifty of the +Canton yields aught but it may be a little fuel for the sustenance of +man. Nature is here a rugged mother, exacting incessant toil of her +children as the price of the most frugal subsistence; but under such +skies, in the presence of so much magnificence, and in a land of +equality and freedom, mere life is _worth_ working for, and the +condition is accepted with a hearty alacrity. Men and women work +together, and almost equally, in the fields; and here, where the +necessity is so palpably of Nature's creation, not Man's, the spectacle +is far less revolting than on the fertile plains of Piedmont or +Lombardy. The little patch of Wheat is so carefully reaped that scarcely +a grain is left, and children bear the sheaves on their backs to the +allotted shelter, while mothers and maidens are digging up the soil with +the spade, and often pulling up the stubble with their hands, +preparatory to another crop. Switzerland could not afford to be a +Kingdom,--the expense of a Court and Royal Family would famish half her +people. Yet everywhere are the signs of frugal thrift and homely +content. I met only two beggars in that long day's ride through sterile +Switzerland, while in a similar ride through the fertile plains of +Italy I should have encountered hundreds, though there each day's labor +produces as much as three days' do here. If the Swiss only _could_ live +at home, by the utmost industry and economy, I think they would very +seldom be found elsewhere; but in truth the land has long been peopled +to the extent of its capacity for subsisting, and the steady increase +which their pure morals and simple habits ensure must drive off +thousands in search of the bread of honest toil. Hence their presence +elsewhere, in spite of their passionate attachment to their free native +hills. + +Most of the dwellings through all this region are built of stone--those +of the poor very rudely, of the roughest boulders, commonly laid up with +little or no mortar. The roofs are often of split stone. The houses of +the more fortunate class are generally of hewn or at least tolerably +square-edged stone, laid up in mortar, often plastered and whitened on +the outside, so as to present a very neat appearance. Barns are few, and +generally of stone also. The Vine is quite extensively cultivated, and +often trained on a rude frame-work of stakes and poles, so as completely +to cover the ground and forbid all other cultivation. Elsewhere it is +trained to stakes--rarely to dwarf trees as in Italy. The Mulberry holds +its ground for two-thirds of the way up the valley, giving out a little +after the Vine and before Indian Corn does so. Wheat gives place to Rye +about the same time, and the Potato, at first comparatively rare, +becomes universal. As the Mulberry gives out the Chestnut comes in, and +flourishes nobly for some ten or twenty miles about midway from +Bellinzona to Airolo. I suspect, from the evident care taken of it, that +its product is considerably relied on for food. Finally, as we gradually +ascend, this also disappears, leaving Rye and the Potato to struggle a +while longer, until at Airolo, at the foot of St. Gothard, where we +stopped at 10 o'clock for the night, though the valley forks and is +consequently of some width, there remain only a few slender +potato-stalks, in shivering expectation of untimely frost, a patch or +two of headless oats, with grass on the slopes, still tender and green +from the lately sheltering snows, and a dwarfish hemlock clinging to the +steep acclivities and hiding from the fierce winds in the deep ravines +which run up the mountains. Snow is in sight on every side, and seems +but a mile or so distant. Yet here are two petty villages and thirty or +forty scattered dwellings, whose inhabitants keep as many small cows and +goats as they can find grass for, and for the rest must live mainly by +serving in the hotels, or as postillions, road-makers, &c. Yet no hand +was held out to me in beggary at or around Airolo. + + +ST. GOTHARD. + +We did not start till after 9 next morning, and meantime some more +Diligences had come up, so that we formed a procession of one large and +heavy, followed by three smaller and more fit carriages, when we moved +out of the little village, and, leaving the larger branch of our creek, +now a scanty mill-stream at best, to bend away to the left, we followed +the smaller and charged boldly up the mountain. The ascent is of course +made by zig-zags, no other mode being practicable for carriages, so +that, when we had traveled three toilsome miles, Airolo still lay in +sight, hardly a mile below us. I judge the whole ascent, which with a +light carriage and three hard-driven horses occupied two hours and a +half, was about eight miles, though a straight line might have taken us +to the summit in three miles. The rise in this distance must have been +near five thousand feet. + +For a time, the Hemlocks held on, but at length they gave up, before we +reached any snow, and only a little weak young Grass,--nourished rather +by the perpetual mists or rains than by the cold, sour earth which +clung to the less precipitous rocks,--remained to keep us company. Soon +the snow began to appear beside us, at first timidly, on the north side +of cliffs, and in deep chasms, where it was doubtless drifted to the +depth of thirty feet during the Winter, and has been gradually thawing +out since May. At length it stood forth unabashed beside our road, often +a solid mass six or seven feet thick, on either side of the narrow pass +which had been cut and worn through it for and by the passage of +travelers. Meantime, the drizzling rain, which had commenced soon after +we started, had changed to a spitting, watery sleet, and at length to +snow, a little before we reached the summit of the pass, where we found +a young Nova Zembla. An extensive cloud-manufactory was in full blast +all around us, shutting out from view even the nearest cliffs, while the +snow and wind--I being on the outside and somewhat wet already--made our +short halt there anything but comfortable. The ground was covered with +snow to an average depth of two or three feet; the brooks ran over beds +of ice and under large heaps of drifted and frozen snow, and all was +sullen and cheerless. Here were the sources (in part) of the Po and of +the Rhine, but I was rather in haste to bid the former good-bye. + +We reduced our three-horse establishment to two, and began to descend +the Rhineward zig-zags at a rattling pace, our driver (and all the +drivers) hurrying all the way. We reached the first village (where there +was considerable Grass again, and some Hemlock, but scarcely any +attempts at cultivation), in fifty minutes, and I think the distance was +nearly five miles. "Jehu, the son of Nimshi," could not have done the +distance in five minutes less. + +We changed horses and drivers at this village, but proceeded at a +similar pace down through the most hideous chasm for the next two or +three miles that I ever saw. I doubt whether a night-mare ever beat it. +The descent of the stream must have been fully 1,500 feet to the mile +for a good part of this distance, while the mountains rose naked and +almost perpendicular on each side from its very bed to hights of one to +two thousand feet, without a shrub, and hardly a resting-place even for +snow. Down this chasm our road wound, first on one side of the rivulet, +then on the other, crossing by narrow stone bridges, often at the +sharpest angle with the road, making zig-zags wherever space could be +found or made for them, now passing through a tunnel cut through the +solid rock, and then under a long archway built over it to protect it +from avalanches at the crossing of a raving cataract down the mountain +side. And still the staving pace at which we started was kept up by +those on the lead, and imitated by the boy driving our carriage, which +was hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should +know his own business best, yet if _I_ were to drive down a steep +mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I +deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a +stiff trot, our carriage tilted, and over she went in a twinkling. + +Our horses behaved admirably, which in an upset is always half the +battle. Had they started, the Diligence managers could only have +rendered a Flemish account of _that_ load. As it was, they stopped, and +the driver, barely scratched, had them in hand in a minute. + +I was on the box-seat with him, and fell under him, catching a bad +sprain of the left wrist, on which I came down, which disables that hand +for a few days--nothing broken and no great harm done--only a few +liberal rents and trifling bruises. But I should judge that our heads +lay about three feet from the side of the road, which was a precipice of +not more than twenty feet, but the rocks below looked particularly +jagged and uninviting. + +Our four inside passengers had been a good deal mixed up, in the +concussion, but soon began to emerge _seriatim_ from the side door +which in the fall came uppermost--only one of them much hurt, and he by +a bruise or gash on the head nowise dangerous. Each, as his or her head +protruded through the aperture, began to "let in" on the driver, whose +real fault was that of following bad examples. I was a little riled at +first myself, but the second and last lady who came out put me in +excellent humor. She was not hurt, but had her new silk umbrella broken +square in two, and she flashed the pieces before the delinquent's eyes +and reeled off the High Dutch to him with vehement volubility. I wished +I could have understood her more precisely. Though not more than +eighteen, she developed a tongue that would have done credit to forty. + +The drivers ahead stopped and came back, helped right the stage, and +each took a shy at the unlucky charioteer, though in fact they were as +much in fault as he, only more fortunate. I suspected before that this +trotting down zig-zags was not the thing, and now I know it, and shall +remember it, at least for one week. And I have given this tedious detail +to urge and embolden others to remonstrate against it. The vice is +universal--at least it was just as bad at Mount Cenis as here, and here +were four carriages all going at the same reckless pace. The truth is, +it is not safe to trot down such mountains and hardly to ride down them +at all. We passed scores of places where any such unavoidable accident +as the breaking of a reach or a hold-back must have sent the whole +concern over a precipice where all that reached the bottom would hardly +be worth picking up. Who has a right to risk his life in this fool-hardy +manner? + +The next time I cross the Alps, I will take my seat for the +stopping-place at the nearer foot, and thence walk leisurely over, with +a long staff and a water-proof coat, sending on my baggage by the coach +to the hotel on the other side. If I can get an hour's start, I can (by +straightening the zig-zags) nearly double it going up; if not, I will +wait on the other side for the next stage. If it were not for the +cowardly fear of being thought timid, there would be more care used in +such matters. Hitherto, I have not given the subject much consideration, +but I turn over a new leaf from the date of this adventure. + +We came down the rest of the mountain more carefully, though still a +great deal too fast. A girl of twelve or thirteen breaking stone by the +road-side in a lonely place was among the note-worthy features of the +wilder upper region. Trees, Potato-patches, Grain-fields were welcome +sights as we neared them successively, though the Vine and the Chestnut +did not and Indian Corn barely did reäppear on this side, which is much +colder than the other and grows little but Grass. At the foot of the +pass, the valley widened a little, though still with steep, snow-capped +cliffs crowding it on either side. Five hours from the summit and less +than two from the base, we reached the pretty town of Altorf, having +perhaps five thousand inhabitants, with a mile width of valley and +grassy slopes on the surrounding mountains. A few minutes more brought +us to the petty port of Fluellen on Lake Lucerne, where a little +steamboat was waiting to bring us to this city. I would not just then +have traded off that steamboat for several square miles of snow-capped +sublimity. + +Lake Lucerne is a mere cleft in the mountains, narrow and most irregular +in form, with square cliffs like our Palisades, only many times higher, +rising sheer out of its depths and hardly a stone's throw apart. Mount +Pilatte and The Rhigi are the most celebrated of those seen from its +breast. After making two or three short turns among the hights, it +finally opens to a width of some miles on a softer scene, with green +pastures and pleasant woods sweeping down the hills nearly or quite to +its verge. Lucerne City lies at or near its outlet, and seems a pleasant +place, though I have had no time to spend upon it, as I arrived at 8½ P. +M. too weary even to write if I had been able to sleep. I leave for +Basle by Diligence at eight this morning. + + + + +XXXII. + +LUCERNE TO BASLE. + + + BASLE, July 13, 1851. + +Very striking is the contrast between all of Switzerland I had +traversed, before reaching Lucerne, and the route thence to this place. +From Como to the middle of Lake Lucerne is something over a hundred +miles, and in all that distance there was never so much as one-tenth of +the land in sight that could, by any possibility, be cultivated. The +narrow valleys, when not _too_ narrow, were arable and generally +fertile; but they were shut in on every side by dizzy precipices, by +lofty mountains, often snow-crowned, and either wholly barren or with +only a few shrubs and stunted trees clinging to their clefts and +inequalities, because nothing else could cling there. A fortieth part of +these mountain sides may have been so moderately steep that soil could +gather and lie on them, in which case they yielded fair pasturage for +cattle, or at least for goats: but nine-tenths of their superficies were +utterly unproductive and inhospitable. On the mountain-tops, indeed, +there is sometimes a level space, but the snow generally monopolizes +that. Such is Switzerland from the Italian frontier, where I crossed it, +to the immediate vicinity of Lucerne. + +Here all is changed. A small but beautiful river debouches from the lake +at its west end, and the town is grouped around this outlet. But +mountains here there are none--nothing but rich glades and gently +swelling hills, covered with the most bounteous harvest, through which +the high road runs north-easterly some sixty miles to Basle on the +Rhine in the north-east corner of Switzerland, with Germany (Baden) on +the east and France on the north. A single ridge, indeed, on this route +presents a ragged cliff or two and some heights dignified with the title +of mountains, which seem a joke to one who has just spent two days among +the Alps. + +Grass is the chief staple of this fertile region, but Wheat is +abundantly grown and is just beginning to ripen, promising a noble +yield. Potatoes also are extensively planted, and I never saw a more +vigorous growth. Rye, Oats and Barley do well, but are little +cultivated. Of Indian Corn there is none, and the Vine, which had given +out on the Italian side some twenty miles below the foot of St. Gothard, +does not come in again till we are close to the Rhine. But in its stead +they have the Apple in profusion--I think more Apple trees between +Lucerne and the Rhine, than I had seen in all Europe before--and they +seem very thrifty, though this year's yield of fruit will be light. +There are some other trees planted, and many small, thrifty forests, +such as I had hardly seen before on the Continent. These increase as we +approach the Rhine. There is hardly a fence throughout, and generous +crops of Wheat, Potatoes, Rye, Grass, Oats, &c., are growing close up to +the beaten road on either side. I don't exactly see how Cattle are +driven through such a country, having passed no drove since crossing +Mount St. Gothard. + +The dwellings are generally large, low structures, with sloping, +overhanging roofs, indicating thrift and comfort. Sometimes the first +story, or at least the basement, is of hewn-stone, but the greater part +of the structure is nearly always of wood. The barns are spacious, and +built much like the houses. I have passed through no other part of +Europe evincing such general thrift and comfort as this quarter of +Switzerland, and Basle, already a well built city, is rapidly improving. +When the Railroad line from Paris to Strasburg is completed, the French +capital will be but little more than twenty-four hours from Basle, while +the Baden line, down the German side of the Rhine, already connects this +city easily with all Germany, and is certain of rapid and indefinite +extension. Basle, though quite a town in Cæsar's day, is renewing her +youth. + + +THE SWISS. + +I am leaving Switzerland, after four days only of observation therein; +but during those days I have traversed the country from its southern to +its north-eastern extremity, passing through six of the Cantons and +along the skirts of another, resting respectively at Airolo, Lucerne, +and Basle, and meeting many hundreds of the people on the way, beside +seeing thousands in the towns and at work in their fields. This is +naturally a very poor country, with for the most part a sterile soil--or +rather, naked, precipitous rocks, irreclaimably devoid of soil--where, +if anywhere, the poor peasantry would be justified in asking charity of +the strangers who come to gaze at and enjoy their stupendous but most +inhospitable mountains--and yet I have not seen one beggar to a hundred +hearty workers, while in fertile, bounteous, sunny Italy, the +preponderance was clearly the other way. And, though very palpably a +stranger, and specially exposed by my ignorance of the languages spoken +here to imposition, no one has attempted to cheat me from the moment of +my entering the Republic till this, while in Italy every day and almost +every hour was marked by its peculiar extortions. Every where I have +found kindness and truth written on the faces and evinced in the acts of +this people, while in Italy rapacity and knavery are the order of the +day. How does a monarchist explain this broad discrepancy? Mountains +alone will not do, for the Italians of the Apennines and the Abruzzi are +notoriously very much like those of the Campagna and of the Val d'Arno; +nor will the zealot's ready suggestion of diverse Faiths suffice, for my +route has lain almost exclusively through the _Catholic_ portion of this +country. Ticino, Uri, Lucerne, etc., are intensely, unanimously +Catholic; the very roadsides are dotted with little shrines, enriched +with the rudest possible pictures of the Virgin and Child, the +Crucifixion, &c., and I think I did not pass a Protestant church or +village till I was within thirty miles of this place. Nearly all the +Swiss I have seen are Catholics, and a more upright, kindly, truly +religious people I have rarely or never met. What, then, can have +rendered them so palpably and greatly superior to their Italian +neighbors, whose ancestors were the masters of theirs, but the +prevalence here of Republican Freedom and there of Imperial Despotism? + +Switzerland, shut out from equal competition with other nations by her +inland, elevated, scarcely accessible position, has naturalized +Manufactures on her soil, and they are steadily extending. She sends +Millions' worth of Watches, Silks, &c., annually even to distant +America; while Italy, with nearly all her population within a day's ride +of the Adriatic or the Mediterranean, with the rich, barbaric East at +her doors for a market, does not fabricate even the rags which partially +cover her beggars, but depends on England and France for most of the +little clothing she has. Italy is naturally a land of abundance and +luxury, with a soil and climate scarcely equalled on earth; yet a large +share of her population actually lack the necessaries, not to speak of +the comforts, of life, and those who sow and reap her bountiful harvests +are often without bread: Switzerland has, for the most part, an Arctic +climate and scarcely any soil at all; and yet her people are all +decently clad and adequately though frugally fed, and I have not seen +one person who seemed to have been demoralized by want or to suffer from +hunger since I crossed her border. Her hotels are far superior to their +more frequented namesakes of Italy; even at the isolated hamlet of +Airolo, where no grain will grow, I found everything essential to +cleanliness and comfort, while the "Switzer Hoff" at Lucerne and "Les +Trois Rois" at Basle are two of the very best houses I have found in +Europe. What Royalist can satisfactorily explain these contrasts? + +Switzerland, though a small country, and not half of this habitable, +speaks three different languages. I found at Airolo regular files of +Swiss journals printed respectively in French, Italian, and German: the +last entirely baffled me; the two former I read after a fashion, making +out some of their contents' purport and drift. Those in French, printed +at Geneva, Lausanne, &c., were executed far more neatly than the others. +All were of small size, and in good part devoted to spirited political +discussion. Switzerland, though profoundly Republican, is almost equally +divided into parties known respectively as "Radical" and "Conservative:" +the Protestant Cantons being preponderantly Radical, the Catholic +generally Conservative. Of the precise questions in dispute I know +little and shall say nothing; but I do trust that the controversy will +not enfeeble nor paralyze the Republic, now seriously menaced by the +Allied Despots, who seem to have almost forgotten that there ever was +such a man as WILLIAM TELL. Let us drink, in the crystal current leaping +brightly down from the eternal glaciers, to his glorious, inspiring +memory, and to Switzerland a loving and hopeful Adieu! + + + + +XXXIII. + +GERMANY. + + + COLOGNE, Tuesday, July 15, 1851. + +After spending Sunday very agreeably at Basle (where American +Protestants traveling may like to know that Divine worship is regularly +conducted each Sabbath by an English clergyman, at the excellent Hotel +of the Three Kings), I set my face again northward at 7½ A. M. +on Monday, crossing the Rhine (which is here about the size of the +Hudson at Albany) directly into Baden, and so leaving the soil of +glorious Switzerland, the mountain home of Liberty amid surrounding +despotisms. The nine first miles from Basle (to Efringen) are traversed +by Omnibus, and thence a very good Railroad runs nearly parallel with +the Rhine by Freiburg, Kehl (opposite Strasburg), Baden (at some +distance), Rastatt, Carlsruhe, and Heidelberg, to Mannheim, distant from +Basle 167½ miles by Railroad, and I presume considerably further by +River, as the Rhine (unlike the Railroad as far as Heidelberg) is not +very direct in its course. There is a French Railroad completed on the +other (west) side of the river from Basle to Strasburg, and nearly +completed from Strasburg to Paris, which affords a far more direct and +expeditious route than that I have chosen, as I wished to see something +of Germany. It is also cheaper, I believe, to take the French Railroad +to Strasburg, and the river thence by steamboats which ply regularly as +high as Strasburg, and might keep on to Basle, I presume, if not impeded +by bridges, as the river is amply large enough. + +The Baden Railroad runs through a country descending, indeed, toward the +Rhine and with the Rhine, but as nearly level as a country well can be, +and affording the fewest possible obstacles to its construction. It is +faithfully built, but instead of the numerous common roads which cross +it being carried over or under its track, as the English Railroads are, +they are closed on each side by a swing-bar, at which a guard is +stationed--a plan which saves expense at the outset, but involves a +heavy permanent charge. I should deem the English plan preferable to +this, though men are had much cheaper for such service in Germany than +in America, or even Great Britain. The pace is slower than with us. We +were about nine hours of fair daylight traversing 160 miles of level or +descending grade, with a light passenger train. The management, however, +was careful and unexceptionable. + +This Railroad runs for most of the distance much nearer to the range of +gentle hills which bound the broad and fertile Rhine valley on the east +than to the river itself. The valley is nearly bare of trees for the +most part, and has scarcely any fences save the very slight board fence +on either side of the Railroad. In some places, natural woods of +considerable extent are permitted, but not many fruit nor shade-trees, +whether in rows or scattered. The hills in sight, however, are very +considerably wooded, and wood is apparently the common fuel. The valley +is generally but not entirely irrigated, though all of it easily might +be, the arrangements for irrigation appearing much more modern and +unsystematic here than in Lombardy. The land is cultivated in strips as +in France--first Wheat (the great staple), then Rye, then Potatoes, then +Clover, then Beets, or Hemp, or Flax, and so on. For a small part of the +way, Grass seems to preponderate, but generally Wheat and Rye cover more +than half the ground, while Potatoes have a very large breadth of it. +Rye is now being harvested, and is quite heavy: in fact, all the crops +promise abundant harvests. The Vine appears at intervals, but is not +general through this region: Indian Corn is also rare, and appears in +small patches. In some places many acres of Wheat are seen in one piece, +but usually a breadth of four to twenty rods is given to one crop, and +then another succeeds and so on. I presume this implies a diversity of +owners, or at least of tenants. + +The cultivation, though not always judicious, is generally thorough, +there being no lack of hands nor of good will. The day being fine and +the season a hurrying one, the vast plain was everywhere dotted with +laborers, of whom fully half were Women, reaping Rye, binding it, raking +and pitching Hay, hoeing Potatoes, transplanting Cabbages, Beets, &c. +They seemed to work quite as heartily and efficiently as the men. But +the most characteristically European spectacle I saw was a woman +unloading a great hay-wagon of huge cordwood at a Railroad station, and +pitching over the heavy sticks with decided resolution and efficiency. +It may interest the American pioneers in the Great Pantalette (or is it +Pantaloon?) Movement to know that she was attired in appropriate +costume--short frock, biped continuations and a mannish oil-skin +hat.--And this reminds me that, coming away from Rome, I met, at the +half-way house to Civita Vecchia, a French marching regiment on its way +from Corsica to the Eternal City, to which regiment two women were +attached as sutlers, &c., who also wore the same costume, except that +their hats were of wool instead of oil-skin. Thus attired, they had +marched twenty-five miles that hot day, and were to march as many the +next, as they had doubtless done on many former days. It certainly +cannot be pretended that these women adopted that dress from a love of +novelty, or a desire to lead a new fashion, or from any other reason +than a sense of its convenience, founded on experience. I trust, +therefore, that their unconscious testimony in behalf of the Great +Movement may not be deemed irrelevant nor unentitled to consideration. +Their social rank is certainly not the highest, but I consider them more +likely to render a correct judgment on the merit of the Bloomer +controversy than the Lady Patronesses of Almack's. + + +THE RHINE. + +After spending the night at Mannheim, I took a steamboat at 5½ this +morning for this place, 165 miles down the Rhine, embracing all the +navigable part of the river of which the scenery is esteemed attractive. +As far down as Mayence or Mentz (55 miles), the low banks and broad +intervale continue, and there is little worthy of notice. From Mentz to +Coblentz (54 miles), there is some magnificent scenery, though I think +its natural beauties do not surpass those of the Hudson from New-York to +Newburgh. Certainly there are no five miles equal in rugged grandeur to +those beginning just below and ending above West Point. But the Rhine is +here somewhat larger than the Hudson; the hills on either side, though +seldom absolutely precipitous, are from one to five hundred feet high, +and are often crowned with the ruins of ancient castles, which have a +very picturesque appearance; while the little villages at their foot and +the cultivation (mainly of the Vine) which is laboriously prosecuted up +their rocky and almost naked sides, contribute to heighten the general +effect. These sterile rocks impart a warmth to the soil and a sweetness +to the grape which are otherwise found only under a more southerly sun, +and, combined with the cheapness of labor, appear to justify the +toilsome process of terracing up the steep hill-sides, and even carrying +up earth in baskets to little southward-looking nooks and crevices where +it may be retained and planted on. Yet I liked better than the vine-clad +heights those less abrupt declivities where a more varied culture is +attempted, and where the Vine is intermingled with strips of now +ripened Rye, ripening Wheat, blossoming Potatoes, &c., &c., together +imparting a variegated richness and beauty to the landscape which are +rarely equaled. But the Rhine has been nearly written out, and I will +pass it lightly over. Its towers are not very imposing in appearance, +though Coblentz makes a fair show. Opposite is Ehrenbreitstein, no +longer the ruin described (if I rightly remember) in Childe Harold, but +a magnificent fortress, apparently in the best condition, and said to +have cost Five Millions of dollars. The "blue Moselle" enters the Rhine +from the west just below Coblentz. This city (Cologne) is the largest, I +believe, in Rhenish Prussia, and, next to Rotterdam at its mouth, the +largest on the Rhine, having a flourishing trade and 90,000 inhabitants. +(Coblentz has 26,000, Mayence 36,000, Mannheim 23,000 and Strasburg +60,000.) + +There are some bold hights dignified as mountains below Coblentz, but +the finest of the scenery is above. The hills disappear some miles above +this city, and henceforward to the sea all is flat and tame as a marsh. +On the whole, the Rhine has hardly fulfilled my expectations. Had I +visited it on my way _to_ the Alps, instead of just _from_ them, it +would doubtless have impressed me more profoundly; but I am sure the St. +Mary's of Lake Superior is better worth seeing; so I think, is the +Delaware section of the Erie Railroad. It is possible the weather may +have unfitted me for appreciating this famous river, for a more cloudy, +misty, chilly, rainy, execrable, English day I have seldom encountered. +To travelers blessed with golden sunshine, the Rhine may wear a grander, +nobler aspect, and to such I leave it. + + +THE GERMANS. + +I have been but two days wholly among the Germans, but I had previously +met many of them in England, Italy and Switzerland. They are seen to +the best advantage at home. Their uniform courtesy (save in the +detestable habit of smoking where others cannot help being annoyed by +their fumes), indicates not merely good nature but genuine kindness of +heart. I have not seen a German quarreling or scolding anywhere in +Europe. The deference of members of the same family to each other's +happiness in cars, hotels and steamboats has that quiet, unconscious +manner which distinguishes a habit from a holiday ornament. The entire +absence of pretense, of stateliness, of a desire to be thought a +personage and not a mere person, is scarcely more universal in +Switzerland than here. But in fact I have found Aristocracy a chronic +disease nowhere but in Great Britain. In France, there is absolutely +nothing of it; there are monarchists in that country--monarchists from +tradition, from conviction, from policy, or from class interest--but of +Aristocracy scarcely a trace is left. Your Paris boot-black will make +you a low bow in acknowledgment of a franc, but he has not a trace of +the abjectness of a London waiter, and would evidently decline the honor +of being kicked by a Duke. In Italy, there is little manhood but no +class-worship; her millions of beggars will not abase themselves one +whit lower before a Prince than before anyone else from whom they hope +to worm a copper. The Swiss are freemen, and wear the fact unconsciously +but palpably on their brows and beaming from their eyes. The Germans +submit passively to arbitrary power which they see not how successfully +to resist, but they render to rank or dignity no more homage than is +necessary--their souls are still free, and their manners evince a +simplicity and frankness which might shame or at least instruct America. +On the Rhine, the steamboats are so small and shabby, without +state-rooms, berth-rooms, or even an upper deck--that the passengers are +necessarily at all times under each other's observation, and, as the +fare is high, and twice as much in the main as in the forward cabin, it +may be fairly presumed that among those who pay the higher charge are +none of the poorest class--no mere laborers for wages. Yet in this main +cabin well-dressed young ladies would take out their home-prepared +dinner and eat it at their own good time without seeking the company and +countenance of others, or troubling themselves to see who was observing. +A Lowell factory-girl would consider this entirely out of character, and +a New-York milliner would be shocked at the idea of it. + +The Germans are a patient, long-suffering race. Of their Forty Millions +outside of Austria, probably less than an eighth at all approve or even +acquiesce in the despotic policy in which their rulers are leagued, and +which has rendered Germany for the present a mere outpost of Russia--an +unfinished Poland. These people are intelligent as well as brave--they +see and feel, yet endure and forbear. Perhaps their course is wiser than +that which hot impatience would prompt--nay, I believe it is. If they +can patiently suffer on without losing heart until France shall have +extricated herself from the toils of her treacherous misrulers, they may +then resume their rights almost without a blow. And whenever a new 1848 +shall dawn upon them, they will have learned to improve its +opportunities and avoid its weaknesses and blunders. Heaven speed its +auspicious coming! + + + + +XXXIV. + +BELGIUM. + + + PARIS, Saturday, July 19, 1851. + +From Cologne westward by Railroad to the Western frontier (near +Verviers) of Rhenish Prussia, and thus of Germany, is 65 miles. For most +of the way the country is flat and fertile, and in good part devoted to +Grazing, though considerable Wheat is grown. The farming is not +remarkably good, and the general aspect befits a region which for two +thousand years has been too often the arena of fierce and bloody +conflict between the armies of great nations. Cologne itself, though a +place of no natural strength, has been fortified to an extent and at an +evident cost beyond all American conception. All over this part of +Europe, and to a less degree throughout Italy, the amount of expenditure +on walls and forts, bastions, ditches, batteries, &c. is incalculably +great. I cannot doubt that any nation, by wisely expending half so much +in systematic efforts to educate, employ steadily and reward amply its +poorer classes, would have been strengthened and ensured against +invasion far more than it could be by walls like precipices and a belt +of fortresses as impregnable as Gibraltar. But this wisdom is slowly +learned by rulers, and is not yet very widely appreciated. Whenever it +shall be, "Othello's occupation" will be gone, not for Othello only, but +for all who would live by the sword. + +For some miles before it reaches the frontier, and for a much larger +distance after entering Belgium, the Railroad passes through a +decidedly broken, hilly, up-and-down country, most unlike the popular +conception of Flanders or Belgium. Precipices of naked rock are not +unfrequent and the region is wisely given up mainly to Wood and Grass, +the former engrossing most of the hill-sides and the latter flourishing +in the valleys. This Railroad has more tunnels in the course of fifty +miles than I ever before met with--I think not less than a dozen--while +the grading and bridging must have been very expensive. Such a country +is of course prolific in running streams, on which many small and some +larger manufacturing towns and villages are located. At length, it +ascends a considerable inclined plane at Liege, once a very popular, +powerful and still a handsome and important manufacturing town with +60,000 inhabitants; and here the beautiful and magnificently fertile +table lands of Belgium spread out like a vast prairie before the +traveler. In fact, the peasant cultivators are so commonly located in +villages, leaving long stretches of the rarely fenced though well +cultivated plain without a habitation, that the resemblance to level +prairies which have been planted and sown is more striking than would be +imagined. But the growing crops are too cleanly and carefully weeded and +too uniformly good to protract the illusion. Sometimes hundreds of acres +are unbrokenly covered with Wheat, which has the largest area of any one +staple; but more commonly a breadth of this is succeeded by one of Rye, +that by one of Potatoes, then Wheat again, then Clover, then Rye, then +Wheat, then Potatoes, then Clover or other grass, and so on. I never +before saw so extensive and uniformly thrifty a growth of Potatoes, +while acres upon acres of Beets, also in regular rows and kept carefully +free from weeds, present at this season a beautiful appearance. I +apprehend that not half so much attention has been given in our country +to the growth of this and the kindred roots as would have been richly +rewarded. Of course, it is idle to sow Beets on any but rich land, with +a generous depth of soil and the most thorough cultivation, but with +such cultivation the red lands of New-Jersey and the intervales of our +rivers might be profitably and extensively devoted to the Beet culture +and to that of the larger Turnips. I have seen nothing in Europe that +made a better appearance or promised a more bountiful return than the +large tracts of Belgium and the neighboring district of France sown to +Beets. + +Indian Corn and the Vine are scarcely, or not at all seen in Belgium. +Beggars are not abundant; but women are required to labor quite +extensively in the fields. The habitations of the poor are less wretched +than those of Italy, but not equal to those of the fertile portion of +Switzerland. Irrigation is quite extensively practised, but is far from +universal. The few cattle kept in the wholly arable and thoroughly +cultivated portion of the country are seldom allowed to range, because +of the lack of fences, but are kept up and fed throughout the year. +Women cutting grass in all by-places, and carrying it home by back-loads +to feed their stock, is a common spectacle throughout central Europe. +Trees sometimes line the roads and streams, or irrigating canals, and +sometimes have a piece of ground allotted them whereon to grow at +random, but are rather scarce throughout this region, and I think I saw +square miles entirely devoid of them. Fruit-trees are clearly too +scarce, though Cherries in abundance were offered for sale as we passed. +On the whole, Belgium is not only a fertile but a prosperous country. + +At Liege, the Railroad we traversed leaves its westerly for a north-west +course, running past Tirlemont to Malines (Mechlin) and thence to +Antwerp; but we took a sharp turn to the south-west of Malines in order +to reach Brussels, which, though the capital and the largest city of +Belgium, is barely a point or stopping-place on a right line, while +Liege, Namur, Ghent and Bruges are each the point of junction of two or +more completed roads. Brussels has slept while this network has been +woven over the country, and will awake to discover herself shorn of her +trade and sinking into insignificance if she does not immediately bestir +herself. Her location is a fine one, on a ground which rises very +gradually from the great plain to a modest hill southward, and she is +among the best built of modern cities. But already she is off the direct +line from either London or Paris to Germany; I would have saved many +miles by avoiding her and taking the road due west from Liege to Namur, +Charleroi and Mons, where it intersects the Brussels line; and soon the +great bulk of the travel will do so if it does not already. Railroads +are reckless Radicals and are destined by turns to make and to mar the +fortunes of many great emporiums. + + +NORTH-EASTERN FRANCE. + +Tournay in the coal region, fifty miles from Brussels, is the last town +of Belgium; eight miles further is Valenciennes, one of the strong +frontier fortresses of France, with over 20,000 inhabitants, an active +trade and the worth of a dukedom wasted on its fortifications. Here our +baggage underwent a new custom-house scrutiny, which was expeditiously +and rationally made, and I kept on twenty-three miles farther to Douai, +where our Railroad falls into one from Calais, which had already +absorbed those from Dunkirk and Ghent, and where, it being after 10 +o'clock, I halted for the night, so as to take a Calais morning train at +4½ and see by fair daylight the country thence to Paris, which I had +already traversed in the dark. + +This country presents no novel features. It is not quite so level nor so +perfectly cultivated as central Belgium, but is generally fertile and +promises fairly. The Rye harvest is in progress through all this +country, and is very good, but the breadth of Wheat is much greater, and +it also promises well, though not yet ripened. Westward from Brussels +in Belgium is an extensive Grazing region, bountifully irrigated, and +covered with large herds of fine cattle. Something of this is seen after +crossing into France, but Wheat regains its predominance, while large +tracts are devoted to the Beet, probably for the manufacture of Sugar. +There are few American gardens that can show the Beet in greater +perfection than it exhibits here, in areas of twenty to forty acres. +Wood also becomes far more abundant in the Grazing region, and continues +so nearly up to the walls of Paris, Poplars and other trees of slender +foliage being planted in rows across the fields as well as by the +streams and road-sides. The Vine, which had vanished with the bolder +scenery of the Rhine, reappears only within sight of Paris, where many +of the cultivated fields attest a faultiness or meagerness of +cultivation unworthy of the neighborhood of a great metropolis. I +presume there will be more middling and half middling yields within +twenty miles of Paris than in all Belgium. + +I find Paris, and measurably France, in a state of salutary ferment, +connected with the debate in the Assembly on the proposed Revision of +the Constitution. The best speeches are yet to be made, but already the +attention of the People is fixed on the discussion, and it will be +followed to the end with daily increased interest. That end, as is well +known, will be a defeat of the proposed Revision, and of all schemes +looking to the legal and peaceful reëstablishment of Monarchy, or the +reëlection of Louis Napoleon. And this discussion, this result, will +have immensely strengthened the Republic in the hearts of the French +Millions, as well as in the general conviction of its stability. And if, +with the Suffrage crippled as it is, and probably must continue to be, a +heartily Republican President can be elected here next May, an impulse +will be given to the movement throughout Europe which can scarcely be +withstood. Live the Republic! + + + + +XXXV. + +PARIS TO LONDON. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, July 22, 1851. + +The quickest and most usual route from Paris to London is that by way of +Calais and Dover; but as I had traversed that once, and part of it +twice, I resolved to try another for my return, and chose the cheapest +and most direct of all--that by way of Rouen, Dieppe, New-Haven and the +Brighton Railroad--which is 32 miles shorter than the Calais route, but +involves four times as long a water passage, and so is spun out to more +than twice the length of the other. We left Paris at 8 yesterday +morning; halted at the fine old town of Rouen before noon; were in +Dieppe at 2½ P. M.; but there we waited for a boat till after +6; then were eight hours crossing the Channel; had to wait at New-Haven +till after 6 this morning before the Custom-House scrutiny of our +baggage was begun; so that only a few were enabled to take the first +train thence for London at a quarter to 7. I was not among the lucky +ones, but had to hold on for the second train at a quarter past 8, and +so did not reach this city till after 10, or twenty-six hours from +Paris, though, with a little enterprise and a decent boat on the +Channel, the trip could easily be made in 14 hours--four for the French +side, six for the Channel, two for the English side and two for +Custom-House delay and leeway of all kinds. If Commodore Vanderbilt or +Mr. Newton would only take compassion on the ignorance and barbarism +prevailing throughout Europe in the matter of steamboat-building, and +establish a branch of his business on this side of the Atlantic, he +would do the cause of Human Progress a service, and signally contribute +to the diminution of the sum of mortal misery. + +The night was mild and fair; the wind light; the sea consequently +smooth; and I suffered less, and repented my choice of a route less, +than I had expected to; but consider the facts: Here was the most direct +route by Railroad and Steamboat between the two great Capitals of +Europe--a route constantly traveled by multitudes from all parts of +world--yet the only boats provided for the liquid portion of the way are +two little black, cobbling concerns, each perhaps seventy feet long by +fifteen wide, with no deck above the water line, and not a single berth +for even a lady passenger, though making one passage each night. Who +could suppose that two tolerably civilized nations would endure this in +the middle of 1851? + +We were nearly two hundred passengers, and the boat just about decently +held us, but had not sitting-room for all, above and under the deck. But +as about half, being "second class," had no right to enter the main +cabin, those who had that right were enabled to sit and yawn, and try to +cheat themselves into the notion that they would coax sleep to their aid +after a while. Occasionally, one or two having left for a turn on deck, +some drowsy mortal would stretch himself on a setter at full length, but +the remonstrances of others needing seats would soon compel him to +resume a half-upright posture. And so the passage wore away, and between +2 and 3 this morning we reached New-Haven (a petty sea-port at the mouth +of the little river Ouse), where we were permitted promptly to land, +minus our baggage, and repair to a convenient inn. Here I, with several +others, invested two British shillings in a chance to sleep, but the +venture (at least in my case) proved a losing one. It was daylight when +we went to bed, and the incessant tramping, ringing of bells, &c., kept +us for the most part awake and called us up at a very early hour, to +fidget uselessly for the recovery of our baggage, and lose the early +train at last. + +The country stretching north-westward from Paris to Dieppe (125 miles) +is less thoroughly cultivated than any other I have seen in Europe out +of Italy. I saw more weedy and thin Rye and ragged Wheat than I had +noted elsewhere. Grass is the chief staple, after leaving the +garden-covered vicinity of Paris, though Wheat, Rye and Oats are +extensively cultivated. The Root crops promise poorly. Indian Corn is +hardly seen, though the Vine is considerably grown. This region is +generally well wooded, but in a straggling, accidental way, which has +the effect neither of Lombard nicety of plantation, nor of the natural +luxuriance of genuine forests. Fruit is not abundant. Irrigation is +considerably practiced. The dwellings of the majority have an +antiquated, ruinous, tumble-down aspect, such as I have observed nowhere +else this side of Lower Italy. On the whole, I doubt whether this +portion of France has improved much within the last fifty years. + +Rouen, the capital of ancient Normandy, is the fifth city of France, +only Paris, Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux having more inhabitants. Here +the Railroad for Havre diverges from that to Dieppe, which we adhered +to. Rouen is interesting for its antiquities, including several +venerable and richly adorned Churches which I had no time to visit. +Dieppe, on the Channel, has a small harbor, completely landlocked, and +17,000 inhabitants. It is considerably resorted to for sea-bathing, but +seems to have very little trade. I judge that the Railroads now being +extended through France, are likely to arrest the growth or hasten the +decline of most of the smaller cities and towns by facilitating and +cheapening access to the capital, where nearly every Frenchman would +live if he could, and where the genius of people and government (no +matter under what constitution) conspires to concentrate all the +intellectual and artistic life of the Nation. + +The Railroad from New-Haven to London passes through no considerable +town, though not far from Brighton and Tunbridge. The country is +undulating and beautiful, mainly devoted to Grass, Wheat and Wood, and +in the very highest condition. It is now toward the end of Haying, and +the Wheat is just beginning to ripen, though that of Central Italy was +mainly harvested a full month ago. But the English Wheat covers the +ground thickly and evenly, and promises a large average crop, especially +if the present fine weather should continue through the next two weeks. + +Noble herds of Cattle and flocks of Sheep overspread the spacious +grounds devoted to Pasturage, especially near the Channel, where most of +the land is in Grass. English Agriculture has a thorough and cleanly +aspect which I have rarely observed elsewhere. Belgium is as careful and +as productive, but its alternations of tillage or grass with woodland +are by no means so frequent nor so picturesque as I see here. The +sturdy, hospitable trees of an English park or lawn are not rivaled, so +far as I have seen, on the Continent. I have rarely seen a reach of +country better disposed for effect than that from a point ten miles this +side of New-Haven to within some ten miles of this city, where Market +Gardening supplants regular Farming. Women work in the fields at this +season in England, but not more than one woman to five men were visible +in the hay-fields we passed this morning--it may have been otherwise in +the afternoon. As to beggars, none were visible, begging being +disallowed. + +Crossing the Channel shifts the boot very decidedly with respect to +language. Those who were groping in the dark a few hours ago are now in +the brightest sunshine, while the oracles of yesterday are the meekest +disciples to-day. I rode from New-Haven to London in the same car with +three Frenchmen and two Frenchwomen, coming up to the Exhibition, with a +scant half-allowance of English among them; and their efforts to +understand the signs, &c., were interesting. "_London Stout_," displayed +in three-foot letters across the front of a drinking-house, arrested +their attention: "_Stoot? Stoot?_" queried one of them; but the rest +were as much in the dark as he, and I was as deficient in French as they +in English. The befogged one pulled out his dictionary and read over and +over all the French synonyms of "Stout," but this only increased his +perplexity. "Stout" signified "robust," "hearty," "vigorous," +"resolute," &c., but what then could "_London_ Stout" be? He closed his +book at length in despair and resumed his observations. + + +LONDON AT MIDNIGHT. + +London is given to late hours. At 6 A. M. though the sun has +long been up, there are few stirring in the principal streets; +occasionally you meet a cab hurrying with some passenger to take an +early train; but few shutters are down at 7, and scarcely an omnibus is +to be seen till after 8. The aristocratic dinner hour is 8 P. +M. though I trust few are so unmerciful to themselves as to +postpone their chief meal to that late hour when they have no company. +The morning to sleep, the afternoon to business and the evening to +enjoyment, seems the usual routine with the favored classes. + +Walking home from a soirée at the West-end through Regent-street, +Haymarket and the Strand once at midnight, I was struck, though +accustomed to all manner of late hours in New-York, with the relative +activity and wide-awake aspect of London at that hour. It seemed the +High Change of revelry and pleasure-seeking. The taverns, the clubs and +drinking-shops betrayed no symptoms of drowsiness; the theatres were +barely beginning to emit their jaded multitudes; the cabs and private +carriages were more plentiful than by day, and were briskly wheeling +hundreds from party to party; even the omnibuses rattled down the wide +streets as freshly and almost as numerously as at midday. The policemen +were alert on nearly every corner; sharpers and suspicious characters +stepped nimbly about the cross-streets in quest of prey, and innumerable +wrecks of Womanhood, God pity them! shed a deeper darkness over the +shaded and dusky lanes and byways whence they momently emerged to salute +the passer-by. Beneath the shelter of night, Misery stole forth from its +squalid lair, no longer awed by the Police, to beseech the compassion of +the stranger and pour its tale of woe and suffering into the rarely +willing ear. Serene and silvery in the clear night-air rose the nearly +full moon over Southwark, shedding a soft and mellow light on pillar and +edifice, column and spire, and enduing the placid bosom of the Thames +with a tranquil and spiritual beauty. Such was one glimpse of London at +midnight; I have not seen it so impressive by day. + + + + +XXXVI. + +UNIVERSAL PEACE CONGRESS. + + + LONDON, July 25, 1851. + +The fourth Annual Congress of the friends and champions of Peace, +universal and perpetual, was closed last evening, after a harmonious and +enthusiastic session of three full days. The number of Delegates in +attendance was between eight and nine hundred, while the spacious area +of Exeter Hall, which is said to hold comfortably thirty-five hundred +persons, was well filled throughout, and densely crowded for hours +together. Having been held at a most favorable time and at the point +most accessible to the great body of the active friends of Peace, I +presume the attendance was larger than ever before. + +Two thoughts were suggested to me by the character and proceedings of +this assemblage--first, that of the eminently popular and plebeian +origin and impulse of all the great Reform Movements of our age. Every +great public assemblage in Europe for any other purpose will be sure to +number Lords, Dukes, Generals, Princes, among its dignitaries; but none +such came near the Peace Congress; very few of them take part in any +movement of the kind. In the list of Delegates to this Congress, under +the head of "Profession or Trade," you find "Merchant," "Miller," +"Teacher," "Tanner," "Editor," "Author," "Bookseller," "Jeweller," &c., +very rarely "Gentleman," or "Baronet," and never a higher title, I +rejoice to say that "Minister" or "Clergyman" appears pretty often, but +never such a word as "Bishop" or "Archbishop," though the most liberal +of the Established Hierarchy, Archbishop Whateley of Dublin, sent a +brief note expressing sympathy with the objects of the meeting. And I +think among the clergymen present there was hardly one belonging to +either of the two Churches which in these realms claim a special and +exclusive patent from Heaven for the dispensation of Religious Truth. + +The other thought suggested by this mighty gathering concerns the +character and efficacy of the organizations and sects in which +Christianity is presumed to be embodied. Let a Convention be called of +the Friends of Peace, of Temperance, of Personal Liberty, of the +Sacredness of Human Life, or any other tangible and positive idea, and +many hundreds will come together from distant nations, speaking diverse +languages, and holding antagonist opinions on other important subjects, +and will for days discuss and deliberate in perfect harmony, unite in +appropriate and forcible declarations of their common sentiments and in +the adoption of measures calculated to ensure their triumph. But let a +general Convention of the followers of Jesus Christ be called, with a +view to the speedy Christianization of the world, and either +three-fourths would keep away or the whole time of the meeting be wasted +in an acrimonious quarrel as to the meaning of Christianity or the +wording of the Shibboleth whereby those who were should be distinguished +from those who were not entitled to bear the Christian name. + +This contrast implies a great wrong _somewhere_, and for which +_somebody_ must be responsible. I merely suggest it for general +consideration, and pass on. + +Not fully sympathising with the Peace Movement in the actual condition +of Europe, I was not a Delegate, and did not attend the first two days' +deliberations. I see not how any one who does not hope to live and +thrive by injustice, oppression and murder, can be otherwise than +ardently favorable to Universal Peace. But, suppose there is a portion +of the human family who _won't have Peace_, nor let others have it, what +then? If you say, "Let us have it as soon as we can," I respond with all +my heart. I would tolerate War, even against pirates or murderers, no +longer than is absolutely necessary to inspire them with a love of +Peace, or put them where they can no longer invade the peace of others. +But so long as Tyrannies and Aristocracies shall say--as they now +practically _do say_ all over Europe, "Yes, we too are for Peace, but it +must be Peace with absolute submission to our good pleasure--Peace with +two-thirds of the fruits of Human Labor devoted to the pampering of our +luxurious appetites, the maintenance of our pomp, the indulgence of our +unbounded desires--it must be a Peace which leaves the Millions in +darkness, in hopeless degradation, the slaves of superstition and the +helpless victims of our lusts." I answer, "No, Sirs! on your conditions +no Peace is possible, but everlasting War rather, until your unjust +pretensions are abandoned or until your power of enforcing them is +destroyed." I have felt a painful apprehension that the prevalence of +the Peace Movement, confined as it is to the Liberal party, and acting +on a state of things which secures almost unbounded power to the +Despots, is calculated to break the spirit of down-trodden nations, and, +by thus postponing the inevitable struggle, protract to an indefinite +period the advent of that Reign of Universal Justice which alone can +usher in the glorious era of Universal Peace. And, had I been a Delegate +to this Universal Peace Congress, I should perhaps have marred its +harmony and its happiness by asking it to consider and vote upon some +such proposition as this: + + "_Resolved_, That in commending to all men everywhere the duty + of seeking and preserving Peace, we bear in mind the Apostle's + injunction, '_First_ pure, _then_ peaceable,' and do not deny + but affirm the right of a Nation wantonly invaded by a foreign + army, or intolerably oppressed by its own rulers, to resist + force by force." + +I rejoice in being able to say that the general tendency of the speeches +was towards universal Emancipation, mental and physical. I doubt whether +an English audience composed in so large proportion of the +conventionally "respectable classes" ever listened to so much downright +Democracy before. The French speakers, the French writers, were full of +it, and the great event, at least of the last day's session, was the +entrance of a body of fifteen French workmen, delegates to the World's +Exhibition of the "Working Associations" of Paris, who came in a body to +pledge their hearts and hands to the cause of Universal Peace, and to +assure the Congress that the Laborers, the Republicans, of France, were +eminently pacific in their ideas and purposes, and that the preservation +of the Republic, which is the immediate object of their exertions, is +valued not more in its relation to their personal rights and aspirations +than as a step toward the formation of a European confederacy of +emancipated Nations, and thus as the corner-stone of the temple of +Universal Peace. The Speeches of these Workmen just from their benches +in the work-shops of Paris were every way admirable, and were received +with the heartiest enthusiasm. They breathed the true spirit not of +Peace only but of hearty coöperation in every work calculated to promote +the moral and social well-being of mankind. The wretched cant which +implies _natural enmity_ between France and England, or any other two +nations, was emphatically repudiated by them, and every variety of +forcible expression given to the earnest desire of the Laboring Classes +of France that Peace, Freedom and Brotherhood shall prevail, not in +their own country merely, but throughout the world. + +Mr. COBDEN had made his great speech on the preceding day, wherein the +grievous expensiveness and hideous immorality of Standing Armies were +vividly portrayed. He did not hesitate to speak straight out on the +subject of the demoralizing influence of Armies on the People among +whom they were quartered or posted, and the broad track of moral +desolation which an armed force everywhere leaves behind it. If the +facts in this connection were but generally known, I think there would +soon be a loud call from Christians, Moralists and Philanthropists for +the entire disbandment and dispersion of every Standing Army.--EMILE +GIRARDIN, Editor of "_La Presse_," spoke more especially of the +enormous expense of Armies and the ruinous taxation they render +necessary.--Mr. COBDEN spoke again yesterday, in more immediate +denunciation of the enormous Standing Army maintained by Austria, not +merely throughout its own but in other countries also, the Loans which +its Government is constantly contracting, and the gulf of bankruptcy to +which it is rapidly hurrying. He said there were intimations that +another Austrian Loan would be attempted in London, and if it should be +he should urge the call of a public meeting to expose the past knaveries +of Austria in dealing with her creditors, and to hold up to public +reprobation whoever should touch the Loan.--Mr. SAMUEL GURNEY, the Quaker +banker, also spoke in reprehension of Loans for War purposes and all who +subscribe to or encourage them.--EDWARD MIALL (Editor of _The +Non-Conformist_), also spoke forcibly against War Loans. + +M. CORMENIN, an eminent French Statesman and writer, read a witty, piquant +essay in reprehension of War and all other contrivances for shortening +human life, which, being given first in French and then substantially in +English, elicited very hearty plaudits. + +There were many more speakers, including Mr. HINDLEY, British M. P., M. +BOURET, French Chamber of Deputies, ELIHU BURRITT, M. AVIGNON, an Italian +banker, J. S. BUCKINGHAM, Dr. SCHERTZER of Vienna, and JOSEPH STURGE, who +moved that a similar convention be held next year, at a time and place to +be afterward agreed on, which was unanimously carried. It was announced +that Mr. Geo. Hatfield of Manchester had suggested and agreed to bear the +expense of fifteen Silver Medals to be presented, in behalf of the +Congress, to the representatives of the French Workmen's Association for +their attendance and sympathy.--Sir DAVID BREWSTER, being warmly thanked +for his services as Chairman, responded in a few excellent remarks, urging +each person present to instill the principles of Peace into the hearts of +the children who are or may be committed to his or her guidance. He +remarked that he had not once been called upon to exercise authority or +repress commotion during the whole period of the Congress,--a fact proving +that the principles of Peace had already taken root in the breasts of the +Members; and there was not, I believe, a single proposition submitted to +the Congress on which its vote was not substantially unanimous. The +following are the Resolutions adopted: + + The Congress of the friends of Universal Peace, assembled in + London July 22, 23 and 24, 1851, considering that recourse to + arms for the settlement of international disputes, is a custom + condemned alike by Religion, Morality, Reason, and Humanity, + and believing that it is useful and necessary frequently to + direct the attention both of Governments and Peoples to the + evils of the War system, and the desirableness and + practicability of maintaining Permanent International Peace, + resolves: + + 1. That it is the special and solemn duty of all Ministers of + Religion, Instructors of Youth, and Conductors of the Public + Press, to employ their great influence in the diffusion of + pacific principles and sentiments, and in eradicating from the + minds of men those hereditary animosities, and political and + commercial jealousies, which have been so often the cause of + disastrous Wars. + + 2. That as an appeal to the sword can settle no question, on + any principle of equity and right, it is the duty of + Governments to refer to the decision of competent and + impartial Arbitrators such differences arising between them as + cannot be otherwise amicably adjusted. + + 3. That the Standing Armaments, with which the Governments of + Europe menace each other, amid professions of mutual + friendship and confidence, being a prolific source of social + immorality, financial embarrassment, and national suffering, + while they excite constant disquietude and irritation among + the nations, this Congress would earnestly urge upon the + Governments the imperative necessity of entering upon a system + of International Disarmament. + + 4. This Congress, regarding the system of negotiating Loans + for the prosecution of War, or the maintenance of warlike + armaments, as immoral in principle and disastrous in + operation, renews its emphatic condemnation of all such + Loans. + + 5. This Congress, believing that the intervention, by + threatened or actual violence, of one country in the + international politics of another, is a frequent cause of + bitter and desolating wars, maintains that the right of every + State to regulate its own affairs should be held absolute and + inviolate. + + 6. This Congress recommends all the friends of Peace to + prepare public opinion, in their respective countries, with a + view to the formation of an authoritative Code of + International Law. + + 7. This Congress expresses its strong abhorrence of the system + of aggression and violence practiced by so-called civilized + nations upon aboriginal and feeble tribes, as leading to + incessant and exterminating wars, eminently unfavorable to the + true progress of religion, civilization and commerce. + + 8. This Congress, convinced that whatever brings the nations + of the earth together in intimate and friendly intercourse + must tend to the establishment of Peace, by removing + misapprehensions and prejudices, and inspiring mutual respect, + hails, with unqualified satisfaction, the Exhibition of the + Industry of all Nations, as eminently calculated to promote + that end. + + 9. That the members of Peace Societies, in all Constitutional + Countries, be recommended to use their influence to return to + their respective Parliaments, representatives who are friends + of Peace, and who will be prepared to support, by their votes, + measures for the diminution of the number of men employed in, + and the amount of money expended for, War purposes. + + + _American Members of the Congress._--Nathaniel Adams, + Cornwall, Conn., Rev. Robert Baird, New-York; Geo. M. Borrows, + Friburg, Maine; M. B. Bateman, Columbus, Ohio; Rev. George + Beckwith, Boston, Mass.; W. Wells Brown, do; Elihu Burritt, + Worcester, Mass.; William A. Burt, Washington, D. C.; Dr. + Thomas Chadbourne, Portsmouth, N. H.; Rev. J. W. Chickering, + Portland, Me.; Wm. Darlington, Westchester, Pa.; Rev. P. B. + Day, New-Haven; Rev. Amos Dresser, Oberlin, Ohio; Rev. D. C. + Eddy, Lowell, Mass.; Rev. Romeo Elton, Providence, R. I.; A. + R. Forsyth, Indiana; Rev. Aaron Foster, Massachusetts; William + B. Fox, do; Rev. H. H. Garnett, Geneva, N. Y.; David Gould, + Sharon, Conn.; Rev. Josiah Henson, Canada West; E. Jackson, + Jr., Boston, Mass.; Wm. Jackson, Newton, do; Rev. P. M. + McDowell, New-Brunswick; Rev. Geo. Maxwell, Ohio; Rev. H. A. + Mills, Lowell, Mass.; Rev. A. A. Miner, Boston, Mass.; Dr. + Henry S. Patterson, Frank B. Palmer, Dr. William Pettit, + Philadelphia, Pa.; Thomas Pierce, Illinois; Moses Pond, + Boston, Mass.; J. T. Sheoffe, Whitesboro', N. Y.; Isaac + Skervan, Buffalo, N. Y.; Rev. Zadock Thompson, Burlington, + Vt.; Rev. John E. Tyler, Windham, Conn.; Ichabod Washbourne, + Worcester, Mass.; Rev. James C. White, Ohio; Chas. H. De + Wolfe, Oldtown, Me. + + + + +XXXVII. + +AMERICA AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, July 26, 1851. + +If I return this once more and for the last time to the subject of +American contributions to the great Exposition, it shall not be said +with truth that my impulse is a feeling of soreness and chagrin. Within +the last few days, a very decided and gratifying change has taken place +in the current of opinion here with regard to American invention and its +results. One cause of this was the late formal trial of American (with +other foreign) Plows, in the presence of the Agricultural Jury; which +trial, though partial and hurried, was followed by immediate orders for +an American Plow then tested (Starbuck's) from Englishmen, Belgians and +Frenchmen, including several Agricultural Societies. If a hundred of +those Plows were here, they might be sold at once; in their absence, the +full price has been paid down for some twenty or thirty, to be shipped +at New-York, and be thenceforth at the risk and cost of the buyers. And +these orders have just commenced. The London journals which had +reporters present (some of which journals ridiculed our Farming +Implements expressly a few weeks ago), now grudgingly admit that the +American Plows did their work with less draft than was required by their +European rivals, but add that they did not do it so well. Such was not +the judgment of other witnesses of the trial, as the purchases, among +other things, attest. + +A still more signal triumph to American ingenuity was accorded on +Thursday. Mr. Mechi, formerly a London merchant, having acquired a +competence by trade, retired some years since to a farm in Essex, about +forty miles off, where he is vigorously prosecuting a system of High +Farming, employing the most effective implements and agencies of all +kinds. He annually has a gathering of distinguished farmers and others +to inspect his estate and see how his "book farming" gets on. This +festival occurred day before yesterday--a sour, dark, drenching +day--notwithstanding which, nearly two hundred persons were present. +Among others, several machines for cutting Grain were exhibited and +tested, including two (Hussey's and McCormick's) from America, and an +English one which was declared on all hands a mere imitation of +Hussey's. Neither the original nor the copy, however, appear to have +operated to the satisfaction of the assembly, perhaps owing to the +badness of the weather and its effects on the draggled, unripe grain. +With McCormick's a very different result was obtained. This machine is +so well known in our Wheat-growing districts that I need only remark +that it is the same lately ridiculed by one of the great London journals +as "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a treadmill and a flying +machine," and its uncouth appearance has been a standing butt for the +London reporters at the Exhibition. It was the ready exemplar of +American distortion and absurdity in the domain of Art. It came into the +field at Mechi's, therefore, to confront a tribunal (not the official +but the popular) already prepared for its condemnation. Before it stood +John Bull, burly, dogged and determined not to be humbugged--his +judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. Nothing +disconcerted, the brown, rough, homespun Yankee in charge jumped on the +box, starting the team at a smart walk, setting the blades of the +machine in lively operation, and commenced raking off the grain in +sheaf-piles ready for binding,--cutting a breadth of nine or ten feet +cleanly and carefully as fast as a span of horses could comfortably +step. There was a moment, and but a moment of suspense; human prejudice +could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers +from the whole crowd proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee "treadmill." +That triumph has since been the leading topic in all agricultural +circles. _The Times'_ report speaks of it as beyond doubt, as placing +the harvest absolutely under the farmer's control, and as ensuring a +complete and most auspicious revolution in the harvesting operations of +this country. I would gladly give the whole account, which, grudgingly +towards the inventor, but unqualifiedly as to the machine, speaks of the +latter as "securing to English farming protection against climate and an +economy of labor which must prove of _incalculable_ advantage." Pretty +well for "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a flying machine and a +treadmill." + +Mr. McCormick, I hear, is probably now on his way hither from the United +States, and will be rather astonished on landing to find himself a lion. +Half a dozen makers and sellers of Agricultural implements, are already +on the watch for him, and if he makes his bargain wisely, he is morally +sure of a fortune from England alone. His machine and its operator were +the center of an eager circle to-day, and if five hundred of the former +were to be had here, they would all be bought within a month. There is +to be another public trial, merely to place beyond doubt its capacity to +cut dry and ripe grain as well as green and wet; but those who have seen +it work in the States will not care much for that.[C] + +Mr. Hobbs, of the American Bank Lock Company, has had a recent trial of +the Chubb Lock, so long deemed invincible here, and consumed twenty-four +minutes and a half in picking it, under the supervision of judges of +unquestionable ability and impartiality. He then re-locked it without +disturbing the "Detector," and left it as when it was set before him. He +has now to try his skill on the "Bramah" lock under the challenge for +£200; and, should he be able to open it, he says he shall there rest the +case.[D] He has been sent for by the Governor of the Bank of England, +and will respond to the invitation. His operations have of course +excited some feeling among those whose interests were affected by them; +yet it is manifestly proper and important, if the locks relied on by +banks and other depositories of treasure here are not secure against +burglary, that the fact should be known. Unless I err as to his success +at the forthcoming trial with the Bramah lock, British locksmiths must +commence at once to learn their business over again under Yankee +tuition. + +I might give other facts in support of my judgment that our Country has +not been and will not be _disgraced_ by her share in this Exhibition, +but I forbear. Had we declined altogether the invitation to participate +in this show, we certainly would have been discredited in the world's +opinion, however unjustly; had we attempted to rival the costly tissues, +dainty carvings, rich mosaics, and innumerable gewgaws of Europe, we +should have shown equal bad taste and unsound judgment, and would have +deservedly been laughed at. Our real error consists, not in neglecting +to send articles to rival the rich fabrics and wares of this Continent, +but in sending too few of those homely but most important products in +which we unquestionably lead the world. We have a good many such here +now, but we should have had many more. One such plain, odd-looking +concern as McCormick's Reaper, though it makes no figure in the eyes of +mere sight-seers in comparison with an inlaid Table or a case of Paris +Bonnets, is of more practical account than a Crystal Palace full of +those, and so will ultimately be regarded. Looking to-day at Mitchell's +admirable new Map of the United States and their Territories, as now +existing, which worthily fills an honorable place in the Exhibition, +with several but too few others of the same class, I could not but +regret that a set of Harpers' Common School Libraries, with a brief +account of the origin and progress of our School Library system, had not +been contributed; and I wish I had myself spent fifty dollars if +necessary to place in the Exhibition a good collection of American +School Books. If there shall ever be another World's Exhibition, I +bespeak a conspicuous place in it for a model American country +School-House, with its Library, Globes, Maps, Black-Board, Class Books, +&c., and a succinct account of our Common School system, printed in the +five or six principal languages of Europe for gratuitous distribution to +all who may apply for it. With this got up as it should be, I would not +mind admitting that in Porcelain and Laces, Ormolu and Trinkets, Europe +is yet several years ahead of us. + +Mr. J. S. Gwynne of our State, whose "Balanced Centrifugal Pump" made a +sensation and obtained a Gold Medal at our Institute Fair last October, +is here with it, and proposes a public trial of its qualities in +competition with the rival English pumps of Appold and Bessimer for +$1,000, to be paid by the loser to the Mechanics' Society. Mr. Gwynne +claims that these English Pumps (which have been among the chief +attractions of the department of British Machinery) are palpable +plagiarisms from his invention, and not well done at that. He, of +course, does not claim the idea of a Centrifugal Pump as his own, for it +is much older than any of them, but he does claim that adaptation of the +idea which has rendered it effective and valuable. I am reliably +informed that he has just sold his Scotch patent only for the +comfortable sum of £10,000 sterling, or nearly $50,000; and this is but +one of several inventions for which he has found a ready market here at +liberal prices. I cite his case (for he is one of several Americans who +have recently sold their European patents here at high figures) as a +final answer to those who croak that our country is disgraced, and +regret that any American ever came near the Exhibition. Had these +discerning and patriotic gentlemen been interested in these patents, +they might have taken a different view of the matter. Even my New-York +friend, whose toadyism in exhibiting a capital pair of Oars inscribed "A +present for the Prince of Wales," I have already characterized as it +deserves, yesterday informed me that he had sold $15,000 worth of Oars +here since the Fair opened. I am sure I rejoice in his good fortune, and +hope it may insure the improvement of his taste also. + +There are many articles in the American department of which I would +gladly speak, that have attracted no public notice. Since I left for the +Continent, Mrs. A. Nicholson, formerly of our city, has sent in a +Table-Cover worked in Berlin Wool from the centre outward so as to form +a perfect circle, or succession of circles, from centre to +circumference, with a great variety of brilliant colors imperceptibly +shading into each other. This having been made entirely by hand, with no +implement but a common cut nail, the process is of course too slow to be +valuable; but the result attained may very probably afford useful hints +and suggestions to inventors of weaving machinery.--I think the display +of Flint Glass by the Brooklyn Company is equal in purity and fineness +to any other plain Glass in the Exhibition, and only regret that the +quantity sent had not been larger. I regret far more that the +"Hillotype," for giving sun-pictures with the colors of life, has not +yet made its appearance here, while the "Caloric Engine" (using +compressed and heated air instead of water for the generation of power), +was not ready in season to justify a decision on its merits by the Jury +of its Class; and so with other recent American inventions of which +high hopes are entertained. We ought to have had here a show merely of +Inventions, Machines and Implements exceeding the entire contents of the +American Department--ought to have had, apart from any question of +National credit, if only because the inventors' interests would have +been subserved thereby--and we should have had much more than we +actually have, had the state of the British Patent-Laws been less +outrageous than it is. A patent here costs ten times as much as in the +United States, and is worth little when you have it--that is, it is not +even an opinion that the patentee has really invented anything, but +merely an evidence that he claimed to have done so at such a date, and a +permission to prove that he actually did, if he can. In other words; a +patent gives a permission and an opportunity to contend legally for your +rights; and if the holder is known to have money enough, it generally +suffices; if not, he can and will be not only plundered with impunity, +but defied and laughed at. A bill radically revising the British +Patent-Laws is now on its way through Parliament, but in its absence +many American inventors refused to expose themselves to a loss of their +inventions by exhibiting them at the Fair; and who can blame them? + +The succession of _fêtes_ to be given by the Municipality of Paris to +the Royal Commissioners, Jurors, &c., in honor of the World's +Exhibition, opens this week, and will be brilliant and gratifying as no +other city but Paris could make it. The number invited is over One +Thousand, and all are taken from the British shore in French National +Vessels, and thenceforth will be the guests of their inviters until they +shall again be landed at an English port, paying nothing themselves for +travel, entertainment, balls, &c., &c. This is certainly handsome, and I +acknowledge the courtesy, though I shall not accept the invitation. I +leave for Scotland and Ireland on Monday. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[C] This trial took place at Mechi's some three weeks later, and +resulted in a complete triumph for the reaper, which thereupon received +an award (already accorded it by the Council of Chairmen, subject to +revision upon the result of this trial), of a first-class or +Great-Medal. + +[D] He has since done so, to the perfect satisfaction of the judges. + + + + +XXXVIII. + +ENGLAND, CENTRAL AND NORTHERN. + + + NEWCASTLE, Eng., Tuesday, July 29, 1851. + +I came up through the heart of England by railroad yesterday from London +by Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, near Sheffield and Leeds, +through York, near Durham, to this place, where Coal is found in +proverbial abundance, as its black canopy of smoke might testify. +Newcastle lies at the head of navigation on the Tyne, about thirty miles +inland from the E. N. E. coast of England, three hundred miles from +London, and is an ancient town, mainly built of brick, exhibiting +considerable manufacturing and commercial activity. + +The British Railroads are better built, more substantial and costly than +ours, but their management does not equal my anticipations. They make no +such time as is currently reported on our side, and are by no means +reliable for punctuality. The single Express Train daily from London to +Edinburgh professes to make the distance (428 miles) in about twelve +hours, which is less than 36 miles per hour, with the best of double +tracks, through a remarkably level country, everything put out of its +way, and no more stops than its own necessities of wood and water +require. We should easily beat this in America with anything like equal +facilities, and without charging the British price--£4 7s. (or over $21) +for a distance not equal to the length of the Erie Railroad, almost +wholly through a populous and busy region, where Coal is most abundant +and very cheap. + +Our train (the Mail) started from London at 10½ A. M. and should have +been here at 11 P. M. or in a little less than 25 miles per hour. But +the running throughout the country is now bewitched with Excursion +Trains and throngs of passengers flocking on low-priced Excursion return +tickets to see the Great Exhibition, which is quite as it should be, but +the consequent delay and derangement of the regular trains is as it +should _not_ be. The Companies have no moral right to fish up a quantity +of irregular and temporary business to the violation of their promises +and the serious disappointment of their regular customers. As things are +managed, we left London with a train of twenty-five cars, half of them +filled with Excursion passengers for whom a separate engine should have +been, but was not, provided; so that we were behind time from the first +and arrived here at 1 this morning instead of 11 last night. + +The spirit of accommodation is not strikingly evinced on British +Railroads. The train halts at a place to which you are a stranger, and +you perhaps hear its name called out for the benefit of the passengers +who are to stop there; but whether the halt is to last half a minute, +five minutes, or ten, you must find out as you can. The French Railroads +are better in this respect, and the American cannot be worse, though the +fault is not unknown there. A penny programme for each train, to be sold +at the chief stations on each important route, stating not merely at +what place but exactly how long each halt of that particular train would +be made, is one of the yet unsatisfied wants of Railroad travelers. Our +"Path-finders" and "Railway Guides" undertake to tell so much that plain +people are confused and often misled by them, and are unable to pick out +the little information they actually need from the wilderness of figures +and facts set before them. Let us have Guides so simple that no guide is +needed to explain them. + +There is much sameness in English rural scenery. I have now traveled +nearly a thousand miles in this country without seeing anything like a +mountain and hardly a precipice except the chalky cliffs of the sea +shore. Nearly every acre I have seen is susceptible of cultivation, and +of course either cultivated, built upon, or devoted to wood. A few steep +banks of streams or ravines, almost uniformly wooded, and some small +marshes, mainly on the sea-coast, are all the exceptions I remember to +the general capacity for cultivation. Usually, the aspect of the country +is pleasant--beautiful, if you choose--but nowise calculated to excite +wonder or evoke enthusiasm. The abundance of evergreen hedges is its +most striking characteristic. I judge that two-thirds of England is in +Grass (meadow or pasture), very green and thrifty, and dotted with noble +herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. They are anxious to finish +Hay-making throughout the region we traversed yesterday; but as there +has been scarcely an hour of very bashful sunshine during the last six +days, more than half of which have been rainy, the operation is one +rather trying to human patience. Some of the cut grass looks as if it +were Flax spread out to rot, and all of it evinces a want of shelter. +This morning is almost fair, though hazy, so that the necessity of +taking in and drying the hay by a fire may be obviated, but a great deal +of it must be seriously damaged. (_P. S. 10 o'clock._--It is cloudy and +raining again.) + +Wheat covers perhaps an eighth of all Central England, is now ripening +and generally heavy, but much of it is beaten down by the wind and rain, +and looks as if a herd of buffaloes had been chased through it by a +tribe of mounted Indians. If the weather should be mainly fair +henceforth, the crop may be saved, but it must already have received +material damage, and the process of harvesting it must be tedious. +Barley is considerably grown, and has also been a good deal prostrated. +Oats have suffered less, being more backward.--Potatoes look vigorous, +though not yet out of danger from blight or rot. Not a patch of Indian +Corn is to be seen throughout. Considerable grass-land has been plowed +up for Wheat next season, and some Turnips are just visible; but it is +evident that Grass and Stock, under the influence of the low prices of +Grain produced by the repeal of the Corn-laws, are steadily gaining upon +Tillage, of course throwing tens of thousands of Agricultural laborers +out of employment, and driving them to emigration, to manufactures, or +the poor-house. Thus the rural population of England is steadily and +constantly decreasing. + +The best feature of English landscape is formed by its Trees. Though +rarely relied on for fuel, there is scarcely an area of forty acres +without them, while single trees, copses, more rarely rows, and often +petty forests, are visible in all quarters. The trees are not the +straight, tall, trim, short-limbed, shadeless Poplars, &c., of France +and Italy, but wide-spreading, hospitable Oaks, Yews and other sturdy +battlers with wind and storm, which have a far more genial and +satisfactory appearance. And the trees of England have a commercial as +well as a less measurable value; for timber of all sorts is in demand in +the collieries, manufactories and mines, and bears a high price, the +consumption far exceeding the domestic supply. But for the trees, these +sullen skies and level grounds would render England dreary enough. + +Newcastle is the location of one of those immense structures which +illustrate the Industrial greatness and pecuniary strength of Britain, +and illustrate also the meagerness of her Railroad dividends. The Tyne +is here a furlong wide or more, running through a narrow valley or wide +ravine perhaps 150 feet below the average level of the great plain which +encloses it, and hardly more than half a mile wide at the top. Across +this river and gorge is thrown a bridge of iron, with abutments and +piers of hewn stone, the arches of said bridge having a total length of +1,375 feet, with 512 feet water-way, while the railway is 112½ feet +above high-water mark, with a fine carriage and footway underneath it +at a hight of 86 feet, and a total hight from river-bed to parapet of +132½ feet. The gigantic arches have a span of over 124 feet each, and +the total cost of the work was £304,500, or about $1,500,000. Near this +is a Central Railway Station (there are two others in the place), built +entirely, including the roof, of cut stone, save a splendid row of glass +windows on either side--said dépôt being over 592 feet long, the +passengers' department being 537 by 183 feet, and the whole costing over +$500,000. Here, then, are about $2,000,000 expended on a single mile of +railroad, in a city of by no means primary importance. If any one can +see how fair dividends could be paid on railroads constructed at such +expense, the British shareholders generally would be glad to avail +themselves of his sagacity. And it is stated that the Law Expenses of +several of the British roads, including procurement of charter and right +of way, have exceeded $2,500,000. Add to this rival lines running near +each other, and often three where one should suffice, and you have the +explanation of a vast, enormous and ruinous waste of property. Let the +moral be heeded. + + +THE BORDER--SCOTLAND. + + EDINBURGH, July 29--_Evening_. + +From Newcastle to the Tweed (70 miles) the country continues level and +mainly fertile, but the Grain is far more backward than in the vicinity +of London, and very little of it has been blown down. More Wheat and far +less Grass are grown here than below York, while Barley, Oats and +Potatoes cover a good share of the ground, and the Turnip is often seen. +All look well, but the Potato, though late, is especially hearty and +thrifty. Shade-trees in the cultivated fields are rare; in fact, wood is +altogether rarer than at the south, though small forests are generally +within sight. I should judge from what I see and feel that shade is +seldom wanting here, except as a shield from the rain. Desperate +attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many +men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and +a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, +drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the +half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to +bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as +to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for +fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen; they were scarce from London to +York, but now have disappeared. Our road runs nearer and nearer the +North Sea, which at length is close beside us on the right, but no town +of any importance is visible until we cross the Tweed on a long, high, +costly stone bridge just above Berwick of historic fame, and are in + + +SCOTLAND. + +Here the growing crops are much the same as throughout the North of +England--Wheat, Potatoes, Barley, Oats, and Grass--save that the Turnip +has become an article of primary importance. From some points, hundreds +of acres of the Swedish and French may be seen, and they are rarely or +never out of view. They are sown in rows or drills, some eighteen inches +or two feet apart, so as to admit of cultivation by the plow, which is +now in progress. The most forward of the plants now display a small +yellow blossom. All are healthy and promising, and are kept thoroughly +clear of weeds. I infer that they are mainly grown for feeding cattle, +and this seems a good idea, since they can be harvested in defiance of +rain and mist, which is rather more difficult with Hay. They become more +and more abundant as we approach this city, and are grown up to its very +doors. Heavy stone walls laid in mortar and copses or little forests of +Oak are among the characteristics of the rural district around +Edinburgh, whereof the culture is widely famed for its excellence. The +only Scottish town of any note we pass is Dunbar, by the sea-side, +though Dunse, Haddington and Dalkeith lie but a few miles inland from +our road, with which they are connected by branches. We reached this +city about 3 P. M. or in five hours from Newcastle, 130 miles. + + +EDINBURGH. + +I knew this was a city of noble and beautiful structures, but the +reality surpasses my expectation. The old town was mainly built in a +deep valley running northward into the Firth of Forth, with the Royal +Palace of Holyrood in its midst, the port of Leith on the Firth a few +miles northward, and the Castle on a commanding crag overlooking the old +town from the west. The Canongate and High-street lead up to the +esplanade of the Castle from the east, but its other sides are +precipitous and inaccessible, a deep valley skirting it on the north, +while the south end of the old town fills the other side. The former or +more northern valley has for the most part been kept clear of buildings, +the spacious Prince's-street Gardens and the grounds of several +charitable institutions having had possession of it, until they were +recently required to surrender a part for the Railroads running south to +Berwick, &c., and west to Glasgow for a General Depot. Across this deep +valley or chasm, northward, rises the eminence on which the new town of +Edinburgh is constructed, with the deep chasm in which runs the rapid +mill-stream known as the "Water of Leith," separating it from a like, +though lower, hill still further north and west, on which a few fine +buildings and very pleasant gardens are located. The new town is thus +perhaps 150 feet above the old town, a mile and a half long by half a +mile wide, commanding magnificent views of the old town, the port of +Leith, the broad, ocean-like Firth of Forth, and the finely cultivated +country stretching southward; and, as if these were not enough to secure +its salubrity, it has more gardens and public squares than any other +city of its size in the world. Its streets are broad and handsome; its +houses built almost wholly of stone, and I never saw so many good ones +with so few indifferent. If I were to choose from all the world a city +wherein to make an effort for longevity, I would select the new town of +Edinburgh; but I should prefer to live fewer years where there is more +sunshine. + +Public Monuments would seem to be the grand passion of the Edinburghers. +The most conspicuous are those of Lord Nelson on Calton Hill (next to +the Castle, if not before it, the most commanding location in the city) +and of Walter Scott on Prince's-street, nearly opposite the Castle, +across the glen, in full sight of all who arrive in Edinburgh by +Railroad, as also from the Castle and its vicinity, as well as from the +broad and thronged street beside which it is located. But there are +Monuments also to Pitt, to Lord Melville, and some twenty or thirty +other deceased notables. These are generally located in the higher +squares or gardens which wisely occupy a large portion of the +ground-plot of the new town. Public Hospitals and Infirmaries are also a +prominent feature of the Scottish capital, there being several spacious +and fine edifices devoted to the healing of the sick, most if not all of +them founded and endowed by private munificence. There are several +Bridges across the two principal and more on the secondary or cross +valleys, ravines or gorges which may well attract attention. These +Bridges are often several hundred feet long, and from thirty to eighty +feet high, and you look down from their roadway upon the red-tiled roofs +of large eight or nine-story houses beside and below them. Nearly or +quite every house in Edinburgh is built of stone, which is rather +abundant in Scotland, and often of a fair, free, easily worked quality. +Many even of the larger houses, especially in the old town, are built +of coarse, rough, undressed stone, often of round, irregular boulders, +made to retain the places assigned them by dint of abundant and +excellent mortar. In the better buildings, however, the stone is of a +finer quality, and handsomely cut, though almost entirely of a brown or +dark gray color. The winding drive to the summit of Calton Hill, looking +down upon large, tall, castle-like houses of varied material and +workmanship, with the prospect from the summit, are among the most +impressive I have seen in Europe. + +I was interested this afternoon in looking around from one to another of +the edifices with which History or the pen of the Wizard of the North +has rendered us all familiar--the Tolbooth, the Parliament House, the +Castle, the house of John Knox, the principal Churches, &c., &c. I spent +most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, which, though unwisely +located, never gorgeously furnished, and long since abandoned of Royalty +to dilapidation and decay, still wears the stamp of majesty and will be +regal even when crumbled into ruins. Its tapestries are faded and +rotten; its paintings, never brilliant specimens of the art, have also +felt the tooth of Time; its furniture, never sumptuous, would but poorly +answer at this day the needs of an ordinary family; its ball-room is now +a lumber-room; its royal beds excite premonitions of rheumatism: its +boudoir says nought of Beauty but that it passeth away. Yet the +carefully preserved ivory miniature of the hapless Queen of Scots is +still radiant with that superlative loveliness which seems unearthly and +prophetic of coming sorrows; and it were difficult to view without +emotion the tapestry she worked, the furniture she brought over from +France, some mementoes of her unwise marriage, the little room in which +she sat at supper with Rizzio and three or four friends when the +assassins rushed in through a secret door, stabbed her ill-starred +favorite, and dragged him bleeding through her bed-room into an outer +audience chamber, and there left him to die, his life-blood oozing out +from fifty-six wounds. The partition still stands which the Queen caused +to be erected to shut off the scene of this horrible tragedy from that +larger portion of the reception-room which she was obliged still to +occupy, therein to greet daily those whom public cares and duties +constrained her to confer with and listen to, though Murder had stained +ineffaceably the floor of that regal hall. Alas! unhappy Queen!--and yet +not all unhappy. Other sovereigns have their little day of pomp and +adulation, then shrivel to dust and are forgotten; but she still lives +and reigns wherever Beauty finds admirers or Suffering commands +sympathy. Other Queens innumerable have lived and died, and their +scepters crumbled to dust even sooner than their clay; but Mary is still +Queen of Scots, and so will remain forever. + + + + +XXXIX. + +SCOTLAND. + + + THE CLYDE, Wednesday, July 30, 1851. + +I am leaving Scotland without having seen half enough of it. My chief +reasons are a determination to run over a good part of Ireland and an +engagement to leave Europe in my favorite ship Baltic next week; but, +besides these, this continual prevalence of fog, mist, cloud, drizzle +and rain diminish my regret that I am unable to visit the Highlands. My +friends who, having a day's start of me, went up the Forth from +Edinburgh to Stirling, thence visiting Lochs Lomond and Katrine, thence +proceeding by boat to Glasgow, were unable to see aught of the mountains +but their bases, their heads being shrouded in vapor; and, being landed +from a steamboat at the head of Lake navigation on Loch Lomond, found +five miles of land-carriage between them and a comfortable shelter, and +only vehicles enough to take the women and part of the men; the rest +being obliged to make the distance on foot in a drenching rain, with +night just at hand. Such adventures as this,--and they are common in +this region,--console me for my disappointment in not having been able +to see the Heather in its mountain home. The Gorse, the Broom, the +Whins, not to speak of the Scottish Thistle, have been often visible by +the roadside, and the prevalence of evergreens attests the influence of +a colder clime than that of England; indeed, the backwardness of all the +crops argues a difference of at least a fortnight in climate between +Edinburgh and London. Wheat has hardly filled yet in the Scottish +Lowlands; Oats are barely headed; and the Grass is little more than half +cut and not half dried into Hay; on the contrary, it now looks as if it +must winter on the ground or be taken in thoroughly water-soaked. Being +so much later, the crops are far less blown down here than they are in +England; but neither Grass nor Grain is generally heavy, while Potatoes +and Turnips, though backward, looked remarkably vigorous and promising. +Beautifully farmed is all this Lowland country, well fenced, clear of +weeds, and evidently in the hands of intelligent, industrious, +scientific cultivators. Wood is quite plentiful, Oak especially, though +shade-trees are not so frequent in cultivated fields as in England; but +rough, rocky, precipitous spots are quite common here, though in the +Lowlands, and these are wisely devoted to growing timber. Belgium is +more genial and more fertile, but I have rarely seen a tract of country +better farmed than that stretching westward from Edinburgh to Glasgow +(48 miles) and thence down the Clyde to Greenock, some 22 miles further. +The farmers in our Mohawk Valley ought to pass through this gloomy, +chilly, misty country, and be shamed into a better improvement of their +rare but misused advantages. + +Traveling is useful in that it gives us a more vivid idea of the immense +amount of knowledge we yet lack. I supposed till to-day that, by virtue +of a Scotch-Irish ancestry (in part) and a fair acquaintance with the +works of Walter Scott, Burns, Hogg, &c., I knew the Lowland Scotch +dialect pretty thoroughly; and yet a notice plainly posted up, "This Lot +To _Feu_," completely bothered me. On inquiry, I learned that _to feu_ a +lot means to let or lease it for building purposes--in other words, to +be built upon on a ground-rent. I suppose I learned this years ago, but +had entirely forgotten it. + +The Clyde, though a fair stream at Glasgow, is quite narrow for twelve +to fifteen miles below that city, seeming hardly equal to the +Connecticut at Hartford, or the Hudson at Waterford; but then it has a +good tide, which helps the matter materially, and has at great expense +been dredged out so as to be navigable for vessels of several hundred +tuns. We passed a fine American packet-ship with a very wholesome +looking body of Scotch emigrants, hard aground some ten miles below +Glasgow, and I was informed that a large vessel, even though towed by a +steamboat, is seldom able to get down into deep water upon a single +tide, but is stopped half way to wait for another. This river fairly +swarms with small steamboats, of which there are regular lines +connecting Glasgow with Londonderry, Belfast, Dublin, Fleetwood +(north-west of England), Liverpool, London, &c. We met four or five +boats returning from Excursion parties crowded with the better paid +artisans and laborers of Glasgow, their wives and children. + +The banks of the Clyde for some miles below Glasgow are low and marshy, +much of the intervale being devoted to pasturage, while a rude +embankment has been interposed on either side, consisting of stones of +five to fifty pounds each, intended to prevent the washing away of the +banks by the ripple raised by the often-passing steamboats. The end is +fairly though not cheaply subserved. As we descend, the shores become +bolder; the rugged hills, at first barely visible on the right, come +near and nearer the water: low rocks begin to lift their heads above the +surface of the stream, while others have their innate modesty +overpowered by wooden fixtures lifting their heads above the highest +tides to warn the mariner of his danger. At length a gigantic cone of +rock rises out of the water on the right of the channel to a height of +fifty or sixty feet, resembling some vast old cathedral: this is +Dumbarton Castle, with the anciently famous but now decaying town of +Dumbarton lying at the head of a small bay behind it. A little lower on +the left is Port Glasgow, the head of navigation for very large +vessels; and three miles lower still is Greenock, quite a stirring +seaport, somewhat addicted to ship-building. Here our boat, which had +left Glasgow (22 miles above) at 4 P. M. held on till 8 for the train +which left the same port at 7 with the mail and additional passengers; +and then laid her course directly across the channel to Belfast, 138 +miles from Glasgow, where she is due at 5 to-morrow morning. + + +GLASGOW. + +Looks more American than any other city I have seen in Europe. Half of +Pittsburgh spliced on to half of Philadelphia would make a city very +like Glasgow. Iron is said to be made cheaper here than elsewhere in the +world, the ore being alloyed with a carbonaceous substance which +facilitates the process and reduces the cost of melting. Tall chimneys +and black columns of smoke are abundant in the vicinity. The city is +about twice the size of Edinburgh, with more than double the trade of +that capital, and has risen rapidly from relative insignificance. New +rows of stately houses have recently been built, and the "court end" of +the city is extending rapidly toward the West. A brown or dark gray +stone, as in Edinburgh, is the principal material used, and gives the +city a very substantial appearance. Most of the town, being new, has +wide and straight streets; in the older part, they are perverse and +irrational, as old concerns are apt obstinately to be. They have an old +Cathedral here (now Presbyterian) of which the citizens seem quite +proud, I can't perceive why. Architecturally, it seems to me a sad waste +of stone and labor. The other churches are also mainly Presbyterian, +and, while making less pretensions, are far more creditable to the taste +of their designers. The town is built on both sides of the Clyde, which +is crossed by fine stone bridges, but seven-eighths of it lie on the +north. Ancient Glasgow, embracing the narrow and crooked streets, lies +nearly in the center, and is crowded with a squalid and miserable +population, at least half the women and children, including mothers with +children in their arms, and grandmothers, or those who might well be +such, being without shoes or stockings in the cold and muddy streets. +Intemperance has many votaries here, as indeed, throughout Scotland; +"Dealers in Spirits," or words to that effect, being a fearfully common +sign. I am afraid the good cause of Total Abstinence is making no +headway here--Glasgow has a daily paper (the first in Scotland) and many +weeklies, one of the best of them being a new one, "The Sentinel," which +has a way of going straight to the core of public questions, and +standing always on the side of thorough Reform. Success to it, and a +warm good-bye to the rugged land of Song and Story--the loved home of +Scott and Burns. + + + + +XL. + + +IRELAND--ULSTER. + + + DUBLIN, Thursday, July 31, 1851. + +Though the night was thick, the wind was light, and we had a very good +passage across the North Channel, though our boat was very middling, and +I was nearly poisoned by some of my fellow-sleepers in the gentlemen's +cabin insisting that every window should be closed. O to be Pope for one +little week, just long enough to set half a million pulpits throughout +the world to ringing the changes on the importance, the vital necessity, +of pure, fresh air! The darkness, or rather the general misapprehension, +which prevails on this subject, is a frightful source of disease and +misery. Nine-tenths of mankind have such a dread of "a draught" or +current of air that they will shut themselves up, forty together, in a +close room, car or cabin, and there poison each other with the +exhalations of their mutual lungs, until disease and often death are the +consequences. Why won't they study and learn that a "draught" of pure +air will injure only those who by draughts of Alcoholic poison or some +other evil habit or glaring violation of the laws of life, have rendered +themselves morbidly susceptible, and that even a cold is better than the +noxiousness of air, already exhausted of its oxygen by inhalation? +Nothing physical is so sorely needed by the great majority as a +realizing sense of the blessedness, the indispensable necessity of pure, +fresh air. + +We landed at Belfast at 5 this morning under a pouring rain, which +slacked off two hours later, but the skies are still clouded, as they +have been since Tuesday of last week, and there has been some sprinkling +through the day. + +Of course the Crops are suffering badly. Flax is a great staple of the +North of Ireland, and three fourths of it is beaten flat to the earth. +Wheat is injured and poor, though not so generally prostrate; Oats look +feeble, and as if half drowned; some of these are, and considerable +Barley is thrown down; Grass is light, much of it uncut, and much that +is cut has lain under the stormy or cloudy skies through the last week +and looks badly; only the Potatoes look strong and thrifty, and promise +an ample yield. I shall be agreeably disappointed if Ireland realizes a +fair average harvest this year. + +Belfast is a busy, growing town, the emporium of the Linen Manufacture, +and the capital of the Province of Ulster, the Northern quarter of +Ireland. It seems prosperous, though no wise remarkably so; and I have +been painfully disappointed in the apparent condition of the rural +peasantry on the line of travel from Belfast to Dublin, which I had +understood formed an exception to the general misery of Ireland. Out of +the towns not one habitation in ten is fit for human beings to live in, +but mere low, cramped hovels of rock, mud and straw; not one-half the +families on the way seem to have so much as an acre of land to each +household; not half the men to be seen have coats to their backs; and +not one in four of the women and children have each a pair of shoes or +stockings. And those feet!--if the owners would only wash them once a +week, the general aspect of affairs in this section would be materially +brightened. Wretchedness, rags and despair salute me on every side; and +if this be the best part of Ireland, what must the state of the worst +be? + +From Belfast we had railroad to Armagh, 35 miles; then 13 miles by +omnibus to Castle Blayney. We came over this latter route with ten or +twelve passengers, and a tun or so of luggage on the outside of the +Railroad Company's omnibus, with thirteen of us stowed inside, beside a +youngster in arms, who illustrated the doctrine of Innate Depravity by a +perpetual fight with his mother. Yet, thus overloaded we were driven the +thirteen miles of muddy road in about two hours, taking at Castle +Blayney another railroad train, which brought us almost to Drogheda, +some 25 miles, where we had to take another omnibus for a mile or two, +for want of a railroad bridge over the Boyne, thus reaching another +train which brought us into Dublin, 32 miles. The North of Ireland is +yet destitute of any other railroads than such patches and fragments as +these, whereby I am precluded from seeing Londonderry, and its vicinity, +which I much desired. At length we were brought into Dublin at half-past +three o'clock, or in eight hours from Belfast, about one hundred and +thirty miles. + +The face of the country through this part of Ireland is moderately +rolling, though some fair hills appear in the distance. The land is +generally good, though there are considerable tracts of hard, thin soil. +Small bogs are frequently seen, but no one exceeding a dozen acres; the +large ones lying farther inland. Taking so little room and supplying the +poor with a handy and cheap fuel, I doubt that these little bogs are any +detriment to the country. Some of them have been made to take on a soil +(by draining, cutting, drying and burning the upper strata of peat, and +spreading the ashes over the entire surface), and are now quite +productive.--Drainage and ridging are almost universally resorted to, +showing the extraordinary humidity of the atmosphere. The Potato is now +generally in blossom, and, having a large breadth of the land, and being +in fine condition, gives an appearance of thrift and beauty to the +landscape. But, in spite of this, the general yield of Ireland in 1851 +is destined to be meager. There is more misery in store for this unhappy +people. + +We cross two small lakes some ten to fifteen miles north of this city, +and run for some distance close to the shore of the Channel. At length, +a vision of dwellings, edifices and spires bounds the horizon of the +level plain to the south-west, and in a few minutes we are in Dublin. + + + + +XLI. + +WEST OF IRELAND--ATLANTIC MAILS. + + + GALWAY, Ireland, Aug. 2, 1851. + +I came down here yesterday from Dublin (126½ miles) by the first +Railroad train ever run through for the traveling public, hoping not +only to acquire some personal knowledge of the West of Ireland, but also +to gain some idea of the advantages and difficulties attending the +proposed establishment of a direct communication by Mail Steamers +between this port and our own country. And although my trip is +necessarily a hurried one, yet, having been rowed down and nearly across +the Bay, so as to gain some knowledge of its conformation and its +entrance, and having traversed the town in every direction, and made the +acquaintance of some of its most intelligent citizens, I shall at all +events return with a clearer idea of the whole subject than ever so much +distant study of maps, charts and books could have given me. + +The Midland Railroad from Dublin passes by Maynooth, Mullingar, Athlone +(where it crosses the Shannon by a noble iron bridge), and Ballinasloe +to this place, at the head of Galway Bay, some twenty-five miles inland +from the broad Atlantic. The country is remarkably level throughout, and +very little rock-cutting and but a moderate amount of excavation have +been required in making the Railroad, of which a part (from Dublin to +Mullingar) has been for some time in operation, while the residue has +just been opened. (The old stage-road from Dublin to Galway measures +133 miles, or nearly seven more than the Railroad.) I presume there is +nowhere an elevation of forty feet to the mile, and with a good double +track (now nearly completed), there can be no difficulty in running +express trains through in three hours. From Dublin to Holyhead will +require four hours, and from Holyhead to London six more, making fifteen +hours in all (including two for coming into Galway) for the +transportation of the Mails from the broad Atlantic off this port to +London. Allow three more for leeway, and still the entire Mails may be +distributed in London about the time that the steamship can now be +telegraphed as off Holyhead, and at least twelve (I hope fifteen) hours +earlier than the Mails can now be received in London, to say nothing of +the saving of thirty or forty hours on the Mails to and from Ireland, +and twenty or so for those of Scotland. Is there any good reason why +those hours should not be saved? I can perceive none, even though the +steamships should still proceed to Liverpool as heretofore. + +Galway Bay is abundantly large enough and safe enough for steamships, +even as it is, though its security is susceptible of easy improvement. +It has abundant depth inside, but hardly twenty feet at low water on a +bar in the harbor, so that large steamships coming in would be obliged +to anchor a mile or so from the dock for high water if they did not +arrive so as to hit it, as they must now wait off the bar at Liverpool, +only much further from the dock. But what I contemplate as a beginning +is not the bringing in of the Steamships but of their Mails. Let a small +steamboat be waiting outside when a Mail Steamer is expected (as now off +the bar at Liverpool), and let the Mails and such passengers as would +like to feel the firm earth under their feet once more, be swiftly +transferred to the little boat, run up to Galway, put on an express +train, started for Dublin, and thence sent over to Holyhead, and +dispatched to London and Liverpool forthwith. Let Irish Mails for +Galway, Dublin, &c., and Scotch Mails for Glasgow be made up on our +side, and let us see, by three or four fair trials, what saving of time +could be effected by landing the Mails at Galway, and then we shall be +in a position to determine the extent and character of the permanent +changes which are required. That a saving of fully twelve hours for +England and thirty for Ireland may be secured by making Galway the +European terminus of the Atlantic Mail Route, I am very confident, while +in the calculations of those who feel a local and personal interest in +the change the saving is far greater. But this is quite enough to +justify the inconsiderable expense which the experiment I urge would +involve. + +Galway was formerly a place of far greater commerce and consequence than +it now is. It long enjoyed an extensive and profitable direct trade with +Spain, which, since the Union of Ireland with England, is entirely +transferred to London, so that not a shadow of it remains. At a later +day, it exported considerable Grain, Bacon, &c., to England, but the +general decline of Irish Industry, and the low prices of food since Free +Trade, have nearly destroyed this trade also, and there are now, except +fishing-boats, scarcely half a dozen vessels in the harbor, and of these +the two principal are a Russian from the Black Sea _selling_ Corn, to a +district whose resources are Agricultural or nothing, and a +smart-looking Yankee clipper taking in a load of emigrants and luggage +for New-York--the export of her population being about the only branch +of Ireland's commerce which yet survives the general ruin. Galway had +once 60,000 inhabitants; she may now have at most 30,000; but there is +no American seaport with 5,000 which does not far surpass her annual +aggregate of trade and industry. What should we think in America of a +seaport of at least 35,000 inhabitants, the capital of a large, populous +county, located at the head of a noble, spacious bay, looking off on the +broad Atlantic some twenty miles distant, with cities of twenty, fifty, +and a hundred thousand inhabitants within a few hours' reach on either +side of her, yet not owning a single steamboat of any shape or nature, +and not even visited by one daily, weekly, monthly, or at any stated +period? Truly, the desolation of Ireland must be witnessed or it cannot +be realized. + +I judge that of nearly thirty thousand people who live here not ten +thousand have any regular employment or means of livelihood. The +majority pick up a job when they can, but are inevitably idle and +suffering two-thirds of the time. Of course, the Million learn nothing, +have nothing, and come to nothing. They are scarcely in fault, but those +who ought to teach them, counsel them, employ them, until they shall be +qualified to employ themselves, are deplorably culpable. Here are +gentlemen and ladies of education and wealth (dozens where there were +formerly hundreds) who year after year and generation after generation +have lived in luxury on the income wrung from these poor creatures in +the shape of Rent, without ever giving them a helping hand or a kind +word in return--without even suspecting that they were under moral +obligation to do so. Here is a Priesthood, the conscience-keepers and +religious instructors of this fortunate class, who also have fared +sumptuously and amassed wealth out of the tithes wrenched by +law-sanctioned robbery from the products of this same wretched +peasantry, yet never proffered them anything in return but conversion to +the faith of their plunderers--certainly not a tempting proffer under +the circumstances. And here also is a Priesthood beloved, reverenced, +confided in by this peasantry, and loving them in return, who I think +have done far less than they might and should have done to raise them +out of the slough in which generation after generation are sinking +deeper and deeper. I speak plainly on this point, for I feel strongly. +The Catholic Priesthood of Ireland resist the education of the Peasantry +under Protestant auspices and influences, for which we will presume they +have good reason; but, in thus cutting them off from one chance of +improving their social and intellectual condition, they double their own +moral responsibility to secure the Education of the Poor in some manner +not inconsistent with the preservation of their faith. And, seeing what +I have seen and do see of the unequaled power of this Priesthood--a +power immensely greater in Ireland than in Italy, for there the Priests +are generally regarded as the allies of the tyrant and plundering class, +while here they are doubly beloved as its enemies and its victims--I +feel an undoubting conviction that simply an earnest determination of +the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland that every Catholic child in the +country shall receive a good education would secure its own fulfilment +within five years, and thenceforth for ever. Let but one generation be +well educated, and there can be no rational apprehension that their +children or grandchildren will be allowed to grow up in ignorance and +helplessness. Knowledge is self-perpetuating, self-extending. And, +dreadfully destitute as this country is, the Priesthood of the People +can command the means of educating that People, which nobody without +their coöperation can accomplish. Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an +earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thousands +and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents, +from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign +lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without +earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which +the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every +parish would gladly proffer them. There is really no serious obstacle in +the way of this first great step toward Ireland's regeneration if the +Priesthood will zealously attempt it. + +But closely allied to this subject, and not inferior to it in +importance, stands that of Industrial Training. The Irish Peasantry are +idle, the English say truly enough; but who inquires whether there is +any work within their reach? Suppose there was always _something_ to do, +what avails that to millions who know not how to do that precise +something? Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of +Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years +old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend +roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that +labor. She answered, "Six-pence a car-load." "How long will it take you +to break a car-load?" "_About a fortnight._" Further questions +respecting her family, &c., were answered with equal directness and +propriety, and with manifest truth. Here was a mere child, who should +have been sent to school, delving from morning till night at an +employment utterly unsuited to her sex and her strength, and which I +should consider dangerous to her eyesight, to earn for her poor parents +a half-penny per day. Think of this, ye who talk, not always without +reason, of "factory slaves" and the meagre rewards of labor in America. +In any community where labor is even decently rewarded, that child +should have been enabled to earn every day at least as much as her +fortnight's work on the stone-heap would command. And even in Galway, a +concerted and systematic Industrial Education for the Poor would enable +her to earn at some light and suitable employment six times what she now +does. + +In every street of the town you constantly meet girls of fourteen to +twenty, as well as old women and children, utterly barefoot and in +ragged clothing. I should judge from the streets that not more than +one-fourth of the females of Galway belong to the shoe-wearing +aristocracy. Now no one acquainted with Human Nature will pretend that +girls of fourteen to twenty will walk the streets barefoot if the means +of buying shoes and stockings by honest labor are fairly within their +reach. But here there are none such for thousands. Born in wretched huts +of rough stone and rotten straw, compared with which the poorest +log-cabin is a palace, with a turf fire, no window, and a mass of filth +heaped up before the door, untaught even to read, and growing up in a +region where no manufactures nor arts are prosecuted, the Irish +peasant-girl arrives at womanhood less qualified by experience, +observation or training for industrial efficiency and usefulness than +the daughter of any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, not _all_ the +Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but +a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and +utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and +ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and +undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness," +which means only inability to do what one has never even _seen_ done, is +not confined to any class or nation, and should be regarded with every +allowance. + +An Industrial School, especially for girls, in every town, village and +parish of Ireland, is one of the crying needs of the time. I am +confident there are in Galway alone five thousand women and girls who +would hail with gratitude and thoroughly improve an opportunity to earn +six-pence per day. If they could be taught needle-work, plain +dressmaking, straw-braiding, and a few of the simplest branches of +manufactures, such as are carried on in households, they might and would +at once emerge from the destitution and social degradation which now +enshroud them into independence, comfort and consideration. Knowing how +to work and to earn a decent subsistence, they would very soon seek and +acquire a knowledge of letters if previously ignorant of them. In short, +the Industrial Education of the Irish Peasantry is the noblest and the +most hopeful idea yet broached for their intellectual and social +elevation, and I have great hope of its speedy triumph. It is now being +agitated in Dublin and many other localities, a central and many +auxiliary schools having already been established. But I will speak +further on this point in another letter. + +Galway has an immense and steady water-power within half a mile of its +harbor, on the outlet of Lakes Corrib and Mash, by means of which it +enjoys an admirable internal navigation extending some sixty miles +northward. Here Manufactures might be established with a certainty of +commanding the cheapest power, cheapest labor and cheapest fuel to be +had in the world. I never saw a spot where so much water power yet +unused could be obtained at so trifling a cost as here directly on the +west line of the town and within half a mile of its center. A beautiful +Marble is found on the line of the Railroad only a few miles from the +town, and all along the line to Dublin the abundance and excellence of +the building-stone are remarkable. Timber and Brick come down the Lake +outlet as fast as they are wanted, while Provisions are here cheap as in +any part of the British Isles. Nature has plainly designed Galway for a +great and prosperous city, the site of extensive manufactures, the +emporium of an important trade, and the gateway of Europe toward +America; but whether all this is or is not to be dashed by the fatality +which has hitherto attended Irish prospects, remains to be seen. I trust +that it is not, but that a new Liverpool is destined soon to arise here; +and that, should I ever again visit Europe, I shall first land on the +quay of Galway. + + + + +XLII. + +IRELAND--SOUTH. + + + DUBLIN, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 1851. + +I had hoped to see all of Ireland that is accessible by Railroad from +this city, but Time will not permit. Having remained here over Sunday, I +had only Monday left for a trip Southward, and that would just suffice +for reaching Limerick and returning without attempting Cork. So at 7 +yesterday morning I took the "Great Southern and Western Railroad," and +was set down in Limerick (130 miles) at a quarter before 1, passing +Kildare, with its "Curragh" or spacious race-ground, Maryborough and +Thurles on the way. Portarlington, Mount Melick, Mountrath and +Templemore--all considerable towns--lie a few miles from the Railroad, +on the right or west, as Naas, Cashel and Tipperary are not far from it +on the left; while another Railroad, the "Irish South-Eastern," diverges +at Kildare to Carlow, Bagnalstown and Kilkenny (146 miles from Dublin) +on the South; while from Kilkenny the "Kilkenny and Waterford" has +already been constructed to Thomastown (some 20 miles), and is to reach +Waterford, at the head of ship navigation on the common estuary at the +mouth of the Suir and Barrow, when completed. + +I left the Great Southern and Western at Limerick Junction, 107 miles S. +S. W. of Dublin, and took the crossroad from Tipperary to Limerick (30 +miles), but the main road proceeds south-westerly to Charleville, 22½ +miles further, and thence leads due south to Mallow, on the Blackwater, +and then south by east to Cork, 164½ miles from Dublin, while another +railroad has just been opened from Cork to Bandon, 18¾ miles still +further south-west, making a completed line from Dublin to Bandon, 183½ +miles, with branches to Limerick, Tipperary and Kilkenny, the latter to +be continued to Waterford. In a country so easily traversed by +Railroads, and so swarming with population as Ireland, these roads +should be not only most useful but most productive to their +stockholders, but they are very far from it. Few of the peasantry can +afford to travel by them, except when leaving the country for ever, and +their scanty patches of ground produce little surplus food for +exportation, while they can afford to buy little that the Railroads +bring in. Were the population of Ireland as well fed and as enterprising +as that of New-England, with an industry as well diversified, her +Railroads would pay ten per cent, on their cost; as things now are, they +do not pay two per cent. Thus the rapacity of Capital defeats itself, +and actually impoverishes its owners when it deprives Labor of a fair +reward. If all the property-holders of Ireland would to-day combine in a +firm resolve to pay at least half a dollar per day for men's labor, and +to employ all that should present themselves, introducing new arts and +manufactures and improving their estates in order to furnish such +employment, they would not only speedily banish destitution and +ignorance from the land but they would double the value of their own +possessions. This is one of the truths which sloth, rapacity and +extravagance are slow to learn, yet which they cannot safely ignore. The +decay and ruin of nearly all the "old families" in Ireland are among the +penalties of disregarding it. + +To talk of an excess of labor, or an inability to employ it, in such a +country as Ireland, is to insult the general understanding. In the first +place, there is an immediate and urgent demand for at least Half a +Million comfortable rain-proof dwellings. The inconceivable wretched +hovels in which nine-tenths of the peasantry endure existence +inevitably engender indolence, filthiness and disease. Generation after +generation grows up ignorant and squalid from never having had a +fireside by which they could sit down to read or study, nor an example +of home comfort and cleanliness in their own class to profit by. In +those narrow, unlighted, earth-floored, straw-thatched cabins, there is +no room for the father and his sons to sit down and enjoy an evening, so +they straggle off to the nearest groggery or other den in search of the +comfort their home denies them. Of course, men who have grown up in this +way have no idea of anything better and are slow to mend; but the +personal influence of their superiors in wealth and station is very +great, and might be ten times greater if the more fortunate class would +make themselves familiar with the wants and woes, the feelings and +aspirations of the poor, and act toward them as friends and wiser +brethren, instead of seeming to regard them only as strange dogs to be +repelled or as sheep to be sheared. But the first practical point to be +struggled for is that of steady employment and just reward for labor. So +long as men's wages (without board) range from fourpence to one and +six-pence per day, and women's from a penny to six-pence (which, so far +as I can learn, are the current rates at present, and nothing to do for +half the year at any price), no radical improvement can be hoped for. A +family with nothing to do, very little to eat and only a hog-pen to live +in, will neither acquire mental expansion, moral integrity, nor habits +of neatness and industry. On the contrary, however deficient they may +originally be in these respects, they are morally certain to grow worse +so long as their circumstances remain unchanged. But draw them out of +their wretched hovel into a neat, dry, glass-lighted, comfortable +dwelling, offer them work at all seasons, and a fair recompense for +doing it, and you will have at least rendered improvement possible. The +feasibility of cleanliness will instill the love of it, at least in the +younger members; the opportunity of earning will awaken the instinct of +saving as well as the desire to maintain a comely appearance in the eyes +of friends and neighbors. The laborer, well paid, will naturally be +adequately fed, and both able and willing to perform thrice the work per +day he now does or can; seeing the more efficient often step above them +to posts better paid and more respected, the dullest workers will aspire +to greater knowledge and skill in order that they too may attain more +eligible positions. "It is the first step that costs"--the others follow +almost of course. If the Aristocracy of Ireland would unitedly resolve +that every individual in the land should henceforth have constant work +and just recompense, the outlay involved need not be great and the +return would be abundant and certain. They have ample water-power for a +thousand factories, machine-shops, foundries, &c., which has run to +waste since creation, and can never bring them a dollar while Irish +Industry remains as rude, ill-paid and inefficient as it now is. Every +dollar wisely spent in improving this power will add two to the value of +their estates. So they have stone-quarries of immense value all over the +island which never produced anything and never will while the millions +live in hovels and confine their attention to growing oats and potatoes +for a subsistence. Agriculture alone and especially such Agriculture, +can never adequately employ the people; when the Oats and Potatoes have +been harvested, the peasant has very little to do but eat them until the +season for planting them returns. But introduce a hundred new arts and +processes--let each village have its mechanics, each county its +manufacturers of the various wares and fabrics really needed in the +country, and the excess of work done over the present aggregate would +speedily transform general poverty into general competence. The Six +Millions of People in Ireland are doing far less work this year than the +Three Millions of New-England, although the Irish in New-England are at +least as industrious and efficient as the natives. They work well +everywhere but at home, because they everywhere else find the more +powerful class ready to employ them, instruct them, pay them. In Ireland +alone are they required to work for six pence to eighteen pence per day, +and even at these rates stand idle half the year for want of anything to +do; so that the rent which they would readily double (for better +tenements) if they were fully employed and fairly paid, now benumbs and +crushes them, and their little patches of land, which ought to be in the +highest degree productive, are often the worst cultivated of any this +side of the Alps. Ignorance, want, and hopelessness have paralysed their +energies, and the consequent decay of the Peasantry has involved most of +the Aristocracy in the general ruin. The Encumbered Estates Commission +is now rapidly passing the soil of Ireland out of the hands of its +bankrupt landlords into those of a new generation. May these be wise +enough to profit by the warning before them, and by uniting to elevate +the condition of the Laboring Millions place their own prosperity on a +solid and lasting foundation! + + +GENERAL ASPECTS. + +The South of Ireland is decidedly more fertile and inviting than the +North or West. There is a deeper, richer soil, with far less stone on +the level low lands. The railroad from Dublin to Limerick runs +throughout over a level plain, and though it passes from the valley of +the Liffey across those of the Barrow, the Durrow and the Suir to that +of the Shannon, no perceptible ridge is crossed, no tunnel traversed, +and very little rock-cutting or embankment required. Although the +highways are often carried over the track at an absurd expense, while +the principal dépôts are made to cost thrice what they should, I still +cannot account for the great outlay on Irish railroads. They would have +been built at one-half the cost in the States, where the wages of labor +are thrice as much as here: who pockets the difference? Of course, there +is stealing in the assessment of land damages; but so there is +everywhere. When I was in Galway, a case was tried in which a +proprietor, whose bog was crossed by the Midland Railroad, sued the +company for more than the Appraisers had awarded him, and it was proved +on the trial that his bog, utterly worthless before, had been partially +drained and considerably increased in value by the railroad. There seems +to be no conscience in exacting damages of those who invest their money, +often most reluctantly, in railroads, of which the main benefits are +universal. In Ireland they have palpably and greatly benefited every +class but the stockholders, and these they have well nigh ruined. + +There are fewer remains of dwellings recently "cleared" and thrown down +in the South than in the West of Ireland; though they are not unknown +here; but I saw no new ones going up, save in immediate connection with +the Railroads, in either section. If Government, Society and Ideas are +to remain as they have been, the country may be considered absolutely +finished, with nothing more to do but decay. I trust, however, that a +new leaf is about to be turned over; still, it is mournful to pass +through so fine a country and see how the hand of death has transfixed +it. Even Limerick, at the head of ship navigation on the glorious +estuary of the Shannon, with steamboat navigation through the heart of +this populous kingdom for sixty or eighty miles above it, shows scarcely a +recent building except the Railroad Dépôt and the Union Poor-House, while +its general aspect is that of stagnation, decline and decay. The smaller +towns between it and Dublin have a like gloomy appearance--Kildare, with +with its deserted "Curragh" and its towering ruins, looking most dreary +of all. Happy is the Irishman who, in a new land and amid the activities +and hopes which it inspires, is spared the daily contemplation of his +country's ruin. + +And yet there are brighter shades to the picture. Nature, ever buoyant +and imperative, does her best to remedy the ills created by "Man's +inhumanity to Man." The South of Ireland seems far better wooded than +either the North or West, and thrifty young forests and tree plantations +soften the gloom which unroofed and ruinous cabins would naturally +suggest. Though the Railroad runs wholly through a tame, dull level +sweeping ranges of hills appear at intervals on either side, exhibiting +a lovely alternation of cultivation, grass and forest, to the delighted +traveler. The Hay crop is badly saved so far, and some that has been cut +several days is still under the weather, while a good deal, though long +ripe, remains uncut; the Wheat looks to me thin and uneven; Oats (the +principal grain here) are short and generally poor; but I never saw the +Potato more luxuriant or promising, and the area covered with this noble +root is most extensive. The poor have a fashion of planting in _beds_ +three to six feet wide, with narrow alleys between; which, though +involving extra labor, must insure a large yield, and presents a most +luxuriant appearance. Little Rye was sown, but that little is very good; +Barley is suffering from the stormy weather, but is quite thrifty. Yet +there is much arable land either wholly neglected or only yielding a +little grass, while I perceive even less bog undergoing reclamation than +in the West. I did not anticipate a tour of pleasure through Ireland, +but the reality is more painful than I anticipated. Of all I have seen +at work in the fields to-day, cutting and carrying turf, hoeing +potatoes, shaking out Hay, &c., at least one-third were women. If I +could believe that their fathers and husbands were in America, clearing +lands and erecting cabins for their future homes, I should not regret +this. But the probability is that only a few of them are there or +hopefully employed anywhere, while hundreds of neglected, weedy, +unpromising patches of cultivation show that, narrow as the holdings +mainly are, they are yet often unskillfully cultivated. The end of this +is of course ejectment, whence the next stage is the Union Work-House. +Alas! unhappy Ireland! + + + + +XLIII. + +PROSPECTS OF IRELAND. + + + DUBLIN, Tuesday, August 5, 1851. + +Of Irish stagnation, Irish unthrift, Irish destitution, Irish misery, +the world has heard enough. I could not wholly avoid them without giving +an essentially false and deceptive account of what must be painfully +obvious to every traveler in Ireland; yet I have chosen to pass them +over lightly and hurriedly, and shall not recur to them. They are in the +main sufficiently well known to the civilized world, and, apart from +suggestions of amendment, their contemplation can neither be pleasant +nor profitable. I will only add here that though, in spite of Poor Laws +and Union Poor-Houses, there are still much actual want, suffering and +beggary in Ireland, yet the beggars here are by no means so numerous nor +so importunate as in Italy, though the excuses for mendicity are far +greater. What I propose now to bring under hasty review are the +principal plans for the removal of Ireland's woes and the conversion of +her myriads of paupers into independent and comfortable laborers. I +shall speak of these in succession, beginning with the oldest and +closing with the newest that has come under my observation. And first, +then, of + + +REPEAL. + +The hope of obtaining from the British Crown and Parliament the +concession of a separate Legislature of their own seems nearly to have +died out of the hearts of the Irish millions. The death of O'Connell +deprived the measure of its mightiest advocate; Famine and other +disasters followed; and fresher projects of amelioration have since to a +great extent supplanted it in the popular mind. Yet it is to-day most +palpable that such a Legislature is of the highest moment to the +National well-being, and that its concession would work the greatest +good to Ireland without injury to England. Nay; I see fresh reasons for +my hope that such concession is far nearer than is generally imagined. + +On all hands it is perceived and conceded that the amount of legislation +required by the vast, widely scattered and diversely constituted +portions of the British Empire is too great to be properly affected by +any deliberative body. Parliament is just closing a long session, yet +leaving very much of its proper business untouched for want of time, and +that pertaining to Ireland is especially neglected. Then it has just +passed a most unwise and irritating act with regard to the titles of the +Catholic Prelates, which, because every act of Parliament must extend to +Ireland unless that country is expressly excluded, is allowed to operate +there, though the bad reasons given for its enactment at all have no +application to that country, while the mischiefs it will do there are +ten times greater than all it can effect in Great Britain. Had Ireland a +separate Parliament, no British Minister would have been mad enough to +propose the extension of this act over that country, where it is certain +to excite disaffection and disloyalty, arouse slumbering hatreds, and +impede the march of National and Social improvement. An Irish +Parliament, with specified powers and duties akin to those of an +American State Legislature, would be a great relief to a British +Parliament and Ministry, a great support to Irish loyalty and Irish +improvement, and no harm to anybody. These truths seem to me so palpable +that I think they cannot long be disregarded, but that some one of the +Political changes frequently occurring in Great Britain will secure to +Ireland a restoration of her domestic Legislature. Neither Canada, +Jamaica nor any other British colony can show half so good reasons for a +domestic Legislature. + + +TENANT-RIGHT. + +The agitation for Tenant-Right in Ireland is destined to fail--in fact, +has virtually failed already. The Imperial Parliament will never concede +that right, nor will any Legislature similarly constituted. And yet the +demand has the clearest and strongest basis of natural and eternal +justice, as any fair mind must confess. What is that demand? Simply that +the creator of a new value shall be legally entitled to that value, or, +in case he is required to surrender it to another, shall be paid a fair +and just equivalent therefor. Here is a farm, for instance, whereof one +man is recognised by law as the owner, and he lets it for three lives or +a specific term of years to a tenant-cultivator for ten, fifteen or +twenty shillings per acre. The tenant occupies it, cultivates it, pays +the rent and improves it. At the close of his term, he is found to have +built a good house on it instead of the old rookery he found there, +while by fencing, draining, manuring and subsoiling he has doubled its +productive capacity, and consequently its annual value. He wishes to +cultivate it still, and offers to renew the lease for any number of +years, and pay the rent punctually. "But no," says the landlord, "you +must pay twice as much rent as hitherto." "Why so?" "Because the land is +more valuable than it was when you took it." "Certainly it is; but that +value is wholly the fruit of my labor--it has cost you nothing." "Can't +help that, Sir; you improved for your own benefit, and with a full +knowledge that the additional value would revert to me on the +expiration of your lease; so pay my price or clear out!"--Is this right? +The law says Yes; but Justice says No; Public Good says even more +imperatively No. The laws of the land should encourage every occupier to +improve the land he holds, to expend capital and employ labor upon it, +so as to increase its value and productive capacity from year to year; +but the law of the British Empire discourages improvement and impedes +the employment of labor by taking the product from the producer and +giving it arbitrarily to the landlord. Yet the landlord influence in +Parliament is so predominant, so overwhelming, that no repeal, no +mitigation even, of this great wrong is probable; and every demand for +it is overborne by a senseless outcry against Agrarianism. Still, the +agitation for Tenant-Right does good by imbuing the popular mind with +some idea of the monster evil and wrong of the Monopoly of Land--an idea +which will not always remain unfruitful. + + +EMIGRATION. + +Emigration is now proceeding with gigantic strides, and is destined for +some time to continue. I think a full third of the present population of +Ireland are anxious to leave their native land, and will do so if they +shall ever have the means before better prospects are opened to them. +Packet-ships are constantly loading with emigrants at all the principal +ports, while thousands are flocking monthly to Liverpool to find ready +and cheap conveyance to America. But this emigration, however advisable +for the departing, does little for those left behind, and is in the main +detrimental to the country. The energetic, the daring, the high-spirited +go, leaving the residue more abject and nerveless than ever. If Two +Millions more were to leave the country next year, the condition of the +remainder would not be essentially improved. Over population is not a +leading cause of Ireland's present miseries. + + +EDUCATION. + +Rudimental knowledge is being slowly diffused in Ireland, in spite of +the serious impediments interposed by Religious jealousy and bigotry. +But this remedy, as now applied, does not reach the seat of the disease. +They are mainly the better class of poor children who are educated in +the National and other elementary schools; the most depraved, benighted, +degraded, are still below their reach. The destitute, hungry, +unemployed, unclad, despairing, cannot or do not send their children to +school; the wife and mother who must work daily in the turf-bog or +potato-field for a few pence per day must keep her older child at home +to mind the younger ones in her absence. Education, in its larger, truer +meaning, is the great remedy for Ireland's woes; but until the parents +have steadier employment and a juster recompense the general education +of the children is impracticable. + + +ENCUMBERED ESTATES. + +The act authorizing and requiring the sale of irredeemably Encumbered +Estates in Ireland is one of the best which a British Parliament has +passed in many years. Under its operation, a large portion of the soil +is rapidly passing from the nominal ownership of bankrupts wholly unable +and unqualified to improve it into those of new proprietors who, it may +fairly be hoped, will generally be able to improve it, giving employment +to more labor and increasing the annual product. The benefits of this +change, however, can be but slowly realized, and are for the present +hardly perceptible. + + +IRISH MANUFACTURES. + +Within the past few months, a very decided interest has been awakened in +the minds of enlightened and patriotic Irishmen in Dublin and other +places, with regard to the importance and possibility of establishing +various branches of Household Manufactures throughout the country. It is +manifest that the general cheapness of Labor and Food, the facilities +now enjoyed for communication, not only with Great Britain, but with all +Europe and America also, and the extraordinary amount of unemployed and +undeveloped capacity in Ireland, render the introduction of Manufactures +at once eminently desirable and palpably feasible. Even though nothing +could be immediately earned thereby, the simple diffusion of industrial +skill and efficiency which must ensue from such introduction would be an +inestimable gain to the peasantry of Ireland. But allow that all the +idle poor of this island could in six months be taught how to earn six +pence each per day, the aggregate benefit to the Irish and to mankind +would be greater than that of all the gold mines yet discovered. The +Poorhouse Unions could be nearly emptied in a year, and this whole +population comfortably fed, clad and housed within the next three years. +A beginning must be made with the simplest or household manufactures, +for want of means to establish the more complex, costly and efficient +branches, which require extensive Machinery and aggregation of Laborers; +but if the first step be successfully taken, others are certain to +follow. With abundant water-power and inexhaustible beds of fuel yet +untouched, it is demonstrable that Manufactures of Cotton and Woolen, as +well as Linen, might be prosecuted in Ireland even cheaper than in +England, though the average recompense of Labor should thereby be +doubled. + +The first impulse to the Manufacture movement appears to have been given +by Mr. Thomas Mooney, a gentleman well known to his countrymen +throughout the United States, whence he returned some eighteen months +ago. Primarily at his suggestion, a "Parent Board of Irish Manufacture" +was organized in Dublin several months since, funds collected by +voluntary subscription, an office opened, and a central school +established, with a view to the qualification of teachers for the +superintendence of auxiliary schools throughout the country. The +enterprise was proceeding vigorously and with daily increasing momentum +when Dissension, the evil genius of Ireland, broke out among its leading +supporters, which has resulted in the division of the original Society +into two, one of them sustaining Mr. Mooney and the other claiming to +have taken the movement entirely out of his hands. Thus the case stands +at present, but thus I trust it will not long remain. The enterprise is +one of the most feasible and hopeful of the many that have been +undertaken for the benefit of Ireland, and affords ample scope and +occupation for all who may see fit to labor for its success. I trust +that all differences will speedily be harmonized, and that the friends +of the movement, once more united, may urge it forward to a most +complete and beneficent triumph. + + +PEAT MANUFACTURE. + +The Peat Bogs of Ireland cover some Three Millions of Acres of its +surface, mainly in the heart of the country, though extending into every +part of it. Perhaps One Hundred Thousand Acres, chiefly in the +north-east, have been brought into cultivation; of the residue, some +yields a little sour pasturage, but the greater portion is of no use +whatever, save as it supplies a very poor but cheap fuel to the +peasantry. These bogs are of all depths from a few inches to thirty or +forty feet, though the very shallow have generally been reclaimed. This +is effected in some cases by removing the Peat or Turf altogether; but +sometimes, where it is quite deep, by ditching and draining it, and then +cutting and heaping up some six to twelve inches at the top, so that it +can be thoroughly burned, and the ashes spread over the entire surface +for a soil. This is not so deep as could be desired, but the climate is +so uniformly moist and the skies so rarely unclouded that it suffices to +insure very tolerable crops thereafter. + +I do not know how the origin of these Bogs is accounted for by the +learned, but I presume the land they cover was originally a dense +forest, and that the Peat commenced growing as a sort of moss or fungus, +carpeting the ground and preventing the germination of any more trees. +In the course of ten or fifteen centuries, the forest trees (mainly of +Oak or Fir) decayed and fell into the Peat, which, dying at the top, +continued to grow at the bottom, while the perpetual moisture of the +climate prevented its destruction by fire. Thus the forest gradually +disappeared, and the Peat alone remained, gaining a foot in depth in the +course of two or three centuries until it slowly reached its present +condition. + +Many efforts have been made to render this Peat available as a basis of +Manufacture and Commerce, but hitherto with little success. The +magnificent chemical discoveries heralded some two years ago, whereby +each bog was to be transformed into a mimic California, have not endured +the rough test of practical experience. There is no doubt that Peat +contains all the valuable elements therein set forth--Carbon, Ammonia, +Stearine, Tar, &c., but unfortunately it has hitherto cost more to +extract them than they will sell for in market; so the high-raised +expectations of 1849 have been temporarily blasted, like a great many +predecessors. + +But further chemical investigations have resulted in new discoveries, +which, it is confidently asserted, render the future success of the Peat +Charcoal manufacture a matter of demonstrable certainty. A company has +just been organized in London, under commanding auspices, which proposes +to embark £500,000 directly and £1,000,000 ultimately in Peat-Works, +having secured the exclusive right of using the newly patented +processes of Messrs. J. S. Gwynne and J. J. Hays, which are pronounced +exceedingly important and valuable. By a combination of these patented +processes, it is calculated that the company will be able to manufacture +from the inexhaustible Bogs of Ireland, 1. Peat Coal, or solidified +Peat, of intense calorific power, exceedingly cheap, almost as dense as +Bituminous Coal, while absolutely free from Gases injurious to metals as +well as from "clinker," and therefore especially valuable for +Locomotives and for innumerable applications in the arts; 2. Peat +Charcoal, thoroughly carbonized, of compact and heavy substance, free +from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for +fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply +as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible +into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of +Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of +abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have +six working stations in different parts of the country, professing its +ability to manufacture for 14s. per tun, Peat Charcoal readily selling +in London for 45s., while they expect to realize 5s. worth of Tar, +Ammonia, &c., with every tun of Charcoal, while on Solidified Peat they +anticipate still larger profits. These may be very greatly reduced by +practical experience without affecting the vital point, that sagacious +and scrutinizing capitalists have been found willing to invest their +money in an enterprise which, if it succeeds at all, must secure +illimitable employment to Labor in Ireland and strongly tend to increase +its average reward. + + +BEET SUGAR. + +A similar Company, with a like capital, has also been formed to +prosecute extensively in Ireland the manufacture of Beet Sugar, and +this can hardly be deemed an experiment. That the Sugar Beet grows +luxuriously here I can personally bear witness; indeed, I doubt whether +there is a soil or climate better adapted to it in the world. That the +Beet grown in Ireland yields a very large proportion of Sugar is +attested by able chemists; that the manufacture of Beet Sugar is +profitable, its firm establishment and rapid extension in France, +Belgium, &c., abundantly prove. The Irish Company have secured the +exclusive use of two recently patented inventions, whereby they claim to +be able to produce a third more sugar than has hitherto been obtained, +and of a quality absolutely undistinguishable from the best Cane Sugar. +They say they can make it at a profit of fully twenty-five per cent. +after paying an excise of £10 per tun to the Government, working their +mills all the year (drying their roots for use in months when they +cannot otherwise be fit for manufacture). Mr. Wm. K. Sullivan, Chemist +to the Museum of Irish Industry, states that the Beet Sugar manufactured +in France has increased from 51,000 tuns in 1840 to more than 100,000 +tuns in 1850, in defiance of a large increase in the excise levied +thereon--that the average production of Sugar Beet is in Ireland 15 tuns +per acre, against less than 11 tuns in France and Germany--that each +acre of Beets will yield 4½ tuns (green) of tops or leaves, worth 7s. +6d. per tun for feeding cattle, making the clear profit on the +cultivation of the Beet, at 15s. per tun, over £5 per acre--that there +is no shadow of difference between the Sugar of the Beet and that of the +Cane, all the difference popularly supposed to exist being caused by the +existence of foreign substances in one or both--that Irish roots +generally, and Beet roots especially, contain considerably _more_ Sugar +than those grown on the Continent--and that Beet Sugar may be made in +Ireland (without reference to the newly patented processes from which +the Company expect such great advantages) at a very handsome profit. As +the soil and climate of Ireland are at least equal to, and the Labor +decidedly cheaper than, that employed in the same pursuit on the +Continent, while Ireland herself, wretched as she is, consumes over two +thousand tuns of Sugar per annum, and Great Britain, some twenty-five +thousand tuns--every pound of it imported--I can perceive no reasonable +basis for a doubt that the Beet Culture and Sugar Manufacture will +speedily be naturalized in Ireland, and that they will give employment +and better wages at all seasons to many thousands of her sons. + +Such are some of the grounds of my hope that the deepest wretchedness of +this unhappy country has been endured--that her depopulation will +speedily be arrested, and that better days are in store for her +long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and +Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages +of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to +eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and +Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are +beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said +less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's +calamities, it is because I would rather draw attention to practical +though slow remedies than invoke fruitless indignation against the +wrongs which have rendered them necessary. Peace and Concord are the +great primary needs of Ireland--Peace between her warring +Churches--Concord between her rulers and landlords on one side and her +destitute and desperate Millions on the other. I wish the latter had +sufficient courage and self-trust to demand and enforce emancipation +from the Political and Social vassalage in which they are held; to +demand not merely Tenant-Right but a restitution of the broad lands +wrested from their ancestors by fire and sword--not merely equal rights +with Englishmen in Church and State, but equal right also to judge +whether the existing Union of the two islands is advantageous to +themselves, and if not, to insist that it be made so or cease +altogether. But Ireland has suffered too long and too deeply for this; +her emancipation is now possible only through the education and social +elevation of her People. This is a slow process, but earnest hearts and +united minds will render it a sure one. If the Irish but will and work +for it, the close of this century will find them a Nation of Ten +Millions, with their Industry as diversified, their Labor, as efficient, +its Recompense as liberal, and their general condition as thrifty and +comfortable as those of any other Nation. Thus circumstanced, they could +no longer be treated as the appendage of an Empire, the heritage of a +Crown, the conquest of a selfish and domineering Race, but must be +accounted equals with the inhabitants of the Sister Isle in Civil and +Religious Rights or break the connection without internal discord and +almost without a struggle. There shall yet be an Ireland to which her +sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with +sadness; but alas! who can say how soon! + + + + +XLIV. + +THE ENGLISH. + + + LIVERPOOL, Wednesday, August 6, 1851. + +I do not wholly like these cold and stately English, yet I think I am +not blind to their many sterling qualities. The greatness of England, it +is quite confidently asserted, is based upon her conquests and +plunderings--on her immense Commerce and unlimited Foreign Possessions. +I think otherwise. The English have qualities which would have rendered +them wealthy and powerful though they had been located in the center of +Asia instead of on the western coast of Europe. I do not say that these +qualities could have been developed in Central Asia, but if they _had_ +been, they would have insured to their possessors a commanding position. +Personally, the English do not attract nor shine; but collectively they +are a race to make their mark on the destinies of mankind. + +In the first place, they are eminently _industrious_. I have seen no +country in which the proportion of idlers is smaller. I think American +labor is more efficient, day to day or hour to hour, than British; but +we have the larger proportion of non-producers--petty clerks in the +small towns, men who live by their wits, loungers about barrooms, &c. +There is here a small class of wealthy idlers (not embracing nearly +_all_ the wealthy, nor of the Aristocracy, by any means), and a more +numerous class of idle paupers or criminals; but Work is the general +rule, and the idlers constitute but a small proportion of the whole +population. Great Britain is full of wealth, not entirely but mainly +because her people are constantly producing. All that she has plundered +in a century does not equal the new wealth produced by her people every +year. + +The English are eminently devotees of _Method_ and _Economy_. I never +saw the rule, "A place for everything, and everything in its place," so +well observed as here. The reckless and the prodigal are found here as +every where else, but they are marked exceptions. Nine-tenths of those +who have a competence know what income they have, and are careful not to +spend more. A Duchess will say to a mere acquaintance, "I cannot afford" +a proposed outlay--an avowal rarely and reluctantly made by an American, +even in moderate circumstances. She means simply that other demands upon +her income are such as to forbid the contemplated expenditure, though +she could of course afford this if she did not deem those of prior +consequence. No Englishman is ashamed to be economical, nor to have it +known that he is so. Whether his annual expenditure be fifty pounds or +fifty thousand, he tries to get his money's worth. I have been +admonished and instructed by the systematic economy which is practiced +even in great houses. You never see a lighted candle set down carelessly +and left to burn an hour or two to no purpose, as is so common with us; +if you leave one burning, some one speedily comes and quietly +extinguishes the flame. Said a friend: "You never see any paper in the +streets here as you do in New-York [swept out of the stores, &c.] the +English throw nothing away." We speak of the vast parks and lawns of the +Aristocracy as so much land taken out of use and devoted to mere +ostentation; but all that land is growing timber or furnishing +pasturage--often both. The owner gratifies his taste or his pride by +reserving it from cultivation, but he does not forget the main chance. +So of his Fisheries and even Game-Preserves. Of course, there _are_ +noblemen who would scorn to sell their Venison or Partridges; but Game +is abundant in the hotels and refectories--too much so for half of it to +have been obtained by poaching. Few whose estates might yield them ten +thousand a year are content with nine thousand. + +The English are eminently a _practical_ people. They have a living faith +in the potency of the Horse-Guards, and in the maxim that "Safe bind is +sure find." They have a sincere affection for roast beef. They are quite +sure "the mob" will do no harm if it is vigilantly watched and +thoroughly overawed. Their obstreperous loyalty might seem inconsistent +with this unideal character, but it is only seeming. When the portly and +well-to-do Briton vociferates "God save the Queen!" with intense +enthusiasm, he means "God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my +consols, my expectations." The fervor of an Englishman's loyalty is +usually in a direct ratio with the extent of his material possessions. +The poor like the Queen personally, and like to gaze at royal pageantry; +but they are not fanatically loyal. One who has seen Gen. Jackson or +Harry Clay publicly enter New-York or any other city finds it hard to +realize that the acclamations accorded on like occasions to Queen +Victoria can really be deemed enthusiastic. + +_Gravity_ is a prominent feature of the English character. A hundred +Englishmen of any class, forgathered for any purpose of conference or +recreation, will have less merriment in the course of their sitting than +a score of Frenchmen or Americans would have in a similar time. Hence it +is generally remarked that the English of almost any class show to least +advantage when attempting to enjoy themselves. They are as awkward at a +frolic as a bear at a dance. Their manner of expressing themselves is +literal and prosaic; the American tendency to hyperbole and exaggeration +grates harshly on their ears. They can only account for it by a +presumption of ill breeding on the part of the utterer. Forward lads +and "fast" people are scarce and uncurrent here. A Western "screamer," +eager to fight or drink, to run horses or shoot for a wager, and +boasting that he had "the prettiest sister, the likeliest wife and the +ugliest dog in all Kentuck," would be no where else so out of place and +incomprehensible as in this country, no matter in what circle of +society. + +The _Women_ of England, of whatever rank, studiously avoid peculiarities +of dress or manner and repress idiosyncrasies of character. No where +else that I have ever been could so keen an observer as Pope have +written: + + "Nothing so true as what you once let fall; + Most women have no character at all." + +Each essays to think, appear and speak as nearly according to the +orthodox standard of Womanhood as possible. Hardly one who has any +reputation to save could tolerate the idea of attending a Woman's Rights +Convention or appearing in a Bloomer any more than that of standing on +her head in the Haymarket or walking a tight-rope across the pit of +Drury Lane. So far as I can judge, the ideas which underlie the Woman's +Rights movement are not merely repugnant but utterly inconceivable to +the great mass of English women, the last Westminster Review to the +contrary notwithstanding. + +I do not judge whether they are better or worse for this. Their +conversation is certainly tamer and less piquant than that of the +American or the French ladies. I think it evinces a less profound and +varied culture than that of their German sisters; but none will deny +them the possession of sterling and amiable qualities. Their physical +development is unsurpassed, and for good reasons--their climate is mild +and they take more exercise than our women do. Their fullness of bust is +a topic of general admiration among the foreigners now so plentiful in +England, and their complexions are marvelously fair and delicate. +Except by a very few in Ireland, I have not seen them equaled. And, on +the whole, I do not know that there are better mothers than the English, +especially of the middle classes. + +I did not find the Aristocracy so remarkable for physical perfection and +beauty as I had been taught to expect. Some of them are large, well +formed and vigorous; but I think the caste is not noticeably so. Among +the ladies of "gentle blood," however, there is more of the asserted +aristocratic symmetry and beauty than among the men. + +The general stiffness of English manners has often been noted. Not that +a gentleman is aught but a gentleman anywhere, but courtesy is certainly +not the Englishman's best point. No where else will a perplexed stranger +inquiring his way receive more surly answers or oftener be refused any +answer at all than in London. Even the policeman who is paid to direct +you, replies to your inquiry with the shortest and gruffest monosyllable +that will do. + +Awkwardness of manner pervades all classes; the most thoroughly natural, +modest and easy mannered man I met was a Duke, whose ancestors had been +dukes for many generations; but some of the most elaborately ill bred +men I met also inherited titles of nobility. And, while I have been +thrown into the company of Englishmen of all ranks who were cordial, +kind, and every way models of good breeding, I have also met here more +constitutionally arrogant and, unbearable persons than had crossed my +path in all my previous experience. These, too, are found in all ranks; +I think the Military service exhibits some of the worst specimens. But +Bull in authority anywhere is apt to exhibit his horns to those whom he +suspects of being nobodies. Elevation is unpropitious to the display of +his more amiable qualities. + +I have elsewhere spoken of the indifferent figure made by most +Englishmen at public speaking. Many of them say good things; hardly one +delivers them aptly or gracefully. Any Frenchman having Lord Granville's +brains would make a great deal more out of them in a speech. I attribute +this National defect to two causes; first, the habitually prosaic level +of British thought and conversation; next, the intense pride which is +also a National characteristic. John is called out at a festive +gathering, and springs to his feet really intending to be clever. But +the next moment the thought strikes him--"This is beneath my dignity, +after all. Why should I subject myself to miscellaneous criticism? Why +put myself on the verdict of this crowd? Does it become a gentleman of +my standing to fish for their plaudits? What will success amount to, if +attained?" Or else he criticises his own thoughts and meditated forms of +expression, pronounces them tame, trite or feeble, and recoils from +their enunciation as unworthy of his abilities, position and reputation. +The result is the same in either case--he hesitates, blunders, chokes, +and finally stammers out a few sentences and subsides into his seat, +sweating at every pore, red-faced with chagrin, vexed with himself and +every body else on account of his failure, which might not have +occurred, and certainly would not have been so palpable, had his +self-consciousness been less diseased and extravagant. + +I have said that the British are not in manner a winning people. Their +self-conceit is the principal reason. They have solid and excellent +qualities, but their self-complacency is exorbitant and unparalleled. +The majority are not content with esteeming Marlborough and Wellington +the greatest Generals and Nelson the first Admiral the world ever saw, +but claim alike supremacy for their countrymen in every field of human +effort. They deem Machinery and Manufactures, Railroads and Steamboats, +essentially British products. They regard Morality and Philanthropy as +in effect peculiar to "the fast anchored isle," and Liberty as an idea +uncomprehended, certainly unrealized, any where else. They are +horror-stricken at the toleration of Slavery in the United States, in +seeming ignorance that our Congress has no power to abolish it and that +their Parliament, which _had_ ample power, refused to exercise it +through generations down to the last quarter of a century. They cannot +even consent to go to Heaven on a road common to other nations, but must +seek admission through a private gate of their own, stoutly maintaining +that their local Church is the very one founded by the Apostles, and +that all others are more or less apostate and schismatic. Other Nations +have their weak points--the French, Glory; the Spaniards, Orthodoxy; the +Yankees, Rapacity; but Bull plunders India and murders Ireland, yet +deems himself the mirror of Beneficence and feeds his self-righteousness +by resolving not to fellowship slaveholders of a different fashion from +himself; he is perpetually fighting and extending his possessions all +over the globe, yet wondering that French and Russian ambition _will_ +keep the world always in hot water. Our Yankee self-conceit and +self-laudation are immoderate; but nobody else is so perfect on all +points--himself being the judge--as Bull. + +There is one other aspect of the British character which impressed me +unfavorably. Everything is conducted here with a sharp eye to business. +For example, the manufacturing and trafficking classes are just now +enamored of Free Trade--that is, freedom to buy raw staples and sell +their fabrics all over the world--from which they expect all manner of +National and individual benefits. In consequence, these classes seize +every opportunity, however unsuitable, to commend that policy to the +strangers now among them as dictated by wisdom, philanthropy and +beneficence, and to stigmatize its opposite as impelled by narrow-minded +selfishness and only upheld by prejudice and ignorance. The French widow +who appended to the high-wrought eulogium engraved on her husband's +tombstone that "His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop No 16 Rue +St. Denis," had not a keener eye to business than these apostles of the +Economic faith. No consideration of time or place is regarded; in +festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where +men of various lands and views are notoriously congregated, and where no +reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the +attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to +interlard their harangues with advice to foreigners substantially +thus--"N. B. Protection is a great humbug and great waste. Better +abolish your tariffs, stop your factories and buy at our shops. We're +the boys to give you thirteen pence for every shilling." I cannot say +how this affected others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered +than impolitic. + +Yet the better qualities in the English character decidedly +preponderate. Naturally, this people love justice, manly dealing, fair +play; and though I think the shop-keeping attitude is unfavorable to +this tendency, it has not effaced it. The English have too much pride to +be tricky or shabby, even in the essentially corrupting relation of +buyer and seller. And the Englishman who may be repulsive in his +out-of-door intercourse or spirally inclined in his dealings, is +generally tender and truthful in his home. There only is he seen to the +best advantage. When the day's work is over and the welcome shelter of +his domestic roof is attained, he husks off his formality with his +great-coat and appears to his family and his friends in a character +unknown to the outer world. The quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of +an English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. These Britons, like +our own people, are by nature not demonstrative; they do not greet their +wives before strangers with a kiss, on returning from the day's +business, as a Frenchman may do; and if very glad to see you on +meeting, they are not likely to say so in words; but they cherish warm +emotions under a hard crust of reserve and shyness, and lavish all their +wealth of affection on the little band collected within the magic circle +of Home. Said an American who had spent two years as a public lecturer +throughout Great Britain: "Circumstances have introduced me favorably to +the intimacy and regard of many English families, and I can scarcely +recollect one which was not in its own sphere, a model household." My +own opportunities have been very limited, yet so far as they go they +tend to maintain the justice of this remark. There are of course +exceptions, but they would be more abundant elsewhere. And I regard the +almost insuperable obstacles here interposed to the granting of +Divorces, no matter on what grounds, as one cause of the general harmony +and happiness of English homes. + +But I must not linger. The order to embark is given; our good ship +Baltic is ready; another hour and I shall have left England and this +Continent, probably for ever. With a fervent good-bye to the friends I +leave on this side of the Atlantic, I turn my steps gladly and proudly +toward my own loved Western home--toward the land wherein Man enjoys +larger opportunities than elsewhere to develop the better and the worse +aspects of his nature, and where Evil and Good have a freer course, a +wider arena for their inevitable struggles, than is allowed them among +the heavy fetters and cast-iron forms of this rigid and wrinkled Old +World. Doubtless, those struggles will long be arduous and trying: +doubtless, the dictates of Duty will there often bear sternly away from +the halcyon bowers of Popularity; doubtless, he who would be singly and +wholly right must there encounter ordeals as severe as those which here +try the souls of the would-be champions of Progress and Liberty. But +Political Freedom, such as white men enjoy in the United States, and +the mass do not enjoy in Europe, not even in Britain, is a basis for +confident and well-grounded hope; the running stream, though turbid, +tends ever to self-purification; the obstructed, stagnant pool grows +daily more dank and loathsome. Believing most firmly in the ultimate and +perfect triumph of Good over Evil, I rejoice in the existence and +diffusion of that Liberty which, while it intensifies the contest, +accelerates the consummation. Neither blind to her errors nor a pander +to her vices, I rejoice to feel that every hour henceforth till I see +her shores must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, +whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has taught me +to appreciate more clearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a +glow of unwonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward +the setting sun, and strive to realize that only some ten days separate +me from those I know and love best on earth. Hark! the last gun +announces that the mail-boat has left us, and that we are fairly afloat +on our ocean journey: the shores of Europe recede from our vision; the +watery waste is all around us; and now, with God above and Death below, +our gallant bark and her clustered company together brave the dangers of +the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy watch over our onward path and bring +us safely to our several homes; for to die away from home and kindred +seems one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. This mortal +tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean shroud; this spirit reluctantly +resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine; these eyes close +regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospitality of the sullen +and stormy main. No! let me see once more the scenes so well remembered +and beloved; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of Friendship and +hear the thrilling accents of proved Affection, and when sooner or later +the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes +that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that +congenial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or hated, is still + + "My own green land forever!" + + +THE END. + + + + + +-------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation, punctuation and | + | spelling in the original document have been | + | preserved. | + | | + | Periods have been added to dollar amounts. | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page 16 merchandize changed to merchandise | + | Page 26 Sythes changed to Scythes | + | Page 31 Ignots changed to ingots | + | Page 57 skilful changed to skillful | + | Page 60 Cöoperative changed to Coöperative | + | Page 63 then changed to than | + | Page 151 Germains changed to Germain | + | Page 161 armfull changed to armful | + | Page 166 extraneous double quote removed | + | Page 181 warming changed to warning | + | Page 195 Belvidere changed to Belvedere | + | Page 207 Belvidere changed to Belvedere | + | Page 212 Reactionist changed to Reäctionist | + | Page 213 Hew-Haven changed to New-Haven | + | Page 277 bofogged changed to befogged | + | Page 310 detrimen changed to detriment | + | Page 349 Believng changed to Believing | + | | + +-------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Glances at Europe, by Horace Greeley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLANCES AT EUROPE *** + +***** This file should be named 24930-8.txt or 24930-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/3/24930/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Glances at Europe + In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, + Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. + +Author: Horace Greeley + +Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24930] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLANCES AT EUROPE *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>GLANCES AT EUROPE:</h1> + +<h4>IN A</h4> + +<h2>Series of Letters</h2> +<br /> + +<h4>FROM</h4> + +<h3>GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, &c.</h3> +<br /> + +<h4>DURING</h4> + +<h3>THE SUMMER OF 1851.</h3> +<br /> + +<h4>INCLUDING NOTICES OF THE</h4> + +<h3>GREAT EXHIBITION, OR WORLD'S FAIR.</h3> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>BY HORACE GREELEY.</h2> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>NEW YORK:</h3> +<h3>DEWITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS.</h3> +<h3>1851.</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: -5px;"><span class="smcap">Entered</span>, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by</h5> + +<h4>DEWITT & DAVENPORT,</h4> + +<h5 style="margin-top: -5px;">in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.</h5> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h5 style="margin-bottom: -1px;"><i>R. Craighead, Printer and Stereotyper,</i></h5> +<h5 style="margin-top: -1px;"><i>112 Fulton Street.</i></h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span> + + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>NO APOLOGY.</h2> + + +<p>If there be any reader impelled to dip into notes of foreign travel +mainly by a solicitude to perfect his knowledge of the manners and +habits of good society, to which end he is anxious to learn how my Lord +Shuffleton waltzes, what wine Baron Hob-and-nob patronizes, which tints +predominate in Lady Highflyer's dress, and what is the probable color of +the Duchess of Doublehose's garters, he will only waste his time by +looking through this volume. Even if the species of literature he +admires had not already been overdone, I have neither taste nor capacity +for increasing it. It was my fortune sometimes while in Europe to "sit +at good men's feasts," but I brought nothing away from them for the +public, not even the names of my entertainers and their notable guests. +If I had felt at liberty to sketch what struck me as the personal +characteristics of some gentlemen of note or rank whom I met, especially +in England, I do not doubt that the popular interest in those letters +would have been materially heightened. I did not, however, deem myself +authorized to do this. In a few instances, where individuals challenged +observation and criticism by consenting to address public gatherings, I +have spoken of the matter and manner of their speeches and indicated the +impressions they made on me. Beyond this I did not feel authorized to +go, even in the case of public men speaking to the public through +reports for the daily press; while those whom I only met privately or in +the discharge of kindred duties, as Jurors at the Exhibition, I have not +felt at liberty to bring before the public at all. Having thus explained +what will seem to many a lack of piquancy, in the following pages, +implying a privation of social opportunities, I drop the subject.</p> + +<p>No one can realize more fully than the writer the utter absence of +literary merit in these Letters. He does not deprecate nor seek to +disarm criticism; he only asks that his sketches be taken for what they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> +profess and strive to be, and for nothing else. That they are +superficial, their title proclaims; that they were hurriedly written, +with no thought of style nor of enduring interest, all whom they are +likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling +in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes of his +habitual readers or at least of their ancestors, cannot well refrain +from writing of what he sees and hears; his observations have a value in +the eyes of those readers which will be utterly unrecognized by the +colder public outside of the sympathizing circle. For the habitual +readers of The Tribune especially were these Letters written, and their +original purpose has already been accomplished. Here they would have +rested, but for the unsolicited offer of the publishers to reproduce +them in a book at their own cost and risk, and on terms ensuring a fair +share of any proceeds of their sale to the writer. Such offers from +publishers to authors who have no established reputation as book-makers +are rarely made and even more rarely refused. Therefore, Sir Critic! +whose dog-eared manuscript has circulated from one publisher's drawer to +another until its initial pages are scarcely readable, while the ample +residue retain all their pristine freshness of hue, you are welcome to +your revenge! Your novel may be tedious beyond endurance; your epic a +preposterous waste of once valuable foolscap; but your slashing review +is sure to be widely read and enjoyed.</p> + +<p>My aim in writing these Letters was to give a clear and vivid +daguerreotype of the districts I traversed and the incidents which came +under my observation. To this end I endeavored to sec, so far as +practicable, through my own eyes rather than those of others. To this +end, I generally shunned guide-books, even those of the "indispensable" +Murray, and relied mainly for routes and distances on the shilling +hand-book of Bradshaw. That I have been misled into many inaccuracies +and some gross blunders as to noted edifices, works of art, &c., is +quite probable; but that I have truthfully though hastily indicated the +topography, rural aspects, agricultural adaptations and more obvious +social characteristics of the countries I traversed, I am nevertheless +confident. I made a point of penning my impressions of each day's +journey within the succeeding twenty-four hours if practicable, for I +found that even a day's postponement impaired the distinctness of my +recollections of the ever-varying panorama of hill and dale, moor and +mountain, with long, level or undulating stretches of intermingled +woods, grain, grass, &c., &c. I trust the picture I have attempted to +give of out-door life in Western Europe, the workers in its fields and +the clusters in its streets, will be recognized by competent judges as +substantially correct.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span>The opinions expressed with respect to national characteristics or +aptitude will of course appear crude and rash to those who regard them +as based exclusively on the few days' personal observation in which they +may seem to have originated. To those who regard them as grounded in +some knowledge of history and of the present political and social +condition of those nations, corrected and modified indeed by the +personal observation aforesaid, their crudity and audacity will be +somewhat less astounding. No one will doubt that other travelers in +Europe have been far better qualified to observe and to judge than I +was, yet I see and think, and am not forbidden to speak. We know already +how Europe appears in the eyes of the learned and wise; but if some +Nepaulese Embassador or vagrant Camanche were to publish his "first +impressions" of Great Britain or Italy, should we utterly refuse to open +it because Baird or Thackeray could give us more accurate information on +that identical theme? Would not the Camanche's criticisms possess some +value <i>as</i> his, quite apart from their intrinsic worth or worthlessness? +Might they not afford some insight into Indian modes of thought, if none +into European modes of life?</p> + +<p>I deeply regret that the general impression made on me by the Italians +was such that my estimate of their character and capabilities gave +offence to their brethren now settled in this country. Their feeling is +a natural, creditable one; I will not reply to their strictures, yet I +must let what I wrote in Italy of the Italians stand unmodified. I shall +be most happy indeed to confess my mistake whenever it shall have been +proved such, but I cannot as yet perceive it. And to those who, not +unreasonably, dilate on the rashness of such judgment on the part of one +who was only some few weeks in Italy, and did not even understand its +people's language, I beg leave to commend a perusal of "Casa Guidi +Windows," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I had not seen it when I wrote, +and the coincidence of its estimate of the Italians with mine is of +course utterly unpremeditated. Mrs. Browning speaks Italian and knows +the Italians; she lived among them throughout the late eventful years; +she sympathizes with their sufferings and prays for their deliverance, +but without shutting her eyes to the faults and grave defects of +character which impede that deliverance if they do not render it +doubtful. To those who will read her brief but noble poem, I need say no +more; on those who refuse to read it, words from me would be wasted. +Believing that among the most imminent perils of the Republican cause in +Europe is the danger of a premature, sanguinary, fruitless insurrection +in Italy, I have done what I could to prevent any such catastrophe. When +Liberty shall have been re-vindicated in France and shall thereupon have +triumphed in Germany, the reign of despotism will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>speedily terminate in +Italy; until that time, I do not see how it can wisely be even resisted.</p> + +<p>A word of explanation as to the "World's Fair" must close this too long +introduction. The letters in this volume which refer to the great +Exhibition of Industry were mainly written when the persistent and +unsparing disparagement of the British Press had created a general +impression that the American Exposition was a mortifying failure, and +when even some of the Americans in Europe, taking their cue from that +Press, were declaring themselves "ashamed of their country" because of +such failure. Of course, these letters were written to correct the then +prevalent errors. More recently, the tide has completely turned, until +the danger now imminent is that of extravagant if not groundless +exultation, so that this Fair would be treated somewhat differently if I +were now to write about it. The truth lies midway between the extremes +already indicated. Our share in the Exhibition was creditable to us as a +nation not yet a century old, situated three to five thousand miles from +London; it embraced many articles of great practical value though +uncouth in form and utterly unattractive to the mere sight-seer; other +nations will profit by it and we shall lose no credit; but it fell far +short of what it might have been, and did not fairly exhibit the +progress and present condition of the Useful Arts in this country. We +can and must do better next time, and that without calling on the +Federal Treasury to pay a dollar of the expense.</p> + +<p>Friends in Europe! I may never again meet the greater number of you on +earth; allow me thus informally to tender you my hearty thanks for many +well remembered acts of unsought kindness and unexpected hospitality. +That your future years may be many and prosperous, and your embarkation +on the Great Voyage which succeeds the journey of life may be serene and +hopeful, is the fervent prayer of</p> + + +<p class="cen">Yours, sincerely,</p> +<p class="right">H. G.</p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>New-York, October 1st, 1851.</i></span><br /> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" width="12%"> </td> + <td class="tdl" width="80%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="8%"><i>Page</i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#I">I.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Crossing the Atlantic,</td> + <td class="tdr">9</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#II">II.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Opening of the Fair,</td> + <td class="tdr">19</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#III">III.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Great Exhibition,</td> + <td class="tdr">29</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">England—Hampton Court,</td> + <td class="tdr">38</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#V">V.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Future of Labor—DayBreak,</td> + <td class="tdr">47</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">British Progress,</td> + <td class="tdr">53</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">London—New-York,</td> + <td class="tdr">62</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td> + <td class="trl">The Exhibition,</td> + <td class="tdr">69</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Sights in London,</td> + <td class="tdr">77</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="#X">X.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Political Economy, as Studied at the World's Exhibition,</td> + <td class="tdrb">87</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Royal Sunshine,</td> + <td class="tdr">96</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Flax-Cotton Revolution,</td> + <td class="tdr">107</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Leaving the Exhibition,</td> + <td class="tdr">113</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">London to Paris,</td> + <td class="tdr">120</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Future of France,</td> + <td class="tdr">127</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Paris, Social and Moral,</td> + <td class="tdr">134</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Paris, Political and Social,</td> + <td class="tdr">141</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Palaces of France,</td> + <td class="tdr">149</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">France, Central and Eastern,</td> + <td class="tdr">157</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Lyons to Turin,</td> + <td class="tdr">164</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Sardinia—Italy—Freedom,</td> + <td class="tdr">174</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Pisa—The Leaning Tower (Letter Missing),</td> + <td class="tdr">184</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">First Day in the Papal States,</td> + <td class="tdr">186<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Eternal City,</td> + <td class="tdr">191</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">St. Peter's,</td> + <td class="tdr">201</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The Romans of To-day,</td> + <td class="tdr">208</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Central Italy—Florence,</td> + <td class="tdr">214</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Eastern Italy—The Po,</td> + <td class="tdr">222</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Venice,</td> + <td class="tdr">231</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXX">XXX.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Lombardy,</td> + <td class="tdr">238</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Switzerland,</td> + <td class="tdr">248</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Lucerne to Basle,</td> + <td class="tdr">256</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Germany,</td> + <td class="tdr">261</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Belgium,</td> + <td class="tdr">268</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Paris to London,</td> + <td class="tdr">273</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Universal Peace Congress,</td> + <td class="tdr">279</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">America at the World's Fair,</td> + <td class="tdr">286</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">England, Central and Northern,</td> + <td class="tdr">293</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Scotland,</td> + <td class="tdr">303</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XL">XL.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Ireland—Ulster,</td> + <td class="tdr">308</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XLI">XLI.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">West of Ireland—Atlantic Mails,</td> + <td class="tdr">312</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XLII">XLII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Ireland—South,</td> + <td class="tdr">320</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XLIII">XLIII.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">Prospects of Ireland,</td> + <td class="tdr">328</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#XLIV">XLIV.</a></td> + <td class="tdl">The English,</td> + <td class="tdr">340</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +<br /> + +<h2>GLANCES AT EUROPE.</h2> +<br /> + +<hr /><a name="I" id="I"></a> +<br /> +<h2>I.</h2> +<h2>CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Liverpool</span> (Eng.), April 28th, 1851.</p> + + +<p>The leaden skies, the chilly rain, the general out-door aspect and +prospect of discomfort prevailing in New York when our good steamship +<span class="smcap">Baltic</span> cast loose from her dock at noon on the 16th inst., were not +particularly calculated to inspire and exhilarate the goodly number who +were then bidding adieu, for months at least, to home, country, and +friends. The most sanguine of the inexperienced, however, appealed for +solace to the wind, which they, so long as the City completely sheltered +us on the east, insisted was blowing from "a point <i>West</i> of +North"—whence they very logically deduced that the north-east storm, +now some thirty-six to forty-eight hours old, had spent its force, and +would soon give place to a serene and lucid atmosphere. I believe the +Barometer at no time countenanced this augury, which a brief experience +sufficed most signally to confute. Before we had passed Coney Island, it +was abundantly certain that our freshening breeze hailed directly from +Labrador and the icebergs beyond, and had no idea of changing its +quarters. By the time we were fairly outside of Sandy Hook, we were +struggling with as uncomfortable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>and damaging a cross-sea as had ever +enlarged <i>my</i> slender nautical experience; and in the course of the next +hour the high resolves, the valorous defiances, of the scores who had +embarked in the settled determination that they <i>would not</i> be sea-sick, +had been exchanged for pallid faces and heaving bosoms. Of our two +hundred passengers, possibly one-half were able to face the dinner-table +at 4 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span>; less than one-fourth mustered to supper at 7; while +a stern but scanty remnant—perhaps twenty in all—answered the summons +to breakfast next morning.</p> + +<p>I was not in any one of these categories. So long as I was able, I +walked the deck, and sought to occupy my eyes, my limbs, my brain, with +something else than the sea and its perturbations. The attempt, however, +proved a signal failure. By the time we were five miles off the Hook, I +was a decided case; another hour laid me prostrate, though I refused to +leave the deck; at six o'clock a friend, finding me recumbent and +hopeless in the smokers' room, persuaded and helped me to go below. +There I unbooted and swayed into my berth, which endured me, perforce, +for the next twenty-four hours. I then summoned strength to crawl on +deck, because, while I remained below, my sufferings were barely less +than while walking above, and my recovery hopeless.</p> + +<p>I shall not harrow up the souls nor the stomachs of landsmen, as yet +reveling in blissful ignorance of its tortures, with any description of +sea-sickness. They will know all in ample season; or if not, so much the +better. But naked honesty requires a correction of the prevalent error +that this malady is necessarily transient and easily overcome. Thousands +who imagine they have been sea-sick on some River or Lake steamboat, or +even during a brief sleigh-ride, are annually putting to sea with as +little necessity or urgency as suffices to send them on a jaunt to +Niagara or the White Mountains. They suppose they may very probably be +"qualmish" for a few hours, but that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>(they fancy) will but highten the +general enjoyment of the voyage. Now it is quite true that any green +sea-goer <i>may</i> be sick for a few hours only; he may even not be sick at +all. But the <i>probability</i> is very far from this, especially when the +voyage is undertaken in any other than one of the four sunniest, +blandest months in the year. Of every hundred who cross the Atlantic for +the first time, I am confident that two-thirds endure more than they had +done in all the five years preceding—more than they would do during two +months' hard labor as convicts in a State Prison. Of <i>our</i> two hundred, +I think fifty did not see a healthy or really happy hour during the +passage; while as many more were sufferers for at least half the time. +The other hundred were mainly Ocean's old acquaintances, and on that +account treated more kindly; but many of these had some trying hours.</p> + +<p>Utter indifference to life and all its belongings is one of the +characteristics of a genuine case of sea-sickness No. 1. I enjoyed some +opportunities of observing this during our voyage. For instance: One +evening I was standing by a sick gentleman who had dragged himself or +been carried on deck and laid down on a water-proof mattress which +raised him two or three inches from the floor. Suddenly a great wave +broke square over the bow of the ship and rushed aft in a river through +either gangway—the two streams reuniting beyond the purser's and +doctor's offices, just where the sick man lay. Any live man would have +jumped to his feet as suddenly as if a rattlesnake were whizzing in his +blanket; but the sufferer never moved, and the languid coolness of eye +wherewith he regarded the rushing flood which made an island of him was +most expressive. Happily, the wave had nearly spent its force and was +now so rapidly diffused that his refuge was not quite overflowed.</p> + +<p>Of course, those who have voyaged and not suffered will pronounce my +general picture grossly exaggerated; wherein <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>they will be faithful to +their own experience, as I am to mine. I write for the benefit of the +uninitiated, to warn them, not against braving the ocean when they must +or ought, but against resorting to it for pastime. Voyaging cannot be +enjoyment to most of them; it must be suffering. The sonorous rhymesters +in praise of "A Life on the Ocean Wave," "The Sea! the Sea! the Open +Sea!" &c. were probably never out of sight of land in a gale in their +lives. If they were ever "half seas over," the liquid which buoyed them +up was not brine, but wine, which is quite another affair. And, as they +are continually luring people out of soundings who might far better have +remained on terra firma, I lift up my voice in warning against them. "A +home on the raging deep," is <i>not</i> a scene of enjoyment, even to the +sailor, who suffers only from hardship and exposure; no other laborer's +wages are so dearly earned as his, and his season of enjoyment is not +the voyage but the stay in port. He is compelled to work hardest just +when other out-door laborers deem working at all out of the question. To +him Night and Day are alike in their duties as in their exemptions; +while the more furious and blinding the tempest, the greater must be his +exertions, perils and privations. In fair weather his hours of rest are +equal to his hours of labor; in bad weather he may have <i>no</i> hours of +rest whatever. Should he find such, he flings himself into his bunk for +a few hours in his wet clothes, and turns out smoking like a coal-pit at +the next summons to duty, to be drenched afresh in the cold affusions of +sea and sky—and so on. An old sea-captain assured me that his crew were +sometimes in wet clothing throughout an Atlantic voyage.</p> + +<p>Our weather was certainly bad, though not the worst. We started on our +course, after leaving Sandy-Hook, in the teeth of a North-Easter, and it +clung to us like a brother. It varied to East North-East, East +South-East, South East, and occasionally condescended to blow a little +from nearly North or nearly South, but we had not six hours of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>Westerly +or semi-Westerly wind throughout the passage. There may have been two +days in all, though I think not, in which some of the principal sails +could be made to draw; but they were necessarily set so sharply at +angles with the ship as to do little good. Usually, one or two trysails +were all the canvass displayed, and they rather served to steady the +ship than to aid her progress; while for days together, stripped to her +naked spars, she was compelled to push her bowsprit into the wind's very +eye by the force of her engines alone. And that wind, though no +hurricane, had a will of its own; while the waves, rolled perpetually +against her bow by so long a succession of easterly winds, were a +decided impediment to our progress. I doubt whether there is another +steamship which could have made the passage safely and without extra +effort in less time than the Baltic did.</p> + +<p>Our weather was not all bad, though we had no thoroughly fair day—no +day entirely free from rain—none in which the decks were dry +throughout. In fact, the spray often kept them thoroughly drenched, +especially aft, when there was no rain at all. During four or five of +the twelve days we had some hour or more of semi-sunshine either at +morning, midday or toward night. The only gales of much account were +those of our first night off Long Island and our last before seeing land +(Saturday), when on coming into soundings off the coast of Ireland, we +had a very decided blow and (the ship having become very light by the +consumption of most of her coal) the worst kind of a sea. It gave me my +sickest hour, though not my worst day.</p> + +<p>Our dreariest days were Wednesday and Thursday, 23d and 24th, when we +were a little more than half way across. With the wind precisely ahead +and very strong, the skies black and lowering, a pretty constant rain, +and a driving, blinding spray which drenched every thing above the +decks, themselves ankle-deep in water, I cannot well imagine how two +hundred fellow-passengers, driven down and kept down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>in the cabins and +state-rooms of a steamship, could well be treated to a more dismal +prospect. I thought the philosophy even of the card-players (who were by +far the most industrious and least miserable class among us) was tried +by it.</p> + +<p>Spacious as the Baltic is, two hundred passengers with fifty or sixty +attendants, confined for days together to her cabins, fill her quite +full enough. For those who are thoroughly well, there are society, +reading, eating, play and other pastimes; but for the sick and helpless, +who can neither read nor play, whom even conversation fatigues, and to +whom the under-deck smell, especially in connection with food, is +intensely revolting, I can imagine no heavier hours short of absolute +torture. Having endured these, I had nothing beyond them to dread, and +it was rather a satisfaction, on reaching the Irish coast, to be greeted +with a succession of hail-squalls—to work up the Channel against a wet +North-Easter, and be landed in Liverpool (after a tedious detention for +lack of water on the bar at the mouth of the Mersey) under sullen skies +and in a dripping rain. I wanted to see the thing out, and would have +taken amiss any deceitful smiles of Fortune after I had learned to +dispense with her favors.</p> + +<p>There yet remains the grateful duty of speaking of the mitigations of +our trials. And in the first place, the Baltic herself is unquestionably +one of the safest and most commodious sea-boats in the world. She is +probably not the fastest, especially with a strong head wind and sea, +because of her great bulk and the area of resistance she presents both +above and below the water-line; but for strength and excellence of +construction, steadiness of movement, and perfection of accommodations, +she can have no superior. Her wheels never missed a revolution from the +time she discharged her New-York pilot till the time she stopped them to +take on board his Liverpool counterpart, off Holyhead: and her sailing +qualities, tested under the most unfavorable auspices, are also +admirable. She needs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>but good weather to make the run in ten days from +dock to dock; she would have done it this time had the winds been the +reverse of what they were or as the Asia had them before her. The luck +cannot always be against her.</p> + +<p>Praise of commanders and officers of steamships has become so common +that it has lost all emphasis, all force. I presume this is for the most +part deserved; for it is not likely that the great responsibility of +sailing these ships would be entrusted to any other than the very +fittest hands; and this is a matter wherein mistakes may by care be +avoided. The qualities of a seaman, a commander, do not lie dormant; the +ocean tries and proves its men; while in this service the whole +traveling public are the observers and judges. But such a voyage as we +have just made tries the temper as well as the capacity, it calls into +exercise every faculty, and lays bare defects if such there be. To sweep +gaily on before a fresh, fair breeze, is comparatively easy, but few +landsmen can realize the patient assiduity and nautical skill required +to extract propelling power from winds determined to be dead ahead. How +nicely the sails must be set at the sharpest angle with the course of +the vessel, and sometimes that course itself varied a point or two to +make them draw at all; how often they must be shifted, or reefed, or +furled; how much labor and skill must be put in requisition to secure a +very slight addition to the speed of the ship—all this I am not seaman +enough to describe, though I can admire. And during the entire voyage, +with its many vicissitudes, I did not hear one harsh or profane word +from an officer, one sulky or uncivil response from a subordinate. And +the perfection of Capt. Comstock's commandership in my eyes was that, +though always on the alert and giving direction to every movement, he +did not need to command half so much nor to make himself anything like +so conspicuous as an ordinary man would. I willingly believe that some +share of the merit of this is due to the admirable qualities of his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>assistants, especially Lieuts. Duncan and Hunter, of the U. S. Navy.</p> + +<p>In the way of food and attendance, nothing desirable was wanting but +Health and Appetite. Four meals per day were regularly provided—at 8, +12, 4 and 7 o'clock respectively—which would favorably compare with +those proffered at any but the very best Hotels; and some of the +dinners—that of the last Sunday especially—would have done credit to +the Astor or Irving. Of course I state this with the reservation that +the best water and the best milk that can be had at sea are to me +unpalatable, and that, even when I can eat under a deck, it is a penance +to do so. But these drawbacks are Ocean's fault, or mine; not the +Baltic's. Many of the passengers ate their four meals regularly, after +the first day out, with abundant relish; and one young New-Yorker added +a <i>fifth</i>, by taking a supper at ten each night with a capital appetite, +after doing full justice to the four regular meals. If he could only +patent his digestion and warrant it, he might turn his back on +merchandise evermore.</p> + +<p>The attendance on the sick was the best feature of all. Aside from the +constant and kind assiduities of Dr. Crary, the ship's physician, the +patience and watchfulness with which the sick were nursed and tended, +their wants sought out, their wishes anticipated, were remarkable. Many +had three meals per day served to them separately in their berths or on +deck, and even at unseasonable hours, and often had special delicacies +provided for them, without a demur or sulky look. As there was no extra +charge for this, it certainly surpassed any preconception on my part of +steamship amenity. I trust the ever-moving attendants received something +more than their wages for their arduous labors: they certainly deserved +it.</p> + +<p>The notable incidents of our passage were very few. An iceberg was seen +to the northward one morning about sunrise, by those who were on deck at +that hour; but it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>kept at a respectful distance, and we thought the +example worthy of our imitation. I understand that the rising sun's rays +on its surface produced a fine effect. A single school of whales +exhibited their flukes for our edification—so I heard. Several vessels +were seen the first morning out, while we were in the Gulf Stream: one +or two from day to day, and of course a number as we neared the entrance +of the Channel on this side; but there were days wherein we saw no sail +but our own; and I think we traversed nearly a thousand miles at one +time on this great highway of nations, without seeing one. Such facts +give some idea of the ocean's immensity, but I think few can realize, +save by experiment, the weary length of way from New-York to Liverpool, +nor the quantity of blue water which separates the two points. Friends +who went to California by Cape-Horn and were sea-sick, I proffer you my +heart felt sympathies!—It was some consolation to me, even when most +ill and impatient, to reflect that the gales, so adverse to us, were +most propitious to the many emigrant-freighted packets which at this +season are conveying thousands to our country's shores, and whose clouds +of canvas occasionally loomed upon us in the distance. What were our +"light afflictions" compared with those of the multitudes crowded into +<i>their</i> stifling steerages, so devoid of conveniences and comforts! +Speed on, O favored coursers of the deep, bearing swiftly those +suffering exiles to the land of Hope and Freedom!</p> + +<p>We had a law trial by way of variety last Saturday—Capt. Comstock +having been duly indicted and arraigned for <i>Humbug</i>, in permitting us +to be so long beset by all manner of easterly winds with never a puff +from the westward. Hon. Ashbel Smith, from Texas, officiated as Chief +Justice; a Jury of six ladies and six gentlemen were empaneled; James T. +Brady conducted the prosecution with much wit and spirit; while Æolus, +Neptune, Capt. Cuttle, Jack Bunsby, &c. testified for the prosecution, +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>Fairweather, Westwind, Brother Jonathan and Mr. Steady gave +evidence for the defence. The fun was rather heavy, but the audience was +very good natured, and whatever the witnesses lacked in wit, they made +up in extravagance of costume, so that two hours were whiled away quite +endurably. The Jury not only acquitted the Captain without leaving their +seats, but subjected the prosecutors to heavy damages (in wine) as +malicious defamers. The verdict was received with unanimous and hearty +approval.</p> + +<p>But I must stop and begin again. Suffice it, that, though we ought to +have landed here inside of twelve days from New York, the difference in +time (Liverpool using that of Greenwich for Railroad convenience) being +all but five hours—yet the long prevalence of Easterly winds had so +lowered the waters of the Mersey by driving those of the Channel +westerly into the Atlantic, that the pilot declined the responsibility +of taking our ship over the Bar till high water, which was nearly seven +o'clock. We then ran up opposite the City, but there was no dock-room +for the Baltic, and passengers and light baggage were ferried ashore in +a "steam-tug" which we in New York should deem unworthy to convey market +garbage. At last, after infinite delay and vexation, caused in good part +by the necessity of a custom-house scrutiny even of carpet-bags, because +men <i>will</i> smuggle cigars ashore here, even in their pockets, we were +landed about 9 o'clock, and to-morrow I set my watch by an English sun. +There is promise of brighter skies. I shall hasten up to London to +witness the opening of the World's Fair; and so, "My Native Land, Good +Night!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="II" id="II"></a> +<br /> +<h2>II.</h2> +<h2>OPENING OF THE FAIR.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Thursday, May 1, 1851.</p> + + +<p>Our Human Life is either comic or tragic, according to the point of view +from which we regard it. The observer will be impelled to laugh or to +weep over it, as he shall fix his attention on men's follies or their +sufferings. So of the Great Exhibition, and more especially its Royal +Inauguration, which I have just returned from witnessing. There can be +no serious doubt that the Fair has good points; I think it is a good +thing for London first, for England next, and will ultimately benefit +mankind. And yet, it would not be difficult so to depict it (and truly), +that its contrivers and managers would never think of deeming the +picture complimentary.</p> + +<p>But let us have the better side first by all means. The show is +certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the +excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto +seen. The Crystal Palace, which covers and protects all, is better than +any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of +inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not +merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet +built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and +varied utility. Depend on it, stone and timber will have to stand back +for iron and glass hereafter, to an extent not yet conceivable. The +triumph of Paxton is perfect, and heralds a revolution.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>The day has been very favorable—fair, bland and dry. It is now 4 P. M. +and there has been no rain since daylight, but a mere sprinkle at noon +unregarded by us insiders—the longest exemption from "falling weather" +I have known since I left New York, and I believe the daily showers or +squalls in this city reach still further back. True, even this day would +be deemed a dull one in New York, but there was a very fair imitation of +sunshine this morning, and we enjoy rather more than American moonlight +still, though the sky is partially clouded. [How can they have had the +conscience to tax <i>such</i> light as they get up in this country?] Of +course the turn out has been immense; I estimate the number inside of +the building at thirty thousand, and I presume ten times as many went +out of their way to gaze at the Procession, though that was not much. +Our New York Fire Department could beat it; so could our +Odd-Fellows.—Then the most perfect order was preserved throughout; +everything was done in season and without botching; no accident occurred +to mar the festivity, and the general feeling was one of hearty +satisfaction. If it were a new thing to see a Queen, Court and +aristocracy engaged in doing marked honor to Industry, they certainly +performed gracefully the parts allotted them, and with none of the +awkwardness or blundering which novel situations are expected to excuse. +But was the play well cast?</p> + +<p>The Sovereign in a monarchy is of course always in order: to be honored +for doing his whole duty; to be honored more signally if he does more +than his duty. Prince Albert's sphere as the Sovereign's consort is very +limited, and he shows rare sense and prudence in never evincing a desire +to overstep it. I think few men live who could hold his neutral and +hampered position and retain so entirely the sincere respect and esteem +of the British Nation. His labors in promoting this Exhibition began +early and have been arduous, persistent and effective. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>Any Inauguration +of the Fair in which he did not prominently figure would have done him +injustice. The Queen appears to be personally popular in a more direct +and positive sense. I cannot remember that any one act of her public +life has ever been condemned by the public sentiment of the Country. +Almost every body here appears to esteem it a condescension for her to +open the Exhibition as though it were a Parliament, and with far more of +personal exertion and heartiness on her part. And while I must regard +her vocation as one rather behind the intelligence of this age and +likely to go out of fashion at no distant day, yet I am sure that change +will not come through <i>her</i> fault. I was glad to see her in the pageant +to-day, and hope she enjoyed it while ministering to the enjoyment of +others.</p> + +<p>But let us reverse the glass for a moment. The ludicrous, the dissonant, +the incongruous, are not excluded from the Exhibition: they cannot be +excluded from any complete picture of its Opening. The Queen, we will +say, was here by Right Divine, by right of Womanhood, by Universal +Suffrage—any how you please. The ceremonial could not have spared her. +But in inaugurating the first grand cosmopolitan Olympiad of Industry, +ought not Industry to have had some representation, some vital +recognition, in her share of the pageant? If the Queen had come in state +to the Horse-Guards to review the <i>élite</i> of her military forces, no one +would doubt that "the Duke" should figure in the foreground, with a +brilliant staff of Generals and Colonels surrounding him. So, if she +were proceeding to open Parliament her fitting attendants would be +Ministers and Councillors of State. But what have her "Gentleman Usher +of Sword and State," "Lords in Waiting," "Master of the Horse," "Earl +Marshal," "Groom of the Stole," "Master of the Buckhounds," and such +uncouth fossils, to do with a grand Exhibition of the fruits of +Industry? What, in their official capacity, have these and theirs ever +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>had to do with Industry unless to burden it, or with its Products but +to consume or destroy them? The "Mistress of the Robes" would be in +place if she ever fashioned any robes, even for the Queen; so would the +"Ladies of the Bedchamber" if they did anything with beds except to +sleep in them. As the fact is, their presence only served to strengthen +the presumption that not merely their offices but that of Royalty itself +is an anachronism, and all should have deceased with the era to which +they properly belonged. It was well indeed that Paxton should have a +proud place in the procession; but he held it in no representative +capacity; he was there not in behalf of Architecture but of the Crystal +Palace. To have rendered the pageant expressive, congruous, and really a +tribute to Industry, the posts of honor next the Queen's person should +have been confided on this occasion to the children of Watt, of +Arkwright and their compeers (Napoleon's <i>real</i> conquerors;) while +instead of Grandees and Foreign Embassadors, the heirs of Fitch, of +Fulton, of Jacquard, of Whitney, of Daguerre, &c., with the discoverers, +inventors, architects and engineers to whom the world is primarily +indebted for Canals, Railroads, Steamships, Electric Telegraphs, &c., +&c., should have been specially invited to swell the Royal cortege. To +pass over all these, and summon instead the descendants of some dozen +lucky Norman robbers, none of whom ever contemplated the personal doing +of any real work as even a remote possibility, and any of whom would +feel insulted by a report that his father or grandfather invented the +Steam Engine or Spinning Jenny, is not the fittest way to honor +Industry. The Queen's Horticulturists, Gardeners, Carpenters, +Upholsterers, Milliners, &c., would have been far more in place in the +procession than her "gold stick," "silver stick," and kindred +absurdities.</p> + +<p>And yet, empty and blundering as the conception of this pageant may seem +and is, there is nevertheless marrow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>and hope in it. "The world <i>does</i> +move," O Galileo! carrying onward even those who forced you to deny the +truth you had demonstrated! We may well say that these gentlemen in +ribbons and stars cannot truly honor Labor while they would deem its +performance by their own sons a degradation; but the grandfathers of +these Dukes and Barons would have deemed themselves as much dishonored +by uniting in this Royal ovation to gingham weavers and boiler-makers as +these men would by being compelled to weave the cloth and forge the iron +themselves. Patience, impetuous souls! the better day dawns, though the +morning air is chilly. We shall be able to elect something else than +Generals to the Presidency before this century is out, and the Right of +every man to live by Labor—consequently, to a place where he <i>may</i> +live, on the sole condition that he is willing to labor—stands high on +the general orders, and must soon be up for National and universal +discussion. The Earls and Dukes of a not distant day will train their +sons in schools of Agriculture, Architecture, Chemistry, Mineralogy, +&c., inspiring each to win fame and rank for himself by signal and +brilliant usefulness, instead of resting upon and wearing out the fame +won by some ancestor on the battle-field of the old barbarian time. Even +To-Day's hollow pageant is an augury of this. It is Browning, I think, +who says,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"All men become good creatures, <i>but so slow</i>."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Let us, taking heart from the reflection that we live in the age of the +Locomotive and the Telegraph, cheerfully press onward!</p> + +<p>We will consider the Fair opened.</p> + +<p>I shall venture no especial criticisms as yet—first because the +Exhibition is not ready for it; next because I am in the same +predicament. A few general observations must close this letter.</p> + +<p>Immense as the quantity of goods offered for exhibition is, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>it is not +equal to the enormous capacity of the building, to which Castle Garden +is but a dog-kennel. [I do hope we may have a Crystal Palace of like +proportions in New-York within two years; it would be of inestimable +worth as a study to our young architects, builders and artisans. If such +an edifice were constructed in some fit locality to be leased out in +portions, under proper regulations, for stores, I believe it would pay +handsomely. Each store might be separated from those next it by +partitions of iron and glass; the fronts might be made of movable plates +of glass or left entirely open; the entire building being opened at +eight in the morning, closed at eight at night, and carefully watched at +all times.] True, many things are yet to be received, and some already +in the building remain in the boxes; still, I think there will be some +nakedness, even a week hence. The opportunity for seeing every thing, +judging every thing, is all the better for this, and indeed is +unexampled.</p> + +<p>The display from different countries is very unequal, even in +proportion: Old England is of course here in her might; France has a +vast collection, especially of articles appealing to taste or fancy; but +Germany and the rest of the Continent have less than I expected to see; +and the show from the United States disappoints many by its alleged +meagerness. I do not view it in the same light, nor regret, with a +New-York merchant whom I met in the Fair to-day, that Congress did not +appropriate $100,000 to secure a full and commanding exhibition of +American products at this Fair. I do not see how any tangible and +adequate benefit to the Nation would have resulted from such a dubious +disposition of National funds. In the first place, our great +Agricultural staples—at least, all such as find markets abroad—are +already accessible and well known here. Bales of Cotton, casks of Hams +or other Meats, barrels of Flour or Resin, hogsheads of Tobacco, &c., +might have been heaped up here as high as St. Paul's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>steeple—to what +end? Europeans already know that we produce these staples in abundance +and perfection, and when they want them they buy of us. I doubt whether +cumbering the Fair with them would have either promoted the National +interest or exalted the National reputation. It would have served rather +to deepen the impression, already too general both at home and abroad, +that we are a rude, clumsy people, inhabiting a broad, fertile domain, +affording great incitements to the most slovenly description of +Agriculture, and that it is our policy to stick to that, and let alone +the nicer processes of Art, which require dexterity and delicacy of +workmanship. We must outgrow this error.</p> + +<p>Our Manufacturers are in many departments grossly deficient, in others +inferior to the best rival productions of Europe. In Silks and Linens, +we have nothing now to show; I trust the case will be bravely altered +within a few years. In broad cloths, we are behind and going behind, but +in Satinets, Flannels, (woolen) Shawls, De Laines, Ginghams, Drills and +most plain Cottons, we are producing as effectively as our rivals, and +in many departments gaining upon them. But few of these are goods which +make much show in a Fair; three cases of Parisian gewgaws will outshine +in an exhibition a million dollars' worth of admirable and cheap +Muslins, Drills, Flannels, &c. And beside, our Manufacturers, who find +themselves met at every turn, and often supplanted at their own doors by +showy fabrics from abroad, are shy of calling attention in Europe to the +few articles which, by the help of valuable American inventions, they +are able to make and sell at a profit. I know this consideration has +kept some goods and more machinery at home which would otherwise have +been here. The manufacturers are here or are coming, to see what +knowledge or skill they can pick up, but they are not so ready to tell +all they know. They think the odds in favor of those who work against +them backed by the cheap <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>Labor and abundant Capital of Europe, are +quite sufficient already.</p> + +<p>Still, there are some Yankee Notions that I wish had been sent over. I +think our Cut Nails, our Pins, our Wood Screws, &c. should have been +represented. India Rubber is abundant here, but I have seen no Gutta +Percha, and our New-York Company (Hudson Manufacturing) might have put a +new wrinkle on John Bull's forehead by sending over an assorted case of +their fabrics. The Brass and kindred fabrics of Waterbury (Conn.) ought +not to have come up missing, and a set of samples of the "Flint Enameled +Ware" of Vermont, I should have been proud of for Vermont's sake. A +light Jersey wagon, a Yankee ox-cart, and two or three sets of American +Farming Implements, would have been exactly in play here. Our Scythes, +Cradles, Hoes, Rakes, Axes, Sowing, Reaping, Threshing and Winnowing +machines, &c., &c., are a long distance ahead of the British—so the +best judges say; and where their machines are good they cost too much +ever to come into general use. There is a pretty good set of Yankee +Ploughs here, and they are likely to do good. I believe Connecticut +Clocks and Maine (North Wayne) Axes are also well represented. But +either Rochester, Syracuse, or Albany could have beaten the whole show +in Farming Tools generally.</p> + +<p>Yet there are many good things in the American department. In +Daguerreotypes, it seems to be conceded that we beat the world, when +excellence and cheapness are both considered—at all events, England is +no where in comparison—and our Daguerreotypists make a great show +here.—New Jersey Zinc, Lake Superior Copper, Adirondack Iron and Steel, +are well represented either by ores or fabrics, and I believe California +Gold is to be.—But I am speaking on the strength of a very hasty +examination. I shall continue in attendance from day to day and hope to +glean from the show some ideas that may be found or made useful.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>P. S.—The Official Catalogue of the Fair is just issued. It has been +got up in great haste, and must necessarily be imperfect, but it extends +to 320 double-column octavo pages on brevier type (not counting +advertisements) and is sold for a shilling—(24 cents). Some conception +of the extent of the Fair may be obtained from the following hasty +summary of a portion of the contents, showing the number of Exhibitors +in certain departments, as classified in the Official Catalogue, viz:</p> + +<br /> +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">GREAT BRITAIN.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" width="92%">Coal, Slate, Grindstone, Limestone, Granite, &c. + (outside the building),</td> + <td class="tdrb" width="8%">44</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Mining and Mineral Products (inside),</td> + <td class="tdr">366</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products,</td> + <td class="tdr">103</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Substances used as Food,</td> + <td class="tdr">133</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Vegetable and Animal Substances used in Manufactures,</td> + <td class="tdr">94</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Machines for Direct Use, including Carriages, Railway and Marine Mechanism,</td> + <td class="tdrb">339</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Manufacturing Machines and Tools,</td> + <td class="tdr">225</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Civil Engineering and Building Contrivances,</td> + <td class="tdr">177</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Naval Architecture, Guns, Weapons, &c.</td> + <td class="tdr">260</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Agricultural and Horticultural Machines and Implements,</td> + <td class="tdr">287</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Philosophical, Musical, Horological and Surgical Instruments,</td> + <td class="tdr" style="border-bottom: .5pt black solid;">535</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Total, so far,</td> + <td class="tdr">2563</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> +<br /> + +<p>The foregoing occupy but 55 of the 300 pages devoted expressly to the +Catalogue, so that the whole number of Exhibitors cannot be less than +Ten Thousand, and is probably nearer Fifteen Thousand; and as two +articles from each would be a low estimate, I think the number of +distinct articles already on exhibition cannot fall below Thirty +Thousand, counting all of any class which may be entered by a single +exhibitor as one article. Great Britain fills 136 pages of the +Catalogue; her Colonies and Foreign possessions 48 more; Austria 16; +Belgium 8, China 2, Denmark 1, Egypt 2½, France and Algiers 35, Prussia +and the Zoll Verein States 19; Bavaria 2, Saxony 5, Wirtemburg 2, Hesse, +Nassau and Luxemburg 3, Greece 1, Hamburgh 1, Holland 2, Portugal 3½; +Madeira 1<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>, Papal State ½, Russia 5, Sardinia 1½, Spain 5, Sweden and +Norway 1, Switzerland 5, Tunis 2½, Tuscany 2, United States 8½. So the +United States stands fifth on the list of contributing Countries, +ranking next after Great Britain herself, France, Austria, and Prussian +Germany, and far ahead of Holland and Switzerland, which have long been +held up as triumphant examples of Industrial progress and thrift under +Free Trade; and these, with all the countries which show more than we +do, are close at hand, while our country is on the average more than +4,000 miles off.—I am confirmed in my view that the cavils at the +meagerness of our contribution are not well grounded.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="III" id="III"></a> +<br /> +<h2>III.</h2> +<h2>THE GREAT EXHIBITION.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Thursday, May 6th, 1851.</p> + + +<p>"The World's Fair," as we Americans have been accustomed to call it, has +now been open five days, but is not yet in complete order, nor anything +like it. The sound of the saw and the hammer salutes the visiter from +every side, and I think not less than five hundred carpenters and other +artisans are busy in the building to-day. The week will probably close +before the fixtures will have all been put up and the articles duly +arranged for exhibition. As yet, a great many remain in their +transportation boxes, while others are covered with canvas, though many +more have been put in order within the last two days. Through the great +center aisle very little remains unaccomplished; but on the sides, in +the galleries, and in the department of British Machinery, there is yet +work to do which another week will hardly see concluded. Meantime, the +throng of visiters is immense, though the unexampled extent of the +People's Palace prevents any crush or inconvenience. I think there +cannot have been less than Ten Thousand visiters in the building to-day.</p> + +<p>Of course, any attempt to specify, or to set forth the merits or defects +of particular articles, must here be futile. Such a universe of +materials, inventions and fabrics defies that mode of treatment. But I +will endeavor to give some general idea of the Exhibition.</p> + +<p>If you enter the building at the East, you are in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>midst of the +American contributions, to which a great space has been allotted, which +they meagerly fill. Passing westward down the aisle, our next neighbor +is Russia, who had not an eighth of our space allotted to her, and has +filled that little far less thoroughly and creditably than we have. It +is said that the greater part of the Russian articles intended for the +Fair are yet ice-bound in the Baltic. France, Austria, Switzerland, +Prussia and other German States succeed her; the French contributions +being equal (I think) in value, if not in extent and variety, to those +of all the rest of the Continent. Bohemia has sent some admirable +Glassware; Austria a suit of apartments thoroughly and sumptuously +furnished, which wins much regard and some admiration. There is of +course a great array of tasteful design and exquisite workmanship from +France, though I do not just now call to mind any article of +transcendent merit.</p> + +<p>The main aisle is very wide, forming a broad promenade on each side with +a collection of Sculpture, Statuary, Casts, &c. &c. between them. +Foremost among these is Powers's Greek Slave, never seen to better +advantage; and I should say there are from fifty to a hundred other +works of Art—mainly in Marble or Bronze.—Some of them have great +merit. Having passed down this avenue several hundred Feet, you reach +the Transept, where the great diamond "Koh-i-Noor" (Mountain of Light) +with other royal contributions, have place. Here, in the exact center of +the Exhibition, is a beautiful Fountain (nearly all glass but the +water,) which has rarely been excelled in design or effect. The fluid is +projected to a height of some thirty feet, falling thence into a +succession of regularly enlarging glass basins, and finally reaching in +streams and spray the reservoir below. A hundred feet or more on either +side stand two stately, graceful trees, entirely included in the +building, whose roof of glass rises clear above them, seeming a nearer +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>sky. These trees (elms, I believe) are fuller and fresher in leaf than +those outside, having been shielded from the chilling air and warmed by +the genial roof. Nature's contribution to the Great Exhibition is +certainly a very admirable one, and fairly entitles her to a first-class +Medal.</p> + +<p>The other half of the main aisle is externally a duplicate of that +already described, but is somewhat differently filled. This is the +British end of the Exhibition, containing far more in quantity than all +the rest put together. The finest and costliest fabrics are ranged on +either side of this end of the grand aisle.</p> + +<p>The show of Colonial products is not vast but comprehensive, giving a +vivid idea of the wide extent and various climates of Britain's +dependencies. Corn, Wheat, &c., from the Canadas; Sugar and Coffee from +the West Indies; fine Wood from Australia; Rice, Cotton, &c., from +India; with the diversified products of Asia, Africa and America, fill +this department. Manufactured textile fabrics from Sydney, from India, +and from Upper Canada, are here very near each other; while Minerals, +Woods, &c., from every land and every clime are nearly in contact. I +apprehend John Bull, whatever else he may learn, will not be taught +meekness by this Exhibition.</p> + +<p>The Mineral department of the British display is situated on the south +side. I think it can hardly be less than five hundred feet long by over +one hundred wide, and it is doubtless the most complete ever thus set +before the public. Here are shown every variety and condition of Coal, +and of Iron, Copper, Lead, Tin, &c. Of Gold there is little, and of +Silver, Zinc, Quicksilver, &c., not a great deal. But not only are the +Ores of the metals first named varied and abundant, with Native Copper, +Silver, &c., but the metals are also shown in every stage of their +progress, from the rude elements just wrenched from the earth to the +most refined and perfect bars or ingots. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>department will richly +reward the study of the mineralogists, present and future.</p> + +<p>Directly opposite, on the North side of the British half of the main +avenue, is the British exhibition of Machinery, occupying even more +space than the Minerals. I never saw one-fourth as much Machinery +together before; I do not expect ever to see so much again. Almost every +thing that a Briton has ever invented, improved or patented in the way +of Machinery is here brought together. The great Cylinder Press on which +<i>The Times</i> is printed (not the individual, but the kind) may here be +seen in operation; the cylinders revolve horizontally as ours do +vertically; and though something is gained in security by the British +press, more must be lost in speed. Hoe's last has not yet been equaled +on this island. But in Spinning, Weaving, and the subsidiary arts there +are some things here, to me novelties, which our manufacturers must +borrow or surpass; though I doubt whether spinning, on the whole, is +effected with less labor in Great Britain than in the United States. +There are many recent improvements here, but I observe none of absorbing +interest. However, I have much yet to see and more to comprehend in this +department. I saw one loom weaving Lace of a width which seemed at least +three yards; a Pump that would throw very nearly water enough to run a +grist-mill, &c. &c. I think the American genius is quicker, more +wide-awake, more fertile than the British; I think that if our +manufactures were as extensive and firmly established as the British, we +should invent and improve machinery much faster than they do; but I do +not wish to deny that this is quite a considerable country.</p> + +<br /> +<p class="right">Wednesday, May 7—4 P. M.</p> + +<p>I have just returned from another and my seventh daily visit to the +Great Exhibition. I believe I have thus far been among the most +industrious visitors, and yet I have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>not yet even glanced at one-half +the articles exhibited, while I have <i>only</i> glanced at most of those I +have seen. Of course, I am in no condition to pronounce judgments, and +any opinion I may express must be taken subject to future revisal and +modification.</p> + +<p>I know well that so large and diversified a show of Machinery could not +be made up in the United States as is here presented in behalf of +British Invention; yet I think a strictly American Fair might be got up +which would evince more originality of creation or design. If I am wrong +in this, I shall cheerfully say so when convinced of it. Many of these +machines are very good of their kind without involving any novel +principle or important adaptation. With regard to Flax-Dressing, for +example, I find less here than I had hoped to see; and though what I +have seen appears to do its work well and with commendable economy of +material, I think there are more efficient and rapid Flax-Dressers in +the United States than are contained in this Exhibition. I have not yet +examined the machinery for Spinning and Weaving the dressed Flax fiber, +but am glad to see that it is in operation. The report that the +experiments in Flax-Cotton have "failed" does not in the least +discourage me. Who ever heard of a great economical discovery or +invention that had not been repeatedly pronounced a failure before it +ultimately and indubitably succeeded?</p> + +<p>I found one promising invention in the British department to-day, viz: +Henley's Magnetic Telegraph, or rather, the generator of its power. The +magnet, I was assured, <i>did not require nor consume any substance +whatever</i>, but generated its electricity spontaneously, and in equal +measure in all varieties of weather, so that the wildest storm of +lightning, hail, snow or rain makes no difference in the working of the +Telegraph. If such be the fact, the invention is one of great merit and +value, and must be speedily adopted in our country, where the liability +of Telegraphs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>to be interrupted by storms is a crying evil. I trust it +is now near its end.</p> + +<p>Switzerland has a very fine show of Fabrics in the Fair—I think more in +proportion to her numbers than any other Foreign Nation. Of Silks she +displays a great amount, and they are mainly of excellent quality. She +shows Shawls, Ginghams, Woolens, &c., beside, as well as Watches and +Jewelry; but her Silk is her best point. The Chinese, Australian, +Egyptian and Mexican contributions are quite interesting, but they +suggest little or nothing, unless it be the stolidity of their +contrivers.</p> + +<p>I see that <i>Punch</i> this week reiterates <i>The Times's</i> slurs at the +meagerness and poverty of the American contribution. This is meanly +invidious and undeserved. The inventors, artisans and other producers of +our Country who did not see fit to incur the heavy expense of sending +their most valuable products to a fair held three to five thousand miles +away are unaffected by this studied disparagement, and those who <i>have</i> +sent certainly do not deserve it. They are in no manner responsible for +the setting apart for American contributions of more space than they +fill; they have rather deserved consideration and kind treatment on the +part of the London Press. Beside, the value of their contributions is +not at all gauged by the space they fill nor by the impression they make +on the wondering gaze; articles of great merit and utility often making +no figure at all compared with a case of figured silks or mantel +ornaments which answer no purpose here but the owner's. And when it is +considered that the manufacturers of France, Germany and Switzerland, as +well as England, are here displaying their wares and fabrics before the +eyes of thousands and tens of thousands of their customers—that their +cases in the Crystal Palace are in fact so many gigantic advertisements, +read and admired by myriads of merchants and other buyers from all parts +of the world, the unfairness of the comparison instituted by the London +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>Press becomes apparent. Our exhibitors can derive no such advantage from +the Fair—certainly not to any such extent. The "Bay State Mills," for +example, has a good display of Shawls here, hardly surpassed, +considering quality and price, by any other; yet nobody but Americans +will thereby be tempted to give them orders; while a British, Scotch, +French or Swiss shawl-manufacturer exhibiting just such a case, is +morally certain of gaining customers thereby in all parts of the world. +But enough on this head.</p> + +<p>I may add that many Americans have been deterred from sending by an +impression that nothing would be admitted that was not sent out in the +St. Lawrence, or at all events unless received early in April. But +articles are still acceptable, at least in our department; and I venture +to say that any invention, model, machine or fabric of decided merit +which may reach our Commissioner free of charge before the end of June +will have a place assigned it, although it will probably be too late to +have a chance for the prizes.</p> + +<p>These are to be mainly Medals of the finest Bronze, to cost $25, $12 and +$5 respectively. Probably about one thousand of the first class, two +thousand of the second and five thousand of the third will be +distributed. But they are not to be given for different grades of +excellence in the same field of exertion, but for radically diverse +merits. The first class will be mainly if not wholly given for +Inventions, Discoveries or Original Designs of rare excellence; the +second class for novel applications or combinations of principles +already known so as to produce articles of signal utility, cheapness or +beauty; the third class will be given for decided excellence of quality +or workmanship without regard to originality. By this course, it is +hoped that personal heart-burnings and invidious rivalries among +exhibitors may to a great extent be avoided.</p> + +<p>I cannot close without a word of acknowledgment to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>our Embassador, Hon. +Abbott Lawrence, for the interest he has taken and the labor he has +cheerfully performed in order that our Country should be creditably +represented in this Exhibition. For many months, the entire burthen of +correspondence, &c., fell on his shoulders; and I doubt whether the Fair +will have cost him less than five thousand dollars when it closes. That +he has exerted himself in every way in behalf of his countrymen +attending the Exhibition is no more than all who knew him anticipated; +and his convenient location, his wide acquaintance and marked popularity +here have enabled him to do a great deal. Every American voice is loud +in his praise.</p> + +<p>I walked through a good part of the galleries of the Crystal Palace this +morning, with attention divided between the costly and dazzling wares +and fabrics around me and the grand panorama below. Ten thousand men and +women were moving from case to case, from one theme of admiration to +another, in that magnificent temple of Art, so vast in its proportions +that these thousands no where crowded or jostled each other; and as many +more might have gazed and enjoyed in like manner without incommoding +these in the least. And these added thousands will come, when the +Palace, which is still a laboratory or workshop, shall have become what +it aims to be, and when the charge for daily admission shall have been +still farther reduced from five shillings (sterling) to one. Then will +the artisans, the cultivators, the laborers, not of London only, but to +a considerable extent of Great Britain, flock hither by tens of +thousands to gaze on this marvellous achievement of Human Genius, Skill, +Taste, and Industry, and be strengthened in heart and hope by its +contemplation. And as they observe and rejoice over these trophies of +Labor's might and beneficence, shall they not also perceive foreshadowed +here that fairer, grander, gladder Future for them and theirs, whereof +this show is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>prelude and a prediction—wherein Labor shall build, +replenish and adorn mansions as stately, as graceful, as commodious as +this, not for others' delight and wonder, but for its own use and +enjoyment—for the life-long homes of the builders, their wives and +their children, who shall find within its walls not Subsistence merely, +but Education, Refinement, Mental Culture, Employment and seasonable +Pastime as well? Such is the vista which this edifice with its contents +opens and brightens before me. Heaven hasten the day when it shall be no +longer a prospect but a benignant and sure realization!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="IV" id="IV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>IV.</h2> +<h2>ENGLAND—HAMPTON COURT.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Tuesday, May 6, 1851.</p> + + +<p>I have seen little yet of England, and do not choose to deal in +generalities with regard to it until my ignorance has lost something of +its density. Liverpool impressed me unfavorably, but I scarcely saw it. +The working class seemed exceedingly ill dressed, stolid, abject and +hopeless. Extortion and beggary appeared very prevalent. I must look +over that city again if I have time.</p> + +<p>We came up to London by the "Trent Valley Railroad," through Crewe, +Rugby, Tamworth, &c., avoiding all the great towns and traversing (I am +told) one of the finest Agricultural districts of England. The distance +is two hundred miles. The Railroads we traveled in no place cross a road +or street on its own level, but are invariably carried under or over +each highway, no matter at what cost; the face of the country is +generally level; hills are visible at intervals, but nothing fairly +entitled to the designation of mountain. I was assured that very little +of the land I saw could be bought for $300, while much of it is held at +$500 or more per acre. Of course it is good land, well cultivated, and +very productive. Vegetation was probably more advanced here than in +Westchester Co. N. Y., or Morris Co. N. J., though not in every respect. +I estimated that two-thirds of the land I saw was in Grass, one-sixth in +Wheat, and the residue devoted to Gardens, Trees, Oats or Barley, &c. +There are few or no forests, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>properly so called, but many copses, +fringes and clumps of wood and shrubbery, which agreeably diversify the +prospect as we are whirled rapidly along. Still, nearly all the wooded +grounds I saw looked meager and scanty, as though trees grew less +luxuriantly here than with us, or (more probably) the best are cut out +and sold as fast as they arrive at maturity. Friends at home! I charge +you to spare, preserve and cherish some portion of your primitive +forests; for when these are cut away I apprehend they will not easily be +replaced. A second growth of trees is better than none; but it cannot +rival the unconscious magnificence and stately grace of the Red Man's +lost hunting grounds, at least for many generations. Traversing this +comparatively treeless region carried my thoughts back to the glorious +magnificence and beauty of the still unscathed forests of Western +New-York, Ohio, and a good part of Michigan, which I had long ago +rejoiced in, but which I never before prized so highly. Some portions of +these fast falling monuments of other days ought to be rescued by public +forecast from the pioneer's, the woodman's merciless axe, and preserved +for the admiration and enjoyment of future ages. Rochester, Buffalo, +Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, &c., should each purchase for +preservation a tract of one to five hundred acres of the best forest +land still accessible (say within ten miles of their respective +centers), and gradually convert it into walks, drives, arbors, &c., for +the recreation and solace of their citizens through all succeeding time. +Should a portion be needed for cemetery or other utilitarian purposes, +it may be set off when wanted; and ultimately a railroad will afford the +poor the means of going thither and returning at a small expense. If +something of this sort is ever to be done, it cannot be done too soon; +for the forests are annually disappearing and the price of wood near our +cities and business towns rapidly rising.</p> + +<p>I meant to have remarked ere this the scarcity of Fruit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>throughout this +region. I think there are fewer fruit-trees in sight on the two hundred +miles of railway between Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles +of Harlem Railroad directly north of White Plains. I presume from +various indications that the Apple and Peach do not thrive here; and I +judge that the English make less account of Fruit than we do, though we +use it too sparingly and fitfully. If their climate is unfavorable to +its abundant and perfect production, they have more excuse than we for +their neglect of one of Heaven's choicest bounties.</p> + +<p>The approach to London from the West by the Trent Valley Railroad is +unlike anything else in my experience. Usually, your proximity to a +great city is indicated by a succession of villages and hamlets which +may be designated as more or less shabby miniatures of the metropolis +they surround. The City maybe radiant with palaces, but its satellites +are sure to be made up in good part of rookeries and hovels. But we were +still passing through a highly cultivated and not over-peopled rural +district, when lo! there gleamed on our sight an array of stately, +graceful mansions, the seeming abodes of Art, Taste and Abundance; we +doubted that this could be London; but in the course of a few moments +some two or three miles of it rose upon the vision, and we could doubt +no longer. Soon our road, which had avoided the costly contact as long +as possible, took a shear to the right, and charged boldly upon this +grand array of masonry, and in an instant we were passing under some +blocks of stately edifices and between others like them. Some mile or +two of this brought us to the "Euston-square Station," where our +Railroad terminates, and we were in London. Of course, this is not "the +City," specially so called, or ancient London, but a modern and +well-built addition, distinguished as Camden-town. We were about three +miles from the Bank, Post-Office, St. Paul's Church, &c., situated in +the heart of the City proper, though nearer the East end of it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>I shall not attempt to speak directly of London. The subject is too +vast, and my knowledge of it too raw and scanty. I choose rather to give +some account of an excursion I have made to the royal palace at Hampton +Court, situated fifteen miles West of the City, where the Thames, which +runs through the grounds adjacent, has shrunk to the size of the Mohawk +at Schenectady, and I think even less. A very small steamboat sometimes +runs up as high as this point, but not regularly, and for all practical +purposes the navigation terminates at Richmond, four or five miles +below.</p> + +<p>Leaving the City by Temple Bar, you pass through the Strand, Charing +Cross, the Haymarket, Pall Mall and part of Regent-street into +Piccadilly, where you take an omnibus at "the White Horse Cellar" (I +give these names because they will be familiar to many if not most +American readers), and proceed down Piccadilly, passing St. James's Park +on the left, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens on the right, and so by +Kensington Road to a fine suspension bridge over the Thames; you cross, +and have passed westerly out of London. You traverse some two miles of +very rich gardens, meadows, &c., and thence through the village of +Barnes, composed mainly of some two or three hundred of the oldest, +shabbiest tumble-down apologies for human habitations that I ever saw so +close together. Thence you proceed through a rich, thoroughly cultivated +garden district, containing several fine country seats, to Richmond, a +smart, showy village ten miles above London, and a popular resort for +holiday pleasure-seekers from the great city, whether by steamboat, +railway, omnibus or private conveyance. Here is a fleet of rowboats kept +for hire, while "the Star and Garter" inn has a wide reputation for +dinners, and the scene from its second-story bow window is pronounced +one of the finest in the kingdom. It certainly does not compare with +that from the Catskill Mountain House and many others in our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>State, but +it is a good thing in another way—a lovely blending of wood, water and +sky, with gardens, edifices and other pleasing evidences of man's +handiwork. Pope's residence at Twickenham, and Walpole's Strawberry Hill +are near Richmond.</p> + +<p>Proceeding, we drove through a portion of Bushy Park, the royal +residence of the late Queen Dowager Adelaide, widow of William IV., who +here manages, having house, grounds, &c. thrown in, to support existence +on an allowance of only $500,000 a year. The Park is a noble one, about +half covered with ancient, stately trees, among which large herds of +tame, portly deer are seen quietly feeding. A mile or two further +brought us to the grounds and palace of Hampton Court, the end and aim +of our journey.</p> + +<p>This palace was built by the famous Cardinal Wolsey, so long the proud, +powerful, avaricious and corrupt favorite of Henry VIII. Wolsey +commenced it in 1515. Being larger and more splendid than any royal +palace then in being, its erection was played upon by rival courtiers to +excite the King to envy and jealousy of his Premier—whereupon Wolsey +gave it outright to the monarch, who gave him the manor of Richmond in +requital. Wolsey's disgrace, downfall and death soon followed; but I +leave their portrayal to Hume and Shakspeare. This palace became a +favorite residence of Henry VIII. Edward VI. was born here; Queen Mary +spent her honeymoon here, after her marriage with Philip of Spain; +Queen Elizabeth held many great festivals here; James I. lived and Queen +Anne his wife died here; Charles I. retired here first from the Plague, +and afterwards to escape the just resentment of London in the time of +the Great Rebellion. After his capture, he was imprisoned here. Cromwell +saw one daughter married and another die during his residence in this +palace. William III., Queen Anne, George I. and George II. occasionally +resided here; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>but it has not been a regal residence since the death of +the latter. Yet the grounds are still admirably kept; the shrubbery, +park, fish-pond, &c. are quite attractive; while a famous grape-vine, 83 +years old, bears some 1,100 pounds per annum of the choicest "Black +Hamburghs," which are reserved for the royal table, and (being under +glass) are said to keep fresh and sweet on the vine till February. A +fine avenue of trees leads down to the Thames, and the grounds are gay +with the flowers of the season. The Park is very large, and the location +one of the healthiest in the kingdom.</p> + +<p>Hampton Court Palace, though surrounded by guards and other +appurtenances of Royalty, is only inhabited by decayed servants of the +Court, impoverished and broken-down scions of the Aristocracy, &c. to +whom the royal generosity proffers a subsistence within its walls. I +suppose about two-thirds of it are thus occupied, while the residue is +thrown open at certain hours to the public. I spent two hours in +wandering through this portion, consisting of thirty-four rooms, mainly +attractive by reason of the Paintings and other works of Art displayed +on their walls. As a whole, the collection is by no means good, the best +having been gradually abstracted to adorn those Palaces which Royalty +still condescends to inhabit, while worse and worst are removed from +those and deposited here; yet it was interesting to me to gaze at +undoubted originals by Raphael, Titian, Poussin, Rembrandt, Teniers, +Albert Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, Tintoretto, Kneller, Lely, &c., though +not their master-pieces. The whole number of pictures, &c. here +exhibited is something over One Thousand, probably five-sixths +Portraits. Some of these have a strong Historical interest apart from +their artistic merit. Loyola, Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, Admiral +Benbow, William III., Mary Queen of Scots, Mary de Medicis, Louis XIV., +are a few among scores of this character. The Cartoons of Raphael and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>some beautifully, richly stained glass windows are also to be seen. The +bed-rooms of William III., Queen Anne, and I think other sovereigns, +retain the beds as they were left; but little other furniture remains, +the mirrors excepted. I think Americans who have a day to spare in +London may spend it agreeably in visiting this Palace, especially as +British Royal Residences and galleries are reputed not very accessible +to common people. At this one, every reasonable facility is afforded, +and no gratuities are solicited or expected by those in attendance. I +should prefer a day for such a jaunt on which there are fewer squalls of +hail, snow and rain than we encountered—which in May can hardly be +deemed unreasonable—but if no better can be found, take such as may +come and make the best of it. This Palace is a good deal larger on the +ground than our Capitol—larger than the Astor House, but, being less +lofty, contains (I should judge) fewer rooms than that capacious +structure. It is built mainly of brick, and if it has great +Architectural merits I fail to discern them.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Counsel to the Sea-going.</span></h3> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Tuesday, May 6th, 1851.</p> + +<p>I desire to address a few words of advice to persons about to cross the +Atlantic or any other ocean for the first time. I think those who follow +my counsel will have reason to thank me.</p> + +<p>I. Begin by providing yourself with a pair of stout, well-made thick +boots—the coarser and firmer the better. Have them large enough to +admit two pair of thick, warm stockings, yet sit easily on the feet. Put +them on before you leave home, and never take them off during the voyage +except when you turn in to sleep.</p> + +<p>II. Take a good supply of flannels and old woolen clothes, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>and +especially an overcoat that has seen service and is not afraid of seeing +more. Should you come on board as if just out of a band-box, you will +forget all your dandyism before your first turn of sea-sickness is over, +and will go ashore with your clothes spoiled by the salt spray and your +own careless lounging in all manner of places and positions. Put on +nothing during the voyage that would sell for five dollars.</p> + +<p>III. Endure your first day of sea-sickness in your berth; after that, if +you cannot go on deck whenever the day is fair, get yourself carried +there. You may be sick still—the chance is two to one that you will be; +but if you are to recover at all while on the heaving surge this is the +way.</p> + +<p>IV. Move about as much as possible; think as little as you can of your +sickness; but interest yourself in whatever (except vomiting) may be +going forward—the run of the ship, the management of her sails, &c. &c. +Keep clear of all sedentary games, as a general rule; they may help you +to kill a few hours, but will increase your headache afterwards. Talk +more than you read; and determine to walk smartly at least two hours +every fair day, and one hour any how.</p> + +<p>V. As to eating, you are safe against excess so long as you are sick; +and if you have bad weather and a rough sea, that will be pretty nearly +all the way. I couldn't advise you, though ever so well, to eat the +regular four times per day; though my young friend who constantly took +<i>five</i> hearty meals seemed to thrive on that regimen. In the matter of +drink, if you can stick to water, do so; I could not, nor could I find +any palatable substitute. Try Congress Water, Seidlitz, any thing to +keep clear of Wines and Spirits. If there were some portable, healthful +and palatable acid beverage devoid of Alcohol, it would be a blessed +thing at sea.</p> + +<p>VI. Finally, rise early if you can; be cheerful, obliging, and +determined to see the sunny side of everything <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>whereof a sunny side can +be discovered or imagined; and bear ever in mind that each day is +wearing off a good portion of the distance which withholds you from your +destination. The best point of a voyage by steam is its brevity; +wherefore, I pray you, Mr. Darius Davidson, to hurry up that new steamer +or screamer that is to cross the Atlantic in a week. I shall want to be +getting home next August or September.</p> + +<p>VII. Don't bother yourself to procure British money at any such rate as +$4.90 for sovereigns, which was ruling when I came away. Bring American +coin rather than pay over $4.86. You can easily obtain British gold here +in exchange for American, and I have heard of no higher rate than $4.87.</p> + +<p>VIII. Whatever may be wise at other seasons, never think of stopping at +a London hotel this summer unless you happen to own the Bank of England. +If you know any one here who takes boarders or lets rooms at reasonable +rates, go directly to him; if not, drive at once to the house of Mr. +John Chapman, American Bookseller, 142 Strand, and he will either find +you rooms or direct you to some one else who will.</p> + +<p>IX. If the day of your embarkation be fair, take a long, earnest gaze at +the sun, so that you will know him again when you return. They have +something they call the sun over here which they show occasionally, but +it looks more like a boiled turnip than it does like its American +namesake. Yet they cheer us with the assurance that there <i>will be</i> real +sunshine here by-and-by. So mote it be!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="V" id="V"></a> +<br /> +<h2>V.</h2> +<h2>THE FUTURE OF LABOR—DAY-BREAK.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Friday, May 9, 1851.</p> + + +<p>I have spent the forenoon of to-day in examining a portion of the Model +Lodging-Houses, Bathing and Washing establishments and Cooperative Labor +Associations already in operation in this Great Metropolis. My +companions were Mr. Vansittart Neale, a gentleman who has usefully +devoted much time and effort to the Elevation of Labor, and M. +Cordonnaye, the actuary or chosen director of an Association of +Cabinet-Makers in Paris, who are exhibitors of their own products in the +Great Exposition, which explains their chief's presence in London. We +were in no case expected, and enjoyed the fairest opportunity to see +everything as it really is. The beds were in some of the lodging-houses +unmade, but we were everywhere cheerfully and promptly shown through the +rooms, and our inquiries frankly and clearly responded to. I propose to +give a brief and candid account of what we saw and heard.</p> + +<p>Our first visit was paid to the original or primitive Model +Lodging-House, situated in Charles-st. in the heart of St. Giles's. The +neighborhood is not inviting, but has been worse than it is; the +building (having been fitted up when no man with a dollar to spare had +any faith in the project) is an old-fashioned dwelling-house, not very +considerably modified. This attempt to put the new wine into old bottles +has had the usual result. True, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>sleeping-rooms are somewhat +ventilated, but not sufficiently so; the beds are quite too abundant, +and no screen divides those in the same room from each other. Yet these +lodgings are a decided improvement on those provided for the same class +for the same price in private lodging-houses. The charge is 4<i>d.</i> (eight +cents) per night, and I believe 2<i>s.</i> (50 cents) per week, for which is +given water, towels, room and fire for washing and cooking, and a small +cupboard or safe wherein to keep provisions. Eighty-two beds are made up +in this house, and the keeper assured us that she seldom had a spare one +through the night. I could not in conscience praise her beds for +cleanliness, but it is now near the close of the week and her lodgers do +not come to her out of band-boxes.—Only men are lodged here. The +concern pays handsomely.</p> + +<p>We next visited a Working Association of Piano Forte Makers, not far +from Drury Lane. These men were not long since working for an employer +on the old plan, when he failed, threw them all out of employment, and +deprived a portion of them of the savings of past years of frugal +industry, which they had permitted to lie in his hands. Thus left +destitute, they formed a Working Association, designated their own +chiefs, settled their rules of partnership; and here stepped in several +able "Promoters" of the cause of Industrial Organization of Labor, and +lent them at five per cent. the amount of capital required to buy out +the old concern—viz: $3,500. They have since (about six weeks) been +hard at work, having an arrangement for the sale at a low rate of all +the Pianos they can make. The associates are fifteen in number, all +working "by the piece," except the foreman and business man, who receive +$12 each per week; the others earn from $8 to $11 each weekly. I see +nothing likely to defeat and destroy this enterprise, unless it should +lose the market for its products.</p> + +<p>We went thence to a second Model Lodging House, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>situated near Tottenham +Court Road. This was founded subsequently to that already described, its +building was constructed expressly for it, and each lodger has a +separate apartment, though its division walls do not reach the ceiling +overhead. Half the lodgers have each a separate window, which they can +open and close at pleasure, in addition to the general provision for +ventilation. In addition to the wash-room, kitchen, dining-tables, &c., +provided in the older concern, there is a small but good library, a +large conversation room, and warm baths on demand for a penny each. The +charge is <i>2s. 4d.</i> (58 cents) per week; the number of beds is 104, and +they are always full, with numerous applications ahead at all times for +the first vacant bed. Not a single case of Cholera occurred here in +1849, though dead bodies were taken out of the neighboring alley +(Church-lane) six or eight in a day. So much for the blasphemy of +terming the Cholera, with like scourges, the work of an "inscrutable +Providence." The like exemption from Cholera was enjoyed by the two or +three other Model Lodging-Houses then in London. Their comparative +cleanliness, and the coolness in summer caused by the great thickness of +their walls, conduce greatly to this freedom from contagion.</p> + +<p>The third and last of the Model Lodging-Houses we visited was even more +interesting, in that it was designed and constructed expressly to be +occupied by Families, of which it accommodates forty-eight, and has +never a vacant room. The building is of course a large one, very +substantially constructed on three sides of an open court paved with +asphaltum and used for drying clothes and as a children's play-ground. +All the suits of apartments on each floor are connected by a corridor +running around the inside (or back) of the building, and the several +suits consist of two rooms or three with entry, closets, &c., according +to the needs of the applicant. That which we more particularly examined +consisted of three apartments (two of them bed-rooms) with the +appendages already indicated. Here lived a workman with his wife and six +young children from two to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>twelve years of age. Their rent is 6s. ($1.50 +per week, or $78 per annum); and I am confident that equal +accommodations in the old way cannot be obtained in an equally central +and commodious portion of London or New York for double the money. Suits +of two rooms only, for smaller families, cost but $1 to $1.25 per week, +according to size and eligibility. The concern is provided with a +Bath-Room, Wash-Room, Oven, &c., for the use of which no extra charge is +made. The building is very substantial and well constructed, is +fire-proof, and cost about $40,000. The ground for it was leased of the +Duke of Bedford for 99 years at $250 per annum. The money to construct +it was mostly raised by subscription—the Queen leading off with $1,500; +which the Queen Dowager and two Royal Duchesses doubled; then came +sundry Dukes, Earls, and other notables with $500 each, followed by a +long list of smaller and smaller subscriptions. But this money was given +to the "Society for Bettering the Condition of the Laboring Classes," to +enable them to try an experiment; and that experiment has triumphantly +succeeded. All those I have described, as well as one for single women +only near Hatton Garden, and one for families and for aged women near +Bagnigge Wells, which I have not yet found time to visit, are constantly +and thoroughly filled, and hundreds are eager for admittance who cannot +be accommodated; the inmates are comparatively cleanly, healthy and +comfortable; and <i>the plan pays</i>. This is the great point. It is very +easy to build edifices by subscription in which as many as they will +accommodate may have very satisfactory lodgings; but even in England, +where Public Charity is most munificent, it is impossible to build such +dwellings for <i>all</i> from the contributions of Philanthropy; and to +provide for a hundredth part, while the residue are left as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>they were, +is of very dubious utility. The comfort of the few will increase the +discontent and wretchedness of the many. But only demonstrate that +building capacious, commodious and every way eligible dwellings for the +Poor is a safe and fair investment, and that their rents may be +essentially reduced thereby while their comfort is promoted, and a very +great step has been made in the world's progress—one which will not be +receded from.</p> + +<p>I saw in the house last described a newly invented Brick (new at least +to me) which struck me favorably. It is so molded as to be hollow in the +centre, whereby the transmission of moisture through a wall composed of +this brick is prevented, and the dampness often complained of in brick +houses precluded. The brick is larger than those usually made, and one +side is wedge-shaped.</p> + +<p>We went from the house above described to the first constructed Bathing +and Washing establishment, George-st. Euston-square. In the Washing +department there are tubs, &c., for one hundred and twenty washers, and +they are never out of use while the concern is open—that is from 9 +<span class="smcap">A. M.</span> to 7 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span> There is in a separate Drying Room an apparatus for +freeing the washed clothes from water (instead of Wringing) by whirling +them very rapidly in a machine, whereby the water is thrown out of them +by centrifugal force or attraction. Thence the clothes, somewhat damp, are +placed in hot-air closets and speedily dried; after which they pass into +the Ironing-room and are finished. The charge here is 4 cents for two +hours in the Washing-room and 2 cents for two hours in the Ironing-room, +which is calculated to be time enough for doing the washing of an average +family. Everything but soap is supplied. The building is not capacious +enough for the number seeking to use it, and is to be speedily enlarged. +I believe that the charges are too small, as I understand that the concern +merely supports itself without paying any interest on the capital which +created it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>The Female part of the Bathing establishment is in this part of the +building, but that for men is entered from another street. Each has Hot +and Vapor Baths of the first class for 12 cents; second class of these +or first-class cold baths for 8 cents; and so down to cold water baths +for 2 cents or hot ditto for 4 cents each. I think these, +notwithstanding their cheapness, are not very extensively—at least not +regularly—patronized. The first class are well fitted up and contain +everything that need be desired; the others are more naked, but well +worth their cost. Cold and tepid Plunge Baths are proffered at 6 and 12 +cents respectively.</p> + +<p>I must break off here abruptly, for the mail threatens to close.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="VI" id="VI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>VI.</h2> +<h2>BRITISH PROGRESS.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Thursday, May 15, 1851.</p> + + +<p>Apart from the Great Exhibition, this is a season of intellectual +activity in London. Parliament is (languidly) in session; the +Aristocracy are in town; the Queen is lavishly dispensing the +magnificent hospitalities of Royalty to those of the privileged caste +who are invited to share them; and the several Religious and +Philanthropic Societies, whether of the City or the Kingdom, are +generally holding their Anniversaries, keeping Exeter Hall in blast +almost night and day. I propose to give a first hasty glance at +intellectual and general progress in Great Britain, leaving the subject +to be more fully and thoroughly treated after I shall have made myself +more conversant with the facts in the case.</p> + +<p>A spirit of active and generous philanthropy is widely prevalent in this +country. While the British pay more in taxes for the support of Priests +and Paupers than any other people on earth, they at the same time give +more for Religious and Philanthropic purposes. Their munificence is not +always well guided; but on the whole very much is accomplished by it in +the way of diffusing Christianity and diminishing Human Misery. But I +will speak more specifically.</p> + +<p>The <i>Religious Anniversaries</i> have mainly been held, but few or none of +them are reported—indeed, they are scarcely alluded to—in the Daily +press, whose vaunted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>superiority over American journals in the matter +of Reporting amounts practically to this—that the debates in Parliament +are here reported <i>verbatim</i>, and again presented in a condensed form +under the Editorial head of each paper, while scarcely anything else +(beside Court doings) is reported at all. I am sure this is consistent +neither with reason nor with the public taste—that if the Parliamentary +debates were condensed one-half, and the space so saved devoted to +reports of the most interesting Public Meetings, Lectures, &c., after +the New-York fashion, the popular interest in the daily papers would +become wider and deeper, and their usefulness as aids to General +Education would be largely increased. To a great majority of the reading +class, even here, political discussions—and especially of questions so +trite and so unimportant as those which mainly engross the attention of +Parliament—are of quite subordinate interest; and I think less than one +reader in four ever peruses any more of these debates than is given in +the Editorial synopsis, leaving the <i>verbatim</i> report a sheer waste of +costly print and paper.—I believe, however, that in the aggregate, the +collections of the last year for Religious purposes have just about +equaled the average of the preceding two or three years; some Societies +having received less, others more. I think the public interest in +comprehensive Religious and Philanthropic efforts does not diminish.</p> + +<p>For <i>Popular Education</i>, there is much doing in this Country, but in a +disjointed, expensive, inefficient manner. Instead of one all-pervading, +straight-forward, State-directed system, there are three or four in +operation, necessarily conflicting with and damaging each other. And yet +a vast majority really desire the Education of All, and are willing to +pay for it. John Bull is good at paying taxes, wherein he has had large +experience; and if he grumbles a little now and then at their amount as +oppressive, it is only because he takes pleasure in grumbling, and this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>seems to afford him a good excuse for it. He would not be deprived of +it if he could: witness the discussions of the Income Tax, which every +body denounces while no one justifies it abstractly; and yet it is +always upheld, and I presume always will be. If the question could now +be put to a direct vote, even of the tax-payers alone—"Shall or shall +not a system of Common School Education for the United Kingdoms be +maintained by a National Tax?"—I believe Free Schools would be +triumphant. Even if such a system were matured, put in operation, and to +be sustained by Voluntary Contributions alone or left to perish, I +should not despair of the result.</p> + +<p>But there is a lion in the path, in the shape of the Priesthood of the +Established Church, who insist that the children shall be indoctrinated +in the dogmas of their creed, or there shall be no State system of +Common Schools; and, behind these, stand the Roman Catholic Clergy, who +virtually make a similar demand with regard to the children of +Catholics. The unreasonableness, as well as the ruinous effects of these +demands, is already palpable on our side of the Atlantic. If, when our +City was meditating the Croton Water Works, the Episcopal and Catholic +Priesthood had each insisted that those works should be consecrated by +their own Hierarchy and by none other, or, in default of this, we should +have no water-works at all, the case would be substantially parallel to +this. Or if there were in some city a hundred children, whose parents +were of diverse creeds, all blind with cataract, whom it was practicable +to cure altogether, but not separately, and these rival Priesthoods were +respectively to insist—"They shall be taught our Creed and Catechism, +and no other, while the operation is going on, or there shall be no +operation and no cure," that case would not be materially diverse from +this. In vain does the advocate of Light say to them, "Pray, let us give +the children the inestimable blessing of sight, and then <i>you</i> may teach +your creed and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>catechism to all whom you can persuade to learn them," +they will have the closed eyes opened according to Loyola or to Laud, or +not opened at all! Do they not provoke us to say that their insisting on +an impossible, a suicidal condition, is but a cloak, a blind, a fetch, +and that their real object is to keep the multitude in darkness? I am +thankful that we have few clergymen in America who manifest a spirit +akin to that which to this day deprives half the children of these +Kingdoms of any considerable school education whatever.</p> + +<p>I think nothing unsusceptible of mathematical demonstration, can be +clearer than the imperative necessity of Universal Education, as a +matter simply of Public Economy. In these densely peopled islands, where +service is cheap, and where many persons qualified to teach are +maintaining a precarious struggle for subsistence, a system of General +Education need not cost half so much as in the United States, while +wealth is so concentrated that taxes bear less hardly here, in +proportion to their amount, than with us. Every dollar judiciously spent +on the education of poor children, would be more than saved in the +diminution of the annual cost of pauperism and crime, while the +intellectual and industrial capacity of the people would be vastly +increased by it. I do not see how even Clerical bigotry, formidable as +it deplorably is, can long resist this consideration among a people so +thrifty and saving, as are in the main the wielders of political power +in this country.</p> + +<p><i>Political Reforms</i> move slowly here. Mr. Hume's motion for Household +Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, &c. was denied a +consideration, night before last, by the concerted absence from the +House of nearly all the members—only twenty-one appearing when forty +(out of over six hundred) are required to constitute a quorum. So the +subject lost its place as a set motion, and probably will not come up +again this Session. The Ministry opposed its consideration now, +promising themselves to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>bring forward a measure for the Extension of +the Franchise <i>next Session</i>, when it is very unlikely that they will be +in a position to bring forward anything. It seems to me that the current +sets strongly against their continuance in office, and that, between the +hearty Reformers on one side and the out-spoken Conservatives on the +other, they must soon surrender their semblance of power. Still, they +are skillful in playing off one extreme against another, and may thus +endure or be endured a year longer; but the probability is against this. +To my mind, it seems clear that their retirement is essential to the +prosecution of Liberal Reforms. So long as they remain in power, they +will do, in the way of the People's Enfranchisement, as near nought as +possible.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(——"Nothing could live</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Twixt that and silence.")</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Their successors, the avowed Conservatives, will of course do nothing; +but they cannot hold power long in the Britain of to-day; and whoever +shall succeed them must come in on a popular tide and on the strength of +pledges to specific and comprehensive Reforms which cannot well be +evaded. Slow work, say you? Well, there is no quicker practicable. When +the Tories shall have been in once more and gone out again, there will +be another great forward movement like the Reform Bill, and I think not +till then, unless the Continent shall meantime be convulsed by the +throes of a general Revolution.</p> + +<p>I should like to see a chance for the defeat of that most absurd of all +Political stupidities, the <i>Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill</i>, but +I do not. Persecution for Faith's sake is most abhorrent, yet sincerity +and zeal may render it respectable; but this bill has not one redeeming +feature. While it insults the Catholics, it is perfectly certain to +increase their numbers and power; and it will do this without inflicting +on them the least substantial injury. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>Cardinal Wiseman will be the +local head of the Catholic Church in England, whether he is legally +forbidden to be styled "Archbishop of Westminster" or not, and so of the +Irish Catholic prelates. The obstacles which the ministerial bill +attempts to throw in the way of bequests to the Catholic Bishops as +such, will be easily evaded; these Bishops will exercise every function +of the Episcopate whether this Bill shall pass or fail: and their moral +power will be greatly increased by its passage. But the Ministry, which +has found the general support of the Catholics, and especially of the +Irish Catholic Members, very opportune at certain critical junctures, +will henceforth miss that support—in fact, it has already been +transformed into a most virulent and deadly hostility. Rural England was +hostile to the ministry before, on account of the depressing effect of +Free Trade on the agricultural interest; and now Ireland is turned +against them by their own act—an act which belies the professions of +Toleration in matters of Faith which have given them a great hold of the +sympathies of the best men in the country throughout the last half +century. I do not see how they can ride out the storm which they by this +bill have aroused.</p> + +<p>The cause of <i>Temperance</i>—of Total Abstinence from all that can +intoxicate—is here about twenty years behind its present position in +the United States. I think there are not more absolute drunkards here +than in our American cities, but the habit of drinking for drink's sake +is all but universal. The Aristocracy drink almost to a man; so do the +Middle Class; so do the Clergy; so alas! do the Women! There is less of +Ardent Spirits imbibed than with us; but Wines are much cheaper and in +very general use among the well-off; while the consumption of Ale, Beer, +Porter, &c. (mainly by the Poor) is enormous. Only think of £5,000,000 +or <i>Twenty-Five Millions of Dollars</i>, paid into the Treasury in a single +year by the People of these Islands as Malt-Tax alone, while the other +ingredients used in the manufacture of Malt Liquors probably <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>swell the +aggregate to Thirty Millions of Dollars. If we suppose this to be a +little more than one-third of the ultimate cost of these Liquors to the +consumers, that cost cannot be less than <i>One Hundred Millions of +Dollars per annum!</i>—a sum amply sufficient, if rightly expended, to +banish Pauperism and Destitution for ever from the British Isles. And +yet the poor trudge wearily on, loaded to the earth with exactions and +burdens of every kind, yet stupifying their brains, emptying their +pockets and ruining their constitutions with these poisonous, +brutalizing liquors! I see no hope for them short of a System of Popular +Education which shall raise them mentally above their present low +condition, followed by a few years of systematic, energetic, omnipresent +Temperance Agitation. A slow work this, but is there any quicker that +will be effective? The Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge would greatly +contribute to the Education of the Poor, but that Reform has yet to be +struggled for.</p> + +<p>Of <i>Social Reform</i> in England, the most satisfactory agency at present +is the Society for improving the Dwellings of the Poor. This Society has +the patronage of the Queen, is presided over (I believe) by her husband, +and is liberally patronized by the better portion of the Aristocracy and +the higher order of the Clergy. These, aided by wealthy or philanthropic +citizens, have contributed generously, and have done a good work, even +though they should stop where they are. The work would not, could not +stop with them. They have already proved that good, substantial, +cleanly, wholesome, tight-roofed, well ventilated dwellings for the Poor +are absolutely cheaper than any other, so that Shylock himself might +invest his fortune in the construction of such with the moral certainty +of receiving a large income therefrom, while at the same time rescuing +the needy from wretchedness, disease, brutalization and vice. Shall not +New-York, and all her sister cities, profit by the lesson?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>Of the correlative doings of the organized Promoters of Working Men's +Associations, Coöperative Stores, &c., I would not be justified in +speaking so confidently, at least until I shall have observed more +closely. My present impression is that they are both far less mature in +their operations, and that, as they demand of the Laboring Class more +confidence in themselves and each other, than, unhappily, prevails as +yet, they are destined to years of struggle and chequered fortunes +before they will have achieved even the measure of success which the +Model Lodging and the Bathing and Washing Houses have already achieved. +Still, I have not yet visited the strongest and most hopeful of the +Working Men's Associations.</p> + +<p>I spent last evening with the friends of <span class="smcap">Robert Owen</span>, who +celebrated his 80th birthday by a dinner at the Cranbourne Hotel. Among +those present were Thornton Hunt, son of Leigh Hunt, and one of the +Editors of "The Leader;" Gen. Houg, an exile from Germany from Freedom's +sake; Mr. Fleming, Editor of the Chartist "Northern Star;" Mons. +D'Arusmont and his daughter, who is the daughter also of Frances Wright. +Mr. Owen was of course present, and spoke quite at length in reiteration +and enforcement of the leading ideas wherewith he has so long endeavored +to impress the world respecting the absolute omnipotence of +circumstances in shaping the Human Character, the impossibility of +believing or disbelieving save as one must, &c. &c. Mr. Owen has +scarcely looked younger or heartier at any time these ten years; he did +not seem a shade older than when I last before met him, at least three +years ago. And not many young men are more buoyant in spirit, more +sanguine as to the immediate future, more genial in temper, more +unconquerable in resolution, than he is. I cannot see many things as he +does; it seems to me that he is stone blind on the side of Faith in the +Invisible, and exaggerates the truths he perceives until they almost +become falsehoods; but I love his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>sunny, benevolent nature, I admire +his unwearied exertions for what he deems the good of Humanity; and, +believing with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, that "Now abide Faith, +Hope, Charity: these three; but the greatest of these is Charity," I +consider him practically a better Christian than half those who, +professing to be such, believe more and do less. I trust his life may be +long spared, and his sun beam cloudless and rosy to the last.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="VII" id="VII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>VII.</h2> +<h2>LONDON—NEW-YORK.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Monday, May 15, 1851.</p> + + +<p>I have now been fifteen days in this magnificent Babel, but so much +engrossed with the Exhibition that I have seen far less of the town than +I otherwise should. Of the City proper (in the center) I know a little; +and I have made my way thence out into the open country on the North and +on the West respectively, but toward the South lies a wilderness of +buildings which I have not yet explored; while Eastward the metropolitan +districts stretch further than I have ever been. The south side of Hyde +Park and the main line of communication thence with the City proper is +the only part of London with which I can claim any real acquaintance. +Yet, on the strength of what little I <i>do</i> know, I propose to say +something of London as it strikes a stranger; and in so doing I shall +generally refer to New-York as a standard of comparison, so as to render +my remarks more lucid to a great portion of their readers.</p> + +<p>The <i>Buildings</i> here are generally superior to those of our City—more +substantial, of better materials, and more tasteful. There are, I think, +as miserable rookeries here as anywhere; but they are exceptions; while +most of the houses are built solidly, faithfully, and with a thickness +of walls which would be considered sheer waste in our City. Among the +materials most extensively used is a fine white <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>marble<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> of a +peculiarly soft, creamy appearance, which looks admirably until +blackened by smoke and time. Regent-street and several of the +aristocratic quarters west of it are in good part built of this marble; +but one of the finest, freshest specimens of it is St. George's +Hospital, Piccadilly, which to my eye is among the most tasteful +edifices in London. If (as I apprehend) St. Paul's Church, Somerset +House, and the similarly smoke-stained dwellings around Finsbury Oval +were built of this same marble, then the murky skies of London have much +to answer for.</p> + +<p>Throughout the Western and Northern sections of the Metropolis, the +dwellings are far less crowded than is usual in the corresponding or +up-town portion of New-York, are more diverse in plan, color and finish, +and better provided with court-yards, shrubbery, &c. In the matter of +Building generally, I think our City would profit by a study of London, +especially if our lot-owners, builders, &c., would be satisfied with +London rates of interest on their respective investments. I think four +per cent. is considered a tolerable and five a satisfactory interest on +money securely invested in houses in London.</p> + +<p>By the way: the apostles of Sanitary Reform here are anticipating very +great benefits from the use of the Hollow Brick just coming into +fashion. I am assured by a leading member of the Sanitary Commission +that the hollow brick cost much less than the solid ones, and are a +perfect protection against the dampness so generally experienced in +brick houses, and often so prejudicial to health. That there is a great +saving in the cost of their transportation is easily seen; and, as they +are usually made much larger than the solid brick, they can be laid up +much faster. I think Dr. Southwood Smith assured me that the saving in +the first cost of the brickwork of a house is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span><i>one-third</i>; if that is a +mistake, the error is one of misapprehension on my part. The hollow +brick is a far less perfect conductor of heat and cold than the solid +one; consequently, a house built of the former is much cooler in Summer +and warmer in Winter. It is confidently and reasonably hoped here that +very signal improvements, in the dwellings especially of the Poor, are +to be secured by means of this invention. Prince Albert has caused two +Model Cottages of this material to be erected at his cost in Hyde Park +near the Great Exhibition in order to attract general attention to the +subject.</p> + +<p>The <i>Streets</i> of London are generally better paved, cleaner and better +lighted than those of New-York. Instead of our round or cobble stone, +the material mainly used for paving here is a hard flint rock, split and +dressed into uniform pieces about the size of two bricks united by their +edges, so as to form a surface of some eight inches square with a +thickness of two inches. This of course wears much more evenly and lasts +longer than cobble-stone pavements. I do not know that we could easily +procure an equally serviceable material, even if we were willing to pay +for it. One reason of the greater cleanness of the streets here is the +more universal prevalence of sewerage; another is the positive value of +street-offal here for fertilizing purposes. And as Gas is supplied here +to citizens at 4s. 6d. ($1.10) per thousand feet, while the good people +of New-York must bend to the necessity of paying $3.50, or more than +thrice as much for the like quantity, certainly of no better quality, it +is but reasonable to infer that the Londoners can afford to light their +streets better than the New-Yorkers.</p> + +<p>But there are other aspects in which <i>our</i> streets have a decided +superiority. There are half a dozen streets and places here having the +same name, and only distinguished by appending the name of a neighboring +street, as "St. James-place, St. James-st.," to distinguish it from +several <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>other St. James-places, and so on. This subjects strangers to +great loss of time and vexation of spirit. I have not yet delivered half +the letters of introduction which were given me at home to friends of +the writers in this city, and can't guess when I shall do it. Then the +numbering of the streets is absurdly vicious—generally 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., +up one side and down the other side, so that 320 will be opposite 140, +and 412 opposite 1, and so throughout. Of course, if any street so +numbered is extended beyond its original limit, the result is +inextricable confusion. But the Londoners seem not to have caught the +idea of numbering by lots at all, but to have numbered only the houses +that actually existed when the numbering was undertaken; so that, if a +street happened to be numbered when only half built up, every house +erected afterward serves to render confusion worse confounded. On this +account I spent an hour and a half a few evenings since in fruitless +endeavors to find William and Mary Howitt, though I knew they lived at +No. 28 Upper Avenue Road, which is less than half a mile long. I found +Nos. 27, 29, 30, and 31, and finally found 28 also, but in another part +of the street, with a No. 5 near it on one side and No. 16 ditto on the +other—and this in a street quite recently opened. I think New-York has +nothing equal to this in perplexing absurdity.</p> + +<p>The <i>Police</i> here is more omnipresent and seems more efficient than +ours. I think the use of a common and conspicuous uniform has a good +effect. No one can here pretend that he defied or resisted a policeman +in ignorance of his official character. The London police appears to be +quite numerous, is admirably organized, and seems to be perfectly docile +to its superiors. Always to obey and never to ask the reason of a +command, is the rule here; it certainly has its advantages, but is not +well suited to the genius of our people.</p> + +<p>The <i>Hotels</i> of London are decidedly inferior to those of New-York. I do +not mean by this that every comfort <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>and reasonable luxury may not be +obtained in the London inns for money enough, but simply that the same +style of living costs more in this city than in ours. I think $5 per day +would be a fair estimate for the cost of living (servants' fees +included) as well in a London hotel as you may live in a first-class +New-York hotel for half that sum. One main cause of this disparity is +the smallness of the inns here. A majority of them cannot accommodate +more than twenty to forty guests comfortably; I think there are not four +in the entire Metropolis that could find room for one hundred each. Of +course, the expense of management, supervision, attendance, &c., in +small establishments is proportionably much greater than in large ones, +and the English habit of eating fitfully <i>solus</i> instead of at a common +hour and table increases the inevitable cost. Considering the National +habits, it might be hazardous to erect and open such a hotel as the +Astor, Irving or New-York in this city; but if it were once well done, +and the experiment fairly maintained for three years, it could not fail +to work a revolution. <i>Wines</i> (I understand) cost not more than half as +much here, in the average, as they do in New-York.</p> + +<p>In <i>Cabs</i> and other Carriages for Hire, London is ahead of New-York. The +number here is immense; they are of many varieties, some of them better +calculated for fine weather than any of ours; while the legal rates of +fare are more moderate and not so outrageously exceeded. While the +average New-York demand is fully double the legal fare, the London +cabman seldom asks more than fifty per cent. above what the law allows +him; and this (by Americans, at least) is considered quite reasonable +and cheerfully paid. If our New-York Jehus could only be made to realize +that they keep their carriages empty by their exorbitant charges, and +really double-lock their pockets against the quarters that citizens +would gladly pour into them, I think a reform might be hoped for.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>The <i>Omnibuses</i> of London are very numerous and well governed, but I +prefer those of New-York. The charges are higher here, though still +reasonable; but the genius of this people is not so well adapted to the +Omnibus system as ours is. For example: an Omnibus (the last for the +night) was coming down from the North toward Charing Cross the other +evening, when a lady asked to be taken up. The stage was full; the law +forbids the taking of more than twelve passengers inside; a remonstrance +was instantly raised by one or more of the passengers against taking +her; and she was left to plod her weary way as she could. I think that +could not have happened in New-York. In another instance, a stage-full +of passengers started eastward from Hyde Park, one of the women having a +basket of unwashed clothes on her knee. It was certainly inconvenient, +and not absolutely inoffensive; but the hints, the complaints, the +slurs, the sneers, with which the poor woman was annoyed and tortured +throughout—from persons certainly well-dressed and whom I should +otherwise have considered well-bred—were a complete surprise to me. In +vain did the poor woman explain that she was not permitted to deposit +her basket on the roof of the stage, as it was raining; the growls and +witticisms at her expense continued, and women were foremost in this +rudeness. I doubt that a woman was ever exposed to the like in New-York, +unless she was suspected of having Ethiopian blood in her veins.</p> + +<p>The <i>Parks</i>, <i>Squares</i> and <i>Public Gardens</i> of London beat us clean out +of sight. The Battery is very good, but it is not Hyde Park; Hoboken +<i>was</i> delightful; Kensington Gardens <i>are</i> and ever will remain so. Our +City ought to have made provision, twenty years ago, for a series of +Parks and Gardens extending quite across the island somewhere between +Thirtieth and Fiftieth streets. It is now too late for that; but all +that can be should be done immediately to secure breathing-space and +grounds for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>healthful recreation to the Millions who will ultimately +inhabit New-York. True, the Bay, the North and East Rivers, will always +serve as lungs to our City, but these of themselves will not suffice. +Where is or where is to be the Public Garden of New York? where the +attractive walks, and pleasure-grounds of the crowded denizens of the +Eastern Wards? These must be provided, and the work cannot be commenced +too soon.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> It seems that this plain marble is but an <i>imitation</i>—a +stone or brick wall covered with a composition, which gives it a smooth +and creamy appearance.</p></div> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>VIII.</h2> +<h2>THE EXHIBITION.</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Wednesday, May 21, 1851.</p> + + +<p>"All the world"—that is to say, some scores of thousands who would +otherwise be in London—are off to-day to the Epsom Races, this being +the "Derby Day," a great holiday here. Our Juries at the Fair generally +respect it, and I suppose I ought to have gone, since the opportunity +afforded for seeing out-door "life" in England may not occur to me +again. As, however, I have very much to do at home, and do not care one +button which of twenty or thirty colts can run fastest, I stay away; and +the murky, leaden English skies conspire to justify my choice. I +understand the regulations at these races are superior and ensure +perfect order; but Gambling, Intoxication and Licentiousness—to say +nothing of Swindling and Robbery—always did regard a horse-race with +signal favor and delight, and probably always will. Other things being +equal, I prefer that their delight and mine should not exactly coincide.</p> + +<p>I am away from the Exhibition to-day for the second time since it +opened; yet I understand that, in spite of the immense number gone to +Epsom (perhaps in consequence of the general presumption that few would +be left to attend), the throng is as great as ever. Yesterday there were +so many in the edifice that the Juries which kept together often found +themselves impeded by the eddying tide of Humanity; and yet there have +been no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>admissions paid for with so little as one dollar each. Next +Monday the charge comes down to <i>one</i> shilling (24 cents), and it is +already evident that extraordinary measures must be taken to preserve +the Exhibition from choking up. I presume it will be decreed that no +more than Forty, Fifty or at most Sixty Thousand single admissions shall +be sold in one day, and that each apartment, lane or avenue in the +building shall be entered from one prescribed end only and vacated from +the other. The necessity for some such regulation is obviously +imperative.</p> + +<p>The immense pecuniary success of the Exhibition is of course assured. I +presume the Commissioners will be able to pay all fair charges upon +them, and very nearly, if not quite, clear the Crystal Palace from the +proceeds, over $15,000 having been taken yesterday, and an average of +more than $10,000 per day since the commencement. If we estimate the +receipts of May inclusive at $400,000 only, and those of June and July, +at $150,000 each, the total proceeds will, on the 1st of August, have +reached $700,000—a larger sum than was ever before realized in a like +period by any Exhibition whatever. But then no other was ever comparable +to this in extent, variety or magnificence. For example: a single London +house has <i>One Million Dollars'</i> worth of the most superb Plate and +Jewelry in the Exhibition, in a by no means unfavorable position; yet I +had spent the better portion of five days there, roaming and gazing at +will, before I saw this lot. There are three Diamonds exhibited which +are worth, according to the standard method of computing the value of +Diamonds, at least Thirty millions of Dollars, and probably could be +sold in a week for Twenty Millions; I have seen but one of them as yet, +and that stands so conspicuously in the center of the Exhibition that +few who enter can help seeing it. And there are several miles of cases +and lots of costly wares and fabrics exposed here, a good share of which +are quite as attractive as the great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>Diamonds, and intrinsically far +more valuable. Is there cause for wonder, then, that the Exhibition is +daily thronged by tens of thousands, even at the present high prices?</p> + +<p>Yet very much of this immediate and indisputable success is due to the +personal influence and example of the Queen. Had she not seen fit to +open the display in person, and with unusual and imposing formalities, +there would have been no considerable attendance on that occasion; and +nothing less than her repeated and almost daily visits since, reaching +the building a little past nine in the morning (sometimes after being +engrossed with one of her State Balls or other festivities till long +after midnight), could have secured so general and constant an +attendance of the Aristocratic and Fashionable classes. No American who +has not been in Europe can conceive the extent of Royal influence in +this direction. What the Queen does every one who aspires to Social +consideration makes haste to imitate if possible. This personal +deference is often carried to an extent quite inconsistent with her +comfort and freedom, as I have observed in the Crystal Palace; where, +though I have never crowded near enough to recognize her, I have often +seen a throng blockading the approaches to the apartment or avenue in +which she and her cortege were examining the articles exhibited, and +there (being kept back from a nearer approach by the Police) they have +stood gaping and staring till she left, often for half an hour. This may +be intense loyalty, but it is dubious civility. Even on Saturday +mornings, when none but the Royal visiters are admitted till noon, and +only Jurors, Police and those Exhibitors whose wares or fabrics she +purposes that day to inspect are allowed to be present, I have noted +similar though smaller crowds facing the Police at the points of nearest +approach to her. At such times, her desire to be left to herself is +clearly proclaimed, and this gazing by the half hour amounts to positive +rudeness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>I remarked the other evening to Charles Lane that, while I did not doubt +the sincerity of the Queen's interest in the articles exhibited, I +thought there was some purpose in these continual and protracted +visits—that, for England's sake and that of her husband, whose personal +stake in the undertaking was so great, she had resolved that it should +not fail if she could help it—and she knew how to help it. Lane +assentingly but more happily observed: "Yes: though she seems to be +standing on <i>this</i> side of the counter, she is perhaps really standing +on <i>the other</i>."—As I regard such Exhibitions as among the very best +pursuits to which Royalty can addict itself, I should not give utterance +to this presumption if I did not esteem it creditable to Victoria both +as a Briton and a Queen. And it is very plain that her conduct in the +premises is daily, among her subjects, diffusing and deepening her +popularity.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>DINNER AT RICHMOND.</h3> + +<p>The London Commissioners gave a great Dinner at Richmond, yesterday, to +the foreign Commissioners in attendance on the Exhibition: Lord +Ashburton presiding, flanked by Foreign Ministers and Nobles. The feast +was of course superb; the speaking generally fair; the Music abundant +and faultless. Good songs were capitally given by eminent vocalists, +well sustained by instruments, between the several toasts with their +responses—a fashion which I suggest for adoption in our own country, +especially with the condition that the Speeches be shortened to give +time for the Songs. At this dinner, no Speech exceeded fifteen minutes +in duration but that of Baron Dupin, which may have consumed half an +hour, but in every other respect was admirable. The Englishmen who spoke +were Lords Ashburton and Granville, Messrs. Crace and Paxton; of the +Foreigners, Messrs. Dupin (France), Van de Weyer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>(Belgian Chargé), Von +Viebhan (Prussian), and myself. Lord Ashburton spoke with great good +sense and good feeling, but without fluency. Lord Granville's remarks +were admirable in matter but also defective in manner. Barons Van de +Weyer and Dupin were very happy. The contrast in felicity of expression +between the British and the Continental speakers was very striking, +though the latter had no advantage in other respects.</p> + +<p>I went there at the pressing request of Lord Ashburton, who had desired +that an American should propose the health of Mr. Paxton, the designer +of the Crystal Palace, and Mr. Riddle, our Commissioner, had designated +me for the service; so I spoke about five minutes, and my remarks were +most kindly received by the entire company; yet <i>The Times</i> of to-day, +in its report of the festival, suppresses not merely what I said, but +the sentiment I offered and even my name, merely stating that "Mr. +Paxton was then toasted and replied as follows." The <i>Daily News</i> does +likewise, only it says Mr. Paxton's health was proposed by a Mr. +<i>Wedding</i> (a Prussian who sat near me). I state these facts to expose +the falsehood of the boast lately made by <i>The Times</i> in its +championship of dear newspapers like the British against cheap ones like +the American that "In this country fidelity in newspaper reporting is a +religion, and its dictates are never disregarded," &c. The pains taken +to suppress not merely what I said but its substance, and even my name, +while inserting Mr. Paxton's response, refutes the Pharisaic assumption +of The Times so happily that I could not let it pass.—Nay, I am willing +to brave the imputation of egotism by appending a faithful transcript of +what I <i>did</i> say on that occasion, that the reader may guess <i>why</i> The +Times deemed its suppression advisable:</p> + +<p>After Baron Dupin had concluded,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Horace Greeley</span>, being next called upon by the chair, arose and +said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where Nature is still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +so rugged and unconquered, where Population is yet so scanty +and the demands for human exertion are so various and urgent, +it is but natural that we should render marked honor to Labor, +and especially to those who by invention or discovery +contribute to shorten the processes and increase the +efficiency of Industry. It is but natural, therefore, that +this grand conception of a comparison of the state of Industry +in all Nations, by means of a World's Exhibition, should there +have been received and canvassed with a lively and general +interest—an interest which is not measured by the extent of +our contributions. Ours is still one of the youngest of +Nations, with few large accumulations of the fruits of +manufacturing activity or artistic skill, and these so +generally needed for use that we were not likely to send them +three thousand miles away, merely for show. It is none the +less certain that the progress of this great Exhibition from +its original conception to that perfect realization which we +here commemorate, has been watched and discussed not more +earnestly throughout the saloons of Europe, than by the +smith's forge and the mechanic's bench in America. Especially +the hopes and fears alternately predominant on this side with +respect to the edifice required for this Exhibition—the +doubts as to the practicability of erecting one sufficiently +capacious and commodious to contain and display the +contributions of the whole world—the apprehension that it +could not be rendered impervious to water—the confident +assertions that it could not be completed in season for +opening the Exhibition on the first of May as promised—all +found an echo on our shores; and now the tidings that all +these doubts have been dispelled, these difficulties removed, +will have been hailed there with unmingled satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"I trust, gentlemen, that among the ultimate fruits of this +Exhibition we are to reckon a wider and deeper appreciation of +the worth of Labor, and especially of those 'Captains of +Industry' by whose conceptions and achievements our Race is so +rapidly borne onward in its progress to a loftier and more +benignant destiny. We shall not be likely to appreciate less +fully the merits of the wise Statesman, by whose measures a +People's thrift and happiness are promoted—of the brave +Soldier who joyfully pours out his blood in defense of the +rights or in vindication of the honor of his Country—of the +Sacred Teacher by whose precepts and example our steps are +guided in the pathway to heaven—if we render fit honor also +to those 'Captains of Industry' whose tearless victories +redden no river and whose conquering march is unmarked by the +tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. I give you, +therefore,</p> + +<p>"<i>The Health of Joseph Paxton, Esq.</i>, <i>Designer of the Crystal +Palace</i>—Honor to him whose genius does honor to Industry and +to Man!"</p></div> + +<p>If the reader shall discern in the above (which is as nearly literal as +may be—I having only recollection to depend on) the <i>reason</i> why <i>The +Times</i> saw fit to suppress not merely the remarks, but the words of the +toast and the name of the proposer, I shall be satisfied; though I think +the exposure of that journal's argument for dear newspapers as +preferable to cheap ones, on the ground that the former always gave fair +and accurate reports of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>public meetings while the latter never did, is +worth the space I have given to this matter. I am very sure that if my +remarks had been deemed discreditable to myself or my country, they +would have been fully reported in <i>The Times</i>.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>EXHIBITION ITEMS.</h3> + +<p>The Queen and Prince Albert spent an hour in the American department a +few mornings since, and appeared to regard the articles there displayed +with deep interest. Prince Albert (who is esteemed here not merely a man +of sterling good sense, but thoroughly versed in mechanics and +manufactures) expressed much surprise at the variety of our +contributions and the utility and excellence of many of them. I mention +this because there are some Americans here who declare themselves +<i>ashamed of their country</i> because of the meagerness of its share in the +Exhibition. I do not suppose their country will deem it worth while to +return the compliment; but I should have been far more ashamed of the +prodigality and want of sense evinced in sending an indiscriminate +profusion of American products here than I am of the actual state of the +case. It is true, as I have already stated, that we are deficient in +some things which might have been sent here with advantage to the +contributors and with credit to the country; but for Americans to send +here articles of luxury and fashion to be exhibited in competition with +all the choicest wares and fabrics of Europe, which must have beaten +them if only by the force of mere quantity alone, would have evinced a +want of sense and consideration which I trust is not our National +characteristic. If I ever <i>do</i> feel ashamed in the American department, +it is on observing a pair of very well shaped and exquisitely finished +oars, labeled, "A Present for the Prince of Wales," or something of the +sort. Spare me the necessity of blushing for what we <i>have</i> there, and I +am safe enough from shame on account of our deficiencies.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>Mr. A. C. Hobbs, of the lock-making concern of Day & Newell, has +improved his leisure here in picking a six-tumbler Bank Lock of Mr. +Chubb, the great English locksmith, and he now gives notice that he can +pick <i>any</i> of Chubb's locks, or any other based on similar principles, +as he is willing to demonstrate in any fair trial. I trust he will have +a chance.</p> + +<p>The Queen quits the Exhibition for a time this week, and retires to her +house on the Isle of Wight, where she will spend some days in private +with her family. I presume the Aristocracy will generally follow her +example, so far as the Exhibition is concerned, leaving it to the poorer +class, to whom five shillings is a consideration. Absurd speculations +are rife as to what "the mob" will do in such a building—whether they +will evacuate it quietly and promptly at night—whether there will not +be a rush made at the diamonds and other precious stones by bands of +thieves secretly confederated for plunder, &c. &c. I do not remember +that like apprehensions were ever entertained in our country; but faith +in Man abstractly is weak here, while faith in the Police, the +Horse-Guards and the Gallows, is strong.—There are always two hundred +soldiers and three hundred policemen in the building while it is open to +the public; and in case of any attempt at robbery, every outlet would +(by means of the Telegraph) be closed and guarded within a few seconds, +while hundreds if not thousands of soldiers are at all times within +call. But they will not be needed.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="IX" id="IX"></a> +<br /> +<h2>IX.</h2> +<h2>SIGHTS IN LONDON.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Friday, May 23, 1851.</p> + + +<p>I have been much occupied, through the last fortnight, and shall be for +some ten days more, with the Great Exhibition, in fulfillment of the +duties of a Juror therein. The number of Americans here (not exhibitors) +who can and will devote the time required for this service is so small +that none can well be excused; and the fairness evinced by the Royal +Commissioners in offering to place as many foreigners (named by the +Commissioners of their respective countries) as Britons on the several +Juries well deserves to be met in a corresponding spirit. I did not, +therefore, feel at liberty to decline the post of Juror, to which I had +been assigned before my arrival, though it involves much labor and care, +and will keep me here somewhat longer than I had intended to stay. On +the other hand, it has opened to me sources of information and +facilities for observation which I could not, in a brief visit to a land +of strangers, have otherwise hoped to enjoy. I spend each secular day at +the Exhibition—generally from 10 to 3 o'clock—and have my evenings for +other pursuits and thoughts. I propose here to jot down a few of the +notes on London I have made since the sailing of the last steamship.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>WESTMINSTER ABBEY.</h3> + + +<p>I attended Divine worship in this celebrated edifice last Sunday +morning. Situated near the Houses of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>Parliament, the Royal Palaces of +Buckingham and St. James, and in the most aristocratic quarter of the +city, its external appearance is less imposing than I had expected, and +what I saw of its interior did not particularly impress me. Lofty +ceilings, stained windows, and a barbaric profusion of carving, groining +and all manner of costly contrivances for absorbing money and labor, +made on me the impression of waste rather than taste, seeming to give +form and substance to the orator's simile of "the contortions of the +sibyl without her inspiration." A better acquaintance with the edifice, +or with the principles of architecture, might serve to correct this +hasty judgment; but surely Westminster Abbey ought to afford a place of +worship equal in capacity, fitness and convenience to a modern church +edifice costing $50,000, and surely it does not. I think there is no one +of the ten best churches in New York which is not superior to the Abbey +for this purpose.</p> + +<p>I supposed myself acquainted with all the approved renderings of the +Episcopal morning service, but when the clergyman who officiated at the +Abbey began to twang out "Dearly beloved brethren," &c., in a nasal, +drawling semi-chant, I was taken completely aback. It sounded as though +some graceless Friar Tuck had wormed himself into the desk and was +endeavoring, under the pretense of reading the service, to caricature as +broadly as possible the alleged peculiarity of Methodistic pulpit +enunciation superimposed upon the regular Yankee drawl. As the service +proceeded, I became more accustomed and more reconciled to this mode of +utterance, but never enough so to like it, nor even the responses, which +were given in the same way, but much better. After I came away, I was +informed that this semi-chant is termed <i>intoning</i>, and is said to be a +revival of an ancient method of rendering the church service. If such be +the fact, I can only say that in my poor judgment that revival was an +unwise and unfortunate one.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>The Service was very long—more than two hours—the Music excellent—the +congregation large—the Sermon, so far as I could judge, had nothing bad +in it. Yet there was an Eleventh-Century air about the whole which +strengthened my conviction that the Anglican Church will very soon be +potentially summoned to take her stand distinctly on the side either of +Romanism or of Protestantism, and that the summons will shake not the +Church only but the Realm to its centre.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>RAGGED SCHOOLS.</h3> + +<p>In the evening I attended the Ragged School situated in Carter's-field +Lane, near the Cattle-Market in Smithfield [where John Rogers was burned +at the stake by Catholics, as Catholics had been burned by Protestants +before him. The honest, candid history of Persecution for Faith's sake, +has never yet been written; whenever it shall be, it must cause many +ears to tingle].</p> + +<p>It was something past 7 o'clock when we reached the rough old building, +in a filthy, poverty-stricken quarter, which has been rudely fitted up +for the Ragged School—one of the first, I believe, that was attempted. +I should say there were about four hundred pupils on its benches, with +about forty teachers; the pupils were at least two-thirds males from +five to twenty years old, with a dozen or more adults. The girls were a +hundred or so, mainly from three to ten years of age; but in a separate +and upper apartment ascending out of the main room, there were some +forty adult women, with teachers exclusively of their own sex. The +teachers were of various grades of capacity; but, as all teach without +pay and under circumstances which forbid the idea of any other than +philanthropic or religious attractiveness in the duty, they are all +deserving of praise. The teaching is confined, I believe, to rudimental +instruction in reading and spelling, and to historic, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>theologic and +moral lessons from the Bible. As the doors are open, and every one who +sees fit comes in, stays so long as he or she pleases, and then goes +out, there is much confusion and bustle at times, but on the whole a +satisfactory degree of order is preserved, and considerable, though very +unequal, progress made by the pupils.</p> + +<p>But such faces! such garments! such daguerreotypes of the superlative of +human wretchedness and degradation! These pupils were gathered from +among the outcasts of London—those who have no family ties, no homes, +no education, no religious training, but were born to wander about the +docks, picking up a chance job now and then, but acquiring no skill, no +settled vocation, often compelled to steal or starve, and finally +trained to regard the sheltered, well fed, and respected majority as +their natural oppressors and their natural prey. Of this large class of +vagrants, amounting in this city to thousands, Theft and (for the +females) Harlotry, whenever the cost of a loaf of bread or a night's +lodging could be procured by either, were as matter-of-course resorts +for a livelihood as privateering, campaigning, distilling or (till +recently) slave-trading was to many respected and well-to-do champions +of order and Conservatism throughout Christendom. And the outcasts have +ten times the excuse for their moral blindness and their social misdeeds +that their well-fed competitors in iniquity ever had. They have simply +regarded the world as their oyster and tried to open its hard shells as +they best could, not indicating thereby a special love of oysters but a +craving appetite for food of some kind. It was oyster or nothing with +them. And in the course of life thus forced upon them, the males who +survived the period of infancy may have averaged twenty-five years of +wretched, debased, brutal existence, while the females, of more delicate +frame and subjected to additional evils, have usually died much younger. +But the gallows, the charity hospitals, the prisons, the work-houses +(refuges denied to the healthy and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>unconvicted), with the unfenced +kennels and hiding-places of the destitute during inclement weather, +generally saw the earthly end of them all by the time that men in better +circumstances have usually attained their prime. And all this has been +going on unresisted and almost unnoticed for countless generations, in +the very shadows of hundreds of church steeples, and in a city which +pays millions of dollars annually for the support of Gospel +ministrations.</p> + +<p>The chief impression made on me by the spectacle here presented was one +of intense sadness and self-reproach. I deeply realised that I had +hitherto said too little, done too little, dared too little, sacrificed +too little, to awaken attention to the infernal wrongs and abuses which +are inherent in the very structure and constitution, the nature and +essence, of civilised Society as it now exists throughout Christendom. +Of what avail are alms-giving, and individual benevolence, and even the +offices of Religion, in the presence of evil so gigantic and so inwoven +with the very framework of Society? There have been here in all recent +times charitable men, good men, enough to have saved Sodom, but not +enough to save Society from the condemnation of driving this outcast +race before it like sheep to the slaughter, as its members pressed on in +pursuit of their several schemes of pleasure, riches or ambition, +looking up to God for His approbation on their benevolence as they +tossed a penny to some miserable beggar after they had stolen the earth +from under his feet. How long shall this endure?</p> + +<p>The School was dismissed, and every one requested to leave who did not +choose to attend the prayer-meeting. No effort was made to induce any to +stay—the contrary rather. I was surprised to see that three-fourths (I +think) staid; though this was partly explained afterwards by the fact +that by staying they had hopes of a night's lodging here and none +elsewhere. That prayer-meeting was the most impressive and salutary +religious service I have attended for many years. Four or five prayers +were made by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>different teachers in succession—all chaste, appropriate, +excellent, fervent, affecting. A Hymn was sung before and after each by +the congregation—and well sung. Brief and cogent addresses were made by +the superintendent and (I believe) an American visitor. Then the School +was dismissed, and the pupils who had tickets permitting them to sleep +in the dormitory below filed off in regular order to their several +berths. The residue left the premises. We visiters were next permitted +to go down and see those who staid—of course only the ladies being +allowed to look into the apartment of the women. O the sadness of that +sight! There in the men's room were perhaps a hundred men and boys, +sitting up in their rags in little compartments of naked boards, each +about half-way between a bread-tray and a hog-trough, which, planted +close to each other, were to be their resting-places for the night, as +they had been for several previous nights. And this is a very recent and +very blessed addition to the School, made by the munificence of some +noble woman, who gave $500 expressly to fit up some kind of a +sleeping-room, so that those who had attended the School should not +<i>all</i> be turned out (as a part still necessarily are) to wander or lie +all night in the always cold, damp streets. There are not many hogs in +America who are not better lodged than these poor human brethren and +sisters, who now united, at the suggestion of the superintendent, in a +hymn of praise to God for all His mercies. Doubtless, many did so with +an eye to the shelter and hope of food (for each one who is permitted to +stay here has a bath and six ounces of bread allowed him in the +morning); yet when I contrasted this with the more formal and stately +worship I had attended at Westminster Abbey in the morning, the +preponderance was decidedly not in favor of the latter.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me a profanation—an insult heaped on injury—an +unjustifiable prying into the saddest secrets <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>of the great prison-house +of human woe—for us visiters to be standing here; and, though I +apologised for it with a sovereign, which grain of sand will, I am sure, +be wisely applied to the mitigation of this mountain of misery, I was +yet in haste to be gone. Yet I leaned over the rail and made some +inquiry of a ragged and forlorn youth of nineteen or twenty who sat next +us in his trough, waiting for our departure before he lay down to such +rest as that place could afford him. He replied that he had no parents +nor friends who could help him—had never been taught any trade—always +did any work he could get—sometimes earned six-pence to a shilling per +day by odd jobs, but could get no work lately—had no money, of +course—and had eaten nothing that day but the six ounces of bread given +him on rising here in the morning—and had only the like six ounces in +prospect between him and starvation. That hundreds so situated should +unite with seeming fervor in praise to God shames the more polished +devotion of the favored and comfortable; and if these famishing, +hopeless outcasts were to pilfer every day of their lives (as most of +them did, and perhaps some of them still do), I should pity even more +than I blamed them.</p> + +<p>The next night gave me a clearer idea of</p> + +<br /> +<h3>BRITISH ANTI-SLAVERY.</h3> + +<p>The Annual meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was +held on Monday evening, in Freemasons' Hall—a very fine one. There were +about One Thousand persons present—perhaps less, certainly not more. I +think <span class="smcap">Joseph Sturge</span>, Esq., was Chairman, but I did not arrive +till after the organization, and did not learn the officers' names. At +all events, Mr. Sturge had presented the great practical question to the +Meeting—"What can we Britons do to hasten the overthrow of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>Slavery?"—and Rev. <span class="smcap">H. H. Garnett</span> (colored) of our State was +speaking upon it when I entered. He named me commendingly to the audience, +and the Chairman thereupon invited me to exchange my back seat for one on +the platform, which I took. Mr. Garnett proceeded to commend the course +of British action against Slavery which is popular here, and had already +been shadowed forth in the set resolves afterward read to the meeting. +The British were told that they could most effectually war against Slavery +by refusing the courtesies of social intercourse to slaveholders—by +refusing to hear or recognise pro-slavery clergymen—by refusing to +consume the products of Slave Labor, &c. Another colored American—a Rev. +Mr. <span class="smcap">Crummill</span>, if I have his name right,—followed in the same +vein, but urged more especially the duty of aiding the Free Colored +population of the United-States to educate and intellectually develop +their children. Mr. <span class="smcap">S. M. Peto</span>, M. P. followed in confirmation +of the views already expressed by Mr. Garnett, insisting that he could +not as a Christian treat the slaveholder otherwise than as a tyrant and +robber. And then a very witty negro from Boston (Rev. Mr. Heuston, I +understood his name), spoke quite at length in unmeasured glorification +of Great Britain, as the land of <i>true</i> freedom and equality, where +simple Manhood is respected without regard to Color, and where alone he +had ever been treated by all as a man and a brother.</p> + +<p>By this time I was very ready to accept the Chairman's invitation to say +a few words. For, while all that the speakers had uttered with regard to +Slavery was true enough, it was most manifest that, whatever effect the +course of action they urged might have in America, it could have no +other than a baneful influence on the cause of Political Reform in this +country. True, it did not always say in so many words that the Social +and Political institutions of Great Britain are perfect, but it never +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>intimated the contrary, while it generally implied and often distinctly +affirmed this. The effect, therefore, of such inculcations, is not only +to stimulate and aggravate the Phariseeism to which all men are +naturally addicted, but actually to impede and arrest the progress of +Reform in this Country by implying that nothing here needs reforming. +And as this doctrine of "Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou," +was of course received with general applause by a British audience, the +vices of speaker and hearer reäcted on each other; and, judging from the +specimens I had that evening, I must regard American, and especially +Afric-American lecturers against Slavery in this country as among the +most effective upholders of all the enormous Political abuses and wrongs +which are here so prevalent.</p> + +<p>When the stand was accorded me, therefore, I proceeded, not by any means +to apologize for American Slavery, not to suggest the natural obstacles +to its extinction, but to point out, as freely as the audience would +bear, some modes of effective hostility to it in addition to those +already commended. Premising the fact that Slavery in America now +justifies itself mainly on the grounds that the class who live by rude +manual toil always are and must be degraded and ill-requited—that there +is more debasement and wretchedness on their part in the Free States and +in Great Britain itself than there is in the Slave States—and that, +moreover, Free laborers will not work in tropical climates, so that +these must be cultivated by slaves or not at all—I suggested and +briefly urged on British Abolitionists the following course of action:</p> + +<p>1. Energetic and systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labor +and the comfort and consideration of the depressed Laboring Class here +at home; and to diffuse and cherish respect for Man as Man, without +regard to class, color or vocation.</p> + +<p>2. Determined efforts for the eradication of those Social evils and +miseries <i>here</i> which are appealed to and relied <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>on by slaveholders and +their champions everywhere as justifying the continuance of Slavery; And</p> + +<p>3. The colonization of our Slave States by thousands of intelligent, +moral, industrious Free Laborers, who will silently and practically +dispel the wide-spread delusion which affirms that the Southern States +must be cultivated and their great staples produced by Slave Labor or +not at all.</p> + +<p>I think I did not speak more than fifteen minutes, and I was heard +patiently to the end, but my remarks were received with no such +"thunders of applause" as had been accorded to the more politic efforts +of the colored gentlemen. There was in fact repeatedly evinced a +prevalent apprehension that I <i>would</i> say something which it would be +incumbent on the audience to resent; but I did not. And I have a faint +hope that some of the remarks thus called forth will be remembered and +reflected on. I am sure there is great need of it, and that +denunciations of Slavery addressed by London to Charleston and Mobile +will be far more effective after the extreme of destitution and misery +uncovered by the Ragged Schools shall have been banished forever from +this island—nay, after the great body of those who here denounce +Slavery so unsparingly shall have earnestly, unselfishly, thoroughly +<i>tried</i> so to banish it.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="X" id="X"></a> +<br /> +<h2>X.</h2> +<h2>POLITICAL ECONOMY, AS STUDIED AT THE WORLD'S EXHIBITION.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Tuesday, May 27, 1851.</p> + +<p>To say, as some do, that the English hate the Americans, is to do the +former injustice. Even if we leave out of the account the British +millions who subsist by rude manual toil, and who certainly regard our +country, so far as they think of it at all, with an emotion very +different from hatred, there is evinced by the more fortunate classes a +very general though not unqualified admiration of the rapidity of our +progress, the vastness of our resources, and the extraordinary physical +energy developed in our brief, impetuous career. Dense as is the +ignorance which widely prevails in Europe with regard to American +history and geography, it is still very generally understood that we +were, only seventy years since, but Three Millions of widely scattered +Colonists, doubtfully contending, on a narrow belt of partially cleared +sea-coast, with the mother country on one side and the savages on the +other, for a Political existence; and that now we are a nation of +Twenty-three Millions, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and +from the cane-producing Tropic to the shores of Lake Superior where snow +lies half the year—from Nantucket and the Chesapeake to the affluents +of Hudson's Bay and the spacious harbors and sheltered roadsteads of +Nootka Sound. And this vast extent of country, the Briton remarks with +pride, we have not merely overrun, as the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>Spanish so rapidly traversed +South America, but have really appropriated and in good degree +assimilated, so that the far shores of the Pacific, which have but for +three or four years felt the tread of the Anglo-American, are now dotted +with energetic and thriving marts of Commerce, into whose lap gold mines +are pouring their lavish treasures, while a profusion of steamers, ships +and smaller watercraft link them closely with each other, with the +Atlantic States and the Old World, while their numerous daily journals +are aiding to diffuse the English language through the isles of the +immense Pacific, and their "merchant princes" are coolly discussing the +advantages of establishing a direct communication by lines of steamships +with China and opening the wealth of Japan to the commerce of the +civilized world. All this is marked with something of wonder but more of +pride by the ruling classes in Great Britain—the pride of a father +whose son has beaten him and run away, but who nevertheless hears with +interest and gratification that the unfilial reprobate is conquering +fame and fortune, and who with beaming eye observes to a neighbor, "A +wild boy that of mine, sir, but blood will tell!" If the United States +were attacked by any power or alliance strong enough to threaten their +subjugation, the sympathy felt for them in these islands would be +intense and all but universal.</p> + +<p>And yet there is another side of the picture, which in fairness must +also be presented. The favored classes in Great Britain, while they +heartily admire the American energy and its fruits, do and must +nevertheless <i>dread the contagion of our example</i>; and this dread must +increase and be diffused as the rapidly increasing power, population and +wealth of our country commend it more and more to the attention of the +world. While we were some sixty days distant, and heard of mainly in +connection with Indian fights or massacres, fatal steamboat explosions +or insolvent banks, this contagion was not imminent and did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>not +seriously alarm; but, now that New-York is but ten days from London, and +New-Orleans (by Telegraph) scarcely more, the case is bravely altered, +and it becomes daily more and more palpable that the United States and +Great Britain cannot both remain as they are. If we in America can have +a succession of capable and reputable Chief Magistrates for £5,000 a +year, of Chief Justices for £1,000, and of Cabinets at a gross cost of +less than £10,000, it is manifest that John Bull, who, loyal as he is, +has a strong instinct of thrift and a pride in getting the worth of his +money, will not long be content to pay a hundred times as much for his +Chief Executive and ten times as much for his Judiciary and Ministry as +we do. It is a question, therefore, of the deepest practical interest to +the British Nation whether the Americans do really enjoy the advantages +of peace, order and security for the rights of person and property +through instrumentalities so cheap, and so dependent on moral force +only, as those devised and established by Washington and his +compatriots. If we have these with a Civil List of less than £1,000,000 +sterling, an Army of less than Ten Thousand men, and a Navy (why won't +it die and get decently buried?) of a dozen or two active vessels, why +should John tax and sweat himself as he does to maintain a Political +establishment which costs him over $150,000,000 a year beside the +interest on his enormous National Debt? If we, without any Church +endowed by law, have as ample and widely diffused provision for Divine +worship and Religious instruction as he has, why should he pay tithes to +endow Lord Bishops with incomes of £10,000 to £80,000 per annum?—These +and similar questions are beginning to be widely pondered here: they +refuse to be longer drowned by the blare of trumpets and the resonant +melody of "God save the Queen!" I know nobody who objects to that last +quoted sentiment, but there are many here, and the number is increasing, +who think there is an urgent and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>practical need of salvation also for +the People—salvation from heavy exactions, unjust burthens and galling +distinctions. And, as the interest of the Many in the reform of abuses +and the removal of impositions becomes daily more obvious and palpable, +so does the instinctive grasp of the Few to keep what they have and get +what they can become likewise more muscular and positive. And this +instinct absolutely demands a perversion or suppression of the truth +with regard to America—with regard especially to the prevalence of +order, justice and tranquillity within her borders. And not this only: +it is important to this class that it be made to appear that, while +Republican institutions may possibly answer for a time in a rude and +semi-barbarous community of scattered grain-growers and herdsmen, they +are utterly incompatible with a dense population, with general +refinement, the upbuilding of Manufactures and the prevalence of the +arts of civilized life.</p> + +<p>Here, then, is the cue to the cry so early and generally raised, so +often and invidiously renewed by the London daily press, of surprise at +the meagerness of our country's share in the Great Exhibition. Had any +other young nation of Twenty Millions, located three to five thousand +miles off, sent a collection so large and so creditable to its +industrial proficiency and inventive power, it would have been warmly +commended by these same journals; but it is deemed desirable to make an +impression on the public mind of Europe adverse to American skill and +attainment in the Arts, and hence these representations and sneers.</p> + +<p>Yet, gentlemen! what would you have? For years you have been devoting +your energies to the task of convincing our people that they should be +content to grow Food and Cotton and send them hither in exchange for +Wares and Fabrics, especially those of the finer and costlier varieties. +You have written reams of essays intended to prove that this course of +Industry and Trade is dictated by Nature, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>by Providence, by Public +good; and that only narrow and short-sighted selfishness would seek to +overrule it. Well: here are American samples of all the staples you say +our Country <i>ought</i> to produce and be content with, in undeniable +abundance and excellence—Cotton, Wool, Wheat, Flour, Indian Corn, Hams, +Beef, &c., &c., yet these you run over with a glance of cool contempt, +and say we have nothing in the Exhibition! Is this kind or politic +treatment of the supporters of your policy in the States? If a seeming +approximation to your Utopia should subject them to such compliments, +what may they expect from its perfect consummation? Let all our States +become as purely Agricultural as the Carolinas or the lower valley of +the Mississippi, and what would then be your estimation of us? If a +half-way obedience to your counsels exposes us to such disparagement, +what might we fairly expect from a thorough submission?</p> + +<p>The vital truth, everywhere demonstrable, is nowhere so palpable as +here—that a diversification of Industrial pursuits is essential not +only to the prosperity and thrift, but also to the education and +intellectual activity of a People. A community which witnesses from year +to year the processes of Agricultural labor only, lacks a stimulus to +mental cultivation of inestimable value. If Europe were to say to +America, "Sit still, and we will send you from year to year all the +Wares and Fabrics you need for nothing, on the simple condition that you +will not attempt to produce any yourselves," it would be most unwise and +suicidal to accept the offer. For we need not more the Wares and Fabrics +than the skill which fashions and the taste which beautifies them. We +need that multiform capacity and facility of hand and brain which only +experience in the Arts can bestow and diffuse. The National Industry is +the People's University; to confine it to a few and those the ruder +branches is to stunt and stagnate the popular mind—is to arrest the +march of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>improvement in Agriculture itself. Hence, nearly or quite all +the modern improvements in Cultivation have been made in immediate +proximity to a dense Manufacturing population; hence Belgium is now a +garden, while Ireland (except the manufacturing North) is to a great +extent stagnant and decaying. Other causes doubtless conspire, as in +England contrasted with Italy and Spain, to produce these results, but +they do not unsettle the general truth that Industry advances through a +symmetric and many-sided development or does not advance at all.</p> + +<p>We have yet much to learn in the Arts, but the first lesson of all is a +well-founded confidence in our own artisans, our own capacities, with a +patriotic resolution to encourage the former and develop the latter. And +this confidence is abundantly justified even by what is exhibited here. +While our show of products is much less than it might and less even than +it should have been, those who have really studied it draw thence hope +and courage. No other nation exhibits within a similar compass so great +a diversity of excellence—no other exhibits so large a proportion of +inventions and valuable improvements. Even in the vast apartment devoted +to British Machinery, the number and importance of the American +inventions exhibited (some of them adapted to new uses or improved upon +in this country; others merely incorporated with British improvements), +is very striking. I doubt whether England during the last half century +has borrowed so many inventions from all the world beside—I am sure she +has not from all except France—as she has from the United States. And +yet we are blessed with the presence of sundry Americans here who, +without having examined our contributions, without knowing anything more +about them than they have gleaned from <i>The Times</i> and <i>Punch</i>, aided by +a hurried walk through the department, are busily proclaiming that this +show makes them ashamed of their country!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Here is the great source of our weakness—a want of proper pride in and +devotion to our own Industrial interests. Every sort of patriotism is +abundant in America but that which is most essential—that which aids to +develop and strengthen the Nation's productive energies. No other people +buy Foreign fabrics extensively in preference to the equally cheap and +more substantial products of their own looms, yet ours do it habitually. +I had testimony after testimony from American merchants on the voyage +over, as well as before and since, that foreign fabrics habitually sell +in our markets for ten to twenty per cent. more than is asked for +equally good American products, while thousands of pieces of the latter +are readily sold on the strength of fabricated Foreign marks at prices +which they would not command to customers who would not buy them, if +their origin were known. This is certainly disgraceful to the +seller—what is it to the buyer? The mercantile interest naturally leans +toward the more distant production—the margin for profit is larger +where an article is brought across an ocean, while the cost of a home +made article is so notorious that there is little chance of putting on a +large profit. Give American producers the prices now readily paid +throughout our country for Foreign fabrics and they will grow rich by +manufacturing articles in no respect inferior to the former. But with +only a share of the American market, and this mainly for the coarsest +and cheapest goods, while the purchasers of the more costly and +fanciful, on which the larger profits are made, must have "Fabrique de +Paris" or some such label affixed to render them current, our +manufacturers have no fair chance. While fools could be found to buy +"Cashmere Shawls," costing fifty to a hundred dollars, for five hundred +to a thousand, under the absurd delusion that they came from Eastern +Asia, the fabrication and the profits were European; let an American +begin to make just such Shawls and the secret is out, so the price sinks +at once to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>neighborhood of the cost of production. So with De +Laines, Counterpanes, Brussels Carpetings and fabrics generally; and yet +Americans will talk as though the encouragement given by protective +Duties to home Manufacturers were given at the expense of our consumers. +Vainly are they challenged from day to day to name one single article +whereof the production has been transplanted from Europe to America +through Protection, which has not thereby been materially cheapened to +the American consumer; it suits them better to assume that the duty is a +tax on the consumer than to examine the case and admit the truth. But +delusion cannot be eternal.</p> + +<p>That our Country would at some future day work its way gradually out of +its present semi-Colonial dependence on European tastes, European +fashions, European fabrication, even though all Legislative +encouragement were withheld, I firmly believe. The genius, the activity, +the energy, the enterprise of our people conspire to assure it. So the +thief, the burglar, the forger, are certain to suffer for their misdeeds +though all the penalties of human laws were repealed, and yet I consider +state prisons and houses of correction salutary if not indispensable. It +is difficult for even an ingenious and inventive race to make +improvements in an art or process which has no existence among them. +Whitney's Cotton-Gin presupposed the growth of Cotton; Fulton's +steamboat the existence of internal commerce and navigation; without +Lowell, Bigelow might have invented a new trap for muskrats but not +looms for weaving Carpets, Ginghams, Coach-Lace, &c. I deeply feel that +our Country owes to mankind the duty of so sustaining her Manufacturing +Industry that further and more signal triumphs of her inventive genius +may yet be evolved and realised, not merely in the domain of Fabrics but +in that of Wares and Metals also, and especially in that of the chief +metal, Iron. Had Iron enjoyed for twenty years such a measure of +Protection among us as Plain Cottons obtained from 1816 through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>Mr. +Calhoun's minimum of six cents per square yard, we should, in all +probability, have been producing Iron by this time as cheaply as drills +and sheetings—that is, as cheaply (quality considered) as any nation on +the globe—as cheaply as we produce School-Books, Newspapers, and nearly +every article whereof the American maker is shielded by circumstances +from Foreign competition. Had the Tariff of 1842 but stood unaltered +till this time, who believes that even the greenest and silliest +American could have fancied himself blushing for the meagerness of his +country's share in the Great Exhibition?</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XI" id="XI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XI.</h2> +<h2>ROYAL SUNSHINE.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Thursday, May 29, 1851.</p> + +<p>I have now been four weeks in this metropolis, and, though confined +throughout nearly every day to the Crystal Palace, I have enjoyed large +and various opportunities for studying the English People. I have made +acquaintances in all ranks, from dukes to beggars—all ranks, I should +say, but that which is esteemed the highest. I have of course seen the +Royal family repeatedly at the Exhibition, which is open at all hours to +Jurors, and the Queen times her visits so as to be there mainly while it +is closed to the public. But I have barely seen her party, as I passed +it with a double row of gazers interposed, all eager to catch the +sunlight of Majesty, appearing to care little how much she might be +annoyed or they abased by their unseemly gaping. I hope no Americans +contributed to swell these groups, but after what I have seen here I am +by no means sure of it.</p> + +<p>A young countrywoman who has not yet been long enough in Europe to +forget what it cost our forefathers to be rid of all this, but who had +in her own case adequate reasons for desiring a presentation at Court, +gave me some days since a graphic account of the ceremonial, which I +wish I had committed to paper while it was freshly remembered. It is of +course understood that every one presented to her Majesty must appear in +full dress—that of gentlemen (not Military) being a Court suit alike +costly, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>fantastic and utterly useless elsewhere, while ladies are +expected to appear in rich <img src="images/finger.gif" align="bottom" width="30" height="13" alt="arrow" /> <i>British</i> silk (Free Trade +notwithstanding) with a train three yards long (perhaps it is only three +feet), with plumes, &c. Thus equipped, they proceed to the Palace, where +at the appointed hour the Queen makes her appearance, with her family by +her side and backed by a double row of maids of honor, attendants, &c. +Each palpitating aspirant to the honor of presentation awaits his or her +turn standing, and may thus wait two hours. The Foreign Embassadors have +precedence in presenting; others follow; in due season your name is +called out; you pass before the Royal presence, make your bow or +courtesy, receive the faint suggestion of a response, and pass along and +away to make room for the next customer. Unless you belong essentially +to the Diplomatic circle (being presented by an Embassador will not +answer), you are not allowed to remain and see those behind you take the +plunge, but must hasten forthwith from the presence. And, as ordinary +Humanity has but one aspect in which it is fit to be gazed on by Royal +eyes, you must contrive to quit the presence with your face constantly +turned toward it. Now this need not be difficult for those in masculine +attire, but to the wearers of the rich Spitalfields silks and trains +aforesaid, even though the trains be but three feet long instead of +three yards, the evolution must require no moderate share of feminine +tact and dexterity. It is consoling to hear that all manage to +accomplish it, by dint of severe training through the week preceding the +event; though some are so frightened when the awful moment arrives that +their ghastly visages and tottering frames evince how narrowly they +escape swooning. The fact that it is over in a moment serves materially +to mitigate the torture!</p> + +<p>"What ridiculous formalities!—What absurd requirements!" exclaims +Brother Jonathan. No, sir! You are judging without knowledge or without +consideration. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>These and kindred formalities, considered apart, may be +ludicrous, but, regarded as portions of a system, they are essential. In +a country where everything gravitates so intensely toward the Throne, +there must be impediments to presentation at Court, if the Sovereign is +to enjoy any leisure, peace, comfort, or even time for the most pressing +public duties. There is and should be no absolute barrier to the +presentation of any well-bred, well-behaved person, whether subject or +foreigner; and, if it were as easy as visiting the Exhibition, the Queen +would be required to hold a drawing-room every day, and devote the whole +of it to unmeaning and useless introductions. As the matter is actually +managed, those who have any good reason for it undergo the ceremony, +with many who have none; while the great majority are content with the +knowledge that they <i>might be</i> admitted to the august presence if they +chose to incur the bother and expense. Those who cherish a moth-like +reverence for Royalty indulge it at their own cost and to the advantage +of Trade; weavers, costumers and shop-keepers are very glad to pocket +the money which the presentee must disburse; and even those ladies who +have the <i>entrée</i>, and so attend half a dozen drawing-rooms per annum, +are expected to appear at each in a new dress—thus the interests of the +shop are never lost sight of. These Court formalities, Brother J., are +<i>not</i> absurd—very far from it. They are rational, politic, beneficent, +indispensable. Whether it is wise or unwise for <i>your</i> young folks to +subject themselves to the inevitable expense and vexation for the sake +of standing a few feet nearer a Queen, is another affair altogether. +When I contrast these presentations with the freedom and ease (except +when there is a jam) of our Presidential receptions—when I remember +that any whole dress is good enough for the White House, and any honest +man or woman (with some not so honest) may go up on a levee night and be +introduced to the President and his lady, saunter through the rooms, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>converse with friends and pass in review half the notables of the +Nation—I deeply realize the superiority of Republicanism to Royalty, +but without seeking to put the new wine into old bottles. The forms +appropriate to our simpler institutions would be utterly unsuitable +here—nay, they would be found impossible.</p> + +<p>The Queen left London last week for her private residence on the Isle of +Wight, I supposed for weeks; but she was back in the Exhibition early on +Tuesday morning, and has since been holding a Drawing-Room, giving +Dinners, a Concert, &c. with her accustomed activity. She seems resolved +to make the Exhibition Summer an agreeable one for the Foreigners in +attendance, many of whom are included in her invitations. As the +"shilling days" opened meagerly on Monday, to the disappointment +(perhaps because) of the general apprehension of a crush, and as the +numbers thronging thither have rapidly increased ever since, the Queen's +renewed countenance receives a good share of the credit, and her +condescension in coming on a "shilling day" is duly commended. It is +already plain enough that the attendance consequent on the cheap +admission is destined to be enormous. To-day over Fifty Thousand paid +their shilling each, over six thousand per hour—to say nothing of the +thousands who came in on season tickets, or as exhibitors, jurors, &c. +The money taken at the doors to-day must have exceeded $12,000, though +no "excursion trains" have yet come in from the Country. These will +begin to pour in next week, by which time it is to be hoped that the +Juries will have completed their examinations if not their awards; for +they will have scanty elbow-room afterward except at early hours in the +morning. I presume there will be Fifty Thousand admissions paid for +during each of the four "shilling days," of next week. Fridays +henceforth the admission is to be 2s. 6d. (60 cents), and Saturdays 5s. +($1.20), and many believe the Palace will be as crowded on these as on +other days. I doubt.</p> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +<h3>THE LITERARY GUILD.</h3> + +<p>"The Guild of Literature and Art" will have already been heard of in +America. It is an undertaking of several fortunate authors and their +friends to make some provision for their unsuccessful brethren—for +those who had the bad luck to be born before their time, as well as +those who would apparently have done better by declining to be born at +all. The world overflows with writers who would fain transmute their +thoughts into bread, and lacking the opportunity, have a slim chance for +any bread at all, even the coarsest. No other class has less worldly +wisdom, less practical thrift; no other suffers more keenly from "the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than unlucky authors. If +anything can be done to mitigate the severity of their fate, and +especially if their more favored brethren can do it, there ought to be +but one opinion as to its propriety.</p> + +<p>And yet I fear the issue of this project. The world is scourged by +legions of drones and adventurers who have taken to Literature as in +another age they would have taken to the highway—to procure an easy +livelihood. They write because they are too lazy to work, or because +they would scorn to live on the meager product of manual toil. Of +Genius, they have mainly the eccentricities—that is to say, a strong +addiction to late hours, hot suppers and a profusion of gin and water, +though they are not particular about the water. What Authorship needs +above all things is purification from this Falstaff's regiment, who +should be taught some branch of honest industry and obliged to earn +their living by it. So far, therefore, am I from regretting that every +one who wishes cannot rush into print, and joining in the general +execration of publishers for their insensibility to unacknowledged +merit, that I wish no man could have his book printed until he had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>earned the cost thereof by <i>bona fide</i> labor, and that no one could +live by Authorship until after he had practically demonstrated both his +ability and willingness to earn his living in a different way. I greatly +fear the proposed "Guild," even under the wisest regulations, will do as +much harm as good, by aggravating the prevalent tendency toward +Authorship among thousands who never asked whether the world is likely +to profit by their lucubrations, but only whether <i>they</i> may hope to +profit by them. If the "Guild" should tend to increase the number of +aspirants to the honors and rewards of Authorship, it will incite more +misery than it is likely to overcome.</p> + +<p>However, this is an attempt to mend the fortunes of unlucky British +Authors; and as we Americans habitually steal the productions of British +Authorship, and deliberately refuse them that protection to which all +producers are justly entitled, I feel myself fairly indebted to the +class, by the amount of my reading of their works to which Copyright in +America is denied. I meant to have attended the first dramatic +entertainment given at Devonshire House in aid of this enterprise, but I +did not apply for a ticket (price £5) till too late; so I took care to +be in season for next time—that is, Tuesday evening of this week.</p> + +<p>The play (as before) was "Not so Bad as We Seem, or Many Sides to a +Character," written expressly in aid of the "Guild" by Bulwer, and +performed at the town mansion of the Duke of Devonshire, one of the most +wealthy and popular of the British nobility. On the former evening the +Queen and Royal Family attended, with some scores of the Nobility; this +time there was a sprinkling of Duchesses, &c., but Commoners largely +preponderated, and the hour of commencing was changed from 9 to 7½ +<span class="smcap">P. M.</span> The apartment devoted to the performance is a very fine +one, and the whole mansion, though common-place enough in its exterior, +is fitted up with a wealth of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>carving, gilding, sculpture, &c., which +can hardly be imagined. The scenes were painted expressly in aid of the +"Guild," and admirably done. The Duke's private band played before and +between the acts, and nothing had been spared on his part to render the +entertainment a pleasant one. Every seat was filled, and, at $10 each +and no expenses out, a handsome sum must have been realized in aid of +the benevolent enterprise.</p> + +<p>The male performers, as is well understood, are all Literary amateurs; +the ladies alone being actresses by profession. Charles Dickens had the +principal character—that of a profligate though sound-hearted young +Lord—and he played it very fairly. But stateliness sits ill upon him, +and incomparably his best scene was one wherein he appears in disguise +as a bookseller tempting the virtue of a poverty-stricken author. +Douglas Jerrold was for the nonce a young Mr. Softhead, and seemed quite +at home in the character. It was better played than Dickens's. The +residue were indifferently good—or rather, indifferently bad—and on +the whole the performance was indebted for its main interest to the +personal character of the performers. I was not sorry when it was +concluded.</p> + +<p>After a brief interval for refreshments, liberally proffered, a comic +afterpiece, "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," was given with far greater +spirit. Dickens personated the principal character—or rather, the four +or five principal characters—for the life of the piece is sustained by +his appearance successively as a lawyer, a servant, a vigorous and +active gentleman relieved of his distempers by water-cure, a feeble +invalid, &c., &c. It is long since I saw much acting of any account, but +this seemed to me perfect; and I am sure the raw material of a capital +comedian was put to a better use when Charles Dickens took to +authorship. The other characters were fairly presented, and the play +heartily enjoyed throughout.</p> + +<p>The curtain fell about half an hour past midnight amidst <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>tumultuous and +protracted applause. The company then mainly repaired to the supper +room, where a tempting display of luxuries and dainties was provided for +them by the munificence of their noble host. I did not venture to +partake at that hour, but those who did would be quite unlikely to +repent of it—till morning. Thence they were gradually moving off to +another superb apartment, where the violins were beginning to give note +of coming melody, to which flying feet were eager to respond; but I +thought one o'clock in the morning quite late enough for retiring, and +so came away before the first set was made up. I do not doubt the +dancing was maintained with spirit till broad daylight.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE FISHMONGERS' DINNER.</h3> + +<p>A sumptuous entertainment was given on Wednesday (last) evening by the +"Ancient and Honorable Company of Fishmongers"—this being their regular +annual festival. The Fishmongers' is among the oldest and wealthiest of +the Guilds of London, having acquired, by bequest or otherwise, real +estate which has been largely enhanced in value by the city's extension. +Originally an association of actual fishmongers for mutual service as +well as the cultivation of good fellowship, it has been gradually +transformed by Time's changes until now no single dealer in fish (I +understood) stands enrolled among its living members, and no fish is +seen within the precincts of its stately Hall save on feast-days like +this. Still, as its rents are ample, its privileges valuable, its +charities bounteous, its dinners superlative, its cellars stored with +ancient wines, and its leaning decided toward modern ideas, its roll of +members is well filled. Most of them are city men extensively engaged in +business, two or three of the City's Members of Parliament being among +them. There were perhaps a dozen Members present, including Lord +Palmerston, Foreign Secretary of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>State, and Joseph Hume, the +world-known Economist. The chair was filled by "Sir John Easthope, Prime +Warden." The chairmen of the several Juries at the Exhibition were among +the guests.</p> + +<p>Having recently described the Dinner to the Foreign Commissioners at +Richmond, I can dispatch this more summarily, only noting what struck me +as novel. Suffice it that the company, three hundred strong, was duly +seated, grace said, the dinner served, and more than two hours devoted +to its consumption. It was now ten o'clock, and Lord Palmerston, who was +expected to speak and reputed to be rarely gifted with fluency, was +obliged to leave for the Queen's Concert. Up to this time, no man had +been plied with more than a dozen kinds of wine, each (I presume) very +good, but altogether (I should suppose) calculated to remind the drinker +of his head on rising in the morning. The cloth was now removed and +after-grace sung by a choir, for even <i>with</i> two prayers this sort of +omnivorous feasting at night is not quite healthy. I trust there is no +presumption involved in the invocation of a blessing on such +indulgences, yet I could imagine that an omission of one of the prayers +might be excused if half the dinner were omitted also.</p> + +<p>But the eatables were removed, silence restored, and three enormous +flagons, apparently of pure gold, placed on the table near its head. The +herald or toast-master now loudly made proclamation: "My Lord Viscount +Ebrington, my Lord de Mauley, Baron Charles Dupin (&c. &c., reciting the +names and titles of all the guests), the honorable Prime Warden, the +junior Wardens and members of the ancient and honorable Company of +Fishmongers bid you welcome to their hospitable board, and in token +thereof beg leave to drink your healths"—whereupon the Prime-Warden +rose, bowing courteously to his right-hand neighbor (who rose also), and +proceeded to drink his health, wiping with his napkin the rim of the +flagon, and passing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>it to the neighbor aforesaid, who in turn bowed and +drank to <i>his</i> next neighbor and passed the wine in like manner, and so +the flagons made the circuit of the tables. Then the festive board was +re-covered with decanters, and the intellectual enjoyments of the +evening commenced, the vinous not being intermitted.</p> + +<p>The toasts were, "The Queen," "Prince Albert and the Royal Family," "The +Foreign Commissioners to the World's Exhibition," "The Royal +Commissioners," "The Army and Navy," "The House of Lords," "The House of +Commons," "The Health of the Prime Warden," "Civil and Religious +Liberty," "The Ministry," "The Bank of England," &c. The responsive +speeches were made by Baron Dupin for the Foreign Commissioners, Earl +Granville for the Royal ditto, Lord de Mauley for the Peers, Viscount +Ebrington for the Commons, Gen. Sir Hugh de Lacy Evans for the Army, +Solicitor General Wood (in the absence of Lord Palmerston) for the +Ministry, the Deputy-Governor in behalf of the Governor of the Bank of +England, Dr. Lushington in response to Civil and Religious Liberty, and +so on. When Baron Dupin rose to respond for the Foreign Commissioners, +they all rose and stood while he spoke, and so in turn with the Royal +Commissioners, Members of the House of Commons, &c. Earl Granville's was +the most amusing, Dr. Lushington's the most valuable speech of the +evening. It briefly glanced at past struggles in modern times for the +extension of Freedom in England, and hinted at similar struggles to +come, pointing especially to Law Reform. Dr. L. is a very earnest +speaker, and has won a high rank at the Bar and in public confidence.</p> + +<p>I was more interested, however, in the remarks of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, +author of "Ion," and of Sir James Brooke, "Rajah of Sarawak" (Borneo, E. +I.), who spoke at a late hour in reply to a personal allusion. I do not +mean that Mr. Talfourd's remarks especially impressed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>me, for they did +not, but I was glad of this opportunity of hearing him. The Rajah is a +younger and more vivacious man than I had fancied him, rather ornate in +manner, and spoke (unlike an Englishman) with more fluency than force, +in self-vindication against the current charge of needless cruelty in +the destruction of a nest of pirates in the vicinity of his Oriental +dominions. From reading, I had formed the opinion that he is doing a +good work for Civilization and Humanity in Borneo, but this speech did +not strengthen my conviction.</p> + +<p>Farther details would only be tedious. Enough that the Fishmongers' +Dinner ended at midnight, when all quietly and steadily departed. In +"the good old days," I presume a considerable proportion both of hosts +and guests would by this time have been under the table. Let us rejoice +over whatever improvement has been made in social habits and manners, +and labor to extend it.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XII" id="XII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XII.</h2> +<h2>THE FLAX-COTTON REVOLUTION.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Wednesday, June 4, 1851.</p> + +<p>Although I have not yet found time for a careful and thorough +examination of the machinery and processes recently invented or adopted +in Europe for the manufacture of cheap fabrics from Flax, I have seen +enough to assure me of their value and importance. I have been +disappointed only with regard to machinery for Flax-Dressing, which +seems, on a casual inspection, to be far less efficient than the best on +our side of the Atlantic, especially that patented of late in Missouri +and Kentucky. That in operation in the British Machinery department of +the Exhibition does its work faultlessly, except that it turns out the +product too slowly. I roughly estimate that our Western machines are at +least twice as efficient.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">M. Claussen</span> is here, and has kindly explained to me his +processes and shown me their products. He is no inventor of +Flax-dressing Machinery at all, and claims nothing in that line. In +dressing, he adopts and uses the best machines he can find, and I think +is destined to receive important aid from American inventions. What he +claims is mainly the discovery of a cheap chemical solvent of the Flax +fiber, whereby its coarseness and harshness are removed and the fineness +and softness of Cotton induced in their stead. This he has accomplished. +Some of his Flax-Cotton is scarcely distinguishable from the Sea Island +staple, while to other samples he has given the character of Wool very +nearly. I can imagine no reason <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>why this Cotton should not be spun and +woven as easily as any other. The staple may be rendered of any desired +length, though the usual average is about two inches. It is as white as +any Cotton, being made so by an easy and cheap bleaching process. M. +Claussen's process in lieu of Rotting requires but three hours for its +completion. It takes the Flax as it came from the field, only somewhat +dryer and with the seed beaten off, and renders it thoroughly fit for +breaking. The plant is allowed to ripen before it is harvested, so that +the seed is all saved, while the tediousness and injury to the fiber, +not to speak of the unwholesomeness, of the old-fashioned Rotting +processes are entirely obviated. Where warmth is desirable in the +fabrics contemplated, the staple is made to resemble Wool quite closely. +Specimens dyed red, blue, yellow, &c., are exhibited, to show how +readily and satisfactorily the Flax-Cotton takes any color that may be +desired. Beside these lie rolls of Flannels, Feltings, and almost every +variety of plain textures, fabricated wholly or in good part from Flax +as prepared for Spinning under M. Claussen's patent, proving the +adaptation of this fiber to almost every use now subserved by either +Cotton or Wool. The mixtures of Cotton and Flax, Flax-Cotton and Wool, +are excellent and serviceable fabrics.</p> + +<p>The main question still remains to be considered—will it <i>pay</i>? Flax +may be grown almost anywhere—two or three crops a year of it in some +climates—a crop of it equal to three times the present annual product +of Cotton, Flax and Wool all combined could easily be produced even next +year. But unless cheaper fabrics, all things considered, can be produced +from Flax-Cotton than from the Mississippi staple, this fact is of +little worth. On this vital point I must of course rely on testimony, +and M. Claussen's is as follows:</p> + +<p>He says the Flax-straw, or the ripe, dry plant as it comes from the +field, with the seed taken off, may be grown even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>here for $10 per tun, +but he will concede its cost for the present to be $15 per tun, +delivered, as it is necessary that liberal inducements shall be given +for its extensive cultivation. Six tuns of the straw or flax in the +bundle will yield one tun of dressed and clean fiber, the cost of +dressing which by his methods, so as to make it Flax Cotton, is $35 per +tun. (Our superior Western machinery ought considerably to reduce this.) +The total cost of the Flax-Cotton, therefore, will be $125 per tun or +six cents per pound, while Flax-straw as it comes from the field is +worth $15 per tun; should this come down to $10 per tun, the cost of the +fiber will be reduced to $95 per tun, or less than five cents per pound. +At that rate, good "field-hands" must be rather slow of sale for +Cotton-planting at $1,000 each, or even $700.</p> + +<p>Is there any doubt that Flax-straw may be profitably grown in the United +States for $15 or even $10 per tun? Consider that Flax has been +extensively grown for years, even in our own State, for the seed only, +the straw being thrown out to rot and being a positive nuisance to the +grower. Now the seed is morally certain to command, for two or three +years at least, a higher price than hitherto, because of the increased +growth and extended use of the fiber. Let no farmer who has Flax growing +be tempted to sell the seed by contract or otherwise for the present; +let none be given over to the tender mercies of oil-mills. We shall need +all that is grown this year for sowing next Spring, and it is morally +certain to bear a high price even this Fall. The sagacious should +caution their less watchful neighbors on this point. I shall be +disappointed if a bushel of Flax-seed be not worth two bushels of Wheat +in most parts of our Country next May.</p> + +<p>Our ensuing Agricultural Fairs, State and local, should be improved for +the diffusion of knowledge and the attainment of concert and mutual +understanding with regard to the Flax-Culture. For the present, at any +rate, few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>farmers can afford or will choose to incur the expense of the +heavy machinery required to break and roughly dress their flax, so as to +divest it of four-fifths of its bulk and leave the fiber in a state for +easy transportation to the central points at which Flax-Cotton machinery +may be put in operation. If the Flax-straw has to be hauled fifty or +sixty miles over country roads to find a purchaser or breaking-machine, +the cost of such transportation will nearly eat up the proceeds. If the +farmers of any township can be assured beforehand that suitable +machinery will next Summer be put up within a few miles of them, and a +market there created for their Flax, its growth will be greatly +extended. And if intelligent, energetic, responsible men will now turn +their thoughts toward the procuring and setting up of the best +Flax-breaking machinery (not for fully dressing but merely for +separating the fibre from the bulk of the woody substance it incloses) +they may proceed to make contracts with their neighboring farmers for +Flax-straw to be delivered in the Autumn of next year on terms highly +advantageous to both parties. The Flax thus roughly dressed may be +transported even a hundred miles to market at a moderate cost, and there +can be no reasonable doubt of its commanding a good price. M. Claussen +assures me that he could now buy and profitably use almost any quantity +of such Flax if it were to be had. The only reason (he says) why there +are not now any number of spindles and looms running on Flax-Cotton is +the want of the raw material. (His patent is hardly yet three mouths +old.) Taking dressed and hetcheled Flax, worth seven to nine cents per +pound, and transforming it into Flax-Cotton while Cotton is no higher +than at present, would not pay.</p> + +<p>Of course, there will be disappointments, mistakes, unforeseen +difficulties, disasters, in Flax-growing and the consequent fabrications +hereafter as heretofore. I do not presume that every man who now rushes +into Flax will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>make his fortune; I presume many will incur losses. I +counsel and urge the fullest inquiry, the most careful calculations, +preliminary to any decisive action. But that such inquiry will lead to +very extensive Flax-sowing next year,—to the erection of Flax-breaking +machinery at a thousand points where none such have ever yet +existed—and ultimately to the firm establishment of new and most +important branches of industry, I cannot doubt. Our own country is +better situated than any other to take the lead in the Flax-business; +her abundance of cheap, fertile soil and of cheap seed, the intelligence +of her producers, the general diffusion of water or steam power, and our +present superiority in Flax-breaking machinery, all point to this +result. It will be unfortunate alike for our credit and our prosperity +if we indolently or heedlessly suffer other nations to take the lead in +it.</p> + +<p><i>P. S.</i>—M. Claussen has also a Circular Loom in the Exhibition, wherein +Bagging, Hosiery, &c., may be woven without a seam or anything like one. +This loom may be operated by a very light hand-power (of course, steam +or water is cheaper), and it does its work rapidly and faultlessly. I +mention this only as proof of his inventive genius, and to corroborate +the favorable impression he made on me. I have seen nothing more +ingenious in the immense department devoted to British Machinery than +this loom.</p> + +<p>I understand that overtures have been made to M. Claussen for the +purchase of his American patent, but as yet without definite result. +This, however, is not material. Whether the patent is sold or held, +there will next year be parties ready to buy roughly dressed Flax to +work up under it, and it is preparation to grow such Flax that I am +urging. I believe nothing more important or more auspicious to our +Farming Interest has occurred for years than this discovery by M. +Claussen. He made it in Brazil, while engaged in the growth of Cotton. +It will not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>supersede Cotton, but it will render it no longer +indispensable by providing a substitute equally cheap, equally +serviceable, and which may be grown almost everywhere. This cannot be +realized too soon.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XIII.</h2> +<h2>LEAVING THE EXHIBITION.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Friday, June 6, 1851.</p> + +<p>The great "Exposition" (as the French more accurately term it) has now +been more than five weeks open, and is nearly complete. You may wander +for miles through its richly fringed avenues without hearing the sound +of saw or hammer, except in the space allotted to Russia, which is now +boarded up on all sides, and in which some twenty or thirty men are at +work erecting stands, unpacking and arranging fabrics, &c. I visited it +yesterday, and inferred that the work is pushed night and day, since a +part of the workmen were asleep (under canvas) at 2 o'clock. This +apartment promises to be most attractive when opened to the public. Its +contents will not be numerous, but among them are very large and showy +manufactures of Porcelain, Bronze, &c., and tables of the finest +Malachite, a single piece weighing (I think) nearly or quite half a ton. +Not half the wares are yet displayed, but "Russia" will be the center of +attraction for some days after it is thrown open.</p> + +<p>The Exhibition has become a steady, business-like concern. The four +"shilling days" of each week are improved and enjoyed by the common +people, who quietly put to shame the speculation of the Aristocratic +oracles as to their probable behavior in such a magazine of wealth and +splendor—whether they might not make a general rush on the precious +stones, plate and other valuables here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>staring them in the face, with +often but a single policeman in sight—whether they might not refuse to +leave at the hour of closing, &c., &c. The gates are surrounded a little +before ten in the morning by a gathering, deepening crowd, but all +friendly and peaceable; and when they open at the stroke of the clock, a +dense column pours in through each aperture, each paying his shilling as +he passes (no tickets being used and no change given—the holders of +season, jurors' and exhibitors' tickets have separate entrances), and +all proceeding as smoothly as swiftly. Within half an hour, ten thousand +shillings will have thus been taken: within the next hour, ten thousand +more; thence the admissions fall off; but the number ranges pretty +regularly from Forty to Fifty Thousand per day, making the daily +receipts from $10,000 to $12,000. Yesterday was a great Race Day at +Ascot, attended by the Queen and Royal Family, as also by most of the +habitual idlers, with a multitude beside (and a miserably raw, rainy, +chilly day they had of it, with very poor racing), yet I should say that +the attendance at the Exhibition was greater than ever before. Certainly +not less than fifty thousand shillings, or $12,000, can have been taken. +For hours, the Grand Avenue, which is nearly or quite half a mile long +and at least thirty feet wide, was so filled with the moving mass that +no vacant spaces could be seen from any position commanding an extensive +prospect, though small ones were occasionally discoverable while +threading the mazes of the throng. The visiters were constantly turning +off into one or another department according to their several tastes; +but their places were as constantly supplied either by new-comers or by +those who, having completed their examinations in one department, were +hastening to another, or looking for one especially attractive. Turn +into whatever corner you might, there were clusters of deeply interested +gazers, intent on making the most of their day and their shilling, while +in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>quieter nooks from 1 to 3 o'clock might be seen families or +parties eating the lunch which, with a prophetic foresight of the +miserable quality and exorbitant price of the viands served to you in +the spacious Refreshment Saloons, they had wisely brought from home. But +these saloons were also crowded from an early to a late hour, as they +are almost every day, and I presume the concern which paid a high price +for the exclusive privilege of ministering to the physical appetites +within the Crystal Palace will make a fortune by it, though the +interdiction of Wines and Liquors must prove a serious drawback. It must +try the patience of some of the visiters to do without their beer or ale +from morning to night; and if you leave the building on any pretext, +your shilling is gone. Every actual need of the day is provided for +inside, even to the washing of face and hands (price 2d.). But Night +falls, and the gigantic hive is deserted and closed, leaving its fairy +halls, its infinite wealth, its wondrous achievements, whether of Nature +or of Art, to darkness and silence. Of course, a watch is kept, and, +under pressing and peculiar circumstances, work has been permitted; but +the treasures here collected must be guarded with scrupulous vigilance. +If a fire should consume the Crystal Palace, the inevitable loss must +exceed One Hundred Millions of Dollars, even supposing that a few of the +most precious articles should be snatched from the swift destruction. +Ten minutes without wind, or five with it, would suffice to wrap the +whole immense magazine in flames, and not a hundredth part of the value +of building and contents would remain at the close of another hour.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>POPULAR EDUCATION.</h3> + + +<p>The Exhibition is destined to contribute immensely to the Industrial and +Practical Education of the British People. The cheap Excursion Trains +from the Country have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>hardly commenced running yet; but it is certain +that a large proportion of the mechanics, artisans and apprentices of +the manufacturing towns and districts will spend one or two days each in +the Palace before it closes. Superficial as such a view of its contents +must be, it will have important results. Each artisan will naturally be +led to compare the products of his own trade with those in the same line +from other Nations, especially the most successful, and will be +stimulated to discern and master the point wherein his own and his +neighbor's efforts have hitherto comparatively failed. Of a million who +come to gaze, only an hundred thousand may come with any clear idea of +profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back +more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army; +and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing +such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it, +cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more +fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here +demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; and the simple +adaptation of the forces now attained, the principles established, the +machines already invented, to all the beneficent uses of which they are +capable, would speedily transform the Industrial and Social condition of +mankind. I am perfectly satisfied, for example, that Boots and Shoes may +be cut out and made up by machinery with less than one-fourth the labor +now required—that this would require no absolutely new inventions, but +only an adaptation of those already well known. So in other departments +of Industry. There is no reason for continuing to sew plain seams on +thick cloth by hand, when machinery can do the work even better and +twenty times as fast. I shall be disappointed if this Exhibition be not +speedily followed by immense advances in Labor-Saving Machinery, +especially in this country.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>But out of the domain of Industry, British Progress in Popular Education +is halting and partial. And the chief obstacle is not a want of means, +nor even niggardliness; for the Nation is wealthy, sagacious and +public-spirited. I think the influential classes generally, or at least +very extensively, realize that a well managed system of Common Schools, +supported by taxation on Property, would save more in diminishing the +burthen of Pauperism than it would cost. I believe the Ministry feel +this. And yet Mr. Fox's motion looking to such a system was voted down +in the House of Commons by some three to one, the Ministry and their +reliable supporters vieing with the Tories in opposing it! So the Nation +is thrown back on the wretched shift of Voluntaryism, or Instruction for +the poor and ignorant children to be provided, directed and paid for by +their poor, ignorant and often vicious parents, with such help and +guidance as self-constituted casual associations may see fit to give +them. The result is and will be what it ever has been and must be—the +virtual denial of Education to a great share of the rising generation.</p> + +<p>For this suicidal crime, I hold the Episcopal and Roman Catholic +Priesthoods mainly responsible, but especially the former. If they would +only stand out of the way, a system of efficient Common Schools for the +whole Nation might be speedily established. But they will not permit it. +By insisting that no Nationally directed and supported system shall be +put in operation which does not recognize and affirm the tenets of their +respective creeds, they render the adoption of any such system +impossible. They see this; they know it; they <i>mean</i> it. And nothing +moves me to indignation quicker than their stereotyped cant of "Godless +education," "teaching infidelity," "knowledge worthless or dangerous +without Religion," &c. &c. Why, Sirs, it is very true that the People +need Religious as well as purely Intellectual culture, but the former +has been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>already provided for. You clergymen of the Established Church +have been richly endowed and beneficed expressly for this work—<i>why +don't you</i> <span class="smcap">do</span> <i>it?</i> Why do you stand here darkening and +stopping the gateway of secular instruction with a self-condemning +assumption that your own duties have been and are criminally neglected, +and that therefore others shall likewise remain unperformed? Teach the +children as much Religion as you can; very few of you ever lack pupils +when you give your hearts to the work; and if they prove less apt or +less capable learners because they have been taught reading, writing, +grammar, geography and arithmetic in secular schools, it argues some +defect in your theology or its teachers. If you really wanted the +children taught Religious truth, you would be right glad to have them +taught letters and other rudimental lessons elsewhere, so as to be +fitted to apprehend and retain your inculcations. It should suffice for +the condemnation of all Established Churches ever more, that the +State-paid Priesthood of Great Britain is to-day the chief impediment to +a system of Common Schools throughout the British Isles.</p> + +<p>The Catholic Clergy have more excuse. They, too unite in the +impracticable requirement that the dogmas of their Church shall be +taught in the schools attended by Catholic children, when they ought to +teach them these dogmas out of School-hours, and be content that no +antagonist dogmas are taught in the secular Schools. But <i>they</i> receive +nothing from the State, and have good reason to regard it as hostile to +their faith, therefore to suspect its purposes and watch narrowly its +movements. If they would only take care to have a good system of Common +School Education established and efficiently sustained in Spain, +Portugal, Italy, Mexico, and other Countries wherein they are the +conscience-keepers of the great majority and practically omnipotent in +the sphere of moral and social effort, I could better excuse their +unfortunate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>attitude here. As it is, the difference between them and +their State-paid rivals here seems one of position rather than of +principle. And, in spite of either or both, this generation will yet see +Common Schools free and universal throughout this realm. But even a year +seems long to wait for it.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>TOWN GOSSIP.</h3> + +<p>Preparations are on foot for a grand banquet at Birmingham to the Royal +Commissioners, the Foreign Commissioners and the Jurors at the +Exhibition, to take place on or about the 16th. This is to be followed +by one still more magnificent given by the Mayor and Council of London, +which the Queen is expected to attend. The East India Company give one +to-morrow evening, but I hope then to be in France, as I intend to leave +for Paris to-morrow. The advertisements promise to put us "through in +eleven hours" by the quickest and dearest route. Others take twice as +many.</p> + +<p>Miss <span class="smcap">Catharine Hayes</span>, a Vocalist of European reputation, who +sang the last winter mainly in Rome, means to visit America in +September. She is here ranked very high in her profession, and +profoundly esteemed and respected in private life. I have heard her but +once, having had but two evenings' leisure for public entertainments +since I came here. There is but one Jenny Lind, but Miss Hayes need not +shrink from a comparison with any other singer. She is very highly +commended by the best Musical critics of London. I cannot doubt that +America will ratify their judgment.</p> + +<p>We have had tolerably fair, pleasant weather for some time until the +last two days, when clouds, chilly winds and occasional rain have +returned. The "oldest inhabitant" don't remember just such weather at +this season—as he probably observed last June. I shall gladly leave it +for dryer air and brighter skies.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XIV.</h2> +<h2>LONDON TO PARIS.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Monday, June 9, 1851.</p> + +<p>I left London Bridge at 11½ on Saturday for this City, via South-Eastern +Railway to Dover, Steamboat to Calais and Railroad again to Paris. This +is the dearest and quickest route between the two capitals, and its +advertisements promised for $13½ to take us "Through in Eleven Hours," +which was a lie, as is quite usual with such promises. We came on quite +rapidly to Dover—a very mean, old town—but there lost about an hour in +the transfer of our baggage to the steamboat, which was one of those +long, black, narrow scow contrivances, about equal to a buttonwood +"dug-out," which England appears to delight in. They would not be +tolerated as ferry-boats on any of our Western rivers, yet they are made +to answer for the conveyance of Mails and Passengers across an arm of +the sea on the most important route in Europe. In this wretched concern, +which was too insignificant to be slow, we went cobbling and wriggling +across the Channel (27 miles) in something less than two hours, often +one gunwale nearly under water and the other ten or twelve feet above +it, with no room under deck for half our passengers, and the spray +frequently dashing over those above it, three fourths of the whole +number deadly sick (this individual of course included), when with a +decent boat the passage might be regularly made, in spite of such a +smartish breeze as we encountered, in comparative <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>comfort. Perhaps we +felt glad enough on reaching the shore to pay for this needless misery, +and I readily believe that an hour or two of sea-sickness may be harshly +wholesome, yet I do think that a good boat on such a route might well be +afforded and cannot reputably be withheld. That part of England through +which we passed on this route is much like that I have already described +on the other side of London. The face of the country is very moderately +undulating; there is a fair proportion of trees and shrubbery, though no +considerable forest that I noticed; perhaps an eighth of the land may be +sowed with Wheat, but Grass is the general staple. I should say three +fourths of all the land in sight from this railway is covered with it, +while very little is planted or devoted to gardening after the few miles +next to London. Hops engross considerable attention, and I presume pay +well, being demanded by the national addiction to beer drinking. Still, +Grass, Cattle and Sheep are the Staples; and these require so much less +human labor per acre than Grain and Vegetables that I cannot see how the +rural, laboring population can find adequate employment or subsistence. +It looks as though the gradual substitution of Grass for Grain since the +repeal of the Corn-laws must deprive a large portion of the best British +peasantry of work, compelling them to emigrate to America or Australia +for a subsistence. Such emigration is already very active, and must +increase if the present low prices of Breadstuffs prove permanent.</p> + +<p>I was again disappointed in seeing so little attention to Fruit Culture. +I know this is not the Fruit region of England, but the destitution of +fruit trees is quite universal. Since it is plain that an acre of choice +Apple trees will yield at least a hundred bushels of palatable food, +with little labor, and grass enough beside to pay for all the care it +requires, I cannot see why Fruit is so neglected. The peach, I hear, +does poorly throughout the kingdoms, requiring extra shelter and +sunshine, yet yielding indifferent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>fruit in return, which is reason +enough for neglecting it; but the Apple is hardier, and does well in +other localities no more genial than this. I think it has been unwisely +slighted.</p> + +<p>An important and profitable business, I think, might be built up in our +country in the production of Dried Fruits, especially peaches, and their +exportation to Europe, or at any rate to England. I was among those who +"sat at good men's feasts," both rich and poor (the men, not the +feasts), during the six weeks I was in England, yet I cannot remember +that Dried Apples or Peaches were ever an element of the repast, though +Gooseberries, Rhubarb, Raisins, Currants, &c., are abundantly resorted +to. If some American of adequate capital and capacity would embark in +the growth and curing of Apples, Peaches, &c., expressly for the English +market, drying them perfectly, preparing them with scrupulous neatness, +and putting them up in clean wooden boxes of twenty-five, fifty and one +hundred pounds, I think he might do well by it. For such a purpose, +cheap lands and cheap labor (that of aged persons and young children) +might be made available, while in years of bountiful Peach harvests, +like the last, even New-Jersey and Delaware could be drawn upon for an +extra supply. The miscellaneous exportation of any Dried Fruits that +might happen to be on the market would probably involve loss, because +time and expenditure are required to make these products known to the +great majority of British consumers, and assure them that the article +offered them has been prepared with scrupulous cleanliness. With proper +exertion and outlay, I believe an advantageous market might thus be +opened for several Millions' worth of American products of which little +or nothing is now known in Europe.</p> + +<p>We were detained a long hour in Calais—a queer old town, with little +trade and only a historical importance—although our baggage was not +examined there, but sealed up for custom-house scrutiny at Paris. They +made a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>dollars out of us by charging for extra baggage, one of them +out of me, though my trunk contained only clothing and three or four +books. Small business this for a Railroad, though it will do in stage +transportation. Our passports were scrutinized—mine not very +thoroughly—we (the green ones) obtained an execrable dinner for 37½ +cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which +was not atrocious. Finally, we were all let go.</p> + +<p>The face of the country inland from Calais is flat and marshy—more like +Holland, as we conceive it, than like England or France. Of course, the +railroad avoids the higher ground, but I did not see a cliff nor steep +acclivity until darkness closed us in, though some moderate hills were +visible from time to time, mainly on the right. Here, too, as across the +Channel, Grass largely predominated, but I think there was a greater +breadth of Wheat. I saw very few Fruit-trees, though much more growing +Timber than I had expected, from the representations I had read of the +treeless nakedness of the French soil. I think trees are as abundant for +fifty miles southward from Calais as in any part of England, but they +are mainly Elms and Willows, scarcely an orchard anywhere, and of course +no vineyards, for the Grape loves a more Southern sun. The cultivation +is scarcely equal to the English, though not strikingly inferior, and +the evidences of a minute subdivision of the soil are often palpable. +Fences are very rare, save along the sides of the railway; ditches serve +their purpose near Calais, and nothing at all answers afterward. I +presume wood becomes much scarcer as we approach Paris, but darkness +forbade observation.</p> + +<p>By the terms of the enticing advertisement, we should have been here at +10½ P. M., but, though we met with none other than the ordinary +detentions, it was half-past two on Sunday morning when we actually +reached the station at the barrier of the city. Here commenced the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>custom-house search, and I must say it was conducted with perfect +propriety and commendable energy, though with determined rigor. Our +trunks and valises were all arranged on a long table according to the +numbers affixed to them respectively at Calais, and each, being opened +by its owner, was searched in its turn, and immediately surrendered, if +found "all right." I had been required to pay smartly on my books at +Liverpool, though nobody could have suspected that they were for any +other than my own use; so I left most of them at London and had no +difficulty here. [One unlucky wight, who had pieces of linen in his +trunk, had to see them taken out and put safely away for farther +consideration.] I did not at first comprehend that the number on my +trunk, standing out fair before me in honest, unequivocal Arabic +figures, could possibly mean anything but "fifty-two," but a friend +cautioned me in season that those figures spelled "cinquante-deux," or +phonetically "sank-on-du" to the officer, and I made my first attempt at +mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself +intelligible.</p> + +<p>It was fair daylight when we left the railway station for our various +destinations. Mine was the "Hotel Choiseul," Rue St. Honoré, which had +been warmly commended to me, and where I managed to stop <i>pro tem.</i> +though there was not an unoccupied bed in the house. Paris, by the way, +is quite full—scarcely a room to be had in any popular hotel, and, +where any is to be found, the price is very high or the accommodations +quite humble. London, on the contrary, where the keepers of hotels and +lodging-houses had been induced to expect a grand crush, and had +aggravated their prices accordingly, is comparatively empty. Thousands +after thousands go there, but few remain for any time; consequently the +hotels make what money is spent, while the boarding and lodging-houses +are often tenantless. Many sharp landladies have driven away their old +lodgers to the Country or the Continent by exorbitant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>charges, in the +hope of extorting many times as much from visiters to the Exhibition; +and have thus far been bitterly disappointed. I presume it will be so to +the end. Sixty thousand people are as many as the Crystal Palace will +comfortably hold, in addition to its wares and their attendants, and +these make no impression on the vast capacity of London, while they go +away as soon as they have satisfied their curiosity and ceased to attend +the Fair, giving place to others, who require no more room than they +did. I suspect theirs are not the only calculations which will be +disappointed by the ultimate issues of the World's Exhibition.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE MADELEINE.</h3> + +<p>My first day in Paris was Sunday, so, after breakfast, I repaired to the +famous modern Church of the Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in +Europe. This was the day of Pentecost, and fitly commemorated by the +Church. The spacious edifice was filled in every part, though at least a +thousand went out at the close of the earlier service, before the +attendance was fullest.</p> + +<p>I think I was never in a place of worship so gorgeous as this. Over the +main altar there is a magnificent picture on the largest scale, +purporting to represent the Progress of Civilization from Christ's day +to Bonaparte's, Napoleon being the central figure in the foreground, +while the Saviour and the Virgin Mary occupy a similar position in the +rear. In every part, the Church is very richly and I presume tastefully +ornamented.</p> + +<p>I did not comprehend the service, and cannot intelligibly describe it. +The bowings and genuflexions, the swinging of censers and ringing of +bells, the frequent appearance and disappearance of a band of gorgeously +dressed priests or assistants bearing what looked like spears, were +"inexplicable dumb show" to me, and most of them unlike <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>anything I +remember to have seen in American Catholic Churches. The music was +generally fine, especially that of a chorus of young boys, and the +general bearing of the people in attendance, that of reverence and +interest.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With all who send up holy thoughts on high."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of +several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents +for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of +the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded +the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have +been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one +o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may +have been one afterward.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XV" id="XV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XV.</h2> +<h2>THE FUTURE OF FRANCE.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Wednesday, June 11, 1851.</p> + +<p>"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a +question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not +of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even +fettered and stifled as the Republic now is—a shorn and blind Samson in +the toils of the Philistines—it is still a potent fact, and its very +name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who +are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the +debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French +Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the +Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his +vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,—it is the overthrow of the French +Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which +engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout +Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general +aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably +moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility, +only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as +Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to +be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far +sooner see her bloody, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest +than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton, +Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the +Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully +pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or +Lamartine.</p> + +<p>While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by +the Press and readily credited as well as diffused by the fortunate +classes with regard to the deplorable condition of France and the +absolute necessity existing for some radical change in her Government. +"O yes, you get along very well with a Republic in the United States, +where you had cheap lands, a vast and fertile wilderness, common schools +and a general reverence for Religion and Order to begin with; but just +look at France!"—such was and is a very general line of argument. If +the French had been equally divisible into felons, bankrupts, paupers +and lunatics, their hopeless state could hardly have been referred to +more compassionately. All this time France was substantially as tranquil +as England herself, and decidedly more prosperous, though annoyed and +impeded by the incessant plottings of traitors in her councils and other +exalted stations to resubject her to kingly sway. A thrifty, provident, +frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his +dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much +plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does; +but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and +the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade, +France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a +division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently +amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. The Californian +digs gold, which mainly comes to New-York in payment for goods; but on +that gold England has a mortgage running fast to maturity, for the goods +were in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>part bought of her and we owe her for Millions' worth beside. +But France has a similar mortgage on it for the Grain supplied to +England to feed the fabricators of the goods, and it has hardly reached +the Bank of England before it is on its way to Paris. A great share of +the golden harvests of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin +now find their resting-place here.</p> + +<p>"But what," asks a Say-Bastiat economist, "if they do? Isn't all +Commerce an exchange of equivalents? Must we not buy in order to sell? +Isn't Gold a commodity like any other? If our Imports exceed our +Exports, doesn't that prove that we are obtaining more for our Exports +than their estimated value?" &c. &c. &c.</p> + +<p>No, Sir! commerce is <i>not</i> always an exchange of genuine equivalents. +The savage tribe which sells its hunting grounds and its ancestors' +graves for a few barrels of firewater, whereby its members are +debauched, diseased, rendered insanely furious, and set to cutting each +other's throats, receives no real equivalent for what it parts with. Nor +is it well for ever so civilized a people to be selling its Specie and +mortgaging its Lands and Houses for Silks, Liquors, Laces, Wines, +Spices, &c.—trading off the essential and imperishable for the +factitious and transitory—and so eating itself out of house and home. +The farmer who drinks up his farm at the cross-roads tavern may have +obtained "more for his exports" (of produce from his farm), than they +were worth in the market—at least, it would seem so from the fact that +he has run over head and ears in debt—but he has certainly done a +pernicious, a losing business. So does any Nation which buys more wares +and fabrics than its exports will pay for, and finds itself in debt at +the year's end for imports that it has eaten, drunk or worn out. The +thrifty household is the true model of the Nation. And, thus tested, +France, in spite of her enormous, locust-like Army and other relics of +past follies which the National mind is outgrowing though <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>the Nation's +rulers still cling to them, is this day one of the most prosperous +countries on earth.</p> + +<p>But when I hear the aristocratic plotters talk of the necessity of a +Revision of the Constitution in order to restore to France tranquillity +and prosperity, I am moved not to mirth but to indignation. For these +plotters and their schemes are themselves the causes of the mischiefs +they affect to deplore and the dangers they pretend to be bent on +averting. Whatever is now feverish and ominous in French Politics grows +directly out of two great wrongs—the first positive and +accomplished—the law of the 31st May, whereby Three Millions of +Electors were disfranchised—the other contingent and meditated—the +overthrow of the Republic. All the agitation, the apprehension, the +uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the +last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the +Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented +discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and +bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy <i>might</i> have done, had they +been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact +is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of +Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their +faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into +convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the +factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have +been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined, +watchful, intrepid attitude of the calumniated Democracy.</p> + +<p>The law of the 31st May still stands on the statute-book, and I +apprehend is destined to remain (though many who are better informed are +sanguine that it will be repealed before the next Presidential +Election), but the Republic will endure and its Constitution cannot be +overthrown. All the Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>Assembly combined are insufficient to change the Constitution legally; +and if a bare majority sufficed for that purpose (instead of +three-fourths), they could not to-day command a working majority for any +practical measure of Revision. It is easy to club their votes and +vaguely declare <i>some</i> change necessary—but <i>what</i> change? A Bourbon +Restoration? An Orleans Middle-Class Royalty? A Napoleonic Empire? For +no one of these can a majority even of this Reäctionist Assembly be +obtained. What, then, is their chance with the People?</p> + +<p>As to the signing of Petitions for Revision, that is easily understood. +The Prefect, the Mayor, &c., of a locality readily procure the +signatures of all the Government <i>employés</i> and hangers-on, who +constitute an immense army in France; the great manufacturers circulate +the petitions among their workmen, and most of them sign, not choosing +to risk their masters' displeasure for a mere name more or less to an +unmeaning paper. But the plotters know perfectly well that the People +are <i>not</i> for Revision in <i>their</i> sense of the word; if they did not +fear this, they would restore Universal Suffrage. By clinging with +desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually +confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of +Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they +prate, therefore, of <i>the people's</i> desire for Revision, the Republican +retort is ready and conclusive—"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can +then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain +that law, you confess that you dare not abide the verdict of the whole +People. You appeal to a Jury which you have packed—one whose right to +try this question we utterly deny. Restore Universal Suffrage, and we +can then tell what the People really do wish and demand; but until you +do this, we shall resist every attempt to change the Constitution even +by as much as a hair." Who can doubt that this is right?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>"Therefore, Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily +says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army +will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a +Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout +the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; +the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the +popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. +It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be +attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread +the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are +on their side—that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed +to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, +are all for the Republic—that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an +Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique +is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain +Military officers, mainly relics of the Empire; the class includes a +good part of the lucky Parisian shop-keepers and Government <i>employés</i> +during the reign of Louis Philippe; the party embraces the remnants of +the anti-Revolutionary Aristocracy, most of the influential Priesthood, +and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may +number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is +France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether +by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open +attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a +prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have +the same effect. Four years more of tranquil though nominal +Republicanism would only render a return to Monarchy more difficult; +wherefore the Royalist party will never assent to it, and without their +aid the project has no chance. To obtain that aid, "the Prince" must +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>secretly swear that after four years more he will turn France over to +Henry V.; this promise only the last extreme of desperation could extort +from him, and then to no purpose, since he could not fulfill it and the +Legitimists could not trust him. And thus, alike by its own strength and +by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XVI.</h2> +<h2>PARIS, SOCIAL AND MORAL.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Thursday, June 12, 1851.</p> + +<p>A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen +a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built +around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is +entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the +minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining +their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of +goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of +the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most +celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue +Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and +"Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a +considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, +"restaurants," "cafés," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think +of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in +Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss +his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here +it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds +sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise +during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink +or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>him: he reads his +newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in +one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. +which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly +necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is +Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere +is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or +paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or +forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have +signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, +vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but +willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same +time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the +Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere +are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old +Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would +eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but +no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred +stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of +Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as +Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of +by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to +those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very +cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18¾ +cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the +comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is +very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is +scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor +girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a +man of wealth, or one who can support <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>her in luxury and idleness, is +the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by +which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly +designated, involve the idea of demoralization—no man would apply them +to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In +no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so +great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else +is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of +London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris—that is, +they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in +view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active +there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. +Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and +Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, +and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with +that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to +strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in +the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>SIGHTS OF PARIS.</h3> + +<p>The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the <span class="smcap">Column of +Napoleon</span> in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn +of the morning of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, +was formed of cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories +which irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was +Emperor of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the +pyramid; it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and +a resolute attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too +firmly rooted. The Statue was not replaced till <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>after the Revolution of +1830. The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the +stately Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and +especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should +not regard it very highly.</p> + +<p>Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, +is the <span class="smcap">Obelisk of Luxor</span>, which for thousands of years had +overshadowed the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late +Pacha of Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near +the Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which +impressed me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with +mysterious inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four +thousand years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but +yesterday. The removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from +Egypt to Paris is one of the most marvelous achievements of human +genius, and Paris has for me no single attraction to match the Obelisk +of Luxor.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Tuileries</span> strikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with +little pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great +capacity, and nothing more. The <span class="smcap">Louvre</span> is much finer, yet still +not remarkable, but its wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all +time surprised as well as delighted me. I never saw anything at all +comparable to it. But of this another time.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE FRENCH OPERA.</h3> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Monday, June 9, 1851.</p> + +<p>Having the evening on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the +Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her +Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National +institution, but a National trait, and as such I visited it.</p> + +<p>The house is very spacious, admirably planned, superbly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>fitted up, and +every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience +large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their +business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's +"L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften +into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and +indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken +from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. +There were no great singers included in the cast for this evening, not +even Alboni who remains here, while most of her compeers are in London. +I am a poor judge, but I should say the music is not remarkable.</p> + +<p>This is a drama of Action and of Spectacle, however, to which the Music +is subordinate. Such a medley of drinking and praying, dancing and +devotion, idol-worship and Delilah-craft, I had not before encountered. +At least three hundred performers were at once on the stage. The +dancing-girls engaged were not less than one hundred in number, +apparently all between fourteen and eighteen years of age, generally +good-looking, and with that aspect of innocence and freshness to which +the Stage is so fatal. The most agile and eminent among them was a Miss +Plunkett, said to be an American, with a face of considerable beauty and +a winning, joyous manner. I should say that half the action of the +piece, nearly half the time, and more than half the attention of the +audience, were engrossed by these dancing demoiselles.</p> + +<p>France is the cradle and home of the Ballet. In other lands it is an +exotic, here a natural outgrowth and expression of the National mind. Of +the spirit which conceived it, here is the abode and the Opera Français +the temple; and here it has exerted its natural and unobstructed +influence on the manners and morals of a People. If you would comprehend +the Englishman, follow him to his fireside; if a Frenchman, join him at +the Opera and contemplate him during the performance of the Ballet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the Dance. Restricted to proper +hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. +Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. +Why the dancing of the Theater should be rendered disgusting, I can not +yet comprehend. The "poetry of motion," of harmonious evolutions and the +graceful movement of "twinkling feet," I think I appreciate. All these +are natural expressions of innocent gaiety and youthful elasticity of +spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more +of them.</p> + +<p>But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, +in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot +to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of +muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the +capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts and at the +cost of much suffering. Why is it kept on the stage? Admit that it is +not lascivious; who will pretend that it is essentially graceful? I was +glad to see that the more extravagant distortions were not specially +popular with the audience—that nearly all the applause bestowed on +those ballet-feats which seem devised only to favor a liberal display of +the person came from the little knot of hired "claqueurs" in the center +of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so +shameless as to applaud.</p> + +<p>If the Opera is ever to become an element of Social life and enjoyment +in New-York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may +take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do +not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one; I know +<i>this</i> is not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency, is "earthly, +sensual, devilish." In none was the instinct of Purity ever strengthened +by beholding it; in many, it must, in the nature of things, be weakened +with each <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>repetition of the spectacle. It is no marvel that the French +are reputed exceedingly reckless of the sanctions and obligations of +Marriage, if this is a part of their State-supported education.</p> + +<p>I came away at the close of the third act, leaving two more to be +performed. The play is transcendent in spectacle, and has had a very +great success here.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XVII.</h2> +<h2>PARIS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Sunday, June 15, 1851.</p> + +<p>I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing +in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic and the +restoration of Monarchy. Such prophets must belong essentially to that +school which teaches the omnipotence of paper Constitutions and dilates +with bristling hair on the appalling possibility that Washington, or +Hamilton, or Franklin, might not have been chosen to the Convention +which framed our Federal Constitution, and that Constitution +consequently have remained unperfected or unadopted. The true view I +understand to be that if the Constitution had thus failed to be +constructed in '87 or adopted in '88, the necessity for it would still +have existed, growing daily more urgent and palpable, so that Convention +after Convention would from time to time have been called, and sooner or +later a Constitution would have been elaborated and adopted; and the +longer this consummation was delayed the stronger and more controlling +the Constitution ultimately formed would have been. So with the French +Republic. It is simply an expression of the intellectual convictions and +social instincts of the French People. You meet it on the Boulevards and +in the cafés where the wealthy and luxurious most do congregate; your +cabman and boot-black, though perfectly civil and attentive, let you +understand, if you have eyes, that they are Republicans; while in the +quarters tenanted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>or frequented only by the Artisan and the Laborer you +meet none but devotees of "the Republic Democratic and Social." The +contrast between the abject servility of the Poor in London and their +manner here cannot be realized without actual observation. A hundred +Princes or illustrious Dukes in Paris would not attract as much +attention as any one of them would in London. Democracy triumphed in the +drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the +streets; and all subsequent efforts in behalf of Monarchy here have +produced and can produce only a fitful, spasmodic, unnatural life. If +three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have +not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will +be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the +immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate +ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange +Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary +caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other +than Republican, though the possessors of power, controlling the Press, +the Bureaux, the Assembly and the Army, may fancy that their personal +interests would be promoted by a less popular system, and so be seen for +a season following strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will +speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind.</p> + +<p>The immediate peril of the Republic is the Election of May, '52, in view +of the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the Democratic +voters, the manacled condition of the Press, the denial to the People of +the Right of Meeting for deliberation and concert, and the betrayal of +all the enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the +Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a +Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be +promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential +candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or +meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and +fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, +passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice +should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a +character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope +to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional +overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should +fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis +Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be no further apprehension.</p> + +<p>I hear, as from an official source, that there are now Three Thousand +Americans in Paris, most of them residing here for months, if not for +years. It gives me pleasure to state that, contrary to what I have often +heard of the bearing of our countrymen in Europe, a large majority of +these, so far as I may judge from meeting a good many and learning the +sentiments of more, are warmly and openly on the side of the Republic +and opposed to the machinations of the motley host who seek its +overthrow.</p> + +<p>The conviction of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' +imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in the <i>Evénement</i> +in condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I +think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party +of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated +institution. The <i>Times'</i> Paris correspondent, I perceive, takes up the +tale of Hugo's article having been calculated to expose the ministers of +the law to popular odium, and naively protests against a line of +argument by which "those who <i>execute</i> the law are stigmatized as +<i>executioners</i>." I suppose we must call them <i>executors</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>hereafter to +obviate the hardship complained of. How singular that those who glory in +the deed should shrink indignantly from the name?</p> + +<p>American attention will naturally be drawn to the recent debate in the +Assembly involving the principle of the <i>Higher Law</i>. The subject was a +bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as +clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a +nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical +conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier +solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert +menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets +and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of +France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a +"Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its +bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the +Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such +commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a +violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay +d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the +proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the +deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his +being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order," +having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very +little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further +discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the +tribune that <i>No one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it +would be wrong for him to do as a man</i>—that, no matter what human +rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of +God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order +to do so from any functionary or potentate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>whatever. The idea is a +fruitful one, and France is now pondering it.</p> + +<p>I attended divine worship to-day at <span class="smcap">Notre Dame</span>, which seems to +me not only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. +The Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and +got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all +the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion +to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a +fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York +City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with +ample space and a rare position, which most of the Paris edifices want, +seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers +proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect +surpassed. It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less +extensive. As a place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, +which has the damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre +Dame. I trust no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, +and on the Sabbath if possible.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>AMERICAN ART AND INDUSTRY—BRITISH JOURNALISM.</h3> + +<p>Since I left London, <i>The Times</i> has contained two Editorials on +American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require +comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general +tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the +London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds +of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the +people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are +now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the +whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>attempting to do and +to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions +could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be +America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe +also, &c., &c.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"It is the <i>attempt</i>, and not the <i>deed</i>, confounds me."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our +countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the +production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been +content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently +invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their +art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if +they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here; +since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is +best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest +mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia, +have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands +have examined with eager and gratified interest—an interest as real as +that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe, +though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing +these products of a more primitive industry; all have welcomed and been +instructed by them. And so ours would have been treated had they been in +fact the wretched affairs which the London Commercial press has +represented them. It is precisely because they are quite otherwise that +it has been deemed advisable systematically to disparage them—to +declare our Pianos "gouty" structures—"mere wood and iron;" our +Calicoes beneath the acceptance of a British servant-girl; our Farming +Tools half a century behind their British rivals; our Hats "shocking +bad," &c., &c.,—all this, in the first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>months of the Exhibition, while +the Jurors appointed to judge and report upon the merits of rival +fabrics were making the requisite investigations. Their verdict is thus +substantially forestalled, and the millions who visit the Exhibition are +invited to look at the American department merely to note the bad taste +and incapacity therein displayed, and learn to avoid them.</p> + +<p>But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that +Art is not their province—that they should be content to grow Corn and +Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent +necessities, their secondary wants—are they impartial advisers? Are +they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of +Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would +they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were +really the miserable abortions they represent them?</p> + +<p>These indications of paternal care for American Industry, in danger of +being warped and misdirected, are not quite novel. An English friend +lately invited me to visit him at his house in the neighborhood of +Birmingham, holding out as an inducement the opportunity of inspecting +the great Iron and Hardware manufactories in that neighborhood. A moment +afterward he recollected himself and said, "I am not quite sure that I +could procure you admittance to them, because the rule has been that +<i>Americans were not to be admitted</i>. Gentlemen taking their friends to +visit these works were asked, at the door, 'Is your friend an American?' +and if the answer was affirmative, he was not allowed to enter—but I +think this restriction has been generally abrogated." Here you see, was +a compassionate regard for American Industry, in danger of being misled +and deluded into unprofitable employments, which neither The Times nor +any of its co-laborers has been able to more than humbly imitate.</p> + +<p>To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>intimation that, in +attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of +Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought +to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of +Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her +Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her +Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot," +&c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and +who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the +rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy +disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various +Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they +have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European +and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an +impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate +that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country +has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be +instructed and benefited than our own.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XVIII.</h2> +<h2>THE PALACES OF FRANCE.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Monday, June 16, 1851.</p> + +<p>France, now the most Democratic, was long the most absolutely governed +and the most loyally infatuated among the great Nations of Europe. Her +cure of the dust-licking distemper was Homœopathic and somewhat slow, +but it seems to be thorough and abiding. Those who talk of the National +passion for that bloody phantom Glory—for Battle and Conquest—speak of +what was, rather than of what is, and which, even in its palmiest days, +was rather a <i>penchant</i> of the Aristocratic caste than a characteristic +of the Nation. The Nobles of course loved War, for it was their high +road to Royal favor, to station and renown; all the spoils of victory +enured to them, while nine-tenths of its calamities fell on the heads of +the Peasantry. But, though all France rushed to arms in 1793 to defend +the National liberties and soil, yet Napoleon, in the zenith of his +power and glory, could only fill the ranks of his legions by the +abhorred Conscription. The great body of the People were even then +averse to the din of the camp and the clangor of battle: the years of +unmixed disaster and bitter humiliation which closed his Military +career, served to confirm and deepen their aversion to garments rolled +in blood; and I am confident that there is at this moment no Nation in +Europe more essentially peaceful than France. Her Millions profoundly +sympathise with their brethren of Germany, Italy and Hungary, groaning +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>beneath the heavy yoke of the Autocrat and his vassals; but they +realize that the deliverance of Nations must mainly be wrought out from +within, and they would much rather aid the subject Nations to recover +their rights by the influence of example and of a Free Press than by +casting the sword of Brennus into the scale where their liberties and +happiness hang balanced and weighed down by the ambition and pride of +their despots. The establishment of the Democratic and Social Republic +is the appointed end of war in Europe. It will not erase the boundaries +of Nations, but these boundaries will no longer be overshadowed by +confronted legions, and they will be freed from the monster nuisance of +Passports. Then German, Frank, Briton, Italian, will vie with each +other, as now, in Letters, Arts and Products, but no longer in the +hideous work of defacing and desecrating the image of God; for Liberty +will have enlightened and Fraternity united them, and a permanent +Congress of Nations will adjust and dispose of all causes of difference +which may from time to time arise.—Freedom, Intelligence and Peace are +natural kindred: the ancient Republics were Military and aggressive only +because they tolerated and cherished Human Slavery; and it is this which +recently fomented hostilities between the two Republics of North +America, and now impotently threatens the internal peace of our own. +Liberty, if thorough and consistent, always did and must incline to +Peace; while Despotism, being founded in and only maintainable by Force, +inevitably fosters a martial spirit, organizes Standing Armies, and +finds delight and security in War.</p> + +<p>These reflections have been recalled by my walks through several of the +late Royal (now National) Palaces of France, the most striking monuments +which endure of long ages of absolute kingly sway. How many there are of +these Palaces I have forgotten or never knew; but I recall the names of +the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>Elisée Bourbon, St. Germain, St. +Cloud, Versailles, Meudon, and Rambouillet. These do not include the +Palais Royal, which was built by the Orleans branch of the Bourbon +family, nor any of the spacious edifices erected for the several +Ministers of State and for the transaction of public business. The +Palaces I have named were all constructed from time to time to serve as +residences for the ten to thirty persons recognized as of the blood +Royal, who removed from one to the other as convenience or whim may have +suggested. They are generally very spacious, probably averaging one to +two hundred apartments each, all constructed of the best materials and +furnished and adorned with the most lavish disregard of cost. I roughly +estimate the cost of these Palaces, if they were now to be built and +furnished in this style, at One Hundred Millions of Dollars; but the +actual cost, in the ruder infancy of the arts when most of them were +erected, was probably much more. Versailles alone cost some Thirty +Millions of Dollars at first, while enormous sums have since been +expended in perfecting and furnishing it. It would be within the truth +to say that France, from the infancy of Louis XIV. to the expulsion of +Louis Philippe, has paid more as simple interest on the residences of +her monarchs and their families than the United States, with a larger +population and with far greater wealth than France has averaged through +that period, now pays for the entire cost of the Legislative, Executive +and Judicial departments of her Government. All that we have paid our +Presidents from Washington inclusive, adding the cost of the +Presidential Mansion and all the furniture that has from time to time +been put into it, would not build and furnish one wing of a single Royal +Palace of France—that of Versailles.</p> + +<p>But the point to which I would more especially call attention is that of +the unwearied exertions of Royalty to foster and inflame the passion for +Military glory. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>wandered for hours through the spacious and +innumerable halls of Versailles, in which Art and Nature seem to have +been taxed to the utmost to heap up prodigies of splendor. At least one +hundred of these rooms would each of itself be deemed a marvel of +sumptuous display anywhere else; yet here we passed over floors of the +richest Mosaic and through galleries of the finest and most elaborately +wrought Marble as if they had been but the roughest pavement or the +rudest plaster. The eye is fatigued, the mind bewildered, by an almost +endless succession of sumptuous carving, gilding, painting, &c., until +the intervention of a naked ante-room or stair-case becomes a positive +relief to both. And the ideas everywhere predominant are War and its +misnamed Glory. Here are vast, expensive paintings purporting to +represent innumerable Sieges and Battles in which the French arms were +engaged, many of them so insignificant that the world has wisely +forgotten them, yet here preserved to inflame and poison the minds of +hot-blooded, unreflecting youth, impelling them to rush into the +manufacture of cripples and corpses under the horrible delusion that +needless, aimless Slaughter, if perpetrated by wholesale, can really be +honorable and glorious. These paintings, as a whole, are of moderate +value as works of Art, while their tendency is horrible and their +details to me revolting. Carriages shattered and overturned, animals +transfixed by spear-thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men +riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls and ghastly with +coming death, such are the spectacles which the more favored and +fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire +and enjoy. These battle-pieces have scarcely more Historic than Artistic +value, since the names of at least half of them might be transposed and +the change be undetected by ninety-nine out of every hundred who see +them. If <i>all</i> the French battles were thus displayed, it might be urged +with plausibility that these galleries were historical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>in their +character; but a full half of the story, that which tells of French +disaster and discomfiture—is utterly suppressed. The Battles of +Ptolemais, of Ivry, of Fontenoy, of Rivoli, of Austerlitz, &c., are here +as imposing as paint can make them, but never a whisper of Agincourt, +Crecy, Poictiers, Blenheim, or Ramillies, nor yet of Salamanca, of +Vittoria, of Leipsic, or Waterloo. Even the wretched succession of +forays which the French have for the last twenty years been prosecuting +in Algerine Africa here shines resplendent, for Vernet has painted, by +Louis Philippe's order and at France's cost, a succession of +battle-pieces wherein French numbers and science are seen prevailing +over Arab barbarism and irregular valor in combats whereof the very +names have been wisely forgotten by mankind, though they occurred but +yesterday. One of these is much the largest painting I ever saw, and is +probably the largest in the world, and it seems to have been got up +merely to exhibit one of Louis Philippe's sons in the thickest of the +fray. Last of all, we have the "Capture of Abd-el-Kader," as imposing as +Vernet could make it, but no whisper of the persistent perfidy wherewith +he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the +express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its +general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit +War as always glorious and France as uniformly triumphant. It is by +means like these that the business of shattering knee-joints and +multiplying orphans is kept in countenance.</p> + +<p>Versailles is a striking monument of the selfish profligacy of +King-craft and the long-suffering patience of Nations. Hundreds of +thousands of laborers' children must have gone hungry to their straw +pallets in order that their needy parents might pay the inexorable taxes +levied to build this Palace. Yet after all it has stood mainly +uninhabited! Its immense extent and unequalled splendor require an +immeasurable profusion in its occupant, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>incomes even of kings +are not absolutely without limit. So Versailles, with six or eight other +Royal Palaces in and around Paris, has generally stood empty, entailing +on the country an enormous annual expense for its simple preservation. +And now, though France has outgrown Royalty, it knows not what to do +with its costly, spacious, glittering shells. A single Palace +(Rambouillet) standing furthest from Paris, was converted (under Louis +Philippe) into a gigantic storehouse for Wool, while its spacious Parks +and Gardens were wisely devoted to the breeding and sustenance of the +choicest Merino Sheep. The others mainly stand empty, and how to dispose +of them is a National perplexity. Some of them may be converted into +Hospitals, Insane Retreats, &c., others into Libraries or Galleries of +Art and Science; but Versailles is too far from Paris for aught but a +Retreat as aforesaid, and has cost so immense a sum that any use which +may be made of it will seem wasteful. I presume it could not be sold as +it stands for a tenth of its actual cost. Perhaps it will be best, +therefore, to convert all the others into direct uses and preserve this +for public inspection as a perpetual memorial of the reckless +prodigality and all-devouring pomp of Kings, and as a warning to Nations +never again to entrust their destinies to men who, from their very +education and the influences surrounding them through life, must be led +to consider the Toiling Millions as mainly created to pamper their +appetites, to gratify their pride, and to pave with their corpses their +road to extended dominion.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">St. Cloud</span> is a much smaller but more pleasantly situated, more +tastefully furnished and decorated Palace, some miles nearer than +Versailles to Paris, and commanding an admirable view of the city. The +<span class="smcap">Luxembourg</span>, situated in the southern section of the city, is +externally a chaste and well-proportioned edifice, containing some fine +pictures by living artists, and surrounded by spacious and delightful +woods, shrubbery, &c., termed "the Gardens of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>Luxembourg." The +<span class="smcap">Tuileries</span>, in the heart of the city, near the Seine, I have not +seen internally, and the exterior seems low, straggling, and every way +unimposing. Its extent is almost incredible by those who have not seen +it—scarcely less than that of Versailles. The <span class="smcap">Louvre</span> is the +finest structure of all, and most worthily devoted. Its lower story is +filled with Sculptures of no considerable merit, but its galleries +contain more strikingly good Paintings than I shall ever again see under +one roof. I have spent a good part of two days there, and mean to +revisit it on my return.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>PASSPORTS, ETC.</h3> + +<p>If each American could spend three days on this continent, his love of +Country and of Liberty could not fail to be quickened and intensified, +if only by an experience of the enormity of the Passport nuisance. It +has cost me precious hours already, not to speak of dollars, and is +certain to cost many more of each. I have nearly concluded to given up +Germany on account of it, while Italy fairly swarms with petty +sovereignties and with Yankee Consuls, the former afraid of their own +black shadows, the latter intent on their beloved two dollars each from +every American traveler. Such is the report I have of them, and I +presume the reality is equal to the foreshadowing. It is a shame that +Republican France stands far behind Aristocratic Britain in this +respect, but I trust the contrast will not endure many more years.</p> + +<p>Two Americans who arrived here last week caused some perplexity to their +landlord. Every man who lodges a stranger here must see forthwith that +he has a Passport in good condition, in default of which said host is +liable to a penalty. Now, these Americans, when applied to, produced +Passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not +transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly +designated in his Passport as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>a "<i>Loafer</i>" the other as a "<i>Rowdy</i>" and +they informed him, on application, that, though these professions were +highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French +synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content +with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirming that all was right, +applied to an American friend for a translation of the inexplicable +professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully +enlightened with regard to them.</p> + +<p>I am off to-day (I hope) for Lyons and Italy.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XIX.</h2> +<h2>FRANCE, CENTRAL AND EASTERN.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lyons</span>, Tuesday, June 17, 1851.</p> + +<p>I came out of Paris through the spacious <i>Boulevards</i>,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> which, under +various second appellations, stretch eastward from the Madeleine Church +nearly to the barrier, and then bend southward, near the beautiful +column which marks the site and commemorates the fall of the Bastile, so +long the chief dungeon wherein Despotism stifled Remonstrance and tamed +the spirit of Freedom. Liberty in France is doomed yet to undergo many +trials—nay, is now enduring some of them—but it is not within the +compass of probability that another Bastile should ever rear its head +there, nor that the absolute power and abject servitude which it fitly +symbolized should ever be known there hereafter. Very near it on the +south lies the famous Faubourg St. Antoine, inhabited mainly by bold, +free-souled working-men, who have repeatedly evinced their choice to die +free rather than live slaves, and in whom the same spirit lives and +rules to-day. I trust that dire alternative will never again be forced +upon them, but if it should be there is no Bastile so impregnable, no +despotism so fortified by prescription, and glorious recollections, and +the blind devotion of loyalty, as those they have already leveled to the +earth.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>The Paris Station of the Lyons Railway is at the eastern barrier of the +City. I received here another lesson in French Railroad management. I +first bought at the office my ticket for Chalons on the Saone, which is +the point to which the road is now completed. The distance is 243 miles; +the fare (first-class) $7.50. But the display of my ticket did not +entitle me to enter the passengers' sitting-room, much less to approach +the cars. Though I had cut down my baggage, by two radical +retrenchments, to two light carpet-bags, I could not take these with me, +nor would they pass without weighing. When weighed, I was required to +pay three or four sous (cents) for extra baggage, though there is no +stage-route in America on which those bags would not have passed +unchallenged and been accounted a very moderate allowance. Now I was +permitted to enter the sacred precincts, but my friend, who had spent +the morning with me and come to see me off, was inexorably shut out, and +I had no choice but to bid him a hasty adieu. Passing the entrance, I +was shown into the apartment for first-class passengers, while the +second-class were driven into a separate fold and the third-class into +another. Thus we waited fifteen minutes, during which I satisfied myself +that no other American was going by this train, and but three or four +English, and of these the two with whom I scraped an acquaintance were +going only to Fontainbleau, a few miles from Paris. They were required +to take their places in a portion of the train which was to stop at +Fontainbleau, and so we moved off.</p> + +<p>The European Railway carriages, so far as I have yet seen them, are more +expensive and less convenient than ours. Each is absolutely divided into +apartments about the size of a mail-coach, and calculated to hold eight +persons. The result is thirty-two seats where an American car of equal +length and weight would hold at least fifty, and of the thirty-two +passengers, one-half must inevitably <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>ride backward. I believe the +second-class cars are more sociable, and mean to make their +acquaintance. I should have done it this time, but for my desire to meet +some one with whom I could converse, and Americans and Englishmen are +apt to cling to the first-class places. My aim was disappointed. My +companions were all Frenchmen, and, what was worse, all inveterate +smokers. They kept puff-puffing, through the day; first all of them, +then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon +near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the +atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and +went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules +posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or +decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women +are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by +the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope of it.</p> + +<p>The Railroad from Paris to Chalons passes through a generally level +region, watered by tributaries of the Seine and of the Saone, with a +range of gentle hills skirting the valleys, generally on the right and +sometimes on either hand. As in England, the track is never allowed to +cross a carriage-road on its own level, but is carried either under or +over each. The soil is usually fertile and well cultivated, though not +so skillfully and thoroughly as that of England. There are places, +however, in which the cultivation could not easily be surpassed, but I +should say that the average product would not be more than two-thirds +that of England, acre for acre. There are very few fences of any kind, +save a slight one inclosing the Railway, beyond which the country +stretches away as far as the eye can reach without a visible landmark, +the crops of different cultivators fairly touching each other and +growing square up to the narrow roads that traverse them. You will see, +for instance, first a strip of Grass, perhaps ten rods <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>wide, and +running back sixty or eighty rods from the Railroad; then a narrower +strip of Wheat; then one of Grape-Vines; then one of Beans; then one of +Clover; then Wheat again, then Grass or Oats, and so on. I saw very +little Rye; and if there were Potatoes or Indian Corn, they were not up +sufficiently high to be distinguished as we sped by them. The work going +forward was the later Weeding with the earlier Hay-making, and I saw +nearly as many women as men working in the fields. The growing crops +were generally kept pretty clear of weeds, and the grass was most +faithfully but very slowly cut. I think one Yankee would mow over more +ground in a day than two Frenchmen, but he would cut less hay to the +acre. Of course, in a country devoid of fences and half covered with +small patches of grain, there could not be many cattle: I saw no oxen, +very few cows, and not many horses. The hay-carts were generally drawn +by asses, or by horses so small as not to be easily distinguished from +asses as we whirled rapidly by. The wagons on the roads were generally +drawn by small horses. I judge that the people are generally industrious +but not remarkably efficient, and that the women do the larger half of +the work, house-work included. The hay-carts were wretchedly small, and +the implements used looked generally rude and primitive. The dwellings +are low, small, steep-roofed cottages, for which a hundred dollars each +would be a liberal offer. Of course, I speak of the rural habitations; +those in the villages are better, though still mainly small, +steep-roofed, poor, and huddled together in the most chaotic confusion. +The stalls and pastures for cattle were in the main only visible to the +eye of faith; though cattle there must be and are to do the ploughing +and hauling. I suspect they are seldom turned loose in summer, and that +there is not a cow to every third cottage. I think I did not see a yoke +of oxen throughout the day's ride of 243 miles.</p> + +<p>I was again agreeably disappointed in the abundance of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>Trees. Wood +seems to be the peasants' sole reliance for fuel, and trees are planted +beside the roads, the streams, the ditches, and often in rows or patches +on some arable portion of the peasants' narrow domain. This planting is +mainly confined to two varieties—the Lombardy Poplar and what I took to +be the Pollard, a species of Willow which displays very little foliage, +and is usually trimmed up so as to have but a mere armful of leaves and +branches at the top of a trunk thirty to fifty feet high, and six to +twelve inches through. The Lombardy Poplar is in like manner preferred, +as giving a large amount of trunk to little shade, the limbs rarely +extending three feet from the trunk, while the growth is rapid. Such are +the means employed to procure fuel and timber with the least possible +abstraction of soil from the uses of cultivation. There are some +side-hills so rocky and sterile as to defy human industry, and these are +given up to brush-wood, which I presume is cut occasionally and bound +into faggots for fuel. Some of it may straggle up, if permitted, into +trees, but I saw little that would fairly justify the designation of +Forest. Of Fruit-trees, save in the villages, there is a deplorable +scarcity throughout.</p> + +<p>We passed through few villages and no town of note but <span class="smcap">Dijon</span>, +the capital of ancient Burgundy, where its Parliament was held and where +its Dukes reigned and were buried. Their palace still stands, though +they have passed away. Dijon is 200 miles from Paris, and has 25,000 +inhabitants, with manufactures of Cotton, Woolen and Silk. Here and +henceforth the Vine is more extensively cultivated than further +Northward.</p> + +<p>We reached <span class="smcap">Chalons</span> on the Saone (there is another Chalons on +the Marne) before 9 P. M. or in about ten hours from Paris. Here a +steamboat was ready to take us forthwith to Lyons, but French management +was too much for us. Our baggage was all taken from the car outside and +carried piece by piece into the dépôt, where it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>very carefully +arranged in order according to the numbers affixed to the several +trunks, &c., in Paris. This consumed the better part of half an hour, +though half as many Yankees as were fussing over it would have had it +all distributed to the owners inside of ten minutes. Then the holders of +the first three or four numbers were let into the baggage-room, and when +they were disposed of as many more were let in, and so on. Each, as soon +as he had secured his baggage, was hustled into an omnibus destined for +the boat. I was among the first to get seated, but ours was the last +omnibus to start, and when the attempt was made, the carriage was +overloaded and wouldn't start! At last it was set in motion, but stopped +twice or thrice to let off passengers and baggage at hotels, then to +collect fare, and at last, when we had got within a few rods of the +landing, we were cheered with the information that "<i>Le bateau est +parti!</i>" The French may have been better than this, but its purport was +unmistakable—the boat was gone, and we were done. I had of course seen +this trick played before, but never so clumsily. There was no help for +us, however, and the amount of useless execration emitted was rather +moderate than otherwise. Our charioteers had taken good care to obtain +their pay for carrying us some time before, and we suffered ourselves to +be taken to our predestined hotel in a frame of mind approaching +Christian resignation. In fact, when I had been shown up to a nice +bed-room, with clean sheets and (for France) a fair supply of water, and +had taken time to reflect that there is no accommodation for sleeping on +any of these European river-boats, I was rather glad we had been +swindled than otherwise. So I am still. But you may travel the same +route in a hurry; so look out!</p> + +<p>We rose at 4 and made for the boat, determined not to be caught twice in +the same town. At five we bade good-bye to Chalons-sur-Saone (a pleasant +town of 13,000 people), under a lowering sky which soon blessed the +earth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>with rain—a dubious blessing to a hundred people on a steamboat +with no deck above the guards and scarcely room enough below for the +female passengers. However, the rain soon ceased and the sky gradually +cleared, so that since 9 o'clock the day has been sunny and delightful.</p> + +<p>The distance from Chalons to Lyons by the Saone is some 90 miles. The +river is about the size of the Connecticut from Greenfield to Hartford, +but is sluggish throughout, with very low banks until the last ten or +fifteen miles. After an intervale of half a mile to two miles, the land +rises gently on the right to an altitude of some two to five hundred +feet, the slope covered and checkered the whole distance with vineyards, +meadows, woods, &c. The Poplar and the Pollard are still planted, but +the scale of cultivation is larger and the houses much better than +between Paris and Dijon. The intervale (mainly in meadow) is much wider +on the left bank, the swell beyond it being in some places scarcely +visible. The scenery is greatly admired here, and as a whole may be +termed pretty, but cannot compare with that of the Hudson or Connecticut +in boldness or grandeur. There are some craggy hill-sides in the +distance, but I have not yet seen an indisputable mountain in France, +though I have passed nearly through it in a mainly southerly course for +over five hundred miles.</p> + +<p>As we approach Lyons, the hills on either side come nearer and finally +shut in the river between two steep acclivities, from which much +building-stone has been quarried. Elsewhere, these hill-sides are +covered with tasteful country residences of the retired or wealthy +Lyonnais, surrounded by gardens, arbors, shrubbery, &c. The general +effect is good. At last, houses and quays begin to line and bridges to +span the river, and we halt beside one of the quays and are in Lyons.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> <i>Boulevard</i> means, I presume, rampart or fortified works +(hence our English <i>bulwark</i>). The rampart was long ago removed, as the +city outgrew it, but the name is retained by the ample street which took +its place. Our <i>Battery</i> at New-York illustrates this origin of a name.</p></div> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XX" id="XX"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XX.</h2> +<h2>LYONS TO TURIN.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Turin</span> (Italy), June 20, 1851.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lyons</span>, though a French city, and the second in the Republic, +wears a sad, disheartened aspect. In '91 a stronghold of decaying +Loyalty, it is to-day the very focus of Democratic Socialism, being +decidedly more "Red" than Paris.—Here is concentrated the Sixth +Military Division of the French Army, under chiefs not chary of using +the sabre and bayonet, and with instructions to apply efficient +poultices of grape and canister on the first palpable appearance of +local inflammation. Should Louis Napoleon be enabled to override the +Constitution and prolong his sway, it is possible that, by the aid of +the act of May 31st, 1850, whereby more than half the Artisans of France +are disfranchised, the spirit of Lyons may in time be subdued, and +partisans of "Order" substituted for her present Socialist +Representatives in the Assembly; but, should the popular cause triumph +in the ensuing Elections, I shall be agreeably disappointed if that +triumph is as temperately and forbearingly enjoyed here as was that of +February, 1848.</p> + +<p>Lyons is now undergoing one of those periodical revulsions or +depressions which are the necessary incidents of the false system of +Industry and Trade which the leaders of Commercial opinion are bent on +fortifying and extending.—Here, at the confluence of the Rhone and the +Saone, is concentrated a population of nearly 200,000 souls, half of +whom attempt to live by spinning, weaving and dyeing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>Silks, while the +residue in good part busy themselves in collecting and buying the raw +material or in exporting and selling the product. But it is not best for +themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 Silk-workers should be clustered +on any square mile or two of earth; if they were distributed over the +world's surface, in communities of five to fifty thousand souls—if the +raw Silk were grown in the various countries wherein the fabrics are +required, where the climate and soil do not forbid, and taken there to +be manufactured where they do—the workers would have space, air, +activity, liberty, development, which are unattainable while they are +cooped within the walls of a single city. If those Silk-weavers, for +instance, whose fabrics are consumed in the United States, were now +located in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, &c. instead of being mainly +crowded into Lyons, they would there obtain many of the necessaries of +life at half the prices they now give for them, while the consumers of +their fabrics would pay for them in good part with Fruits, Vegetables, +Fuel, &c. which, because of their bulk or their perishable nature, they +cannot now sell at all, or can only sell at prices below the cost of +production. No matter if the Silks were held in money a fifth, a fourth, +or even a third higher than now, the great body of our consumers would +obtain them much cheaper, estimating the cost not in dollars but in +days' labor. The workers on both sides would be benefited, because they +would share between them at least three-fourths of the enormous tax +which Commerce now levies upon their Industry through the sale and +resale of its products, to distribute among its importers, shippers, +jobbers, retailers and lackeys of infinite variety. The bringing +together of Producer and Consumer, where Nature has interposed no +barrier, so that their diverse needs may be supplied by direct +interchange, or with the fewest possible intermediates, is the simple +and only remedy for one of the chief scourges under which Industry now +suffers throughout the world.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>"Very true," says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."—Will it, +indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual +agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong +side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk +trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the +manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the +Importer, the Jobber of our own country, has a like interest in keeping +the point of production as distant from their customers as possible. +Very often have I been told by wholesale merchants, "We prefer to sell +Foreign rather than Home-made fabrics, because the profit on the former +is usually much greater." This consideration is active and omnipresent +in Trade generally. The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple +Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is +unorganized, inert, and individually impotent. These Silk-Weavers of +Lyons are no more capable of removing to Virginia or Missouri and +establishing their business there than the Alps are of making an +American tour. Our consumers of Silks, acting as individuals, cannot +bring them over and establish them among us. But the great body of +consumers, animated by Philanthropy and an enlightened Self-Interest, +acting through their single efficient organism, the State, can make it +the interest of Capital and Capacity to bring them over and plant them +in the most eligible localities among us, and ought immediately and +persistently to do so. The inconveniences of such a policy are partial +and transitory, while its blessings are permanent and universal.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>A RIDE ACROSS THE ALPS.</h3> + +<p>Railroads are excellent contrivances for dispatch and economy; +Steamboats ditto, and better still for ease and observation or reading; +Steamships are to be endured when Necessity compels; but an +old-fashioned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>Coach-and-Four is by no means to be despised, even in +this age of Progress and Enlightenment. While I stay in Europe, I wish +to see as much land and to waste as little time on blue water as +possible. So I turned aside at Lyons from the general stream of +Italy-bound travellers—which flows down the Rhone to Avignon and +Marseilles, thence embarking for Genoa and Leghorn,—and booked myself +for a ride across the Lower Alps by diligence to Turin. And glad am I +that my early resolve to do so was not shaken.</p> + +<p>The European, but more especially French, diligence has often been +described. Ours consisted of a long carriage divided into the <i>coupé</i> or +foremost apartment, directly under the driver, and with an outlook on +each side and in front over the backs of the horses; the middle +apartment, which is much like the interior of our ordinary stage-coach; +and the rumble or rear apartment, calculated for servants or other cheap +travelers. Two-thirds of the roof was covered with a tun or two of +baggage and merchandise; and in front of this, behind and above the +driver's seat, is the <i>banquette</i>, a single seat across the top, +calculated to hold four persons, with a chaise top to be thrown back in +fine weather and a glass front to be let down by night or in case of +rain. I chose my seat here, as affording the best possible view of the +country. At 8 P. M. precisely, the driver cracked his whip, and four +good horses started our lumbering vehicle at a lively pace on the road +to Turin, some two hundred miles away in the south-east.</p> + +<p>The road from Lyons to the frontier is one of the best in the world, and +traverses a level, fertile, productive country. I should say that Grass, +Wheat and the Vine are the chief staples. A row of trees adorns either +side of the road most of the way, not the trim, gaunt, limbless +skeletons which are preferred throughout Central France, but +wide-spreading, thrifty shade-trees, which I judged in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>darkness to +be mainly Black Walnut, with perhaps a sprinkling of Chestnut, &c. +Through this noble avenue, we rattled on at a glorious pace, a row of +small bells jingling from each horse, and no change of teams consuming +more than two minutes, until we reached the little village on the French +side of the boundary between France and Savoy, some fifty miles from +Lyons. Here our Passports were taken away for scrutiny and <i>visé</i>, and +we were compelled to wait from 2½ till 5 o'clock, as the Sardinian +officers of customs would not begin to examine our baggage till the +latter hour. At 5 we crossed the little, rapid river (a tributary of the +Rhone) which here divides the two countries, a French and a Sardinian +sentinel standing at either end of the bridge. We drove into the court +of the custom-house, dismounted, had our baggage taken off and into the +rude building, where half a dozen officers and attendants soon appeared +and went at it. They searched rigidly, but promptly, carefully and like +gentlemen. In half an hour we were pronounced all right; our diligence +was reloaded, and, our passports having been returned, we rattled out of +the village and on our way, in the sunshine of as bright a June morning +as I ever hope to enjoy.</p> + +<p>France is a land of plains, and glades, and gentle acclivities; Savoy is +a country of mountains. They rose before and around us from the moment +of our crossing the boundary—grim, rugged and precipitous, they formed +a striking contrast to all of Europe I had hitherto seen. Throughout the +day and night following, we were rarely or never out of sight of +snow-covered peaks; nay, I have not yet lost sight of them, since they +are distinctly visible in the clear Italian atmosphere from the streets +of this sunny metropolis, at a distance of some thirty miles north. Our +route lay through Savoy for about a hundred miles, and not one acre in +thirty within sight of it can ever be plowed. Yet the mountains are in +good part composed of limestone, so that the narrow, sheltered valleys +are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>decidedly fertile; and the Vine is often made to thrive on the +steep, rocky hill sides, where the plow could not be forced below the +surface, and where an ox could not keep his footing. Every inch of +ground that can be, is cultivated; little patches of Wheat, or Grass, or +Vines are got in wherever there is a speck of soil, though no larger +than a cart-body; and far up the sides of steep mountains, wherever a +spot is found so moderately inclined that soil will lie on it, there +Grass at least is grown.</p> + +<p>Human Labor, in such a region, fully peopled, is very cheap and not very +efficient. The grape is the chief staple and Wine must be the principal +and probably is the only export, at least one third of the arable soil +being devoted to the Vine. Wheat is pretty extensively sown and is now +heading very thriftily, but I suspect the average size of the patches is +not above a quarter of an acre each. The Grass is good; and not much of +it cut yet. Indian Corn and Potatoes are generally cultivated, but in +deplorable ignorance of their nature. At least four times the proper +quantity of seed is put in the ground, neither Corn nor Potatoes being +allowed more than eighteen inches between the rows, making the labor of +cultivation very great and the chance of a good yield none at all.</p> + +<p>I think I saw quite as many women as men at work in the fields +throughout Savoy. A girl of fourteen driving a yoke of oxen attached to +a cart, walking barefoot beside the team and plying the goadstick, while +a boy of her own age lay idly at length in the cart, is one of my +liveliest recollections of Savoyard ways. Nut-brown, unbonneted women, +hoeing corn with an implement between an adze and a pick-axe (and not a +bad implement, either, for so rugged an unplowed soil), women driving +hogs, cows, &c., to or from market, we encountered at every turn. So +much hard, rough work and exposure are fatal to every trace of beauty, +and I do not remember to have seen a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>woman in Savoy even moderately +good-looking, while many were absolutely revolting. That this is not +Nature's fault is proved by the general aspect of the children, who, +though swarthy, have often good forms and features.</p> + +<p>We drove down into <span class="smcap">Chambery</span>, the capital of ancient Savoy, +about 9 <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> This is a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, +pleasantly situated in the valley of a much larger tributary of the Rhone +than that we crossed at the boundary, and with a breadth of arable soil +of perhaps two miles between the mountains. No where else in Savoy did we +traverse a valley even half a mile wide for any distance. Here is an old +ducal palace, with fine spacious grounds, shrubbery, &c. The road from +Geneva and the Baths of Aix to Turin comes down this valley and here +intersects that from Lyons. We were allowed twenty-five minutes for +breakfast, which would have been very well but that the time required +for cooking most of the breakfast had to come out of it.</p> + +<p>There was enough and good enough to eat, and (as usual throughout all +this region) Wine in abundance without charge, but Tea, Coffee or +Chocolate must be ordered and paid for extra. Even so, I was unable to +obtain a cup of Chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to +make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than +others for breakfast; but to talk English against French or Italian is +to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and +came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had +traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ventured to +expose my ignorance as follows:</p> + +<p>"Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of +you but two and a half?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know—perhaps you had Tea or Coffee."</p> + +<p>"No, Sir—don't drink either."</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps you washed your face and hands."</p> + +<p>"Well, it would be just like me."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>"O, then, that's it! The half franc was for the basin and towel."</p> + +<p>"Ah, <i>oui, oui</i>." So the milk in <i>that</i> cocoa-nut was accounted for.</p> + +<p>Our road, though winding constantly among mountains, was by no means a +rugged one. On the contrary, I was surprised to find it so nearly level. +Three or four times during the day we came to a hard hill, and usually a +yoke of oxen, an extra horse or span, stood at the foot, ready to hitch +on and help us up. Of course, we were steadily rising throughout, but so +gradually and on so capital a road as to offer little impediment to our +progress. A better road made of earth I never expect to see. Every mile +of it is plainly under constant supervision, and any defect is instantly +repaired. The only exception to its excellence is caused by the +villages, which occur at an average of ten miles apart, and consist each +of fifty to two hundred poor dwellings, mainly of stone, huddled +chaotically together along the two sides of the road, which is twisted +and turned by them in every direction, and often crowded into a width of +not more than eight or ten feet. It is absolutely impossible that two +carriages should pass each other in these narrow, crooked lanes, and +dangerous for even a pedestrian to stand outside of a house while the +diligence is threading one of these gorges.</p> + +<p>There is no town except Chambery on the whole route from Lyons to Turin; +but we passed about noon through a village in which a Fair was +proceeding. I did not suspect that two thousand people could live within +ten miles of the spot; yet I think fully two thousand were here +collected, with half as many cows, asses, hogs, &c., which had been +brought hither for sale, and about which they were jabbering and +gesticulating. Dealers in coarse chip hats and a few kindred fabrics +were also present; but it looked as if sellers were more abundant and +eager than buyers. It was only by great effort and by the most +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>exemplary patience that our driver and guard were enabled to clear the +road so that we passed through without inflicting any injury.</p> + +<p>Wilder and narrower was the gorge, nearer and bleaker rose the +mountains, steeper and more palpable became the ascent, keener and +crisper grew the air, as the evening fell upon us pursuing our devious +way. The valleys were not only insignificant but widely separated by +tracts through which the road had with difficulty and at much expense +been cut out of the mountain side without infringing on the impetuous +torrent that tumbled and foamed by our side; and even where little +valleys or glens still existed it was clear that Nature no longer +responded with alacrity and abundance to the summons of human industry. +The Vine no longer clung to the steep acclivities; the summer foliage of +the lower valleys had given place to dark evergreens where shrubbery +could still find foot-hold and sustenance. The snow no longer skulked +timorously behind the peaks of distant mountains, showing itself only on +their northern declivities, but stood out boldly, unblenchingly on all +sides, and seemed within a musket-shot of our path. From slight +depressions in the brows of the overhanging cliffs, streamlets leaped +hundreds of feet in silvery recklessness, falling in feathery foam by +our side. I think I saw half a dozen of these cascades within a distance +of three miles.</p> + +<p>At length, near ten o'clock, we reached the foot of Mount Cenis, where +sinuosity of course could avail us no further. We must now face the +music. Our five tired horses were exchanged for eight fresh ones, and we +commenced the slow, laborious ascent of some six or eight miles. Human +habitations had already become scattered and infrequent; but we passed +three or four in ascending the mountain. Their inmates of course live +upon the travel, in one way or another, for Sterility is here the +inexorable law. Yet our ascent was not so steep as might <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>be expected, +being modified, when necessary, by zig-zags from one direction or one +side of the chasm we followed to the other. The horses were stopped to +breathe but once only; elsewhere for three hours or more they pursued +their firm, deliberate, decided, though slow advance. The shrubbery +dwindled as we ascended and at length disappeared, save in the sheltered +gorges; the snow came nearer and spread over still larger spaces; at +length, it lay in heavy beds or masses, half melted into ice, just by +the side of the road and on its edge, though I think there was none +actually under the wheels. Finally, a little before one o'clock, we +reached the summit, and the moon from behind the neighboring cliff burst +upon us fully two hours high. Two or three houses stood here for the use +of travelers; around them nothing but snow and the naked planet. Before +us lay the valley of the Po, the great plain of Upper Italy.</p> + +<p>Six of our horses were here detached and sent back to the Savoy base of +the mountain, while with the two remaining we commenced our rapid and +dashing descent. Mount Cenis is decidedly steeper on this side than on +the other; it is only surmounted by a succession of zig-zags so near +each other that I think we traveled three miles in making a direct +progress of one, during which we must have descended some 1,500 feet. +Daylight found us at the foot with the level plain before us, and at 8 +o'clock, <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> we were in Turin.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXI.</h2> +<h2>SARDINIA—ITALY—FREEDOM.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Genoa</span> (Italy), June 22, 1851.</p> + +<p>The Kingdom of Sardinia was formed, after the overthrow of Napoleon, by +the union of Genoa and its dependencies, with the former Kingdom of +Piedmont and Savoy including the island of Sardinia, to whose long +exiled Royal house was restored a dominion thus extended. That dominion +has since stood unchanged, and may be roughly said to embrace the +North-Western fourth of Italy, including Savoy, which belongs +geographically to Switzerland, but which forms a very strong barrier +against invasion from the side of France. Savoy is almost entirely +watered by tributaries of the Rhone, and so might be said to belong +naturally to France rather than to Italy, regarding the crests of the +Alps as the proper line of demarcation between them. Its trade, small at +any rate, is of necessity mainly with France; very slightly, save on the +immediate sea-coast, with Genoa or Piedmont. Its language is French. +Though peopled nearly to the limit of its capacity, the whole number of +its inhabitants can hardly exceed Half a Million, nine-tenths of its +entire surface being covered with sterile, intractable mountains. Savoy +must always be a poor country, with inconsiderable commerce or +manufactures (for though its water-power is inexhaustible, its means of +communication must ever be among the worst), and seems to have been +created mainly as a barrier against that guilty ambition which impels +rulers and chieftains to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>covet and invade territories which reject and +resist their sway. Alas that the Providential design, though so +palpable, should be so often disregarded! Doubtless, the lives lost from +age to age by mere hardship, privation and exposure, during the passage +of invading armies through Savoy, would outnumber the whole present +population of the country.</p> + +<p>Descending the Alps to the east or south into <span class="smcap">Piedmont</span>, a new +world lies around and before you. You have passed in two hours from the +Arctic circle to the Tropics—from Lapland to Cuba. The snow-crested +mountains are still in sight, and seem in the clear atmosphere to be +very near you even when forty or fifty miles distant, but you are +traversing a spacious plain which slopes imperceptibly to the Po, and is +matched by one nearly as level on the other side. This great plain of +upper Italy, with the Po in its center, commences at the foot of the +lower Alps very near the Mediterranean, far west of Turin and of Genoa, +and stretches across the widest portion of the peninsula till it is lost +in the Adriatic. The western half of this great valley is Piedmont; the +eastern is Lombardy. Its fertility and facility of cultivation are such +that even Italian unthrift and ignorance of Agriculture are unable to +destroy the former or nullify the latter. I never saw better Wheat, +Grass, and Barley, than in my journey of a hundred miles across this +noble valley of the Po, or Piedmont, and the Indian Corn, Potatoes, &c., +are less promising only because of the amazing ignorance of their +requirements evinced by nine-tenths of the cultivators. In the first +place, the land is not plowed half deep enough; next, most of it is +seldom or never manured; thirdly, it is planted too late; and fourthly, +three or four times as much seed is planted as should be. I should judge +that twenty seed potatoes, or kernels of corn, to each square yard is +about the average, while five of either is quite enough. Then both, but +especially Corn, are hilled up, sugar-loaf <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>fashion, until the height of +each hill is about equal to its breadth at the base, so that two days' +hot sun dries the hill completely through, while there is no soil a foot +from each stalk for its roots to run in. From such perverse cultivation, +a good yield is impossible. There has been no rain of consequence here +for some weeks, whence Wheat and Barley are ripening too rapidly, while +Corn, Potatoes and Vegetables suffer severely from drouth, when with +deeper plowing and rational culture everything would have been verdant +and flourishing. Yet this great plain in some parts is and in most might +be easily and bountifully irrigated from the innumerable mountain +streams which traverse it on their way to the Po. I never saw another +region wherein a few Sub-soil Plows, with men qualified to use them and +to set forth the nature and advantages of skillful cultivation +generally, are so much wanted as in Piedmont.</p> + +<p>The Vine is of course extensively cultivated in Piedmont, as everywhere +in Italy, but not so universally as in the hilly, rocky region extending +from the great valley to this city (some thirty or forty miles). This +has a warm though a thin soil, which must be highly favorable to the +Vine to induce so exclusive a devotion to it. I think half of the arable +soil I saw between this and Arquata, where the plain and (for the +present) the Railroad stop, and the hills and the diligence begin, was +devoted to the Grape; while from the steeple of the Carignani Church, +which I ascended last evening, the semi-circle of towering, receding +hill-sides which invests Genoa landward, seems covered with the Vine, +and even the Gardens within the town are nearly given up to it. The Fig, +the Orange, the Almond, are also native here or in the vicinity.</p> + +<p>This kingdom is to-day, after France, the chief point of interest in +continental Europe for lovers of Human Liberty. Three years ago, under +the impulse of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>general uprising of the Nations, its rulers entered +upon a course of policy in accordance with the wants and demands of the +age, and that policy is still adhered to, though meantime the general +aspect of affairs is sadly changed, and Sardinia herself has experienced +the sorest reverses. The weak, unstable King whose ambition first +conspired to throw her into the current of the movement for the +liberation of Italy, has died defeated and broken-hearted, but his wiser +son and heir has taken his stand deliberately and firmly on the liberal +side, and cannot be driven from his course. His policy, as proclaimed in +his memorable Speech from the Throne on the assembling of the present +Chambers, is "to rear Free Institutions in the midst of surrounding +ruins." A popular Assembly, in which the Ministry have seats, directs +and supervises the National Policy, which is avowedly and efficiently +directed toward the vigorous prosecution of Reforms in every department. +Absolute Freedom in matters of Religion has already been established, +and the long crushed and persecuted Vaudois or Waldenses rejoice in the +brighter day now opening before them. Their simple worship is not only +authorized and protected in their narrow, secluded Alpine valleys, but +it is openly and regularly conducted also in Turin, the metropolis, +where they are now endeavoring to erect a temple which shall fitly set +forth the changed position of Protestantism in Northern Italy. They are +still few and poor, and will apply to their brethren in America for +pecuniary aid, which I trust will be granted expressly on condition that +the church thus erected shall be open, when not otherwise required, to +any Protestant clergyman who produces ample testimonials of his good +standing with his own denomination at home. Such a church in Turin would +be of incalculable service to the cause of Human Emancipation from the +shackles of Force, Prescription and Tradition throughout Italy and the +Eastern World.</p> + +<p>The Freedom of the Press is established in this kingdom, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>yet no single +journal of the Reäctionist type is issued, because there is no demand +for one. The only division of political sentiment is that which +separates the more impetuous Progressives, or avowed Democrats, from the +larger number (apparently) who believe it wiser and safer to hold fast +by King and Constitution, especially since the Monarch is among the most +zealous and active in the cause of Progress and Reform. I think these +are right, though their opponents have ample justification in History, +even the most recent, for their distrust of the liberal professions and +seemings of Royalty. But were the King and all his House to abdicate and +leave the country to-morrow, I believe that would be a disastrous step +for Sardinia and for Human Liberty. For this kingdom is almost walled in +by enemies—Austria, Tuscany, Rome (alas!) and Naples—all intensely +hating it and seeking its downfall because of the Light and Hope which +its policy and its example are diffusing among the nations. With the +Pope it is directly at variance, on questions of contested jurisdiction +deemed vital alike by the Spiritual and the Temporal power; and repeated +efforts at adjustment have only resulted in repeated failures. This feud +is of itself a source of weakness, since ninety-nine in every hundred of +the population are at least nominally Roman Catholic, and the great mass +of the Peasantry intensely so, while the Priesthood naturally side with +the Ecclesiastical as against the Political contestant. And behind +Austria, notoriously hostile to the present policy of Sardinia, stands +the black, colossal shadow of the Autocrat, with no power east of the +Rhine and the Adriatic able or willing to resist him, and only waiting +for an excuse to pour his legions over the sunny plains of Southern +Europe. A Democratic Revolution in Sardinia, no matter how peacefully +effected, would inevitably, while France is crippled as at present, be +the signal (as with Naples and Spain successively some twenty-five to +thirty years ago) for overwhelming invasion <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>in the interest and by the +forces of utter Despotism. Well-informed men believe that if the present +King were to abdicate to-morrow, he would immediately be chosen +President by an immense majority of the People.</p> + +<p>Yet there is an earnest, outspoken Democratic party in Sardinia, and +this city is its focus. Genoa, in fact, has never been reconciled to the +decree which arbitrarily merged her political existence in that of the +present Kingdom. She fondly cherishes the recollection of her ancient +opulence, power and glory, and remembers that in her day of greatness +she was the center and soul of a Republic. Hence her Revolutionary +struggle in 1848; hence the activity and boldness of her Republican +propaganda now. To see Italy a Federal Republic, whereof Piedmont, +Savoy, Genoa and Sardinia should be separate and sovereign States, along +with Venice, Lombardy, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, &c., would best satisfy +her essential aspirations.</p> + +<p>Yet Genoa is clearly benefited by her present political connection. From +her lovely bay, she looks out over the Mediterranean, Corsica, Sardinia, +Africa and the Levant, but has scarcely a glimpse of the continent of +Italy. No river bears its products to her expectant wharves; only the +most insignificant mill-streams brawl idly down to her harbor and the +adjacent shore; steep, naked mountains rise abruptly behind her, +scarcely allowing room for her lofty edifices and narrow streets; while +from only a few miles back the waters are hurrying to join the Po and be +borne away by that rapid, unnavigable stream to the furthest limit of +Italy. No commercial City was ever more hardly dealt with by Nature on +the land side than Genoa; no one ever stood more in need of intimate +political connections suggestive of and cemented by works of Internal +improvement. These she is now on the point of securing. A very tolerable +Railroad has already been constructed from Turin to Arquata, some +seventy miles on the way to Genoa, and the remaining thirty odd miles +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>are now under contract, to be completed in 1852. The portion +constructed was easy, while the residue is exceedingly difficult, +following the valleys of impetuous mountain torrents, which to-day +discharge each minute five gallons and to-morrow five thousand +hogsheads. These valleys (or rather clefts) are quite commonly so narrow +and their sides so steep and rock-bound that the Railroad track has to +be raised several feet on solid masonry to preserve it from being washed +away by the floods which follow every violent or protracted rain. +Expensive arches to admit the passage of the streams whenever crossed, +and of the roads, are also numerous, so that these thirty miles, in +spite of the abundance and cheapness of Labor here, will cost at least +Three Millions of Dollars. Yet the road will pay when in full operation, +and will prove a new day-spring of prosperity to Genoa. From Turin, +branches or feeders will run to the Alps in various directions, +benefiting that city considerably, but Genoa infinitely more, since +nine-tenths of the produce even of Piedmont will run past Turin, without +unloading, to find purchasers and exporters here. A coal-mine of promise +has just been discovered at Aosta, at the foot of the Alps, to which one +of these branches is to be constructed. Genoa is now jealous of Turin's +political ascendency, which is just as sensible as would be jealousy of +Albany on the part of New-York. Even already, though it has not come +near her, the Railroad is sensibly improving her trade and industry; and +whenever it shall have reached her wharves every mile added to its +extent or to that of any of its branches will add directly and largely +to the commerce and wealth of this city. In time this Road will connect +with those of France and Germany, by a tunnel through some one of the +Alps (Mount Cenis is now under consideration), but, even without that, +whenever it shall have reached the immediate base of the Alps on this +side and been responded to by similar extensions of the French and +Rhine-valley <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>Railroads on the other, Genoa will supplant Marseilles +while continuing preferable to Trieste as the point of embarkation for +Cairo and Suez on the direct route from England and Paris for India, +China and Southern Asia generally, and can only be superseded in that +preëminence by a railroad running hence or from Lake Maggiore and Milan +direct to Naples or Salerno—a work of whose construction through so +many petty and benighted principalities there is no present probability.</p> + +<p>Still, Sardinia has very much before her unaccomplished. She needs first +of all things an efficient and comprehensive system of Popular +Education. With the enormous superabundance of Sixty Thousand Priests +and other Ecclesiastics to a generally poor population of Four Millions, +she has not to-day five thousand teachers, good, bad and indifferent, of +elementary and secular knowledge. These black-coated gentry fairly +overshadow the land with their shovel hats, so that Corn has no fair +chance of sunshine. The Churches of this City alone must have cost Ten +Millions of Dollars—for you cannot walk a hundred steps without passing +one; and the wealth lavished in their construction and adornment exceeds +all belief—while all the common school-houses in Genoa would not bring +fifty thousand dollars. The best minds of the country are now pondering +the urgent necessity of speedily establishing a system of efficient +Popular Education.</p> + +<p>But the Nation is deeply in debt, and laboring under heavy burdens. Its +Industry is inefficient, its Commerce meager, its Revenues slender, +while the imminent peril of Austrian invasion compels the keeping up of +an Army of Fifty Thousand effective men ready to take the field at a +moment's warming. But for the notorious and active hostility of +three-fourths of Continental Europe to the liberal policy of its rulers, +Sardinia might dispense with three-fourths of this force and save its +heavy cost for Education and Internal Improvement. As things are, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>women +must toil in the fields while Physical and Mental Improvement must wait +in order that the Nation may sustain in virtual idleness Fifty Thousand +Soldiers and Sixty Thousand Priests.</p> + +<p>Yet mighty are the blessings of Freedom, even under the greatest +disadvantages. Turin is now increasing in Industry and Population with a +rapidity unknown to its former history. Looking only at the new +buildings just erected or now in progress, you might mistake it for an +American city. Unless checked by future wars, Turin will double its +population between 1850 and 1860. Genoa has but recently and partially +felt the new impulse, yet even here the march of improvement is visible. +Three years more of peace will witness the substitution for its long +period of stagnation and decay of an activity surpassed by that of no +city in Europe.</p> + +<p>Turin is eligibly located and well built, most of the houses being +large, tall, and the walls of decided strength and thickness; but Genoa +is even superior in most respects if not in all. I never saw so many +churches so admirably constructed and so gorgeously, laboriously +ornamented as the half dozen I visited yesterday and this morning. My +guide says there are sixty churches in Genoa (a city about the size of +Boston, though with fewer houses and a much smaller area than Brooklyn), +and that they are nearly all built and adorned with similar if not equal +disregard of cost. A modest, graceful monument to Christopher Columbus, +the Genoese discoverer of America, was one of the first structures that +met my eye on entering the city, and an eating-house in the square of +the chief theater is styled "Café Restaurant à l'Immortel Chr. Columbo," +or something very near that. I never before saw so many admirable +specimens of costly and graceful architecture as have arrested my +attention in wandering through the streets of Genoa. At least half the +houses were constructed for the private residences of "merchant princes" +in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>the palmy days of "Genoa the Superb," and their wealth would seem to +have been practically boundless. The "Hotel de Londres," in which I +write, was originally a convent, and no house in New-York can vie with +it in the massiveness of its walls, the hight of its ceilings, &c. My +bed-room, appropriately furnished, would shame almost any American +parlor or drawing-room. All around me testifies of the greatness that +has been; who shall say that it is not soon to return? The narrow +streets (very few of them passable by carriages) and uneven ground-plot +are the chief drawbacks on this magnificence; but the city rises so +regularly and gracefully from the harbor as to seem like a glorious +amphitheater, and the inequality, so wearisome to the legs, is a beauty +and a pleasure to the eye. It gives, besides, opportunity for the finest +Architectural triumphs. The Carignani Church is approached by a massive +bridge thrown across a ravine, from which you look down on the tops of +seven-story houses, and I walked this morning in a public garden which +looks down into a private one some sixty feet below it. The +perpendicular stone wall which separates these gardens is at least five +feet thick at the top, and must have cost an immense sum; but in fact +the whole city has been three times completely walled in, and the latest +and most extensive of these walls is still in good condition, and was +successfully defended by Massena in the siege of 1800, until Famine +compelled him to surrender. May that stand recorded to the end of human +history as the last siege of Genoa!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXII.</h2> +<br /> + +<p>[This letter, written and mailed at Leghorn on the 24th, has never come +to hand, having been entrusted to the tender mercies of the <i>French</i> +mail which was to leave Leghorn next day by steamer for Marseilles, and +thence be taken, via Paris, to Havre, and by steamship to this city. The +wretched old apology for a steamship whereon I had reached Leghorn (80 +miles) in eighteen hours from Genoa may not yet have completed her +return passage between those ports, though I think she has; but whether +her officers know enough to receive and deliver a Mail-bag is +exceedingly doubtful. If they did, I see not how my letter can have been +stopped this side of Marseilles. I remember that it did particular +justice to French Government steamships in the Mediterranean and to +American Consuls in Italy, showing how our traveling countrymen are +crucified between the worthlessness of the former and the rapacity of +the latter. Our Consuls may well rejoice that said Letter XXII. comes up +missing, and perhaps the Tuscan Police has cause to join in their +exultation.</p> + +<p>This letter also gave some account of Leghorn, a well-built modern city, +the only port of Tuscany, situated on a flat or marsh scarcely raised +above the surface of the Mediterranean, and containing some 80,000 +inhabitants. It has few or no antiquities, and not much to attract a +traveler's attention.</p> + +<p>Some thirty miles inland in a north-easterly direction, is <i>Pisa</i>, once +a very wealthy and powerful emporium of commerce, now a decaying inland +town of no political <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>importance, with perhaps 30,000 inhabitants. It +lies on both sides of the Arno, several miles from the sea, and I +presume the river-bed has been considerably filled or choked up by +sediment and rains since the days of Pisa's glory and power. Her +wonderful Leaning Tower is worthy of all the fame it has acquired. It is +a beautiful structure, though owing its dignity, doubtless, to some +defect in its foundation or construction. The Cathedral of Pisa is a +beautiful edifice, most gorgeous in its adornments, and with by far the +finest galleries I ever saw. Near these two structures is an extensive +burial-place full of sculptures and inscriptions in memory of the dead, +some of them 2500 years old, and thence reaching down to the present +day. Had I not extended my trip to Rome, I should have brought home far +more vivid and lasting impressions of Pisa, which has nevertheless an +abiding niche in my memory.</p> + +<p>The day before my visit was the anniversary of the Patron Saint of Pisa, +which is celebrated every fourth year with extraordinary pomp and +festivity. This time, I was informed, the fire-works exploded at the +public charge, in honor of this festival, cost over $100,000, though +Pisa <i>cannot afford</i> to sustain Free Common Schools, or make any +provision for the Education of her Children. Of course, she can afford +to die, or is certain to do it, whether she can afford it or not. Pisa +is located on a beautiful and fertile plain, and is surrounded by +gardens, with fruit and ornamental trees; but much of the soil between +it and Leghorn is the property of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who keeps +it entirely in grass, affording subsistence to extensive and beautiful +herds of Cattle, whence he derives a large income, being the chief +milk-seller in his own dominions. So, at least, I was informed.]</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXIII.</h2> +<h2>FIRST DAY IN THE PAPAL STATES.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Rome</span>, Thursday, June 26, 1851.</p> + +<p>I left Leghorn night before last in the French steamer Languedoc, which +could not obtain passengers in America, but is accounted one of the best +boats on the Mediterranean. The fare to Civita Vecchia (125 miles) was +40 francs, but 4 added for dinner (without saying "By your leave") made +it $825. There were perhaps twenty-five passengers, mainly for Naples, +but eight or ten for Civita Vecchia and Rome, although it is everywhere +said that "Nobody goes to Rome at this season," meaning nobody that is +anybody—none who can afford to go when they would choose. The night was +fair; the sea calm; we left Leghorn at 6 (nominally 5) and reached +Civita Vecchia about 5 next morning; but were kept on board waiting the +pleasure of the Police until about 7, when we were graciously permitted +to land, our Passports having been previously sent on shore for +inspection. No steamboat in these waters is allowed to come alongside of +the wharf; so we paid a franc each for being rowed ashore; then as much +more to the porters who carried our baggage on their backs to the +custom-house, where a weary hour was spent in overhauling and sealing +it, so that it need not be overhauled again on entering the gate of +Rome. For this service a trifle only was exacted from each. Meantime a +"commissionaire" had gone after our Passports, for which we paid first +the charge of the Papal Police, which I think was about three francs; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>then for the <i>visé</i> of our several Consuls, we Americans a dollar each, +which (though but half what is charged by our Consuls at other Italian +ports) is more than is charged by those of any other nation. Then came +the charge of our "commissionaire" for his services. We took breakfast; +but that, though a severe, was not a protracted infliction; hired places +in the Diligence (13 francs in the <i>coupé</i>, 10 in the body of the +stage), and at half-past 10 were to have been on our way to Rome. But +the start was rather late, and on reaching the gates of that wretched +village, which seems to subsist mainly on such petty swindles as I have +hastily described, our Passports, which had been thrice scrutinized that +morning within sixty rods, had to run the gauntlet again. I do not +remember paying for this, but while detained by it the ostlers from the +stables of our Diligence were all upon us, clamoring for money. I think +they got little. But we changed horses thrice on the way to Rome, and +each postillion was down upon us for money, and out of all patience with +those passengers who attempted to put him off with copper.</p> + +<p>Aside from those engaged in fleecing us as aforesaid, I saw but three +sorts of men in Civita Vecchia—or rather, men pursuing three several +avocations—those of Priests, Soldiers and Beggars. Some united two of +these callings. A number of brown, bare-headed, wretched-looking women +were washing clothes in the hot sun of the sea-side, but I saw no trace +of masculine industry other than what I have described. The place is +said to contain 7,000 inhabitants, but I think there is scarcely a +garden outside its walls.</p> + +<p>Half the way thence to Rome, the road runs along the shore of the +Mediterranean, through a naturally fertile and beautiful champaign +country, once densely peopled and covered with elegant structures, the +homes of intelligence, refinement and luxury. Now there is not a garden, +scarcely a tree, and not above ten barns and thirty human habitations in +sight throughout the whole twenty-five miles. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>Such utter desolation and +waste, in a region so eligibly situated, can with difficulty be realized +without seeing it. I should say it can hardly here be unhealthy, with +the pure Mediterranean directly on one side, the rugged hills but two to +five miles distant on the other, and the plain between very much less +marshy than the corresponding district of New-Jersey stretching along +the coast from New-York to Perth Amboy. A few large herds of neat cattle +are fed on these plains, considerable grass is cut, and some summer +grain; but stables for post-horses at intervals of five or six miles, +with perhaps as many dilapidated stone dwellings and a few wretched +herdsmen's huts of straw or rubbish, are all the structures in sight, +save the bridges of the noble "Via Aurelia" which we traversed, the +ruins of some of the stately edifices once so abundant here, and the +mile-stones. There is not even one tavern of the half dozen pretenders +to the name between Civita Vecchia and Rome which would be considered +tolerable in the least civilized portion of Arkansas or Texas.</p> + +<p>Half way to Rome, the road strikes off from the sea, and there is +henceforth more cultivation, more grain, better crops (though all this +land produces excellently both of Wheat and Barley, and of Indian Corn +also where the cultivation is not utterly suicidal), but still there are +very few houses and those generally poor, the wretchedest caricatures of +taverns on one of the great highways of the world, no gardens nor other +evidences of aspiration for comfort and natural beauty, few and ragged +trees, and the very few inhabitants are so squalid, so abject, so +beggarly, that it seems a pity they were not fewer. And this state +continues, except that the grain-crops grow larger and better, up to +within a mile or two of the gates of Rome, which thus seems another +Palmyra in the Desert, only that this is a desert of man's making. I +presume the twenty-five or thirty miles at this end is unhealthy, even +for natives, but it surely need not be so. All this Campagna, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>with the +more pestilent Pontine Marshes on the south, which are now scourging +Rome with their deadly malaria and threaten to render it ultimately +uninhabitable, were once salubrious and delightful, and might readily be +made so again. If they were in England, Old or New, near a city of the +size of this, they would be trenched, dyked, drained, and reconverted +into gardens, orchards and model-farms within two years, and covered +with dwellings, mansions, country-seats, and a busy, energetic, thrifty +population before 1860. A tenth part of the energy and devotedness +displayed in the attempts to wrest Jerusalem from the Infidels would +rescue Rome from a fate not less appalling.</p> + +<p>We ought by contract to have arrived here at half past six last evening; +we actually reached the gates at half past eight or a little later. +There our Passports were taken from us, and carried into the proper +office; but word came back that all was not right; we must go in +personally. We did so, and found that what was wanted to make all right +was money. There was not the smallest pretext for this—no Barbary +pirate ever had less—as we were not to get our Passports, but must wait +their approval by a higher authority and then go and pay for it. We +submitted to the swindle, however, for we were tired, the hour late, we +had lodgings yet to seek, and the night-air here is said to be very +unwholesome for strangers. This difficulty obviated, another presented +itself. The Custom-House stood on the other side of the street, and word +came that we were wanted there also, though our slender carpet-bags had +been regularly searched and sealed by the Roman functionaries at Civita +Vecchia expressly to obviate any pretext for scrutiny or delay here. No +use—money. By this time, change and patience were getting scarce in our +company. We tried to get off cheap; but it wouldn't do. Finally, rather +than stay out till midnight in the malaria, I put down a +five-franc-piece, which was accepted and we were let go. Still for +form's sake, our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>baggage was fumbled over, but not opened, and one or +two more heads looked in at the window for "<i>qualche cosa</i>," but we gave +nothing, and soon got away.</p> + +<p>We had paid thirteen francs each for a ride of fifty miles over a +capital road, where horses and feed are abundant, and must be cheap; but +now our postillion came down upon us for more money for taking us to a +hotel; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs +to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one +hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or +four rough customers jumped unbidden on the vehicle, and, when we +reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which +we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled +with the postillion, who grumbled and scolded though we paid him more +than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be +paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but +others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, +which the "<i>facchini</i>" rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up +stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their +imprecations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of +Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light +carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh +demand for porterage. "Don't you belong to the hotel?" "Yes." "Then +vanish instantly!" I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his +heart's content; and thus closed my first day in the more especial +dominions of His Holiness Pius IX.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXIV.</h2> +<h2>THE ETERNAL CITY.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Rome</span>, Friday, June 27, 1851.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rome</span> is mighty even in her desolation. I knew the world had +nothing like her, and yet the impression she has made on me, at the +first view, is unexpectedly great. I do not yet feel able to go +wandering from one church, museum, picture or sculpture gallery to +another, from morning till night, as others do: I need to pause and +think. Of course, I shall leave without seeing even a tenth part of the +objects of decided interest; but if I should thus be enabled to carry +away any clear and abiding impression of a small part, I shall prefer +this to a confused and foggy perception of a greater multiplicity of +details.</p> + +<p>That single view of the Eternal City, from the tower of the Capitol, is +one that I almost wish I had given up the first day to. The entire of +Rome and its inhabited suburbs lies so fully and fairly before the eye, +with the Seven Hills, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Obelisks, the +Pillars, the Vatican, the Castle of St. Angelo, the various Triumphal +Arches, the Churches, &c., &c., around you, that it seems the best use +that could be made of one day to simply move from look-out to look-out +in that old tower, using the glass for a few moments and then pausing +for reflection. I have half a mind thus to spend one of my three +remaining days. True, the Coliseum will seem vaster close at hand, but +from no point can it be seen so completely and clearly, in its immensity +and its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>dilapidation combined, as from that. The Tarpeian Rock seems an +absurd fable—its fatal leap the daily sport of infants—but in all +ancient cities the same glaring discrepancy between ancient and modern +altitudes is presented, and especially, we hear, at Jerusalem. The Seven +Hills whereon Rome was built are all distinguishable, visible to-day; +but they are undoubtedly much lower than at first, while all the +intervening valleys have been filling up through centuries. Monkish +traditions say that what is now the basement of the Church of Sts. Peter +and Paul (not the modern St. Peter's) was originally on the level of the +street, and this is quite probable: though I did not so readily +lubricate the stories I was told in that basement to-day of St. Peter, +Paul and Luke having tenanted this basement, Paul having lived and +preached here for the first two years of his residence in Rome; and when +they showed me the <i>altar</i> at which St. Paul was wont to minister, I +stopped short and didn't <i>try</i> to believe any more. But this soil is +thickly sown with marvels and very productive.</p> + +<p>St. Peter's, or at least its Dome, was in sight through the greater part +of the last eleven or twelve miles of our journey to the city; from most +other directions it is doubtless visible at a much greater distance. I +have of course seen the immense structure afar off, as well as glanced +at it in passing by night; but I am not yet prepared to comprehend its +vast proportions. I mean to visit it last before leaving Rome, so as to +carry away as unclouded an impression of it as possible.</p> + +<p>Of the three hundred and sixty-five Churches of Rome, I have as yet +visited but four, and may find time to see as many more of the most +noteworthy. They seem richer in Sculpture, Porphyry, Mosaic, Carving, +Tapestry, &c. than anything elsewhere well can be; but not equal in +Architecture to the finest Churches in Genoa, the Cathedral at Pisa, and +I think not externally to Notre <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>Dame at Paris. Indeed, though large +portions of the present Rome are very far from ruinous, and some of them +quite modern and fresh-looking, yet the general Architecture of the city +is decidedly inferior to that of Genoa, and I should say even to that of +Leghorn. In making this comparison, I of course leave out of the account +St. Peter's and the Churches of both cities, and refer mainly to private +architecture, in which Rome is not transcendent—certainly not in Italy. +The streets here are rather wide for an Italian city but would be deemed +intolerably narrow in America.</p> + +<p>As to <i>Sculpture</i> and <i>Painting</i>, I am tempted to say that if mankind +were compelled to choose between the destruction of what is in Rome or +that of all the rest in the world, the former should be saved at the +expense of the latter. Adequate conception of the extent, the variety, +the excellence of the works of Art here heaped together is impossible. +If every house on Broadway were a gallery, the whole six miles of them +(counting both sides of the street) might be filled from Rome with +Pictures, Statues, &c. of decided merit.</p> + +<p>What little I have seen does not impress me with the superiority of +Ancient over Modern Art. Of course, if you compare the dozen best things +produced in twenty centuries against a like number chosen from the +productions of the last single century, you will show a superiority on +the part of the former; but that decides nothing. The Capitoline Venus +is a paragon, but there is no collection of ancient sculpture which will +compare with the extensive gallery of heads by Canova alone. When +benignant Time shall have done his appointed work of covering with the +pall of oblivion the worse nineteen twentieths of the productions of the +modern chisel, the genuine successes of the Nineteenth Century will +shine out clearer and brighter than they now do. So, I trust, with +Painting, though I do not know what painter of our age to place on a +perilous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>eminence with Canova as the champion or representative of +Modern as compared with Ancient Art.</p> + +<p>It is well that there should be somewhere an Emporium of the Fine Arts, +yet not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the +limbs destitute. I think Rome has been grasping with regard to works of +Art, and in some instances unwisely so. For instance, in a single +private gallery I visited to-day, there were not less than twenty +decidedly good pictures by Anibal Caracci—probably twice as many as +there are in all the world out of Italy. That gallery would scarcely +miss half of these, which might be fully replaced by as many modern +works of equal merit, whereby the gallery and Rome would lose nothing, +while the world outside would decidedly gain. If Rome would but consider +herself under a sort of moral responsibility to impart as well as +receive, and would liberally dispose of so many of her master-pieces as +would not at all impoverish her, buying in return such as could be +spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by +diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service +and earn the gratitude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her +own permanent well-being. It is in her power to constitute herself the +center of an International Art-Union really worthy of the name—to +establish a World's Exhibition of Fine Arts unequaled in character and +beneficence. Is it too much to hope that she will realize or surpass +this conception?</p> + +<p>These suggestions, impelled by what I have seen to-day, are at all +events much shorter than I could have made any detailed account of my +observations. I have no qualifications for a critic in Art, and make no +pretensions to the character, even had my observations been less hurried +than they necessarily were. I write only for the great multitude, as +ill-instructed in this sphere as I cheerfully admit myself, and who yet +are not unwilling to learn what impression is made by the treasures of +Rome on one like themselves.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> + +<br /> +<h3>THE COLISEUM.</h3> +<p class="right"><i>Evening.</i></p> + +<p>I spent the forenoon wandering through the endless halls of the Vatican, +so far as they were accessible to the public, the more important +galleries being only open on Monday, and two or three of the very finest +not at all. I fear this restriction will deprive me of a sight of the +Apollo Belvedere, the Sistine Chapel, and one or two others of the +world's marvels. I know how ungracious it is to "look a gift horse in +the mouth," and yet, since these works exist mainly to be seen, and as +Rome derives so large a share of her income from the strangers whom +these works attract to her, I must think it unwise to send any away +regretting that they were denied a sight of the Apollo or of some of +Raphael's master-pieces contained in the Vatican. I know at what vast +expense these works have been produced or purchased, and, though all who +visit Rome are made to pay a great deal indirectly for the privileges +they enjoy here, yet I wish the Papal Government would frankly exact, as +I for one should most cheerfully pay, a fair price for admission to the +most admirable and unrivaled collections which are its property. If, for +instance, it would abolish all Passport vexations, encourage the opening +of Railroads, and stimulate the establishment of better lines of +Diligences, &c., so that traveling in the Papal States would cease to be +twice as dear and infinitely slower than elsewhere in Italy, in France +or Germany, and would then charge each stranger visiting Rome on errands +other than religious something like five dollars for all that is to be +seen here, taking care to let him see it, and to cut off all private +importunities for services rendered in showing them, the system would be +a great improvement on the present, and the number of strangers in Rome +would be rapidly doubled and quadrupled. There might be some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>calumny +and misrepresentation, but these would very soon be dispelled, and the +world would understand that the Papacy did not seek to make money out of +its priceless treasures, but simply to provide equitably and properly +for their preservation and due increase. Here, as we all see, have +immense sums been already spent by this Government in excavating, +preserving, and in some cases partially restoring such decayed but +inimitable structures as the Coliseum, the Capitol, the various +Triumphal Arches, the Baths of Titus, Caracalla, &c., all of which +labors and expenditures we who visit Rome share the benefit, and it is +but the simplest justice that we should contribute to defray the cost, +especially when we know that every dollar so paid would be expended in +continuing these excavations, &c., and in completing the galleries and +other modern structures which are already so peerless. Rome is too +commonly regarded as only a ruin, or, more strictly, as deriving all its +eminence from the Past, while in fact it has more inestimable treasures, +the product of our own century, our own day, than any other city, and I +suspect nearly as many as all the rest of the world. Even the Vatican is +still unfinished; workmen were busy in it to-day, laying additional +floors of variegated marble, putting up new book-cases, &c., none of +them restorations, but all extensions of the Library, which, apart from +the value of its books and manuscripts, is a unique and masterly +exposition of ancient and modern Art. Here are single Vases, Tables, +Frescoes, &c., which would be the pride of any other city: one large +vase of Malachite, a present to Pius IX. from the Russian Autocrat, and +unequaled out of Russia, if in the world. I should judge that +three-fourths of the Frescoes which nearly cover the walls and ceiling +of the fifteen or twenty large halls devoted to the Library are less +than two centuries old. This part of the Vatican is approached through a +magnificent corridor, probably five hundred feet long, with an arched +ceiling entirely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>inlaid with beautiful Mosaic, and the same is +continued through another gallery some two hundred feet long, which +leads at right angles from this to another wing of the edifice; but the +corridor leading down this wing, and facing that first named, has a +naked, barren-looking ceiling, evidently waiting to be similarly inlaid +when time and means shall permit. This is but a specimen of what is +purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome +could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead +of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, +official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. +It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so +little of it should be devoted to those still progressing works, from +which are derived all this instruction and intellectual enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Here let me say one word in justice to the princely families of Rome, +whose palaces and immense collections of Paintings and Sculptures are +almost daily open to strangers without charge, save the trifle that you +choose to give the attendant who shows you through them. I looked for +hours to-day through the ten spacious apartments of the Palace of the +Orsini family devoted to the Fine Arts, as I had already done through +that of the Doria family, and shall to-morrow do through others, and +doubtless might do through hundreds of others—all hospitably open to +every stranger on the simple condition that he shall deport himself +civilly and refrain from doing any injury to the priceless treasures +which are thus made his own without the trouble even of taking care of +them. I know there are instances of like liberality elsewhere; but is it +anywhere else the rule? and is it in our country even the exception? +What American ever thought of spending half an immense fortune in the +collection of magnificent galleries of Pictures, Statues, &c., and then +quietly opening the whole to the public without expecting a word of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>compliment or acknowledgment in return?—without being even personally +known to those whom he thus benefited? We have something to learn of +Rome in this respect. Some of the English nobility whom the Press has +shamed into following this munificent example have done it so grudgingly +as to deprive the concession of all practical value. By requiring all +who wish to visit their galleries to make a formal written application +for the privilege, and await a written answer, they virtually restrict +the favor to persons of leisure, position and education. But in Rome not +even a card nor a name is required; and you walk into a strange private +palace as if you belonged there, lay down your stick or umbrella, and +are shown from hall to hall by an intelligent, courteous attendant, +study at will some of the best productions of Claude, Raphael, Salvator +Rosa, Poussin, Murillo, &c., pay two shillings if you see fit, to the +attendant, and are thanked for it as if you were a patron; going thence +to another such collection, and so for weeks, if you have time. If +wealth were always thus employed, it were a pity that great fortunes are +not more numerous.</p> + +<p>But I purpose to speak of the <span class="smcap">Coliseum</span>. I will assume that most +of my readers know that this was an immense amphitheater, constructed in +the days of Rome's imperial greatness, used for gladiatorial combats of +men with ferocious beasts and with each other, and calculated to afford +a view of the spectacle to about one hundred thousand persons at once. +The circuit of the building is over sixteen hundred feet; the arena in +its center is about three hundred and eighty by two hundred and eighty +feet. Most of the walls have fallen for perhaps half their height, +though some part of them still retain very nearly their original +altitude. In the darker ages, after this vast edifice had fallen into +ruin, its materials were carried away by thousands and tens of thousands +of tuns to build palaces and churches, and one side of the exterior wall +was actually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>for ages drawn upon as if it were a quarry. But in later +years the Papal Government has disbursed thousands upon thousands in the +uncovering and preservation of this stupendous ruin, and with the +amplest success. The fall of its roof and a great portion of its walls +had filled and buried it with rubbish to a depth of some twenty to forty +feet, all of which has been taken away, so that the floor of the +interior is now the veritable sand whereon the combatants fought and +bled and rendered up their lives, while the forty or fifty entrances for +emperors, senators and people, and even the underground passage for the +introduction of the wild beasts, with a part of their cages, are now +palpable. In some places, restorations have been made where they were +necessary to avert the danger of further dilapidation, but as sparingly +as possible; and, though others think differently, the Coliseum seems to +me as majestic and impressive in its utter desolation as it ever could +have been in its grandeur and glory.</p> + +<p>We were fortunate in the hour of our visit. As we slowly made the +circuit of the edifice, a body of French cavalry were exercising their +horses along the eastern side of it, while at a little distance, in the +grove or garden at the south, the quick rattle of the drum told of the +evolutions of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away to the +southward, and our attention was drawn to certain groups of Italians in +the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. We entered, and +were witnesses of a strange, impressive ceremony. It is among the +traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were +compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as +gladiators as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable +resistance to the "lower law" then in the ascendant, which the high +priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and +charges to demonstrate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen +to obey, no matter what might be his private, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>personal convictions with +regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen +little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed +around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are +offered for the eternal bliss of the martyred Christians of the +Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this occasion. Some twenty +or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare-headed, but as +many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks which left +only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a larger number of +women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the +way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, +kneeling and praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the +next oratory, and so on until they had repeated the service before every +one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the +ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much +more numerous. The praying was fervent and I trust excellent,—as the +music decidedly was not; but the whole scene with the setting sun +shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, +with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely +picturesque and to me affecting. I came away before it concluded, to +avoid the damp night-air; but many chequered years and scenes of +stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sunset +and those strange prayers in the Coliseum.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXV.</h2> +<h2>ST. PETER'S.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Rome</span>, Saturday, June 29, 1851.</p> + +<p>St. Peter's is the Niagara of edifices, having the same relation to +other master-pieces of human effort that the great cataract bears to +other terrestrial effects of Divine power. In either case, the first +view disappoints, because the perfection of symmetry dims the +consciousness of magnitude, and the total absence of exaggeration in the +details forbids the conception of vastness in the aggregate. In viewing +London's St. Paul's, you have a realization of bulk which St. Peter's +does not give, yet St. Paul's is but a wart beside St. Peter's. I do not +know that the resemblance has been noticed by others, but the +semi-circle of gigantic yet admirably proportioned pillars which +encloses the grand square in front of St. Peter's reminds me vividly of +the general conformation of our great water-fall, while the column or +obelisk in the center of the square (which column is a mistake, in my +humble judgment, and should be removed) has its parallel in the +unsightly tower overlooking the main cataract from the extreme point of +Goat Island. Eternal endurance and repose may be fitly typified by the +oceans and snow-crested mountains, but power and energy find their best +expressions in the cataract and the dome. Time and Genius may produce +other structures as admirable in their own way and regarded in +connection with their uses; but, viewed as a temple, St. Peter's will +ever stand unmatched and unapproachable.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>I chose the early morning for my first visit. The sky was cloudless, as +it mainly is here save in winter, but the day was not yet warm, for the +summer nights are cooler here than in New-York, and the current English +talk of the excessive heat which prevails in Rome at this season is +calculated to deceive Americans. No one fails to realize from the first +the great beauty and admirable accessories of this edifice, with the +far-stretching but quite other than lofty pile of the Vatican on its +right and its own magnificent colonnade in front, but you do not feel +that it is lofty, nor spacious, nor anything but perfect. You ascend the +steps, and thus gain some idea of the immense proportions prevailing +throughout; for the church seems scarcely at all elevated above the +square, and yet many are the steps leading up to the doors. Crossing a +grand porch with an arched roof of glorious mosaic, you find yourself in +the body of the edifice, which now seems large and lofty indeed, but by +no means unparalleled. But you walk on and on, between opposing pillars +the grandest the world ever saw, the space at either side between any +two pillars constituting a separate chapel with its gorgeous altar, its +grand pictures in mosaic, its sculptured saints and angels, each of +these chapels having a larger area than any church I ever entered in +America; and by the time you have walked slowly and observingly to the +front of the main altar you realize profoundly that Earth has nothing +else to match with St. Peter's. No matter though another church were +twice as large, and erected at a cost of twice the Thirty Millions of +dollars and fifty years expended upon this, St. Peter's would still +stand unrivaled. For every detail is so marvellously symmetrical that no +one is dwarfed, no one challenges special attention. Of one hundred +distinct parts, any one by itself would command your profoundest +admiration, but everything around and beyond it is no less excellent, +and you soon cease to wonder and remain to appreciate and enjoy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>I devoted most of the day to St. Peter's, seeing it under many different +aspects, but no other view of the interior is equal to that presented in +the stillness and comparative solitude of the early morning. The +presence of multitudes does not cloud your consciousness of its +immensity, for ten thousand persons occupy no considerable portion of +its area and might very easily be present yet wholly invisible to one +who stood just inside the entrance and looked searchingly through the +body of the edifice to find them; but there are usually very few seats, +and those for the privileged, so that hundreds are constantly moving +from place to place through the day, which distracts attention and mars +the feeling of repose and delighted awe which the naked structure is +calculated to inspire. Go very early some bright summer morning, if you +would see St. Peter's in its calm and stately grandeur.</p> + +<p>I ascended to the roof, and thence to the summit of the dome, but, apart +from a profounder consciousness of the vastness and admirable +proportions of the edifice, this is of little worth. True, the entire +city and its suburbs lie clearly and fully beneath and around you; but +so they do from the tower of the Capitol. Views from commanding heights +are obtained in almost every city. The ascent, however, as far as the +roof, is easier than any other I ever found within a building. Instead +of stairs, here is a circular road, more like the ascent of a mountain +than a Church. One single view is obtained, however, which richly +compensates for the fatigue of the ascent. It is that from the interior +of the dome down into the body of the Church below. The Alps may present +grander, but I never expect to have another like this.</p> + +<p>Here I had personal evidence of the mean, reckless selfishness wherewith +public edifices are regarded by too many, and the absolute necessity of +constant, omnipresent watchfulness to preserve them from wanton +dilapidation. Five or six French soldiers had been permitted to ascend +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>the dome just before I did, and came down nearly at the same time with +me. As I stood gazing down from this point into the church below, two of +these soldiers came in on their way down, and one of them, looking +around to see that no one was present but a stranger, whipped the +bayonet he wore out of its sheath, forced the point into the mosaic +close behind as well as above us, pried out one of the square pieces of +agate or some such stone of which that mosaic is composed, put it in his +pocket and made off. I had no idea that he would deface the edifice +until the moment he did it, and then hastily remonstrated, but of course +without avail. I looked at the wall on which he operated, and found that +two or three had preceded him in the same work of paltry but most +outrageous robbery. Of course, each will boast of his exploit to his +comrades of kindred spirit, and they will be tempted to imitate it, +until the mischief done becomes sufficiently serious to attract +attention, and then Nobody will have a serious reckoning to encounter. A +few acts of unobserved rapine as trifling as these may easily occasion +some signal disaster. In an edifice like this, there should be no point +accessible to visiters unwatched by a faithful guardian even for one +hour.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon, I attended the Celebration of High Mass, this being +observed by the Catholic world as St. Peter's Day, and the Pope himself +officiating in the great Cathedral. Not understanding the service, I +could not profit by it, and the spectacle impressed me unfavorably. Such +a multiplicity of spears and bayonets seem to me strangely out of +keeping in a place of worship; if they belong here, why not bring in a +regiment of horse and a park of artillery as well? There is ample room +for them in St. Peter's, and the cavalry might charge and the cannoniers +fire a few volleys with little harm to the building, and with great +increase both to the numbers and interest of the audience. I am not +pretending to judge this for others, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>but simply to state how it +naturally strikes one educated in the simple, sober observances of +Puritan New-England. I have heard of Protestants being converted in +Rome, but it seems to me the very last place where the great body of +those educated in really Protestant ways would be likely to undergo +conversion. I have seen very much here to admire, and there is doubtless +many times more such that I have not seen, but the radical antagonism of +Catholic and Protestant ideas, observances and tendencies never before +stood out in a light so clear and strong as that shed upon it by a few +days in Rome. I obtained admission yesterday to the Sistine Chapel of +the Vatican, and saw there, among the paintings in fresco, a +representation of the death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of St. +Bartholomew; and if this were not intended to express approval of that +horrible massacre, I would like to know what was meant by having it +painted and placed there.</p> + +<p>But to return to St. Peter's. The entrance of the grand procession from +the Vatican was a very slow process. In its ranks were the Noble Guard, +the Swiss Guard, the Cardinals, and many other divisions, each in its +own imposing and picturesque costume. At length came the Pope, seated in +a magnificent chair on a raised platform or palanquin, the whole borne +on the shoulders of some ten or twelve servitors. This was a capital +arrangement for us strangers, who wished a good view of His Holiness; +but I am sure it was very disagreeable to him, and that he would much +rather have walked like the rest. He passed into the church out of my +sight, dismounted, and I (having also entered) next saw him approach one +of the altars on the right, where he knelt and silently prayed for some +minutes. He was then borne onward to his throne at the further end, and +the service commenced.</p> + +<p>The singing of the Mass was very good. The Pope's reading I did not +hear, nor was I near enough even to see him, except fitfully. I think +there were more than five <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>thousand persons present, including a +thousand priests and a thousand soldiers. There would doubtless have +been many more, but for the fact that a smart shower occurred just +before and at the hour (5 o'clock), while no public notice had been +given that the Pope would officiate.</p> + +<p>In the evening, St. Peter's and its accessories were illuminated—by far +the most brilliant spectacle I ever saw. All was dark and silent till, +at the first stroke of the bell, light flashed from a hundred thousand +burners, and the entire front of the Church and Dome, up to the very +summit of the spire, was one magnificent galaxy, while the double row of +gigantic pillars or columns surrounding the square was in like manner +radiant with jets of flame. I thought the architecture of St. Peter's +Rome's greatest glory when I had only seen it by daylight, yet it now +seemed more wondrous still. The bells rang sweetly and stirringly +throughout the evening, and there was a like illumination on the summit +of the Pincian Hill, while most of the shops and dwellings displayed at +least one row of burning candles, and bonfires blazed brightly in the +streets, which were alive with moving, animated groups, while the square +of St. Peter's and the nearest bridges over the Tiber were black with +excited thousands. To-night we have fire-works from the Pincian in honor +of St. Peter, which would be thought in New England an odd way of +honoring an Apostle, especially on Sunday evening; but whether Rome or +Boston is right on this point is a question to be pondered.</p> + +<p><i>P. S. Monday.</i>—I did not see the Fire-Works last evening, but almost +every one else in Rome did, and the unanimous verdict pronounces them +admirable—extraordinary. Great preparations had been made, and the +success must have been perfect to win so general and hearty a +commendation. The display was ushered in by a rousing salute of +artillery; but this was not needed to assemble in and around the Piazza +del Popolo all the population of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>Rome that could be spared from their +homes. The Piazza is the great square of Rome, in front of the Pincian +Hill, whence the rockets, wheels, stars, serpents, &c., were let off. +The display was not concluded till after 10 o'clock.</p> + +<p>This day I have devoted to famous private galleries of Paintings and +Sculpture, having been again disappointed in attempting to gain a sight +of the Apollo Belvedere and Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The time for +opening these treasures to the public has lately been changed from 10 +<span class="smcap">A. M.</span> to noon, and they are only open regularly on Mondays; so +that I was there a little before noon to be ready; but after waiting +(with many others) a full hour, in front of an inexorable gate, without +being able to learn why we were shut out or when the embargo would +cease, I grew weary of the uncertainty and waste of time, and left. A +little past 1 (I now understand), the gate was opened, but too late for +me, as I did not return, and leave Rome for Florence to-morrow. Had the +simplest notice been given that such a delay would take place, or had +the officers at the gates been able to give any information, I should +have had different luck. "They manage these things better in France."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXVI.</h2> +<h2>THE ROMANS OF TO-DAY.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Rome</span>, Monday, June 30, 1851.</p> + +<p>The common people of Rome generally seem to me an intelligent, vivacious +race, and I can readily credit the assurance of well-informed friends +that they are mentally superior to most other Italians. It may be deemed +strange that any other result should be thought possible, since the very +earth around them, with all it bears, is so vivified with the spirit of +Heroism, of Genius, and of whatever is most memorable in History. But +the legitimate influences of Nature, of Art, and of Ancestry, are often +overborne by those of Institutions and Laws, as is now witnessed on all +the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, and I was rather +disappointed in finding the present Romans a race of fully average +capacities, intellectual and physical. A face indicating mental +imbecility, or even low mediocrity, is very rarely met in those streets +where the greater portion of the Romans seem to work and live. The women +are brown, plain, bare-headed, and rather careless of personal +appearance, but ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with +flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and +character. I do not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have +been painted where the women were common-place and unideal.</p> + +<p>But all with whom I can converse, and who are qualified to speak by +residence in the country, give unfavorable accounts of the moral +qualities of the Romans especially, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>and in these qualities I include +Patriotism and all the civic virtues. That Italians, and those of Rome +especially, are quite commonly sensual, selfish, indolent, fickle, +dishonest, vicious, is the general report of the foreigners residing +among them. Zealous Protestants will readily account for it by their +Catholicism. My own prepossessions naturally lead me to the conclusion +that much of the religious machinery in operation here is unfavorable to +the development of high moral character. Whatever the enlightened and +good may mean by these observances, it does seem to me that the ignorant +and vulgar understand that the evil consequences of pleasant sins may be +cheaply avoided by a liberal use of holy water, by bowings before the +altar and reverent conformity to rituals and ceremonies.—This is +certainly the great danger (in my sight) of the Catholic system, that it +may lead its votaries to esteem conformity to outward and ceremonial +requirements as essentially meritorious, and in some sense an offset for +violations of the moral law. Not that this error is by any means +confined to Catholics, for Christendom is full of Protestants who, +though ready enough to proclaim that kissing the toe of St. Peter's +statue is a poor atonement for violating the Commandments, and Adoration +of the Virgin a very bad substitute for Chastity, do yet themselves +prefer bad Christians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the +conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no +improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such +conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but +how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of +Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries +better husbands, brothers, children, neighbors, kindred, citizens? To my +Protestant eyes, it seems that the general error on this point is more +prevalent and more vital at Rome than elsewhere; and I have been trying +to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary +I have seen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the +Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the +Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. +&c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a +representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the +Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God +is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and +worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." I presume such a +representation must exist in a city where there are so many hundreds if +not thousands of pictures of St. Peter doing, receiving or suffering; +but this certainly is not a favorite subject here, or I should have seen +it many times depicted. Who knows a Protestant city in which the +aforesaid lesson given to Peter has been adequately dwelt on and heeded?</p> + +<p>That the prevalence of Catholicism is not inconsistent with general +uprightness and purity of morals is demonstrated in Ireland, in +Switzerland, in Belgium, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. The testimony of +the great body of travelers and other observers with regard to the +countries just named, affirms the general prevalence therein of those +virtues which are the basis of the Family and the Church. And yet, the +acknowledged state of things here is a grave fact which challenges +inquiry and demands explanation. In the very metropolis of Catholic +Christendom, where nearly all believe, and a great majority are at least +ceremonially devout—where many of the best intellects in the Catholic +communion have flourished and borne sway for more than fifteen +centuries, and with scarcely a divided empire for the last thousand +years—where Churches and Priests have long been more abundant than on +any other spot of earth, and where Divine worship and Christian +ordinances are scarcely intermitted for an hour, but are free and +welcome to all, and are very generally attended—what is the reason that +corruption and degeneracy should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>be so fearfully prevalent? If only the +enemies of Rome's faith affirmed this degeneracy, we might fairly +suppose it invented or exaggerated; but even the immediate Priesthood of +this people, who may be presumed most unwilling and unlikely to deny +their virtues or magnify their vices, declare them unfit to be trusted +with power over their own political destinies, and indeed incapable of +self-government. Such is the fundamental basis and essential +justification of the rule now maintained in Rome, under the protection +of foreign bayonets. This is a conquered city, virtually if not +nominally in a state of siege, without assignable period. The Pope's +guards are partly Swiss and partly native, that is, chosen from the +families of the Nobility; but the "power behind the throne" is +maintained by the thousands of French soldiers who garrison the city, +and the tens of thousands of Austrian, Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers +who would be pushed here upon the first serious attempt of the Romans to +assert their right of self-government. Thus, "Order reigns in Warsaw," +while Democracy bites its lip and bides its time.</p> + +<p>Has Human Nature degenerated under Christian ministrations? There surely +<i>was</i> a Roman people, some twenty-odd centuries ago, who were capable of +self-government, and who maintained it long and creditably. Why should +it be otherwise with the Romans of to-day? I do not believe it is. They +have great vices I admit, for all testimony affirms it; that they might +somewhat abuse Freedom I fear, for the blessed sunshine is painful and +perilous to eyes long used to the gloom of the dungeon. But the +experience of Freedom must tend to dispel the ignorance and correct the +errors of its votaries, while Slavery only leads from bad to worse. If +ten centuries of such rule as now prevails here have nowise qualified +this people for Self-Government, what rational hope is there that ten +more such would do it? If a reform is ever to be effected, it cannot be +commenced too soon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>As to the actual government of Rome and her dependencies, it could not +well be worse. The rulers fully understand that they are under no +obligation to the people for the power they exercise, nor for the +submission which it commands. The despotism which prevails is unmodified +even by the hereditary despot's natural desire to secure the throne to +his descendants by cultivating the good will of his people. The Pope is +nominally sovereign, and all regard him as personally a pure and good +man; but he exerts no actual power in the State, his time and thoughts +being wholly devoted to the various and complicated cares of his vast +Spiritual empire. Meantime, the Reäctionist influences so omnipotent +with his predecessor, but which were repressed for a time after the +present Pontiff's accession, have unchecked sway in the political +administration. The way the present rulers of Rome read History is +this—"Pius IX. came into power a Liberal and a Reformer, and did all he +could for the promotion of Republican and Progressive ideas; for all +which his recompense was the assassination of his Prime Minister, and +his own personal expulsion from his throne and territories—which is +quite enough of Liberalism for one generation; we, at least, will have +no more of it." And they certainly live up to their resolution. It is +currently reported that there are now <i>Seventeen Thousand</i> political +prisoners confined here, but nobody who would tell can know how many +there are, and I presume this statement is a gross exaggeration, +significant only as an index of the popular feeling. The essential fact +is that there <i>might</i> be Seventeen or Seventy Thousand thus imprisoned +without publicity, known accusation or trial, save at the convenience of +those ordering their arrest; and with no recognized right of the +arrested to Habeas Corpus or any kindred process. Many of the best +Romans of the age are in exile for Liberty's sake. I was reliably +informed at Turin that there are at this time <i>Three Hundred Thousand</i> +Political <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>Refugees in the Kingdom of Sardinia, nearly all, of course, +from the despotism of Lower Italy. Thus Europe is kept tranquil by a +system of terror, which is efficient while the spell holds; but let it +break at any point, and all will go together.</p> + +<p>The Cardinals are the actual directors of State affairs here, and are +popularly held responsible for all that is disliked in the Government. +They would be likely to fare roughly in case of another revolution. They +are privately accused of flagrant immoralities, as men so powerful and +so unpopular would naturally be, whether with or without cause. I know +no facts that sustain the accusation.</p> + +<p>A single newspaper is now published in Rome, but I have heard it +inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a +Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and +would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed +sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to +the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. +There are very few foreign journals taken or read in the Roman States. +Lynn or Poughkeepsie probably, Newark or New-Haven certainly, buys and +reads more newspapers than the entire Three Millions of People who +inhabit the Papal States. I could not learn to relish such a state of +things. I have just paid $3.70 (more than half of it to our American +Consul) for the privilege of leaving the dominions of His Holiness, and +shall speedily profit by the gracious permission.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXVII.</h2> +<h2>CENTRAL ITALY—FLORENCE.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Bologna</span>, July 6, 1851.</p> + + +<p>"See Naples and die!" says the proverb: but I am in no hurry to "shuffle +off this mortal coil," and rather weary of seeing. I think I should have +found a few choice friends in Naples, but my time is limited, and the +traveling through Southern Italy neither pleasant nor expeditious. Of +Vesuvius in its milder moods I never had a high opinion; and, though I +should have liked to tread the unburied streets of Pompeii, yet Rome has +nearly surfeited me with ruins. So I shortened my tour in Italy by +cutting off the farther end of it, and turned my face obliquely homeward +from the Eternal City. What has the world to show of by-gone glory and +grandeur which she cannot at least equal?</p> + +<p>Let no one be sanguine as to his good resolutions. I as firmly resolved, +when I first shook from my feet the dust of Civita Vecchia, that I never +again would enter its gates, as I ever did to do or forbear any act +whatever. But, after a tedious and ineffectual attempt to make up a +party of Americans to come through from Rome to Florence direct, I was +at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on +that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to +wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send +one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly +unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>obligation on the part of +proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra +number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be +found to express it. So some dozen or more who would gladly have gone +through by land to Florence were driven back upon Civita Vecchia and +Leghorn—I among the number.</p> + +<p>Three of us left Rome in a private carriage at noon on Tuesday the 1st, +and reached Civita Vecchia at 10 minutes past 9 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span>—the +inner gate having been closed at 9. One of my companions was known and +responsibly connected at the port, and so was enabled to negotiate our +admission, though the process was a tedious one, and our carriage had to +be left in the outer court, or between the two walls. Here I left it at +10; it may have been got in afterward. We found all the rooms taken at +the best Hotel (Orlandi), and were driven to accept such as there were +left. The boat (Languedoc) was advertised to start for Leghorn at 7 next +morning, by which time I succeeded in getting my Passport cleared (for +no steamboat in these waters will give you a permit to embark until you +have handed in your Passport, duly cleared, at its office, as well as +paid for your passage); but the boat was coolly taking in water long +after its advertised hour, and did not start until half past eight.</p> + +<p>We had an unusually large number of passengers, about one hundred and +fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number +of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and +propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a +more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of +the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in +the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should +have been well and hearty. We made Leghorn (120 miles) in about eleven +hours, which is very good time for the Mediterranean. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>But reaching the +harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour +or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of +the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a +powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the +Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was +unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the +medicine I required, and from the moment of taking it I began to +recover. By seasonable effort, I recovered my Passport from the Police +office, duly <i>viséd</i>, at 10 <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> and left by Railroad for +Florence at 10½, reaching the capital of Tuscany (60 miles) about 1 +o'clock, <span class="smcap">P. M.</span></p> + +<p>Florence (Italian <i>Firenzè</i>) is pleasantly situated on both sides of the +Arno, some forty miles in a direct line from its mouth. The river is +here about the size of the Hudson at Sandy Hill or the Mohawk at +Canajoharie, but subject to rapid swellings from rains in the Apennines +above. One such occurred the night I was there, though very little rain +fell at Florence. I was awakened in the night by the rushing and roaring +of its waters, my window having only a street between it and the river, +which subsided the next day, without having done any material damage.</p> + +<p>That day was the 4th of July, and I spent most of it, under the guidance +of friends resident at Florence, in looking through the galleries +devoted to Paintings and Statuary in the two famous palaces of the +reigning family and in the Academy. Although the collections embrace the +Venus de Medicis and many admirable Paintings, I cannot say that my +expectations were fully realized. Ill health may in part account for +this; my recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treasures of +Art at Rome may also help explain my obtuseness at Florence. And yet I +saw nothing in Rome with greater pleasure or profit than I derived from +the hour I spent in the studio of our countryman <span class="smcap">Powers</span>, whose +fame is already world-wide, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>and who I trust is now rapidly acquiring +that generous competence which will enable him to spend the evening of +his days in ease and comfort in his native land. The abundance of orders +constantly pouring in upon him at his own prices does not induce him to +abandon nor postpone his efforts in the ideal and more exalted sphere of +his art, but rather to redouble those efforts; and it will yet be felt +that his "Greek Slave" and "Fisher Boy," so widely admired, are not his +loftiest achievements. I defy Antiquity to surpass—I doubt its ability +to rival—his "Proserpine" and his "Psyche" with any models of the +female head that have come down to us; and while I do not see how they +could be excelled in their own sphere, I feel that Powers, unlike +Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will fulfill his destiny. If +for those who talk of America quitting her proper sphere and seeking to +be Europe when she wanders into the domain of Art, we had no other +answer than <span class="smcap">Powers</span>, that name would be conclusive.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Greenough</span> is now absent from Florence. I met him at Turin, on +his way to America, on account (I casually heard) of sickness in his +family. But I obtained admission to his studio in Florence, and saw +there the unfinished group on which he is employed by order of Congress, +to adorn one of the yet empty niches in the Capitol. His execution is +not yet sufficiently advanced to be judged, but the design is happy and +most expressive.</p> + +<p>I saw something of three younger American Sculptors now studying and +working at Florence—<span class="smcap">Hart</span> of Kentucky, <span class="smcap">Galt</span> of Virginia, and <span class="smcap">Rogers</span> of +New-York. (<span class="smcap">Ives</span> is absent—at Rome, I believe, though I did not meet him +there.) I believe all are preparing to do credit to their country. <span class="smcap">Hart</span> +has been hindered by a loss of models at sea from proceeding with the +Statue of <span class="smcap">Henry Clay</span> which he is commissioned by the Ladies of Virginia +to fashion and construct; but he is wisely devoting much of his time to +careful study and to the modeling of the Ideal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>before proceeding to commit +himself irrevocably by the great work which must fix his position among +Sculptors and make or mar his destiny. I have great confidence that what +he has already carefully and excellently done is but a foretaste of what +he is yet to achieve, and that his seeming hesitation will prove the +surest and truest efficiency.</p> + +<p>I think there are but few American painters in Florence. I met none but +<span class="smcap">Page</span>, who is fully employed and expects to spend some time in +Italy. His health is better than during his last year in New-York.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>The strong necessity of moving on compelled me to tear myself away from +a pleasant party of Americans assembled at dinner in Florence last +evening to celebrate the 76th Anniversary of American Independence, and +take the Diligence at 8 o'clock for this place on the road to Venice, +though no other American nor even an Englishman came along. I have found +by experience that I cannot await the motions of others, nor can I find +a party ready to take post-horses and so travel at rational hours. The +Diligence or stage-coach traveling in Italy appears to be organized on +purpose to afford the least possible accommodation at the most +exorbitant cost. This city, for example, is 63 miles from Florence on +the way to Padua and Venice, and the Diligence leaves Florence for +Bologna at no other hour than 8 P. M. arriving here at 1½ o'clock next +day; fare 40 to 45 Tuscan pauls or $4.45 to $5. But when you reach +Bologna at midday, after an all-night ride, you find no conveyance for +any point beyond this until ten o'clock next morning, so that you must +wait here twenty-one hours; and the Diligence might far better, so far +as the travelers' convenience and comfort is concerned, have remained in +Florence till an early hour in the morning, making the passage over the +Apennines by day and saving their nights' rest. Three or four travelers +may break over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>this absurd tyranny by taking post-horses; a single one +has no choice but to submit. And, having reached Bologna, I tried to +gain time, or at least avoid another night-ride, by taking a private +carriage (<i>vetturino</i>) this afternoon for Ferrara, thirty miles further +on, sleep there to-night, and catch a Diligence or Mail-Coach to-morrow +morning, so as to reach Padua in the evening: but no—there is no coach +out of Padua Venice-ward till 4 to-morrow afternoon, and I should gain +nothing but extra fatigue and expense by taking a carriage to Ferrara, +so I give it up. I must make most of the journey from Ferrara to Padua +by night, and yet take as much time as though I traveled only by +day,—for I am in Italy.</p> + +<p>The valley of the Arno, especially for some miles on either side of +Florence, is among the most fertile portions of this prolific land, and +is laboriously though not efficiently cultivated. All the Grains grow +luxuriantly throughout Italy, though Indian Corn is so thickly planted +and so viciously cultivated that it has no chance to ear or fill well. +There is enough labor performed on the average to insure sixty bushels +of shelled grain to the acre, but the actual yield will hardly exceed +twenty-five. And I have not had the first morsel of food prepared from +this grain offered me since I reached the shores of Europe. Wheat is the +favorite grain here, and, requiring less depth of soil than Indian corn, +and having been much longer cultivated here, yields very fairly. Barley +and Oats are grown, but to a limited extent; of Rye, still less. The +Potato is planted very sparingly south of Piedmont, and not so commonly +there as in Savoy. The Vine is a universal favorite, and rarely out of +view; while it often seems to cover half the ground in sight. But it is +not grown here in close hills as in France and around Cincinnati, but +usually in rows some twenty or thirty feet apart, and trained on trees +kept down to a hight of eight to twelve feet. Around Rome, a species of +Cane is grown wherewith to support <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>the vines after the manner of +bean-poles, which, after serving a year or two in this capacity, is used +for fuel, and new stalks of cane replace those which have been enfeebled +by exposure and decay. The plan of training the vines on dwarfed trees +(which seems to me by far the most natural) prevails here as well as on +the other side of the Apennines; so that the vine-stalks are large and +may be hundreds of years old, instead of being (apparently) fresh from +the ground every year or two. The space between the vine-rows is usually +sown with Wheat, but sometimes planted with Corn or laid down to Grass, +and a moderate crop realized.</p> + +<p>Crossing the Apennines mainly in the night, they seemed a little higher +than the Green Mountains of Vermont, but lacking the thrifty forests of +which I apprehend the proximity of Railroads is about to despoil that +noble range. But the Apennines, though cultivated wherever they can be, +are far more precipitous and sterile than their American counterpart, +and seem to be in good degree composed of a whitish clay or marl which +every rain is washing away, rendering the Arno after a storm one of the +muddiest streams I ever saw. I presume, therefore, that the Apennines +are, as a whole, less lofty and difficult now than they were in the days +of Romulus, of Hannibal, or even of Constantine.</p> + +<p>We crossed the summit about daylight, and began rapidly to descend, +following down the course of one of the streams which find the Adriatic +together near the mouth of the Po. At 5 A. M. we passed the boundary of +Tuscany and entered the Papal territory, so that our baggage had to be +all taken down and searched, and our Passports re-scrutinized—two +processes to which I am becoming more accustomed than any live eel ever +was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the +pecuniary swindle trifling. But though the hour was early and there were +few habitations in sight, there soon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>gathered around us a swarm of most +importunate beggars—brown, withered old women spinning on distaffs held +in the hand (a process I fancied the world had outgrown), and stopping +every moment to hold out a dirty claw, with a most disgusting grimace +and whine—"For the love of God, Signor"—with ditto old men, and +children of various sizes, the youngest who could walk seeming as apt at +beggary as their grandames who have followed it, "off and on," for +seventy or eighty years. If the ancient Romans had equaled their living +progeny in begging, they need not have dared and suffered so much to +achieve the mastery of the world—they might have begged it, and saved +an infinity of needless slaughter. These people have no proper pride, no +manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, +owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only +required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York +shilling or eighteen pence per day, and themselves the virtual serfs of +great landholders who live in Rome or Bologna and whom they rarely or +never see—is it a wonder that they stoop to plead and whine for coppers +around every carriage that traverses their country? That they fare +miserably, their scanty rags and pinched faces sufficiently attest; that +they are indolent and improvident I can very well believe: for when were +uneducated, unskilled, hopeless vassals anything else? Italy, beautiful, +bounteous land! is everywhere haggard with want and wretchedness, but +these seem nowhere so general and chronic as in the Papal territories. +Every political division of Italy but this has at least some section of +Railroad in operation; Rome, though in the heart of all and the great +focus of attraction for travelers, has not the first mile and no +prospect of any, though it would seem a good speculation to build one if +it were to be used only in transporting hither the Foreign troops +absolutely essential here to keep the people quiet in their chains. "And +this, too, shall pass away!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXVIII.</h2> +<h2>EASTERN ITALY—THE PO.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Venice</span>, Tuesday, July 8.</p> + +<p>I never saw and cannot hope to see hereafter a region more blessed by +Nature than the great plain of Upper Italy, whereof the Po is the +life-blood. It is very fertile and beautiful where I first traversed it +near its head, from the foot of Mount Cenis by Turin to Alessandria and +Novi, on my way down to Genoa; yet it is richer and lovelier still where +I have just recrossed it from the foot of the Apennines by Bologna, +Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua on my way from Florence to Venice. Irrigation, +which might easily be almost universal in Piedmont, seems there but an +occasional expedient, while here it is the breath of life. From Bologna +to Rovigo (and I presume on to Padua, though there night and drowsiness +prevented my observing clearly), the whole country seems completely +intersected by Canals constructed in the palmier days of Italy on +purpose to distribute the fertilizing waters of the Po and the Adige +over the entire face of the country and dispense them to every field and +meadow. The great highway generally runs along the bank of one of these +Canals, which are filled from the rivers when they have just been raised +by rains and are thus surcharged with fertilizing matter, and drawn off +from day to day thereafter to refresh and enrich the remarkably level +plain they traverse. Thus not only the plain and the glades lying nearer +the sources of the rivers, but the sterile, rugged crests of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>Alps +and Apennines which enclose this great basin are made to contribute +evermore to the fruitfulness of its soil, so that Despotism, Ignorance, +Stolidity, Indolence and Unthrift of all kinds vainly strive to render +it other than the Garden of Europe. The banks of the Canals and the +sides of the highways are generally lined with trees, rows of which also +traverse many if not most of the fields, so that from certain points the +whole country seems one vast, low forest or "timbered opening" of +Poplar, Willow, Mulberry, Locust, &c. There are a few Oaks, more Elms, +and some species I did not recognize, and the Vine through all this +region is trained on dwarfed or shortened trees, sometimes along the +roadside, but oftener in rows through one-fourth of the fields, while in +a few instances it is allowed thus to obtain an altitude of thirty or +forty feet. Of Fruit, I have seen only the Apricot and the Cherry in +abundance, but there are some Pears, while the Orange and Lemon are very +plentiful in the towns, though I think they are generally brought from +Naples and the Mediterranean coast. But finer crops of Wheat, Grass, +Hemp, &c., can grow nowhere than throughout this country, while the +Indian Corn which is abundantly planted, would yield as amply if the +people knew how to cultivate it. Ohio has no better soil nor climate for +this grain. Of Potatoes or other edible roots I have seen very little. +Hemp is extensively cultivated, and grows most luxuriantly. Man is the +only product of this prolific land which seems stunted and shriveled. +Were Italy once more a Nation, under one wise and liberal government, +with a single tariff, coinage, mail-post, &c., a thorough system of +common school education, a small navy, but no passports, and a public +policy which looked to the fostering and diversifying of her industry, +she might easily sustain and enrich a population of sixty millions. As +it is, one-half of her twenty-five millions are in rags, and are pinched +by hunger, while inhabiting the best wheat country in Europe, from which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>food is constantly and largely exported. There are at least one hundred +millions of dollars locked up in useless decorations of churches, and +not one common school-house from Savoy to Sicily. A little education, +after a fashion, is fitfully dispensed by certain religious and +charitable foundations, so that the child lucky enough to be an orphan +or illegitimate has a chance to be taught to read and write; but any +such thing as a practical recognition of the right to education, or as a +public and general provision for imparting it, is utterly unknown here. +Grand and beautiful structures are crowded in every city, and are +crumbling to dust on every side; a single township dotted at proper +intervals with eight or ten school-houses would be worth them all. With +infinite water power, cheaper labor, and cheaper food than almost any +other country in the civilized world, and millions of children at once +naked and idle because no one will employ them at even six-pence a day, +she has not one cotton or woolen factory that I have yet seen, and can +hardly have one at all, though her mountains afford vast and excellent +sheep-walks, and Naples can grow cotton if she will. England and Germany +manufacture nearly all the few fabrics of cotton or wool worn here, +because those who should lead, instruct, and employ this people, are +blind to their duty or recreant to its obligations. Italy, once the +light of the world, is dying of aristocratic torpor and popular +ignorance, whence come indolence, superstition, and wide-spread +demoralization and misery.</p> + +<p>Bologna is a walled city of Seventy Thousand inhabitants, with about as +much trade and business of all kinds as an American village of ten to +twenty thousand people. I doubt that thirty persons per day are carried +into or brought out of it by all public conveyances whatever. It is well +built on narrow streets, like nearly all Italian cities, and manifests +considerable activity in the way of watching gates and <i>visé</i>ing +Passports. Though in the Papal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>territory, it is under Austrian +guardianship; an Austrian sentinel constantly paced the court-yard of +the "Hotel Brun" where I stopped. Though the second town in the Pope's +temporal dominions, strongly walled, it has no Military strength, being +commanded by a hill a short mile south of it—the last hill I remember +having seen till I reached Venice and looked across over the lagoons to +the Euganian hills on the main land to south-west. The most notable +thing I saw in Bologna was an awning of sheeting or calico spread over +the centre of the main street on a level with the roofs of the houses +for a distance of half a mile or so. I should distrust its standing a +strong gust, but if it would, the idea is worth borrowing.</p> + +<p>After a night-ride over the Apennines from Florence, and a detention of +twenty-one hours at Bologna, I did hope that our next start would be +"for good"—that there would be no more halt till we reached Padua. But +I did not yet adequately appreciate Italian management. A Yankee +stage-coach running but once a day between two such cities as Bologna +and Ferrara would start at daylight and so connect at the latter place +as to set down its passengers beside the Railroad in Padua (86 to 90 +miles of the best possible staging from Bologna) in the evening of the +same day. We left Bologna at 10 <span class="smcap">A. M.</span>, drove to Ferrara, arrived +there a little past 2; and then came a halt of <i>four hours</i>—till six +<span class="smcap">P. M.</span> when the stage started for a night-trip to Padua—none +running during the day. But a Yankee stage would have one man for +manager, driver, &c., who would very likely be the owner also of the +horses and a partner in the line; we started from a grand office with +two book-keepers and a platoon of lackeys and baggage-smashers, with a +"guard" on the box, and two "postillions" riding respectively the nigh +horses of the two teams, there being always three horses at the pole and +sometimes three on the lead also, at others only two. We had half a +dozen passengers to Ferrara; for the rest of the way, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>had this +extensive traveling establishment to myself. I do not think the average +number of passengers on a corresponding route in our country could be so +few as twenty. Such are some of the points of difference between America +and Italy.</p> + +<p>We crossed the Po an hour after leaving Ferrara, and here passed out of +the Papal into the unequivocally Austrian territory—the Kingdom of +Venice and Lombardy. There were of course soldiers on each side (though +all of a piece), police officers, a Passport scrutiny and a fresh look +into my carpet-bags, mainly (I understand) for Tobacco! When any +tide-waiter finds more of that about me than the chronic ill breeding of +traveling smokers compels me to carry in my clothes, he is welcome to +confiscate all I possess. But they found nothing here to cavil at, and I +passed on.</p> + +<p>There is no town where we crossed the Po, only a small village on either +side, and we followed down the left bank in a north-easterly direction +for several miles without seeing any considerable place. The river has +here, as through nearly its whole course, a strong, rapid current, and +was swollen and rendered turbid by recent rains. I judge that its +surface was decidedly above the level of the adjacent country, which is +protected from inundation (like the region of the Lower Mississippi) by +strong embankments or levees, at first natural doubtless—the product of +the successive overflows of centuries but subsequently strengthened and +perfected by human labor. The force of the current being strongest in +the center of the river, there is either stillness or an eddy near the +banks, so that the sediment with which the current is charged tends +constantly to deposition on or against the banks. When the river rises +so as to overflow those banks, the downward current is entirely unfelt +there and the deposition becomes still more rapid, the proportion of +earthy matter to that of water being much greater then than at other +times. Thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>great, rapid rivers running through vast plains like these +gradually form levees in the course of many centuries, their channels +being defined and narrowed by their own deposits until the surface of +their waters, at least in times of flood, is raised above the level of +the surrounding country, often several feet. When the great swamps of +Louisiana shall have been drained and cultivated for ages, they too will +doubtless be fertilized and irrigated by canals, as the great plain +traversed by the Po now is. And here too, though the acres are generally +well cared for, I saw tracts of considerable extent which, from original +defect or unskillful management, stand below the water level of the +country, and so are given over to flags, bogs and miasma, when only a +foot or two of elevation is needed to render them salubrious and most +productive.</p> + +<p>There are many more good dwellings on this plain than in the rural +portion of Lower Italy. These are generally built of brick, covered with +stucco or cement and white-washed, and, being nearly square in form, two +stories high, and without the long, sloping roofs common with us, are +rather symmetrical and graceful, in appearance. Their roofs are tiled +with a long, cylindrical brick, of which a first course is laid with the +hollow upward, and another over the joints of this with the hollow down, +conducting the water into the troughs made by the former and so off the +house. The peasants' cottages are thatched with flags or straw, and +often built of the latter material. Of barns there are relatively few, +most of the wheat being stacked when harvested, and trodden out by oxen +on floors under the open sky. I have not seen a good harness nor a +respectable ox-yoke in Italy, most of the oxen having yokes which a +Berkshire hog of any pretensions to good breeding would disdain to look +through. These yokes merely hold the meek animals together, having no +adaptation to draft, which is obtained by a cobbling filigree of ropes +around the head, bringing the heaviest of the work upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>the horns! The +gear is a little better than this—as little as you please—while for +Carts and Waggons there are few school-boys of twelve to fifteen in +America who would not beat the average of all I have seen in Italy. +Their clumsiness and stupidity are so atrocious that the owners do well +in employing asses to draw them: no man of feeling or spirit could +endure the horse-laughs they must extort from any animal of tolerable +sagacity. To see a stout, two-handed man coming home with his +donkey-load of fuel from a distant shrubbery, half a day of the two +having been spent in getting as much as would make one good +kitchen-fire, is enough to try the patience of Job.</p> + +<p>Although the Po must be navigable and has been navigated by steamboats +for many miles above this point, until obstructed by rapids, yet nothing +like a steamboat was visible. The only craft I saw attempting to stem +its current was a rude sort of ark, like a wider canal-boat, drawn by +three horses traveling on a wide, irregular tow-path along the levee or +bank. I presume this path does not extend many miles without meeting +impediments. Quite a number of ruinous old rookeries were anchored in +the river at intervals, usually three to six abreast, which I found to +be grist-mills, propelled by the strong current, and receiving their +grain from the shore and returning the flour by means of small boats. +Our ferry-boat was impelled by what is termed (I think) a "rope +ferry"—a series of ropes and boats made fast to some anchorage in the +stream above, and moving it vigorously and expeditiously from one bank +to the other by the mere force of the current. It is quite evident that +modern Italy did not originate this contrivance, nor even the idea that +a rapid river could be induced to move a large boat obliquely up its +stream as well as down it. I should say the Po is here rather more than +half a mile wide.</p> + +<p>Three hours later, we crossed in like manner at Rovigo the Adige, a much +smaller but still a large river, about the size of the Connecticut at +Hartford. It has its source <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>exclusively in the Tyrolean Alps, but for +the last hundred miles of its course runs parallel with the Po, through +the same plain, at a medium distance of about twenty miles, and has the +same general characteristics. It was quite high and muddy when we +crossed it.</p> + +<p>As midnight drew on, I grew weary of gazing at the same endless +diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, &c., though the +bright moon was now shining, and, shutting out the chill night-air, I +disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a +drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it +into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the +uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a +disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort +shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I +fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch +drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water: then I was in a rude +scuffle and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn; +anon I had lost my hat in a strange place and could not begin to find +it; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders who +were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at +last became unbearable and I awoke.—But where? I was plainly in a +tight, dark box, that needed more air: I soon recollected that it was a +stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I +threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postillions and guard were +all gone: the moon, the fields, the road were gone: I was in a close +court-yard, alone with Night and Silence: but where? A church clock +struck three; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by +four, and I, making the usual discount on such promises, had set down +five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more +deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian +sentinel, standing guard over the egress of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>the court-yard, were before +me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an +Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made +out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian +<i>Padova</i>), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three +hours yet. I followed him into a convenient <i>Café</i>, which was all open +and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate and proceeded +leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all +gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. +The <i>Café</i> tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the +sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the +coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared; I hailed +him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to +wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly +a mile distant; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the dépôt, I +discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with +ample leisure for reflection. At six o'clock I felt once more the +welcome motion of a Railroad car, and at eight was in Venice.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXIX.</h2> +<h2>VENICE.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Milan</span>, Wednesday, July 9, 1851.</p> + +<p>Venice! Queen of the Adriatic! "City of the Heart!" how can I ever +forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures, +but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations, and my first +day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished +recollections of my life.</p> + +<p>Venice lies so absolutely and wholly on the water's bosom that the +landward approach to her is not imposing and scarcely impressive. The +view from the sea-side may be somewhat better, but not much—not +comparable to that of Genoa from the Mediterranean. No part of the +islets upon and around which Venice was built having been ever ten feet +above the surface of the Adriatic, while the adjacent mainland for +miles is also just above the water level, you do not see the city from +any point of observation outside of it—only the distant outline of a +low mass of buildings perhaps two miles long, but which may not be three +blocks wide, for aught you can see. Formerly two miles of shallow lagoon +separated the city from the land; but this has been overcome by the +heavy piling and filling required for the Railroad which now connects +Venice with Verona, via Vicenza, and is to reach this city via Brescia +whenever the Austrian Government shall be able to complete it. At +present a noble enterprise, through one of the richest, most populous +and most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>productive Agricultural regions of the earth, and connecting +the Political with the Commercial metropolis of Austrian Italy, is +arrested when half-finished, entailing a heavy annual charge on the +Treasury for the interest of the sum already expended, yet yielding +little or no net revenue in return, because of its imperfect condition. +The wisdom of this would be just equal to that of our ten years' halt +with the Erie Canal Enlargement, except for the fact that the Austrians +would borrow and complete if they could, while New York has had no such +excuse for her slothful blunder.</p> + +<p>The approach to Venice across the Lagoon is like that of Boston across +the Charles River marshes from the West, though of course on a much +grander scale. The embankment or road-bed was commenced by gigantic +piling, and is very broad and substantial. You reach the station just in +the edge of the city, run the Passport gauntlet, and are let out on the +brink of a wide canal, where dozens of gondoliers are soliciting your +custom. I engaged one, and directed him (at a venture) to row me to the +Hotel l'Europe. This proved (like nearly or quite all the other great +Hotels) to be located on the same line or water-front with the Ducal +Palace, Church of St. Mark, and most of the notabilities of modern +Venice, with the inner harbor and shipping just on the left and the +Adriatic in plain sight before us, only two or three little islets +covered with buildings partially intervening. Of course, my first row +was a long one, quite through the city from west to east, including +innumerable turnings and windings. After this, whomsoever may assert +that the streets of Venice are dusty or not well watered, I shall be +able to contradict from personal observation.</p> + +<p>After outward renovation and breakfast, I hired a boat for the day, and +went in search of American friends—a pursuit in which I was ultimately +successful. With these I visited the various council-rooms and galleries +in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>Ducal Palace, saw the "Lion's Mouth," descended into the ancient +dungeons, now tenantless, and crossed the "Bridge of Sighs." These last +are not open to the public, but a silver key gives access to them. +Thence we visited the famous picture-gallery of the Manfrini Palace, and +after that the Academy, thus consuming the better part of the day.</p> + +<p>The works of Art in the Grand Palace did not, as a whole, impress me +strongly. Most of the larger ones are historical illustrations of the +glories of Venice; the battle of Lepanto; the taking of Zara; the Pope +and Venice uniting against or triumphing over the Emperor, &c., &c. Some +of the most honorable achievements of Venice, including her long and +memorable defense of Candia (or Crete) against the desperate and finally +successful attacks of the Turks, are not even hinted at. But these +galleries are palpably in a state of dilapidation and decay, which +implies that the Austrian masters of Venice, though they cannot stoop to +the meanness of demolishing or mutilating the memorials of her ancient +glories, will be glad to see them silently and gradually perish. The +whole Palace has a dreary and by-gone aspect, seeming conscious that +either itself or the Austrian soldiers drilling in front of it must be +an anachronism—that both cannot belong to the same place and time.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"The traitor clock forsakes the hours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.75em;">And points to times, O far away!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The paintings in the Manfrini Palace seem to me by no means equal to +those in the Orsini, Doria, and some other private collections of Rome; +even of those extravagantly praised by Lord Byron, I failed to perceive +the admirable qualities apparent to his more cultivated taste. The +collection in the Academy I thought much better, but still far enough +behind similar galleries in Rome. The fact is, modern Italy is +poverty-stricken in Art and Genius <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>as well as in Industry, and lives +upon the trophies and the memory of her past greatness. I have not heard +in all this land the name of one living Italian mentioned as likely to +attain eminence in Painting, nor even in Sculpture.</p> + +<p>Toward evening, my friend and I ascended the Campanile or Bell-Tower of +St. Mark's, some 330 feet high, and had thence a glorious view of the +city and its neighborhood. From this tower, the houses might almost be +counted, though of the Canals which separate them only a few of the +largest are discerned. But the port, the shipping outside, the gardens +(naturally few and contracted), the adjacent main-land, the Railroad +embankment across the Lagoon, the blue Euganian hills in the distance, +&c., &c., are all as palpable as Boston Harbor from Bunker Hill +Monument. Immediately beneath is the Place of St. Mark, the Wall-street +of Venice; just beside you is the old Palace and the famous Cathedral +Church of St. Mark; to the north is the Armory, one of the largest and +most interesting in Europe; while the dome of every Church in Venice and +all the windings of the Grand Canal are distinctly visible. An Austrian +steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north +end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the +panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer +day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a +wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to +tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent +of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower.</p> + +<p>In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely +from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true +Rialto—a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in +good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was +industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>cucumbers, which +he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile +for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee +cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in +Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full +of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best +construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the +assaults of time, I have never seen.</p> + +<p>We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto—the ancient Exchange of +Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place +prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of +Venice—the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the +"stone of shame"—an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to +take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the +confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and +his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient +focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market +vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next +morning's trade when we visited it.</p> + +<p>Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions +and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an +average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri, +mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one +of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the +dancer Taglioni, it is said, owns four, and so on. Cheap as they are, +they are a poorer speculation than even corner lots in a lithographic +city of Nebraska or Oregon.</p> + +<p>That evening in the gondola, with one old and two newer friends, is +marked with a white stone in my recollection. To bones aching with rough +riding in Diligences <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>by night as well as day, the soft cushions and +gliding motion of the boat were soothing and grateful as "spicy gales +from Araby the blest." The breeze from the Adriatic was strong and +refreshing after the fervid but not excessive heat of the day, and the +clear, mild moon seemed to invest the mossy and crumbling palaces with a +softened radiance and spiritual beauty. Boats were passing on every +side, some with gay parties of three to six, others with but two +passengers, who did not seem to need the presence of more, nor indeed to +be conscious that any others existed. The hum of earnest or glad voices +here contrasted strongly with silence and meditation there. Venice is a +City of the Past, and wears her faded yet queenly robes more gracefully +by night than by day.</p> + +<p>Yes, the Venice of to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were, +but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul; +then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her +independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made +his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient +enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, though it was her +assistance rendered or proffered to Austria in 1798-9 which gave +Napoleon his pretext for crushing her. Her recent struggle for +independence, though fruitless, was respectable, and protracted beyond +the verge of Hope; and not even Royalist mendacity has yet pretended +that <i>her</i> revolt from Austria, or her prolonged defence under +bombardment and severe privation was the work of foreigners. But the +Croat again lords it in her halls; Trieste is stealing away her remnant +of trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are +postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not +until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of +her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original +uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. +Nobody <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, +though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally +resist the relentless tooth of Time. Full of interest as is everything +in Venice, I do not remember to have detected there the effectual +working of a single idea of the last century, save in the Railroad, +which barely touches without enlivening her, the solitary steamboat +belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondolas marked +"<i>Omnibus</i>" this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of +passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth +of the price which the same journey <i>solus</i> cost me. The Omnibus +typifies <span class="smcap">Association</span>—the simple but grandly fruitful idea +which is destined to renovate the world of Industry and Production, +substituting Abundance and Comfort for Penury and Misery. For Man, I +trust, this quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too +late. It is far easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead +one. Fallen Queen of the Adriatic! a long and mournful Adieu!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXX.</h2> +<h2>LOMBARDY.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Milan</span>, Thursday, July 10, 1851.</p> + +<p>Lombardy is of course the richest and most productive portion of Italy. +Piedmont alone vies with her, and is improving far more rapidly, but +Lombardy has great natural capacities peculiarly her own. Her soil, +fertile and easily tilled from the first, was long ago improved by a +system of irrigation which, probably from small and casual beginnings, +gradually overspread the whole table land, embracing, beside that of the +Adige, the broad valley of the Po and the narrower intervals of its many +tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west +and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize +the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence +drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower, +flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can +be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the +square mile than Lombardy.</p> + +<p>American Agriculture has just two arts to learn from +Lombardy—<span class="smcap">Irrigation</span> and <span class="smcap">Tree-Planting</span>. Nearly all our +great intervales might be irrigated immensely to the profit of their +cultivators. Even where the vicinity of mountains or other high grounds +did not afford the facility here taken advantage of, I am confident that +many plains as well as valleys might be profitably irrigated by lifting +water to the requisite height and thence distributing it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>through little +canals or ditches as here. Where a head of water may be obtained to +supply the requisite power, the cost need not be considerable after the +first outlay; but, even though steam-power should be requisite, in +connection with the admirable Pumping machinery of our day, Irrigation +would pay liberally in thousands of cases. Such easily parched levels as +those of New-Jersey and Long Island would yield at least double their +present product if thoroughly irrigated from the turbid streams and +marshy ponds in their vicinity. Water itself is of course essential to +the growth of every plant, but the benefits of Irrigation reach far +beyond this. Of the fertilizing substances so laboriously and +necessarily applied to cultivating lands, at least three times as great +a proportion is carried off in running water as is absorbed and +exhausted by the crops grown by their aid; so that if Irrigation simply +returned to the land as much fertility as the rains carry off, it would, +with decent husbandry, increase in productiveness from year to year. The +valley of the Nile is one example among many of what Irrigation, +especially from rivers at their highest stage, will do for the soil, in +defiance of the most ignorant, improvident and unskillful cultivation. +Such streams as the Raritan, the Passaic and most of the New Jersey +rivers, annually squander upon the ocean an amount of fertilizing matter +adequate to the comfortable subsistence of thousands. By calculation, +association, science, labor, most of this may be saved. One hundred +thousand of the poor immigrants annually arriving on our shores ought to +be employed for years, in New-Jersey alone, in the construction of dams, +canals, &c., adequate to the complete irrigation of all the level or +moderately sloping lands in that State. Farms are cheaper there to-day +than in Iowa for purchasers who can pay for and know how to use them. +Long Island can be rendered eminently fertile and productive by +systematic and thorough Irrigation; otherwise I doubt that it ever will +be.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>Much of Lombardy slopes very considerably toward the Po, so that the +water in the larger or distributing canals is often used to run mills +and supply other mechanical power. It might be used also for +Manufacturing if Manufactures existed here, and nearly every farmer +might have a horse-power or so at command for domestic uses if he chose. +We passed yesterday the completely dry beds of what seemed to be small +rivers, their water having been entirely drawn away into the irrigating +canals on either side, while on either hand there were grist-mills +busily at work, and had been for hundreds of years, grinding by +water-power where no stream naturally existed. If I mistake not, there +are many such in this city, and in nearly all the cities and villages of +Lombardy. If our farmers would only investigate this matter of +Irrigation as thoroughly as its importance deserves, they would find +that they have neglected mines of wealth all around them more extensive +and far more reliable than those of California. One man alone may not +always be able to irrigate his farm except at too great a cost; but let +the subject be commended to general attention, and the expense would be +vastly diminished. Ten thousand farms together, embracing a whole +valley, may often be irrigated for less than the cost of supplying a +hundred of them separately. I trust our Agricultural papers will agitate +this improvement.</p> + +<p>As to Tree-Planting, there can be no excuse for neglecting it, for no +man needs his neighbor's coöperation to render it economical or +effective. We in America have been recklessly destroying trees quite +long enough; it is high time that we began systematically to reproduce +them. There is scarcely a farm of fifty acres or over in any but the +very newest States that might not be increased in value $1,000 by $100 +judiciously expended in Tree-Planting, and a little care to protect the +young trees from premature destruction. All road-sides, steep +hill-sides, ravines and rocky places should be planted with Oak, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>Hickory, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, &c., at once, and many a farm would, +after a few years, yield $100 worth of Timber annually, without +subtracting $10 from the crops otherwise depended on. By planting +Locust, or some other fast-growing tree, alternately with Oak, Hickory, +&c., the former would be ready for use or sale by the time the latter +needed the whole ground. Utility, beauty, comfort, profit, all combine +to urge immediate and extensive Tree-Planting; shall it not be +commenced?</p> + +<p>Here in Lombardy there is absolutely no farm, however small, without its +rows of Mulberry, Poplar, Walnut, Cherry, &c., overshadowing its canals, +brooks, roads, &c., and traversing its fields in all directions. The +Vine is very generally trained on a low tree, like one of our Plum or +small Cherry trees, so that, viewed at a distance or a point near the +ground, the country would seem one vast forest, with an undergrowth +mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown, +but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass. +There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides, +which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan, +are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if +permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass; +so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious +crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently +spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted, +will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres +with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is +made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and +the blunder far less vital.</p> + +<p>This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and +their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater +number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at +work; and nearly all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings +are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading +out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other +signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is +the garden of sunny, delicious Italy!</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE ITALIANS.</h3> + +<p>I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I +brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the +obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an +insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the +"Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of +Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a +Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a +division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would +consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge +her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population; +Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive +commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I +should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse +decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the +stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs!</p> + +<p>And it is too true that ages of subjugation have demoralized, to a +fearful extent, the Italian People. Those who would rather beg, or +extort, or pander to others' vices, than honestly work for a living, +will never do anything for Freedom; and such are deplorably abundant in +Italy. Then, like most nations debased by ages of Slavery, these people +have little faith in each other. The proverb that "No Italian has two +friends" is of Italian origin. Every one fears that his confederate may +prove a traitor, and if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>one is heard openly cursing the Government as +oppressive and intolerable in a café or other public resort, though the +sentiment is heartily responded to, the utterer is suspected and avoided +as a Police stool-pigeon and spy. Such mutual distrust necessarily +creates or accompanies a lack of moral courage. There are brave and +noble Italians, but the majority are neither brave nor noble. There were +gallant spirits who joyfully poured out their blood for Freedom in +1848-9, but nine-tenths of those who wished well to the Liberal cause +took precious good care to keep their carcases out of the reach of +Austrian or French bullets. Even in Rome, where, next to Venice, the +most creditable resistance was made to Despotism, the greater part of +the actual fighting was done by Italians indeed, but refugees from +Lombardy, Tuscany and other parts of Italy. Had the Romans who heartily +desired the maintenance of the Republic shown their faith by their +works, Naples would have been promptly revolutionized and the French +driven back to their ships. On this point, I have the testimony of +eye-witnesses of diverse sentiments and of unimpeachable character. Rome +is heartily Republican to-day; but I doubt whether three effective +regiments could be raised from her large native population to fight a +single fair battle which was to decide the fate of Italy. So with the +whole country except Piedmont, and perhaps Genoa and Venice. I wish the +fact were otherwise; but there can be no use in disguising or +mis-stating it. Italy is not merely enslaved but debased, and not till +after years of Freedom will the mass of her people evince consistently +the spirit or the bearing of Freemen. She must be freed through the +progress of Liberal ideas in France and Germany—not by her own inherent +energies. Not till her masses have learned to look more coolly down the +throats of loaded and hostile cannon in fair daylight and be a little +less handy with their knives in the dark, can they be relied on to do +anything for the general cause of Freedom.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> + +<br /> +<h3>THE AUSTRIANS.</h3> + +<p>I have not been able to dislike the Austrians personally. Their simple +presence in Italy is a grievous wrong and mischief, since, so long as +they hold the Italians in subjection, the latter can hardly begin the +education which is to fit them for Freedom. Yet it is none the less true +that the portion of Italy unequivocally Austrian is better governed and +enjoys, not more Liberty, for there is none in either, but a milder form +of Slavery, than that which prevails in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and the +paltrier native despotisms. I can now understand, though I by no means +concur in, the wish of a <i>quasi</i> Liberal friend who prays that Austria +may just take possession of the whole Peninsula, and abolish the dozen +diverse Tariffs, Coinages, Mails, Armies, Courts, &c. &c., which now +scourge this natural Paradise. He thinks that such an absorption only +can prepare Italy for Liberty and true Unity; I, on the contrary, fear +that it would fix her in a more hopeless Slavery. Yet it certainly would +render the country more agreeable to strangers, whether sojourners or +mere travelers.</p> + +<p>The Austrian soldiers, regarded as mere fighting machines, are certainly +well got up. They are palpably the superiors, moral and physical, of the +French who garrison Rome, and they are less heartily detested by the +People whom they are here to hold in subjection. Their discipline is +admirable, but their natural disposition is likewise quiet and +inoffensive. I have not heard of a case of any one being personally +insulted by an Austrian since I have been in Italy.—Knowing themselves +to be intensely disliked in Italy and yet its uncontrolled masters, it +would seem but natural that they should evince something of bravado and +haughtiness, but I have observed or heard of nothing of the kind. In +fact, the bearing of the Austrians, whether officers or soldiers, has +seemed to evince a quiet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>consciousness of strength, and to say, in the +least offensive manner possible—"We are masters here by virtue of our +good swords—if you dispute the right, look well that you have a sharper +weapon and a vigorous arm to wield it!" To a rule which thus answers all +remonstrances against its existence by a quiet telling off of its ranks +and a faultless marching of its determined columns, what further +argument can be opposed but that of bayonet to bayonet? I really cannot +see how the despot-governed, Press-shackled, uneducated Nations are ever +to be liberated under the guidance of Peace Societies and their World's +Conventions; and, horrible as all War is and ever must be, I deem a few +battles a lesser evil than the perpetuity of such mental and physical +bondage as is now endured by Twenty Millions of Italians. When the Peace +Society shall have persuaded the Emperor Nicholas or Francis-Joseph to +disband his armies and rely for the support of his government on its +intrinsic justice and inherent moral force, I shall be ready to enter +its ranks; but while Despotism, Fraud and Wrong are triumphantly upheld +by Force, I do not see how Freedom, Justice and Progress can safely +disclaim and repudiate the only weapons that tyrants fear—the only +arguments they regard.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>LEAVING ITALY.</h3> + +<p>I have not been long in Italy, yet I have gone over a good share of its +surface, and seen nearly all that I much desired to see, except Naples +and its vicinity, with the Papal territory on the Perugia route from +Rome to Florence. I should have liked more time in Genoa, Rome, Florence +and Venice; but sight-seeing was never a passion with me, and I soon +tire of wandering from ruin to ruin, church to church, and gallery to +gallery. Yet when I stop gazing the next impulse is to move on; for if I +have time to rest anywhere, why not at home? Hotel life <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>among total +strangers was never agreeable to me—(was it to any one?)—and I do not +like that of Italy so well as I at first thought I should. The +attendance is well enough, and as to food, I make a point of never +quarreling with that I have; though meals far simpler than those served +at the regular hotel dinners here would suit me much better. The charges +in general are quite reasonable, though I have paid one or two absurd +bills. It was at first right pleasant to lodge in what was once a +palace, and I still deem a large, high, airy sleeping-room, such as we +seldom have in American hotels, but are common here, a genuine luxury. +But when with such rooms you have doors that don't shut so as to stay, +windows that won't open, locks that won't hold, bolts that won't slide +and fleas that won't—ah! <i>won't</i> they bite!—the case is somewhat +altered. I should not like to end my days in Italy.</p> + +<p>As to the People, if I shall seem to have spoken of them disparagingly, +it has not been unkindly. I cherish an earnest desire for their +well-being. They do not need flattery, and do not, as a body, deserve +praise. Of what are sometimes called the "better classes" (though I +believe they are here <i>no</i> better), I have seen little, and have not +spoken specially. Of the great majority who, here, as everywhere, must +exert themselves to live, whether by working, or begging, or petty +swindling, I have seen something, and of these certain leading +characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems +to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual +commingling of the awful with the paltry—the sacred and the +sensual—Madonna and Circé—Christ on the Cross and Venus in the +Bath—which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an +expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the +perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as +the Crucifixion is calculated first to shock but ultimately to weaken +the religious sentiment? Of the hundreds of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>pictures of the infant +Jesus I have seen in Italy, there are not five which did not strike me +as utterly unworthy of the subject, allowing that it ought to be +represented at all. "Men of Athens!" said the straight-forward Paul, "I +perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." I think the +Italians, quite apart from what is essential to their creed, have this +very failing, and that it exerts a debilitating influence on their +National character. They need to be cured of it, as well as of the vices +I have already indicated, in order that their magnificent country may +resume its proper place among great and powerful Nations. I trust I am +not warring on the faith of their Church, when I urge that "To do +justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than +sacrifice"—that no man can be truly devout who is not strictly upright +and manly—and that one living purpose of diffusive, practical +well-doing, is more precious in the sight of Heaven, than the bones of +all the dead Saints in Christendom.</p> + +<p>Farewell, trampled, soul-crushed Italy!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXI.</h2> +<h2>SWITZERLAND.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lucerne</span>, July 12, 1851.</p> + +<p>I left Milan at 5 o'clock, on the morning of the 10th, via Railroad to +Como, at the foot of the Lake of like name, which we reached in an hour +and a half, thence taking the Swiss Government Diligence for this place, +via the pass of St. Gothard. Even before reaching Como (only some twenty +miles from Milan), the spurs of the Alps had begun to gather around us, +and the little Lake itself is completely embosomed by them. Barely +skirting its southern border, we crossed the Swiss frontier and bade +adieu to the Passport swindle for a season, crossed a ridge into the +valley of Lake Lugano, which we skirted for two-thirds its length, +crossing it by a fine stone bridge near its center. (All the Swiss lakes +I have seen are very narrow for a good part of their length, of a +greenish blue color, derived from the mountain snows, very irregular in +their form, being shut in, narrowed and distorted by the bold cliffs +which crowd them on one side or on both, often reducing them to a +crooked strait, resembling the passage of the Highlands by the Hudson.) +Threading the narrow streets of the pleasant village of Lugano, we +struck boldly up the hill to the east, and over it into the valley of +the little river Ticino, which we reached at Bellinzona, a smart town of +some five to ten thousand inhabitants, and followed the river thence to +its source in the eternal snows of Mount St. Gothard. All this is, I +believe, in the Canton of Ticino, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>which Italian is the common +language, and of which Bellinzona is the chief town.</p> + +<p>Although in Switzerland, shut in by steep mountains, often snow-crowned, +which leave it an average width of less than half a mile, this valley is +Italian in many of its natural characteristics. For two-thirds of its +length, Wheat, Indian Corn and the Vine are the chief objects of +attention, and every little patch of level ground, save the rocky bed of +the impetuous mountain torrent, is laboriously, carefully cultivated. +Such mere scraps of earth do not admit of efficient husbandry, but are +made to produce liberally by dint of patient effort. I should judge that +a peck of corn is about the average product of a day's work through all +this region. There is some pasturage, mainly on the less abrupt +declivities far up the mountains, but not one acre in fifty of the +Canton yields aught but it may be a little fuel for the sustenance of +man. Nature is here a rugged mother, exacting incessant toil of her +children as the price of the most frugal subsistence; but under such +skies, in the presence of so much magnificence, and in a land of +equality and freedom, mere life is <i>worth</i> working for, and the +condition is accepted with a hearty alacrity. Men and women work +together, and almost equally, in the fields; and here, where the +necessity is so palpably of Nature's creation, not Man's, the spectacle +is far less revolting than on the fertile plains of Piedmont or +Lombardy. The little patch of Wheat is so carefully reaped that scarcely +a grain is left, and children bear the sheaves on their backs to the +allotted shelter, while mothers and maidens are digging up the soil with +the spade, and often pulling up the stubble with their hands, +preparatory to another crop. Switzerland could not afford to be a +Kingdom,—the expense of a Court and Royal Family would famish half her +people. Yet everywhere are the signs of frugal thrift and homely +content. I met only two beggars in that long day's ride through sterile +Switzerland, while <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>in a similar ride through the fertile plains of +Italy I should have encountered hundreds, though there each day's labor +produces as much as three days' do here. If the Swiss only <i>could</i> live +at home, by the utmost industry and economy, I think they would very +seldom be found elsewhere; but in truth the land has long been peopled +to the extent of its capacity for subsisting, and the steady increase +which their pure morals and simple habits ensure must drive off +thousands in search of the bread of honest toil. Hence their presence +elsewhere, in spite of their passionate attachment to their free native +hills.</p> + +<p>Most of the dwellings through all this region are built of stone—those +of the poor very rudely, of the roughest boulders, commonly laid up with +little or no mortar. The roofs are often of split stone. The houses of +the more fortunate class are generally of hewn or at least tolerably +square-edged stone, laid up in mortar, often plastered and whitened on +the outside, so as to present a very neat appearance. Barns are few, and +generally of stone also. The Vine is quite extensively cultivated, and +often trained on a rude frame-work of stakes and poles, so as completely +to cover the ground and forbid all other cultivation. Elsewhere it is +trained to stakes—rarely to dwarf trees as in Italy. The Mulberry holds +its ground for two-thirds of the way up the valley, giving out a little +after the Vine and before Indian Corn does so. Wheat gives place to Rye +about the same time, and the Potato, at first comparatively rare, +becomes universal. As the Mulberry gives out the Chestnut comes in, and +flourishes nobly for some ten or twenty miles about midway from +Bellinzona to Airolo. I suspect, from the evident care taken of it, that +its product is considerably relied on for food. Finally, as we gradually +ascend, this also disappears, leaving Rye and the Potato to struggle a +while longer, until at Airolo, at the foot of St. Gothard, where we +stopped at 10 o'clock for the night, though the valley forks and is +consequently <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>of some width, there remain only a few slender +potato-stalks, in shivering expectation of untimely frost, a patch or +two of headless oats, with grass on the slopes, still tender and green +from the lately sheltering snows, and a dwarfish hemlock clinging to the +steep acclivities and hiding from the fierce winds in the deep ravines +which run up the mountains. Snow is in sight on every side, and seems +but a mile or so distant. Yet here are two petty villages and thirty or +forty scattered dwellings, whose inhabitants keep as many small cows and +goats as they can find grass for, and for the rest must live mainly by +serving in the hotels, or as postillions, road-makers, &c. Yet no hand +was held out to me in beggary at or around Airolo.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>ST. GOTHARD.</h3> + +<p>We did not start till after 9 next morning, and meantime some more +Diligences had come up, so that we formed a procession of one large and +heavy, followed by three smaller and more fit carriages, when we moved +out of the little village, and, leaving the larger branch of our creek, +now a scanty mill-stream at best, to bend away to the left, we followed +the smaller and charged boldly up the mountain. The ascent is of course +made by zig-zags, no other mode being practicable for carriages, so +that, when we had traveled three toilsome miles, Airolo still lay in +sight, hardly a mile below us. I judge the whole ascent, which with a +light carriage and three hard-driven horses occupied two hours and a +half, was about eight miles, though a straight line might have taken us +to the summit in three miles. The rise in this distance must have been +near five thousand feet.</p> + +<p>For a time, the Hemlocks held on, but at length they gave up, before we +reached any snow, and only a little weak young Grass,—nourished rather +by the perpetual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>mists or rains than by the cold, sour earth which +clung to the less precipitous rocks,—remained to keep us company. Soon +the snow began to appear beside us, at first timidly, on the north side +of cliffs, and in deep chasms, where it was doubtless drifted to the +depth of thirty feet during the Winter, and has been gradually thawing +out since May. At length it stood forth unabashed beside our road, often +a solid mass six or seven feet thick, on either side of the narrow pass +which had been cut and worn through it for and by the passage of +travelers. Meantime, the drizzling rain, which had commenced soon after +we started, had changed to a spitting, watery sleet, and at length to +snow, a little before we reached the summit of the pass, where we found +a young Nova Zembla. An extensive cloud-manufactory was in full blast +all around us, shutting out from view even the nearest cliffs, while the +snow and wind—I being on the outside and somewhat wet already—made our +short halt there anything but comfortable. The ground was covered with +snow to an average depth of two or three feet; the brooks ran over beds +of ice and under large heaps of drifted and frozen snow, and all was +sullen and cheerless. Here were the sources (in part) of the Po and of +the Rhine, but I was rather in haste to bid the former good-bye.</p> + +<p>We reduced our three-horse establishment to two, and began to descend +the Rhineward zig-zags at a rattling pace, our driver (and all the +drivers) hurrying all the way. We reached the first village (where there +was considerable Grass again, and some Hemlock, but scarcely any +attempts at cultivation), in fifty minutes, and I think the distance was +nearly five miles. "Jehu, the son of Nimshi," could not have done the +distance in five minutes less.</p> + +<p>We changed horses and drivers at this village, but proceeded at a +similar pace down through the most hideous chasm for the next two or +three miles that I ever saw. I doubt whether a night-mare ever beat it. +The descent of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>the stream must have been fully 1,500 feet to the mile +for a good part of this distance, while the mountains rose naked and +almost perpendicular on each side from its very bed to hights of one to +two thousand feet, without a shrub, and hardly a resting-place even for +snow. Down this chasm our road wound, first on one side of the rivulet, +then on the other, crossing by narrow stone bridges, often at the +sharpest angle with the road, making zig-zags wherever space could be +found or made for them, now passing through a tunnel cut through the +solid rock, and then under a long archway built over it to protect it +from avalanches at the crossing of a raving cataract down the mountain +side. And still the staving pace at which we started was kept up by +those on the lead, and imitated by the boy driving our carriage, which +was hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should +know his own business best, yet if <i>I</i> were to drive down a steep +mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I +deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a +stiff trot, our carriage tilted, and over she went in a twinkling.</p> + +<p>Our horses behaved admirably, which in an upset is always half the +battle. Had they started, the Diligence managers could only have +rendered a Flemish account of <i>that</i> load. As it was, they stopped, and +the driver, barely scratched, had them in hand in a minute.</p> + +<p>I was on the box-seat with him, and fell under him, catching a bad +sprain of the left wrist, on which I came down, which disables that hand +for a few days—nothing broken and no great harm done—only a few +liberal rents and trifling bruises. But I should judge that our heads +lay about three feet from the side of the road, which was a precipice of +not more than twenty feet, but the rocks below looked particularly +jagged and uninviting.</p> + +<p>Our four inside passengers had been a good deal mixed up, in the +concussion, but soon began to emerge <i>seriatim</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>from the side door +which in the fall came uppermost—only one of them much hurt, and he by +a bruise or gash on the head nowise dangerous. Each, as his or her head +protruded through the aperture, began to "let in" on the driver, whose +real fault was that of following bad examples. I was a little riled at +first myself, but the second and last lady who came out put me in +excellent humor. She was not hurt, but had her new silk umbrella broken +square in two, and she flashed the pieces before the delinquent's eyes +and reeled off the High Dutch to him with vehement volubility. I wished +I could have understood her more precisely. Though not more than +eighteen, she developed a tongue that would have done credit to forty.</p> + +<p>The drivers ahead stopped and came back, helped right the stage, and +each took a shy at the unlucky charioteer, though in fact they were as +much in fault as he, only more fortunate. I suspected before that this +trotting down zig-zags was not the thing, and now I know it, and shall +remember it, at least for one week. And I have given this tedious detail +to urge and embolden others to remonstrate against it. The vice is +universal—at least it was just as bad at Mount Cenis as here, and here +were four carriages all going at the same reckless pace. The truth is, +it is not safe to trot down such mountains and hardly to ride down them +at all. We passed scores of places where any such unavoidable accident +as the breaking of a reach or a hold-back must have sent the whole +concern over a precipice where all that reached the bottom would hardly +be worth picking up. Who has a right to risk his life in this fool-hardy +manner?</p> + +<p>The next time I cross the Alps, I will take my seat for the +stopping-place at the nearer foot, and thence walk leisurely over, with +a long staff and a water-proof coat, sending on my baggage by the coach +to the hotel on the other side. If I can get an hour's start, I can (by +straightening the zig-zags) nearly double it going up; if not, I will +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>wait on the other side for the next stage. If it were not for the +cowardly fear of being thought timid, there would be more care used in +such matters. Hitherto, I have not given the subject much consideration, +but I turn over a new leaf from the date of this adventure.</p> + +<p>We came down the rest of the mountain more carefully, though still a +great deal too fast. A girl of twelve or thirteen breaking stone by the +road-side in a lonely place was among the note-worthy features of the +wilder upper region. Trees, Potato-patches, Grain-fields were welcome +sights as we neared them successively, though the Vine and the Chestnut +did not and Indian Corn barely did reäppear on this side, which is much +colder than the other and grows little but Grass. At the foot of the +pass, the valley widened a little, though still with steep, snow-capped +cliffs crowding it on either side. Five hours from the summit and less +than two from the base, we reached the pretty town of Altorf, having +perhaps five thousand inhabitants, with a mile width of valley and +grassy slopes on the surrounding mountains. A few minutes more brought +us to the petty port of Fluellen on Lake Lucerne, where a little +steamboat was waiting to bring us to this city. I would not just then +have traded off that steamboat for several square miles of snow-capped +sublimity.</p> + +<p>Lake Lucerne is a mere cleft in the mountains, narrow and most irregular +in form, with square cliffs like our Palisades, only many times higher, +rising sheer out of its depths and hardly a stone's throw apart. Mount +Pilatte and The Rhigi are the most celebrated of those seen from its +breast. After making two or three short turns among the hights, it +finally opens to a width of some miles on a softer scene, with green +pastures and pleasant woods sweeping down the hills nearly or quite to +its verge. Lucerne City lies at or near its outlet, and seems a pleasant +place, though I have had no time to spend upon it, as I arrived at 8½ P. +M. too weary even to write if I had been able to sleep. I leave for +Basle by Diligence at eight this morning.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXII.</h2> +<h2>LUCERNE TO BASLE.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Basle</span>, July 13, 1851.</p> + +<p>Very striking is the contrast between all of Switzerland I had +traversed, before reaching Lucerne, and the route thence to this place. +From Como to the middle of Lake Lucerne is something over a hundred +miles, and in all that distance there was never so much as one-tenth of +the land in sight that could, by any possibility, be cultivated. The +narrow valleys, when not <i>too</i> narrow, were arable and generally +fertile; but they were shut in on every side by dizzy precipices, by +lofty mountains, often snow-crowned, and either wholly barren or with +only a few shrubs and stunted trees clinging to their clefts and +inequalities, because nothing else could cling there. A fortieth part of +these mountain sides may have been so moderately steep that soil could +gather and lie on them, in which case they yielded fair pasturage for +cattle, or at least for goats: but nine-tenths of their superficies were +utterly unproductive and inhospitable. On the mountain-tops, indeed, +there is sometimes a level space, but the snow generally monopolizes +that. Such is Switzerland from the Italian frontier, where I crossed it, +to the immediate vicinity of Lucerne.</p> + +<p>Here all is changed. A small but beautiful river debouches from the lake +at its west end, and the town is grouped around this outlet. But +mountains here there are none—nothing but rich glades and gently +swelling hills, covered with the most bounteous harvest, through which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>the high road runs north-easterly some sixty miles to Basle on the +Rhine in the north-east corner of Switzerland, with Germany (Baden) on +the east and France on the north. A single ridge, indeed, on this route +presents a ragged cliff or two and some heights dignified with the title +of mountains, which seem a joke to one who has just spent two days among +the Alps.</p> + +<p>Grass is the chief staple of this fertile region, but Wheat is +abundantly grown and is just beginning to ripen, promising a noble +yield. Potatoes also are extensively planted, and I never saw a more +vigorous growth. Rye, Oats and Barley do well, but are little +cultivated. Of Indian Corn there is none, and the Vine, which had given +out on the Italian side some twenty miles below the foot of St. Gothard, +does not come in again till we are close to the Rhine. But in its stead +they have the Apple in profusion—I think more Apple trees between +Lucerne and the Rhine, than I had seen in all Europe before—and they +seem very thrifty, though this year's yield of fruit will be light. +There are some other trees planted, and many small, thrifty forests, +such as I had hardly seen before on the Continent. These increase as we +approach the Rhine. There is hardly a fence throughout, and generous +crops of Wheat, Potatoes, Rye, Grass, Oats, &c., are growing close up to +the beaten road on either side. I don't exactly see how Cattle are +driven through such a country, having passed no drove since crossing +Mount St. Gothard.</p> + +<p>The dwellings are generally large, low structures, with sloping, +overhanging roofs, indicating thrift and comfort. Sometimes the first +story, or at least the basement, is of hewn-stone, but the greater part +of the structure is nearly always of wood. The barns are spacious, and +built much like the houses. I have passed through no other part of +Europe evincing such general thrift and comfort as this quarter of +Switzerland, and Basle, already a well built city, is rapidly improving. +When the Railroad line from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>Paris to Strasburg is completed, the French +capital will be but little more than twenty-four hours from Basle, while +the Baden line, down the German side of the Rhine, already connects this +city easily with all Germany, and is certain of rapid and indefinite +extension. Basle, though quite a town in Cæsar's day, is renewing her +youth.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE SWISS.</h3> + +<p>I am leaving Switzerland, after four days only of observation therein; +but during those days I have traversed the country from its southern to +its north-eastern extremity, passing through six of the Cantons and +along the skirts of another, resting respectively at Airolo, Lucerne, +and Basle, and meeting many hundreds of the people on the way, beside +seeing thousands in the towns and at work in their fields. This is +naturally a very poor country, with for the most part a sterile soil—or +rather, naked, precipitous rocks, irreclaimably devoid of soil—where, +if anywhere, the poor peasantry would be justified in asking charity of +the strangers who come to gaze at and enjoy their stupendous but most +inhospitable mountains—and yet I have not seen one beggar to a hundred +hearty workers, while in fertile, bounteous, sunny Italy, the +preponderance was clearly the other way. And, though very palpably a +stranger, and specially exposed by my ignorance of the languages spoken +here to imposition, no one has attempted to cheat me from the moment of +my entering the Republic till this, while in Italy every day and almost +every hour was marked by its peculiar extortions. Every where I have +found kindness and truth written on the faces and evinced in the acts of +this people, while in Italy rapacity and knavery are the order of the +day. How does a monarchist explain this broad discrepancy? Mountains +alone will not do, for the Italians of the Apennines and the Abruzzi are +notoriously very much like those of the Campagna and of the Val <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>d'Arno; +nor will the zealot's ready suggestion of diverse Faiths suffice, for my +route has lain almost exclusively through the <i>Catholic</i> portion of this +country. Ticino, Uri, Lucerne, etc., are intensely, unanimously +Catholic; the very roadsides are dotted with little shrines, enriched +with the rudest possible pictures of the Virgin and Child, the +Crucifixion, &c., and I think I did not pass a Protestant church or +village till I was within thirty miles of this place. Nearly all the +Swiss I have seen are Catholics, and a more upright, kindly, truly +religious people I have rarely or never met. What, then, can have +rendered them so palpably and greatly superior to their Italian +neighbors, whose ancestors were the masters of theirs, but the +prevalence here of Republican Freedom and there of Imperial Despotism?</p> + +<p>Switzerland, shut out from equal competition with other nations by her +inland, elevated, scarcely accessible position, has naturalized +Manufactures on her soil, and they are steadily extending. She sends +Millions' worth of Watches, Silks, &c., annually even to distant +America; while Italy, with nearly all her population within a day's ride +of the Adriatic or the Mediterranean, with the rich, barbaric East at +her doors for a market, does not fabricate even the rags which partially +cover her beggars, but depends on England and France for most of the +little clothing she has. Italy is naturally a land of abundance and +luxury, with a soil and climate scarcely equalled on earth; yet a large +share of her population actually lack the necessaries, not to speak of +the comforts, of life, and those who sow and reap her bountiful harvests +are often without bread: Switzerland has, for the most part, an Arctic +climate and scarcely any soil at all; and yet her people are all +decently clad and adequately though frugally fed, and I have not seen +one person who seemed to have been demoralized by want or to suffer from +hunger since I crossed her border. Her hotels are far superior to their +more frequented namesakes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>of Italy; even at the isolated hamlet of +Airolo, where no grain will grow, I found everything essential to +cleanliness and comfort, while the "Switzer Hoff" at Lucerne and "Les +Trois Rois" at Basle are two of the very best houses I have found in +Europe. What Royalist can satisfactorily explain these contrasts?</p> + +<p>Switzerland, though a small country, and not half of this habitable, +speaks three different languages. I found at Airolo regular files of +Swiss journals printed respectively in French, Italian, and German: the +last entirely baffled me; the two former I read after a fashion, making +out some of their contents' purport and drift. Those in French, printed +at Geneva, Lausanne, &c., were executed far more neatly than the others. +All were of small size, and in good part devoted to spirited political +discussion. Switzerland, though profoundly Republican, is almost equally +divided into parties known respectively as "Radical" and "Conservative:" +the Protestant Cantons being preponderantly Radical, the Catholic +generally Conservative. Of the precise questions in dispute I know +little and shall say nothing; but I do trust that the controversy will +not enfeeble nor paralyze the Republic, now seriously menaced by the +Allied Despots, who seem to have almost forgotten that there ever was +such a man as <span class="smcap">William Tell</span>. Let us drink, in the crystal +current leaping brightly down from the eternal glaciers, to his +glorious, inspiring memory, and to Switzerland a loving and hopeful +Adieu!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXIII.</h2> +<h2>GERMANY.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Cologne</span>, Tuesday, July 15, 1851.</p> + +<p>After spending Sunday very agreeably at Basle (where American +Protestants traveling may like to know that Divine worship is regularly +conducted each Sabbath by an English clergyman, at the excellent Hotel +of the Three Kings), I set my face again northward at 7½ <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> +on Monday, crossing the Rhine (which is here about the size of the +Hudson at Albany) directly into Baden, and so leaving the soil of +glorious Switzerland, the mountain home of Liberty amid surrounding +despotisms. The nine first miles from Basle (to Efringen) are traversed +by Omnibus, and thence a very good Railroad runs nearly parallel with +the Rhine by Freiburg, Kehl (opposite Strasburg), Baden (at some +distance), Rastatt, Carlsruhe, and Heidelberg, to Mannheim, distant from +Basle 167½ miles by Railroad, and I presume considerably further by +River, as the Rhine (unlike the Railroad as far as Heidelberg) is not +very direct in its course. There is a French Railroad completed on the +other (west) side of the river from Basle to Strasburg, and nearly +completed from Strasburg to Paris, which affords a far more direct and +expeditious route than that I have chosen, as I wished to see something +of Germany. It is also cheaper, I believe, to take the French Railroad +to Strasburg, and the river thence by steamboats which ply regularly as +high as Strasburg, and might keep on to Basle, I presume, if not impeded +by bridges, as the river is amply large enough.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>The Baden Railroad runs through a country descending, indeed, toward the +Rhine and with the Rhine, but as nearly level as a country well can be, +and affording the fewest possible obstacles to its construction. It is +faithfully built, but instead of the numerous common roads which cross +it being carried over or under its track, as the English Railroads are, +they are closed on each side by a swing-bar, at which a guard is +stationed—a plan which saves expense at the outset, but involves a +heavy permanent charge. I should deem the English plan preferable to +this, though men are had much cheaper for such service in Germany than +in America, or even Great Britain. The pace is slower than with us. We +were about nine hours of fair daylight traversing 160 miles of level or +descending grade, with a light passenger train. The management, however, +was careful and unexceptionable.</p> + +<p>This Railroad runs for most of the distance much nearer to the range of +gentle hills which bound the broad and fertile Rhine valley on the east +than to the river itself. The valley is nearly bare of trees for the +most part, and has scarcely any fences save the very slight board fence +on either side of the Railroad. In some places, natural woods of +considerable extent are permitted, but not many fruit nor shade-trees, +whether in rows or scattered. The hills in sight, however, are very +considerably wooded, and wood is apparently the common fuel. The valley +is generally but not entirely irrigated, though all of it easily might +be, the arrangements for irrigation appearing much more modern and +unsystematic here than in Lombardy. The land is cultivated in strips as +in France—first Wheat (the great staple), then Rye, then Potatoes, then +Clover, then Beets, or Hemp, or Flax, and so on. For a small part of the +way, Grass seems to preponderate, but generally Wheat and Rye cover more +than half the ground, while Potatoes have a very large breadth of it. +Rye is now being harvested, and is quite heavy: in fact, all the crops +promise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>abundant harvests. The Vine appears at intervals, but is not +general through this region: Indian Corn is also rare, and appears in +small patches. In some places many acres of Wheat are seen in one piece, +but usually a breadth of four to twenty rods is given to one crop, and +then another succeeds and so on. I presume this implies a diversity of +owners, or at least of tenants.</p> + +<p>The cultivation, though not always judicious, is generally thorough, +there being no lack of hands nor of good will. The day being fine and +the season a hurrying one, the vast plain was everywhere dotted with +laborers, of whom fully half were Women, reaping Rye, binding it, raking +and pitching Hay, hoeing Potatoes, transplanting Cabbages, Beets, &c. +They seemed to work quite as heartily and efficiently as the men. But +the most characteristically European spectacle I saw was a woman +unloading a great hay-wagon of huge cordwood at a Railroad station, and +pitching over the heavy sticks with decided resolution and efficiency. +It may interest the American pioneers in the Great Pantalette (or is it +Pantaloon?) Movement to know that she was attired in appropriate +costume—short frock, biped continuations and a mannish oil-skin +hat.—And this reminds me that, coming away from Rome, I met, at the +half-way house to Civita Vecchia, a French marching regiment on its way +from Corsica to the Eternal City, to which regiment two women were +attached as sutlers, &c., who also wore the same costume, except that +their hats were of wool instead of oil-skin. Thus attired, they had +marched twenty-five miles that hot day, and were to march as many the +next, as they had doubtless done on many former days. It certainly +cannot be pretended that these women adopted that dress from a love of +novelty, or a desire to lead a new fashion, or from any other reason +than a sense of its convenience, founded on experience. I trust, +therefore, that their unconscious testimony in behalf of the Great +Movement may not be deemed irrelevant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>nor unentitled to consideration. +Their social rank is certainly not the highest, but I consider them more +likely to render a correct judgment on the merit of the Bloomer +controversy than the Lady Patronesses of Almack's.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE RHINE.</h3> + +<p>After spending the night at Mannheim, I took a steamboat at 5½ this +morning for this place, 165 miles down the Rhine, embracing all the +navigable part of the river of which the scenery is esteemed attractive. +As far down as Mayence or Mentz (55 miles), the low banks and broad +intervale continue, and there is little worthy of notice. From Mentz to +Coblentz (54 miles), there is some magnificent scenery, though I think +its natural beauties do not surpass those of the Hudson from New-York to +Newburgh. Certainly there are no five miles equal in rugged grandeur to +those beginning just below and ending above West Point. But the Rhine is +here somewhat larger than the Hudson; the hills on either side, though +seldom absolutely precipitous, are from one to five hundred feet high, +and are often crowned with the ruins of ancient castles, which have a +very picturesque appearance; while the little villages at their foot and +the cultivation (mainly of the Vine) which is laboriously prosecuted up +their rocky and almost naked sides, contribute to heighten the general +effect. These sterile rocks impart a warmth to the soil and a sweetness +to the grape which are otherwise found only under a more southerly sun, +and, combined with the cheapness of labor, appear to justify the +toilsome process of terracing up the steep hill-sides, and even carrying +up earth in baskets to little southward-looking nooks and crevices where +it may be retained and planted on. Yet I liked better than the vine-clad +heights those less abrupt declivities where a more varied culture is +attempted, and where the Vine is intermingled with strips of now +ripened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>Rye, ripening Wheat, blossoming Potatoes, &c., &c., together +imparting a variegated richness and beauty to the landscape which are +rarely equaled. But the Rhine has been nearly written out, and I will +pass it lightly over. Its towers are not very imposing in appearance, +though Coblentz makes a fair show. Opposite is Ehrenbreitstein, no +longer the ruin described (if I rightly remember) in Childe Harold, but +a magnificent fortress, apparently in the best condition, and said to +have cost Five Millions of dollars. The "blue Moselle" enters the Rhine +from the west just below Coblentz. This city (Cologne) is the largest, I +believe, in Rhenish Prussia, and, next to Rotterdam at its mouth, the +largest on the Rhine, having a flourishing trade and 90,000 inhabitants. +(Coblentz has 26,000, Mayence 36,000, Mannheim 23,000 and Strasburg +60,000.)</p> + +<p>There are some bold hights dignified as mountains below Coblentz, but +the finest of the scenery is above. The hills disappear some miles above +this city, and henceforward to the sea all is flat and tame as a marsh. +On the whole, the Rhine has hardly fulfilled my expectations. Had I +visited it on my way <i>to</i> the Alps, instead of just <i>from</i> them, it +would doubtless have impressed me more profoundly; but I am sure the St. +Mary's of Lake Superior is better worth seeing; so I think, is the +Delaware section of the Erie Railroad. It is possible the weather may +have unfitted me for appreciating this famous river, for a more cloudy, +misty, chilly, rainy, execrable, English day I have seldom encountered. +To travelers blessed with golden sunshine, the Rhine may wear a grander, +nobler aspect, and to such I leave it.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE GERMANS.</h3> + +<p>I have been but two days wholly among the Germans, but I had previously +met many of them in England, Italy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>and Switzerland. They are seen to +the best advantage at home. Their uniform courtesy (save in the +detestable habit of smoking where others cannot help being annoyed by +their fumes), indicates not merely good nature but genuine kindness of +heart. I have not seen a German quarreling or scolding anywhere in +Europe. The deference of members of the same family to each other's +happiness in cars, hotels and steamboats has that quiet, unconscious +manner which distinguishes a habit from a holiday ornament. The entire +absence of pretense, of stateliness, of a desire to be thought a +personage and not a mere person, is scarcely more universal in +Switzerland than here. But in fact I have found Aristocracy a chronic +disease nowhere but in Great Britain. In France, there is absolutely +nothing of it; there are monarchists in that country—monarchists from +tradition, from conviction, from policy, or from class interest—but of +Aristocracy scarcely a trace is left. Your Paris boot-black will make +you a low bow in acknowledgment of a franc, but he has not a trace of +the abjectness of a London waiter, and would evidently decline the honor +of being kicked by a Duke. In Italy, there is little manhood but no +class-worship; her millions of beggars will not abase themselves one +whit lower before a Prince than before anyone else from whom they hope +to worm a copper. The Swiss are freemen, and wear the fact unconsciously +but palpably on their brows and beaming from their eyes. The Germans +submit passively to arbitrary power which they see not how successfully +to resist, but they render to rank or dignity no more homage than is +necessary—their souls are still free, and their manners evince a +simplicity and frankness which might shame or at least instruct America. +On the Rhine, the steamboats are so small and shabby, without +state-rooms, berth-rooms, or even an upper deck—that the passengers are +necessarily at all times under each other's observation, and, as the +fare is high, and twice as much in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>the main as in the forward cabin, it +may be fairly presumed that among those who pay the higher charge are +none of the poorest class—no mere laborers for wages. Yet in this main +cabin well-dressed young ladies would take out their home-prepared +dinner and eat it at their own good time without seeking the company and +countenance of others, or troubling themselves to see who was observing. +A Lowell factory-girl would consider this entirely out of character, and +a New-York milliner would be shocked at the idea of it.</p> + +<p>The Germans are a patient, long-suffering race. Of their Forty Millions +outside of Austria, probably less than an eighth at all approve or even +acquiesce in the despotic policy in which their rulers are leagued, and +which has rendered Germany for the present a mere outpost of Russia—an +unfinished Poland. These people are intelligent as well as brave—they +see and feel, yet endure and forbear. Perhaps their course is wiser than +that which hot impatience would prompt—nay, I believe it is. If they +can patiently suffer on without losing heart until France shall have +extricated herself from the toils of her treacherous misrulers, they may +then resume their rights almost without a blow. And whenever a new 1848 +shall dawn upon them, they will have learned to improve its +opportunities and avoid its weaknesses and blunders. Heaven speed its +auspicious coming!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXIV.</h2> +<h2>BELGIUM.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, Saturday, July 19, 1851.</p> + +<p>From Cologne westward by Railroad to the Western frontier (near +Verviers) of Rhenish Prussia, and thus of Germany, is 65 miles. For most +of the way the country is flat and fertile, and in good part devoted to +Grazing, though considerable Wheat is grown. The farming is not +remarkably good, and the general aspect befits a region which for two +thousand years has been too often the arena of fierce and bloody +conflict between the armies of great nations. Cologne itself, though a +place of no natural strength, has been fortified to an extent and at an +evident cost beyond all American conception. All over this part of +Europe, and to a less degree throughout Italy, the amount of expenditure +on walls and forts, bastions, ditches, batteries, &c. is incalculably +great. I cannot doubt that any nation, by wisely expending half so much +in systematic efforts to educate, employ steadily and reward amply its +poorer classes, would have been strengthened and ensured against +invasion far more than it could be by walls like precipices and a belt +of fortresses as impregnable as Gibraltar. But this wisdom is slowly +learned by rulers, and is not yet very widely appreciated. Whenever it +shall be, "Othello's occupation" will be gone, not for Othello only, but +for all who would live by the sword.</p> + +<p>For some miles before it reaches the frontier, and for a much larger +distance after entering Belgium, the Railroad <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>passes through a +decidedly broken, hilly, up-and-down country, most unlike the popular +conception of Flanders or Belgium. Precipices of naked rock are not +unfrequent and the region is wisely given up mainly to Wood and Grass, +the former engrossing most of the hill-sides and the latter flourishing +in the valleys. This Railroad has more tunnels in the course of fifty +miles than I ever before met with—I think not less than a dozen—while +the grading and bridging must have been very expensive. Such a country +is of course prolific in running streams, on which many small and some +larger manufacturing towns and villages are located. At length, it +ascends a considerable inclined plane at Liege, once a very popular, +powerful and still a handsome and important manufacturing town with +60,000 inhabitants; and here the beautiful and magnificently fertile +table lands of Belgium spread out like a vast prairie before the +traveler. In fact, the peasant cultivators are so commonly located in +villages, leaving long stretches of the rarely fenced though well +cultivated plain without a habitation, that the resemblance to level +prairies which have been planted and sown is more striking than would be +imagined. But the growing crops are too cleanly and carefully weeded and +too uniformly good to protract the illusion. Sometimes hundreds of acres +are unbrokenly covered with Wheat, which has the largest area of any one +staple; but more commonly a breadth of this is succeeded by one of Rye, +that by one of Potatoes, then Wheat again, then Clover, then Rye, then +Wheat, then Potatoes, then Clover or other grass, and so on. I never +before saw so extensive and uniformly thrifty a growth of Potatoes, +while acres upon acres of Beets, also in regular rows and kept carefully +free from weeds, present at this season a beautiful appearance. I +apprehend that not half so much attention has been given in our country +to the growth of this and the kindred roots as would have been richly +rewarded. Of course, it is idle to sow Beets on any but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>rich land, with +a generous depth of soil and the most thorough cultivation, but with +such cultivation the red lands of New-Jersey and the intervales of our +rivers might be profitably and extensively devoted to the Beet culture +and to that of the larger Turnips. I have seen nothing in Europe that +made a better appearance or promised a more bountiful return than the +large tracts of Belgium and the neighboring district of France sown to +Beets.</p> + +<p>Indian Corn and the Vine are scarcely, or not at all seen in Belgium. +Beggars are not abundant; but women are required to labor quite +extensively in the fields. The habitations of the poor are less wretched +than those of Italy, but not equal to those of the fertile portion of +Switzerland. Irrigation is quite extensively practised, but is far from +universal. The few cattle kept in the wholly arable and thoroughly +cultivated portion of the country are seldom allowed to range, because +of the lack of fences, but are kept up and fed throughout the year. +Women cutting grass in all by-places, and carrying it home by back-loads +to feed their stock, is a common spectacle throughout central Europe. +Trees sometimes line the roads and streams, or irrigating canals, and +sometimes have a piece of ground allotted them whereon to grow at +random, but are rather scarce throughout this region, and I think I saw +square miles entirely devoid of them. Fruit-trees are clearly too +scarce, though Cherries in abundance were offered for sale as we passed. +On the whole, Belgium is not only a fertile but a prosperous country.</p> + +<p>At Liege, the Railroad we traversed leaves its westerly for a north-west +course, running past Tirlemont to Malines (Mechlin) and thence to +Antwerp; but we took a sharp turn to the south-west of Malines in order +to reach Brussels, which, though the capital and the largest city of +Belgium, is barely a point or stopping-place on a right line, while +Liege, Namur, Ghent and Bruges are each the point of junction of two or +more completed roads. Brussels <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>has slept while this network has been +woven over the country, and will awake to discover herself shorn of her +trade and sinking into insignificance if she does not immediately bestir +herself. Her location is a fine one, on a ground which rises very +gradually from the great plain to a modest hill southward, and she is +among the best built of modern cities. But already she is off the direct +line from either London or Paris to Germany; I would have saved many +miles by avoiding her and taking the road due west from Liege to Namur, +Charleroi and Mons, where it intersects the Brussels line; and soon the +great bulk of the travel will do so if it does not already. Railroads +are reckless Radicals and are destined by turns to make and to mar the +fortunes of many great emporiums.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>NORTH-EASTERN FRANCE.</h3> + +<p>Tournay in the coal region, fifty miles from Brussels, is the last town +of Belgium; eight miles further is Valenciennes, one of the strong +frontier fortresses of France, with over 20,000 inhabitants, an active +trade and the worth of a dukedom wasted on its fortifications. Here our +baggage underwent a new custom-house scrutiny, which was expeditiously +and rationally made, and I kept on twenty-three miles farther to Douai, +where our Railroad falls into one from Calais, which had already +absorbed those from Dunkirk and Ghent, and where, it being after 10 +o'clock, I halted for the night, so as to take a Calais morning train at +4½ and see by fair daylight the country thence to Paris, which I had +already traversed in the dark.</p> + +<p>This country presents no novel features. It is not quite so level nor so +perfectly cultivated as central Belgium, but is generally fertile and +promises fairly. The Rye harvest is in progress through all this +country, and is very good, but the breadth of Wheat is much greater, and +it also promises well, though not yet ripened. Westward from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>Brussels +in Belgium is an extensive Grazing region, bountifully irrigated, and +covered with large herds of fine cattle. Something of this is seen after +crossing into France, but Wheat regains its predominance, while large +tracts are devoted to the Beet, probably for the manufacture of Sugar. +There are few American gardens that can show the Beet in greater +perfection than it exhibits here, in areas of twenty to forty acres. +Wood also becomes far more abundant in the Grazing region, and continues +so nearly up to the walls of Paris, Poplars and other trees of slender +foliage being planted in rows across the fields as well as by the +streams and road-sides. The Vine, which had vanished with the bolder +scenery of the Rhine, reappears only within sight of Paris, where many +of the cultivated fields attest a faultiness or meagerness of +cultivation unworthy of the neighborhood of a great metropolis. I +presume there will be more middling and half middling yields within +twenty miles of Paris than in all Belgium.</p> + +<p>I find Paris, and measurably France, in a state of salutary ferment, +connected with the debate in the Assembly on the proposed Revision of +the Constitution. The best speeches are yet to be made, but already the +attention of the People is fixed on the discussion, and it will be +followed to the end with daily increased interest. That end, as is well +known, will be a defeat of the proposed Revision, and of all schemes +looking to the legal and peaceful reëstablishment of Monarchy, or the +reëlection of Louis Napoleon. And this discussion, this result, will +have immensely strengthened the Republic in the hearts of the French +Millions, as well as in the general conviction of its stability. And if, +with the Suffrage crippled as it is, and probably must continue to be, a +heartily Republican President can be elected here next May, an impulse +will be given to the movement throughout Europe which can scarcely be +withstood. Live the Republic!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXV.</h2> +<h2>PARIS TO LONDON.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Tuesday, July 22, 1851.</p> + +<p>The quickest and most usual route from Paris to London is that by way of +Calais and Dover; but as I had traversed that once, and part of it +twice, I resolved to try another for my return, and chose the cheapest +and most direct of all—that by way of Rouen, Dieppe, New-Haven and the +Brighton Railroad—which is 32 miles shorter than the Calais route, but +involves four times as long a water passage, and so is spun out to more +than twice the length of the other. We left Paris at 8 yesterday +morning; halted at the fine old town of Rouen before noon; were in +Dieppe at 2½ <span class="smcap">P. M.</span>; but there we waited for a boat till after +6; then were eight hours crossing the Channel; had to wait at New-Haven +till after 6 this morning before the Custom-House scrutiny of our +baggage was begun; so that only a few were enabled to take the first +train thence for London at a quarter to 7. I was not among the lucky +ones, but had to hold on for the second train at a quarter past 8, and +so did not reach this city till after 10, or twenty-six hours from +Paris, though, with a little enterprise and a decent boat on the +Channel, the trip could easily be made in 14 hours—four for the French +side, six for the Channel, two for the English side and two for +Custom-House delay and leeway of all kinds. If Commodore Vanderbilt or +Mr. Newton would only take compassion on the ignorance and barbarism +prevailing throughout <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>Europe in the matter of steamboat-building, and +establish a branch of his business on this side of the Atlantic, he +would do the cause of Human Progress a service, and signally contribute +to the diminution of the sum of mortal misery.</p> + +<p>The night was mild and fair; the wind light; the sea consequently +smooth; and I suffered less, and repented my choice of a route less, +than I had expected to; but consider the facts: Here was the most direct +route by Railroad and Steamboat between the two great Capitals of +Europe—a route constantly traveled by multitudes from all parts of +world—yet the only boats provided for the liquid portion of the way are +two little black, cobbling concerns, each perhaps seventy feet long by +fifteen wide, with no deck above the water line, and not a single berth +for even a lady passenger, though making one passage each night. Who +could suppose that two tolerably civilized nations would endure this in +the middle of 1851?</p> + +<p>We were nearly two hundred passengers, and the boat just about decently +held us, but had not sitting-room for all, above and under the deck. But +as about half, being "second class," had no right to enter the main +cabin, those who had that right were enabled to sit and yawn, and try to +cheat themselves into the notion that they would coax sleep to their aid +after a while. Occasionally, one or two having left for a turn on deck, +some drowsy mortal would stretch himself on a setter at full length, but +the remonstrances of others needing seats would soon compel him to +resume a half-upright posture. And so the passage wore away, and between +2 and 3 this morning we reached New-Haven (a petty sea-port at the mouth +of the little river Ouse), where we were permitted promptly to land, +minus our baggage, and repair to a convenient inn. Here I, with several +others, invested two British shillings in a chance to sleep, but the +venture (at least in my case) proved a losing one. It was daylight when +we went to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>bed, and the incessant tramping, ringing of bells, &c., kept +us for the most part awake and called us up at a very early hour, to +fidget uselessly for the recovery of our baggage, and lose the early +train at last.</p> + +<p>The country stretching north-westward from Paris to Dieppe (125 miles) +is less thoroughly cultivated than any other I have seen in Europe out +of Italy. I saw more weedy and thin Rye and ragged Wheat than I had +noted elsewhere. Grass is the chief staple, after leaving the +garden-covered vicinity of Paris, though Wheat, Rye and Oats are +extensively cultivated. The Root crops promise poorly. Indian Corn is +hardly seen, though the Vine is considerably grown. This region is +generally well wooded, but in a straggling, accidental way, which has +the effect neither of Lombard nicety of plantation, nor of the natural +luxuriance of genuine forests. Fruit is not abundant. Irrigation is +considerably practiced. The dwellings of the majority have an +antiquated, ruinous, tumble-down aspect, such as I have observed nowhere +else this side of Lower Italy. On the whole, I doubt whether this +portion of France has improved much within the last fifty years.</p> + +<p>Rouen, the capital of ancient Normandy, is the fifth city of France, +only Paris, Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux having more inhabitants. Here +the Railroad for Havre diverges from that to Dieppe, which we adhered +to. Rouen is interesting for its antiquities, including several +venerable and richly adorned Churches which I had no time to visit. +Dieppe, on the Channel, has a small harbor, completely landlocked, and +17,000 inhabitants. It is considerably resorted to for sea-bathing, but +seems to have very little trade. I judge that the Railroads now being +extended through France, are likely to arrest the growth or hasten the +decline of most of the smaller cities and towns by facilitating and +cheapening access to the capital, where nearly every Frenchman would +live if he could, and where the genius of people and government (no +matter under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>what constitution) conspires to concentrate all the +intellectual and artistic life of the Nation.</p> + +<p>The Railroad from New-Haven to London passes through no considerable +town, though not far from Brighton and Tunbridge. The country is +undulating and beautiful, mainly devoted to Grass, Wheat and Wood, and +in the very highest condition. It is now toward the end of Haying, and +the Wheat is just beginning to ripen, though that of Central Italy was +mainly harvested a full month ago. But the English Wheat covers the +ground thickly and evenly, and promises a large average crop, especially +if the present fine weather should continue through the next two weeks.</p> + +<p>Noble herds of Cattle and flocks of Sheep overspread the spacious +grounds devoted to Pasturage, especially near the Channel, where most of +the land is in Grass. English Agriculture has a thorough and cleanly +aspect which I have rarely observed elsewhere. Belgium is as careful and +as productive, but its alternations of tillage or grass with woodland +are by no means so frequent nor so picturesque as I see here. The +sturdy, hospitable trees of an English park or lawn are not rivaled, so +far as I have seen, on the Continent. I have rarely seen a reach of +country better disposed for effect than that from a point ten miles this +side of New-Haven to within some ten miles of this city, where Market +Gardening supplants regular Farming. Women work in the fields at this +season in England, but not more than one woman to five men were visible +in the hay-fields we passed this morning—it may have been otherwise in +the afternoon. As to beggars, none were visible, begging being +disallowed.</p> + +<p>Crossing the Channel shifts the boot very decidedly with respect to +language. Those who were groping in the dark a few hours ago are now in +the brightest sunshine, while the oracles of yesterday are the meekest +disciples to-day. I rode from New-Haven to London in the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>car with +three Frenchmen and two Frenchwomen, coming up to the Exhibition, with a +scant half-allowance of English among them; and their efforts to +understand the signs, &c., were interesting. "<i>London Stout</i>," displayed +in three-foot letters across the front of a drinking-house, arrested +their attention: "<i>Stoot? Stoot?</i>" queried one of them; but the rest +were as much in the dark as he, and I was as deficient in French as they +in English. The befogged one pulled out his dictionary and read over and +over all the French synonyms of "Stout," but this only increased his +perplexity. "Stout" signified "robust," "hearty," "vigorous," +"resolute," &c., but what then could "<i>London</i> Stout" be? He closed his +book at length in despair and resumed his observations.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>LONDON AT MIDNIGHT.</h3> + +<p>London is given to late hours. At 6 <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> though the sun has +long been up, there are few stirring in the principal streets; +occasionally you meet a cab hurrying with some passenger to take an +early train; but few shutters are down at 7, and scarcely an omnibus is +to be seen till after 8. The aristocratic dinner hour is 8 <span class="smcap">P. +M.</span> though I trust few are so unmerciful to themselves as to +postpone their chief meal to that late hour when they have no company. +The morning to sleep, the afternoon to business and the evening to +enjoyment, seems the usual routine with the favored classes.</p> + +<p>Walking home from a soirée at the West-end through Regent-street, +Haymarket and the Strand once at midnight, I was struck, though +accustomed to all manner of late hours in New-York, with the relative +activity and wide-awake aspect of London at that hour. It seemed the +High Change of revelry and pleasure-seeking. The taverns, the clubs and +drinking-shops betrayed no symptoms of drowsiness; the theatres were +barely beginning to emit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>their jaded multitudes; the cabs and private +carriages were more plentiful than by day, and were briskly wheeling +hundreds from party to party; even the omnibuses rattled down the wide +streets as freshly and almost as numerously as at midday. The policemen +were alert on nearly every corner; sharpers and suspicious characters +stepped nimbly about the cross-streets in quest of prey, and innumerable +wrecks of Womanhood, God pity them! shed a deeper darkness over the +shaded and dusky lanes and byways whence they momently emerged to salute +the passer-by. Beneath the shelter of night, Misery stole forth from its +squalid lair, no longer awed by the Police, to beseech the compassion of +the stranger and pour its tale of woe and suffering into the rarely +willing ear. Serene and silvery in the clear night-air rose the nearly +full moon over Southwark, shedding a soft and mellow light on pillar and +edifice, column and spire, and enduing the placid bosom of the Thames +with a tranquil and spiritual beauty. Such was one glimpse of London at +midnight; I have not seen it so impressive by day.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXVI.</h2> +<h2>UNIVERSAL PEACE CONGRESS.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, July 25, 1851.</p> + +<p>The fourth Annual Congress of the friends and champions of Peace, +universal and perpetual, was closed last evening, after a harmonious and +enthusiastic session of three full days. The number of Delegates in +attendance was between eight and nine hundred, while the spacious area +of Exeter Hall, which is said to hold comfortably thirty-five hundred +persons, was well filled throughout, and densely crowded for hours +together. Having been held at a most favorable time and at the point +most accessible to the great body of the active friends of Peace, I +presume the attendance was larger than ever before.</p> + +<p>Two thoughts were suggested to me by the character and proceedings of +this assemblage—first, that of the eminently popular and plebeian +origin and impulse of all the great Reform Movements of our age. Every +great public assemblage in Europe for any other purpose will be sure to +number Lords, Dukes, Generals, Princes, among its dignitaries; but none +such came near the Peace Congress; very few of them take part in any +movement of the kind. In the list of Delegates to this Congress, under +the head of "Profession or Trade," you find "Merchant," "Miller," +"Teacher," "Tanner," "Editor," "Author," "Bookseller," "Jeweller," &c., +very rarely "Gentleman," or "Baronet," and never a higher title, I +rejoice to say that "Minister" or "Clergyman" appears pretty often, but +never such a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>word as "Bishop" or "Archbishop," though the most liberal +of the Established Hierarchy, Archbishop Whateley of Dublin, sent a +brief note expressing sympathy with the objects of the meeting. And I +think among the clergymen present there was hardly one belonging to +either of the two Churches which in these realms claim a special and +exclusive patent from Heaven for the dispensation of Religious Truth.</p> + +<p>The other thought suggested by this mighty gathering concerns the +character and efficacy of the organizations and sects in which +Christianity is presumed to be embodied. Let a Convention be called of +the Friends of Peace, of Temperance, of Personal Liberty, of the +Sacredness of Human Life, or any other tangible and positive idea, and +many hundreds will come together from distant nations, speaking diverse +languages, and holding antagonist opinions on other important subjects, +and will for days discuss and deliberate in perfect harmony, unite in +appropriate and forcible declarations of their common sentiments and in +the adoption of measures calculated to ensure their triumph. But let a +general Convention of the followers of Jesus Christ be called, with a +view to the speedy Christianization of the world, and either +three-fourths would keep away or the whole time of the meeting be wasted +in an acrimonious quarrel as to the meaning of Christianity or the +wording of the Shibboleth whereby those who were should be distinguished +from those who were not entitled to bear the Christian name.</p> + +<p>This contrast implies a great wrong <i>somewhere</i>, and for which +<i>somebody</i> must be responsible. I merely suggest it for general +consideration, and pass on.</p> + +<p>Not fully sympathising with the Peace Movement in the actual condition +of Europe, I was not a Delegate, and did not attend the first two days' +deliberations. I see not how any one who does not hope to live and +thrive by injustice, oppression and murder, can be otherwise than +ardently <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>favorable to Universal Peace. But, suppose there is a portion +of the human family who <i>won't have Peace</i>, nor let others have it, what +then? If you say, "Let us have it as soon as we can," I respond with all +my heart. I would tolerate War, even against pirates or murderers, no +longer than is absolutely necessary to inspire them with a love of +Peace, or put them where they can no longer invade the peace of others. +But so long as Tyrannies and Aristocracies shall say—as they now +practically <i>do say</i> all over Europe, "Yes, we too are for Peace, but it +must be Peace with absolute submission to our good pleasure—Peace with +two-thirds of the fruits of Human Labor devoted to the pampering of our +luxurious appetites, the maintenance of our pomp, the indulgence of our +unbounded desires—it must be a Peace which leaves the Millions in +darkness, in hopeless degradation, the slaves of superstition and the +helpless victims of our lusts." I answer, "No, Sirs! on your conditions +no Peace is possible, but everlasting War rather, until your unjust +pretensions are abandoned or until your power of enforcing them is +destroyed." I have felt a painful apprehension that the prevalence of +the Peace Movement, confined as it is to the Liberal party, and acting +on a state of things which secures almost unbounded power to the +Despots, is calculated to break the spirit of down-trodden nations, and, +by thus postponing the inevitable struggle, protract to an indefinite +period the advent of that Reign of Universal Justice which alone can +usher in the glorious era of Universal Peace. And, had I been a Delegate +to this Universal Peace Congress, I should perhaps have marred its +harmony and its happiness by asking it to consider and vote upon some +such proposition as this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That in commending to all men everywhere the duty +of seeking and preserving Peace, we bear in mind the Apostle's +injunction, '<i>First</i> pure, <i>then</i> peaceable,' and do not deny +but affirm the right of a Nation wantonly invaded by a foreign +army, or intolerably oppressed by its own rulers, to resist +force by force."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>I rejoice in being able to say that the general tendency of the speeches +was towards universal Emancipation, mental and physical. I doubt whether +an English audience composed in so large proportion of the +conventionally "respectable classes" ever listened to so much downright +Democracy before. The French speakers, the French writers, were full of +it, and the great event, at least of the last day's session, was the +entrance of a body of fifteen French workmen, delegates to the World's +Exhibition of the "Working Associations" of Paris, who came in a body to +pledge their hearts and hands to the cause of Universal Peace, and to +assure the Congress that the Laborers, the Republicans, of France, were +eminently pacific in their ideas and purposes, and that the preservation +of the Republic, which is the immediate object of their exertions, is +valued not more in its relation to their personal rights and aspirations +than as a step toward the formation of a European confederacy of +emancipated Nations, and thus as the corner-stone of the temple of +Universal Peace. The Speeches of these Workmen just from their benches +in the work-shops of Paris were every way admirable, and were received +with the heartiest enthusiasm. They breathed the true spirit not of +Peace only but of hearty coöperation in every work calculated to promote +the moral and social well-being of mankind. The wretched cant which +implies <i>natural enmity</i> between France and England, or any other two +nations, was emphatically repudiated by them, and every variety of +forcible expression given to the earnest desire of the Laboring Classes +of France that Peace, Freedom and Brotherhood shall prevail, not in +their own country merely, but throughout the world.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Cobden</span> had made his great speech on the preceding day, +wherein the grievous expensiveness and hideous immorality of Standing +Armies were vividly portrayed. He did not hesitate to speak straight out +on the subject of the demoralizing influence of Armies on the People +among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>whom they were quartered or posted, and the broad track of moral +desolation which an armed force everywhere leaves behind it. If the +facts in this connection were but generally known, I think there would +soon be a loud call from Christians, Moralists and Philanthropists for +the entire disbandment and dispersion of every Standing Army.—<span class="smcap">Emile +Girardin</span>, Editor of "<i>La Presse</i>," spoke more especially of the +enormous expense of Armies and the ruinous taxation they render +necessary.—Mr. <span class="smcap">Cobden</span> spoke again yesterday, in more immediate +denunciation of the enormous Standing Army maintained by Austria, not +merely throughout its own but in other countries also, the Loans which +its Government is constantly contracting, and the gulf of bankruptcy to +which it is rapidly hurrying. He said there were intimations that +another Austrian Loan would be attempted in London, and if it should be +he should urge the call of a public meeting to expose the past knaveries +of Austria in dealing with her creditors, and to hold up to public +reprobation whoever should touch the Loan.—Mr. <span class="smcap">Samuel Gurney</span>, +the Quaker banker, also spoke in reprehension of Loans for War purposes +and all who subscribe to or encourage them.—<span class="smcap">Edward Miall</span> +(Editor of <i>The Non-Conformist</i>), also spoke forcibly against War Loans.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">M. Cormenin</span>, an eminent French Statesman and writer, read a +witty, piquant essay in reprehension of War and all other contrivances +for shortening human life, which, being given first in French and then +substantially in English, elicited very hearty plaudits.</p> + +<p>There were many more speakers, including Mr. <span class="smcap">Hindley</span>, British M. P., <span class="smcap">M. +Bouret</span>, French Chamber of Deputies, <span class="smcap">Elihu Burritt</span>, <span class="smcap">M. Avignon</span>, an Italian +banker, <span class="smcap">J. S. Buckingham</span>, Dr. <span class="smcap">Schertzer</span> of Vienna, and <span class="smcap">Joseph Sturge</span>, who +moved that a similar convention be held next year, at a time and place to +be afterward agreed on, which was unanimously carried. It was announced +that Mr. Geo. Hatfield of Manchester had suggested and agreed to bear <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>the +expense of fifteen Silver Medals to be presented, in behalf of the +Congress, to the representatives of the French Workmen's Association for +their attendance and sympathy.—Sir <span class="smcap">David Brewster</span>, being warmly thanked +for his services as Chairman, responded in a few excellent remarks, urging +each person present to instill the principles of Peace into the hearts of +the children who are or may be committed to his or her guidance. He +remarked that he had not once been called upon to exercise authority or +repress commotion during the whole period of the Congress,—a fact proving +that the principles of Peace had already taken root in the breasts of the +Members; and there was not, I believe, a single proposition submitted to +the Congress on which its vote was not substantially unanimous. The +following are the Resolutions adopted:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Congress of the friends of Universal Peace, assembled in +London July 22, 23 and 24, 1851, considering that recourse to +arms for the settlement of international disputes, is a custom +condemned alike by Religion, Morality, Reason, and Humanity, +and believing that it is useful and necessary frequently to +direct the attention both of Governments and Peoples to the +evils of the War system, and the desirableness and +practicability of maintaining Permanent International Peace, +resolves:</p> + +<p>1. That it is the special and solemn duty of all Ministers of +Religion, Instructors of Youth, and Conductors of the Public +Press, to employ their great influence in the diffusion of +pacific principles and sentiments, and in eradicating from the +minds of men those hereditary animosities, and political and +commercial jealousies, which have been so often the cause of +disastrous Wars.</p> + +<p>2. That as an appeal to the sword can settle no question, on +any principle of equity and right, it is the duty of +Governments to refer to the decision of competent and +impartial Arbitrators such differences arising between them as +cannot be otherwise amicably adjusted.</p> + +<p>3. That the Standing Armaments, with which the Governments of +Europe menace each other, amid professions of mutual +friendship and confidence, being a prolific source of social +immorality, financial embarrassment, and national suffering, +while they excite constant disquietude and irritation among +the nations, this Congress would earnestly urge upon the +Governments the imperative necessity of entering upon a system +of International Disarmament.</p> + +<p>4. This Congress, regarding the system of negotiating Loans +for the prosecution of War, or the maintenance of warlike +armaments, as immoral in principle and disastrous in +operation, renews its emphatic condemnation of all such +Loans.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>5. This Congress, believing that the intervention, by +threatened or actual violence, of one country in the +international politics of another, is a frequent cause of +bitter and desolating wars, maintains that the right of every +State to regulate its own affairs should be held absolute and +inviolate.</p> + +<p>6. This Congress recommends all the friends of Peace to +prepare public opinion, in their respective countries, with a +view to the formation of an authoritative Code of +International Law.</p> + +<p>7. This Congress expresses its strong abhorrence of the system +of aggression and violence practiced by so-called civilized +nations upon aboriginal and feeble tribes, as leading to +incessant and exterminating wars, eminently unfavorable to the +true progress of religion, civilization and commerce.</p> + +<p>8. This Congress, convinced that whatever brings the nations +of the earth together in intimate and friendly intercourse +must tend to the establishment of Peace, by removing +misapprehensions and prejudices, and inspiring mutual respect, +hails, with unqualified satisfaction, the Exhibition of the +Industry of all Nations, as eminently calculated to promote +that end.</p> + +<p>9. That the members of Peace Societies, in all Constitutional +Countries, be recommended to use their influence to return to +their respective Parliaments, representatives who are friends +of Peace, and who will be prepared to support, by their votes, +measures for the diminution of the number of men employed in, +and the amount of money expended for, War purposes.</p> +<br /> + +<p><i>American Members of the Congress</i>.—Nathaniel Adams, +Cornwall, Conn., Rev. Robert Baird, New-York; Geo. M. Borrows, +Friburg, Maine; M. B. Bateman, Columbus, Ohio; Rev. George +Beckwith, Boston, Mass.; W. Wells Brown, do; Elihu Burritt, +Worcester, Mass.; William A. Burt, Washington, D. C.; Dr. +Thomas Chadbourne, Portsmouth, N. H.; Rev. J. W. Chickering, +Portland, Me.; Wm. Darlington, Westchester, Pa.; Rev. P. B. +Day, New-Haven; Rev. Amos Dresser, Oberlin, Ohio; Rev. D. C. +Eddy, Lowell, Mass.; Rev. Romeo Elton, Providence, R. I.; A. +R. Forsyth, Indiana; Rev. Aaron Foster, Massachusetts; William +B. Fox, do; Rev. H. H. Garnett, Geneva, N. Y.; David Gould, +Sharon, Conn.; Rev. Josiah Henson, Canada West; E. Jackson, +Jr., Boston, Mass.; Wm. Jackson, Newton, do; Rev. P. M. +McDowell, New-Brunswick; Rev. Geo. Maxwell, Ohio; Rev. H. A. +Mills, Lowell, Mass.; Rev. A. A. Miner, Boston, Mass.; Dr. +Henry S. Patterson, Frank B. Palmer, Dr. William Pettit, +Philadelphia, Pa.; Thomas Pierce, Illinois; Moses Pond, +Boston, Mass.; J. T. Sheoffe, Whitesboro', N. Y.; Isaac +Skervan, Buffalo, N. Y.; Rev. Zadock Thompson, Burlington, +Vt.; Rev. John E. Tyler, Windham, Conn.; Ichabod Washbourne, +Worcester, Mass.; Rev. James C. White, Ohio; Chas. H. De +Wolfe, Oldtown, Me.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXVII.</h2> +<h2>AMERICA AT THE WORLD'S FAIR.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London</span>, Tuesday, July 26, 1851.</p> + +<p>If I return this once more and for the last time to the subject of +American contributions to the great Exposition, it shall not be said +with truth that my impulse is a feeling of soreness and chagrin. Within +the last few days, a very decided and gratifying change has taken place +in the current of opinion here with regard to American invention and its +results. One cause of this was the late formal trial of American (with +other foreign) Plows, in the presence of the Agricultural Jury; which +trial, though partial and hurried, was followed by immediate orders for +an American Plow then tested (Starbuck's) from Englishmen, Belgians and +Frenchmen, including several Agricultural Societies. If a hundred of +those Plows were here, they might be sold at once; in their absence, the +full price has been paid down for some twenty or thirty, to be shipped +at New-York, and be thenceforth at the risk and cost of the buyers. And +these orders have just commenced. The London journals which had +reporters present (some of which journals ridiculed our Farming +Implements expressly a few weeks ago), now grudgingly admit that the +American Plows did their work with less draft than was required by their +European rivals, but add that they did not do it so well. Such was not +the judgment of other witnesses of the trial, as the purchases, among +other things, attest.</p> + +<p>A still more signal triumph to American ingenuity was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>accorded on +Thursday. Mr. Mechi, formerly a London merchant, having acquired a +competence by trade, retired some years since to a farm in Essex, about +forty miles off, where he is vigorously prosecuting a system of High +Farming, employing the most effective implements and agencies of all +kinds. He annually has a gathering of distinguished farmers and others +to inspect his estate and see how his "book farming" gets on. This +festival occurred day before yesterday—a sour, dark, drenching +day—notwithstanding which, nearly two hundred persons were present. +Among others, several machines for cutting Grain were exhibited and +tested, including two (Hussey's and McCormick's) from America, and an +English one which was declared on all hands a mere imitation of +Hussey's. Neither the original nor the copy, however, appear to have +operated to the satisfaction of the assembly, perhaps owing to the +badness of the weather and its effects on the draggled, unripe grain. +With McCormick's a very different result was obtained. This machine is +so well known in our Wheat-growing districts that I need only remark +that it is the same lately ridiculed by one of the great London journals +as "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a treadmill and a flying +machine," and its uncouth appearance has been a standing butt for the +London reporters at the Exhibition. It was the ready exemplar of +American distortion and absurdity in the domain of Art. It came into the +field at Mechi's, therefore, to confront a tribunal (not the official +but the popular) already prepared for its condemnation. Before it stood +John Bull, burly, dogged and determined not to be humbugged—his +judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. Nothing +disconcerted, the brown, rough, homespun Yankee in charge jumped on the +box, starting the team at a smart walk, setting the blades of the +machine in lively operation, and commenced raking off the grain in +sheaf-piles ready for binding,—cutting a breadth of nine or ten feet +cleanly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>and carefully as fast as a span of horses could comfortably +step. There was a moment, and but a moment of suspense; human prejudice +could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers +from the whole crowd proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee "treadmill." +That triumph has since been the leading topic in all agricultural +circles. <i>The Times'</i> report speaks of it as beyond doubt, as placing +the harvest absolutely under the farmer's control, and as ensuring a +complete and most auspicious revolution in the harvesting operations of +this country. I would gladly give the whole account, which, grudgingly +towards the inventor, but unqualifiedly as to the machine, speaks of the +latter as "securing to English farming protection against climate and an +economy of labor which must prove of <i>incalculable</i> advantage." Pretty +well for "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a flying machine and a +treadmill."</p> + +<p>Mr. McCormick, I hear, is probably now on his way hither from the United +States, and will be rather astonished on landing to find himself a lion. +Half a dozen makers and sellers of Agricultural implements, are already +on the watch for him, and if he makes his bargain wisely, he is morally +sure of a fortune from England alone. His machine and its operator were +the center of an eager circle to-day, and if five hundred of the former +were to be had here, they would all be bought within a month. There is +to be another public trial, merely to place beyond doubt its capacity to +cut dry and ripe grain as well as green and wet; but those who have seen +it work in the States will not care much for that.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Hobbs, of the American Bank Lock Company, has had a recent trial of +the Chubb Lock, so long deemed invincible here, and consumed twenty-four +minutes and a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>half in picking it, under the supervision of judges of +unquestionable ability and impartiality. He then re-locked it without +disturbing the "Detector," and left it as when it was set before him. He +has now to try his skill on the "Bramah" lock under the challenge for +£200; and, should he be able to open it, he says he shall there rest the +case.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> He has been sent for by the Governor of the Bank of England, +and will respond to the invitation. His operations have of course +excited some feeling among those whose interests were affected by them; +yet it is manifestly proper and important, if the locks relied on by +banks and other depositories of treasure here are not secure against +burglary, that the fact should be known. Unless I err as to his success +at the forthcoming trial with the Bramah lock, British locksmiths must +commence at once to learn their business over again under Yankee +tuition.</p> + +<p>I might give other facts in support of my judgment that our Country has +not been and will not be <i>disgraced</i> by her share in this Exhibition, +but I forbear. Had we declined altogether the invitation to participate +in this show, we certainly would have been discredited in the world's +opinion, however unjustly; had we attempted to rival the costly tissues, +dainty carvings, rich mosaics, and innumerable gewgaws of Europe, we +should have shown equal bad taste and unsound judgment, and would have +deservedly been laughed at. Our real error consists, not in neglecting +to send articles to rival the rich fabrics and wares of this Continent, +but in sending too few of those homely but most important products in +which we unquestionably lead the world. We have a good many such here +now, but we should have had many more. One such plain, odd-looking +concern as McCormick's Reaper, though it makes no figure in the eyes of +mere sight-seers in comparison with an inlaid Table or a case of Paris +Bonnets, is of more practical account than a Crystal Palace full of +those, and so will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>ultimately be regarded. Looking to-day at Mitchell's +admirable new Map of the United States and their Territories, as now +existing, which worthily fills an honorable place in the Exhibition, +with several but too few others of the same class, I could not but +regret that a set of Harpers' Common School Libraries, with a brief +account of the origin and progress of our School Library system, had not +been contributed; and I wish I had myself spent fifty dollars if +necessary to place in the Exhibition a good collection of American +School Books. If there shall ever be another World's Exhibition, I +bespeak a conspicuous place in it for a model American country +School-House, with its Library, Globes, Maps, Black-Board, Class Books, +&c., and a succinct account of our Common School system, printed in the +five or six principal languages of Europe for gratuitous distribution to +all who may apply for it. With this got up as it should be, I would not +mind admitting that in Porcelain and Laces, Ormolu and Trinkets, Europe +is yet several years ahead of us.</p> + +<p>Mr. J. S. Gwynne of our State, whose "Balanced Centrifugal Pump" made a +sensation and obtained a Gold Medal at our Institute Fair last October, +is here with it, and proposes a public trial of its qualities in +competition with the rival English pumps of Appold and Bessimer for +$1,000, to be paid by the loser to the Mechanics' Society. Mr. Gwynne +claims that these English Pumps (which have been among the chief +attractions of the department of British Machinery) are palpable +plagiarisms from his invention, and not well done at that. He, of +course, does not claim the idea of a Centrifugal Pump as his own, for it +is much older than any of them, but he does claim that adaptation of the +idea which has rendered it effective and valuable. I am reliably +informed that he has just sold his Scotch patent only for the +comfortable sum of £10,000 sterling, or nearly $50,000; and this is but +one of several inventions for which he has found a ready market here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>at +liberal prices. I cite his case (for he is one of several Americans who +have recently sold their European patents here at high figures) as a +final answer to those who croak that our country is disgraced, and +regret that any American ever came near the Exhibition. Had these +discerning and patriotic gentlemen been interested in these patents, +they might have taken a different view of the matter. Even my New-York +friend, whose toadyism in exhibiting a capital pair of Oars inscribed "A +present for the Prince of Wales," I have already characterized as it +deserves, yesterday informed me that he had sold $15,000 worth of Oars +here since the Fair opened. I am sure I rejoice in his good fortune, and +hope it may insure the improvement of his taste also.</p> + +<p>There are many articles in the American department of which I would +gladly speak, that have attracted no public notice. Since I left for the +Continent, Mrs. A. Nicholson, formerly of our city, has sent in a +Table-Cover worked in Berlin Wool from the centre outward so as to form +a perfect circle, or succession of circles, from centre to +circumference, with a great variety of brilliant colors imperceptibly +shading into each other. This having been made entirely by hand, with no +implement but a common cut nail, the process is of course too slow to be +valuable; but the result attained may very probably afford useful hints +and suggestions to inventors of weaving machinery.—I think the display +of Flint Glass by the Brooklyn Company is equal in purity and fineness +to any other plain Glass in the Exhibition, and only regret that the +quantity sent had not been larger. I regret far more that the +"Hillotype," for giving sun-pictures with the colors of life, has not +yet made its appearance here, while the "Caloric Engine" (using +compressed and heated air instead of water for the generation of power), +was not ready in season to justify a decision on its merits by the Jury +of its Class; and so with other recent American inventions of which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>high hopes are entertained. We ought to have had here a show merely of +Inventions, Machines and Implements exceeding the entire contents of the +American Department—ought to have had, apart from any question of +National credit, if only because the inventors' interests would have +been subserved thereby—and we should have had much more than we +actually have, had the state of the British Patent-Laws been less +outrageous than it is. A patent here costs ten times as much as in the +United States, and is worth little when you have it—that is, it is not +even an opinion that the patentee has really invented anything, but +merely an evidence that he claimed to have done so at such a date, and a +permission to prove that he actually did, if he can. In other words; a +patent gives a permission and an opportunity to contend legally for your +rights; and if the holder is known to have money enough, it generally +suffices; if not, he can and will be not only plundered with impunity, +but defied and laughed at. A bill radically revising the British +Patent-Laws is now on its way through Parliament, but in its absence +many American inventors refused to expose themselves to a loss of their +inventions by exhibiting them at the Fair; and who can blame them?</p> + +<p>The succession of <i>fêtes</i> to be given by the Municipality of Paris to +the Royal Commissioners, Jurors, &c., in honor of the World's +Exhibition, opens this week, and will be brilliant and gratifying as no +other city but Paris could make it. The number invited is over One +Thousand, and all are taken from the British shore in French National +Vessels, and thenceforth will be the guests of their inviters until they +shall again be landed at an English port, paying nothing themselves for +travel, entertainment, balls, &c., &c. This is certainly handsome, and I +acknowledge the courtesy, though I shall not accept the invitation. I +leave for Scotland and Ireland on Monday.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> This trial took place at Mechi's some three weeks later, +and resulted in a complete triumph for the reaper, which thereupon +received an award (already accorded it by the Council of Chairmen, +subject to revision upon the result of this trial), of a first-class or +Great-Medal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> He has since done so, to the perfect satisfaction of the +judges.</p></div> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXVIII.</h2> +<h2>ENGLAND, CENTRAL AND NORTHERN.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Newcastle</span>, Eng., Tuesday, July 29, 1851.</p> + +<p>I came up through the heart of England by railroad yesterday from London +by Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, near Sheffield and Leeds, +through York, near Durham, to this place, where Coal is found in +proverbial abundance, as its black canopy of smoke might testify. +Newcastle lies at the head of navigation on the Tyne, about thirty miles +inland from the E. N. E. coast of England, three hundred miles from +London, and is an ancient town, mainly built of brick, exhibiting +considerable manufacturing and commercial activity.</p> + +<p>The British Railroads are better built, more substantial and costly than +ours, but their management does not equal my anticipations. They make no +such time as is currently reported on our side, and are by no means +reliable for punctuality. The single Express Train daily from London to +Edinburgh professes to make the distance (428 miles) in about twelve +hours, which is less than 36 miles per hour, with the best of double +tracks, through a remarkably level country, everything put out of its +way, and no more stops than its own necessities of wood and water +require. We should easily beat this in America with anything like equal +facilities, and without charging the British price—£4 7s. (or over $21) +for a distance not equal to the length of the Erie Railroad, almost +wholly through a populous and busy region, where Coal is most abundant +and very cheap.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>Our train (the Mail) started from London at 10½ A. M. and should have +been here at 11 P. M. or in a little less than 25 miles per hour. But +the running throughout the country is now bewitched with Excursion +Trains and throngs of passengers flocking on low-priced Excursion return +tickets to see the Great Exhibition, which is quite as it should be, but +the consequent delay and derangement of the regular trains is as it +should <i>not</i> be. The Companies have no moral right to fish up a quantity +of irregular and temporary business to the violation of their promises +and the serious disappointment of their regular customers. As things are +managed, we left London with a train of twenty-five cars, half of them +filled with Excursion passengers for whom a separate engine should have +been, but was not, provided; so that we were behind time from the first +and arrived here at 1 this morning instead of 11 last night.</p> + +<p>The spirit of accommodation is not strikingly evinced on British +Railroads. The train halts at a place to which you are a stranger, and +you perhaps hear its name called out for the benefit of the passengers +who are to stop there; but whether the halt is to last half a minute, +five minutes, or ten, you must find out as you can. The French Railroads +are better in this respect, and the American cannot be worse, though the +fault is not unknown there. A penny programme for each train, to be sold +at the chief stations on each important route, stating not merely at +what place but exactly how long each halt of that particular train would +be made, is one of the yet unsatisfied wants of Railroad travelers. Our +"Path-finders" and "Railway Guides" undertake to tell so much that plain +people are confused and often misled by them, and are unable to pick out +the little information they actually need from the wilderness of figures +and facts set before them. Let us have Guides so simple that no guide is +needed to explain them.</p> + +<p>There is much sameness in English rural scenery. I have now traveled +nearly a thousand miles in this country <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>without seeing anything like a +mountain and hardly a precipice except the chalky cliffs of the sea +shore. Nearly every acre I have seen is susceptible of cultivation, and +of course either cultivated, built upon, or devoted to wood. A few steep +banks of streams or ravines, almost uniformly wooded, and some small +marshes, mainly on the sea-coast, are all the exceptions I remember to +the general capacity for cultivation. Usually, the aspect of the country +is pleasant—beautiful, if you choose—but nowise calculated to excite +wonder or evoke enthusiasm. The abundance of evergreen hedges is its +most striking characteristic. I judge that two-thirds of England is in +Grass (meadow or pasture), very green and thrifty, and dotted with noble +herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. They are anxious to finish +Hay-making throughout the region we traversed yesterday; but as there +has been scarcely an hour of very bashful sunshine during the last six +days, more than half of which have been rainy, the operation is one +rather trying to human patience. Some of the cut grass looks as if it +were Flax spread out to rot, and all of it evinces a want of shelter. +This morning is almost fair, though hazy, so that the necessity of +taking in and drying the hay by a fire may be obviated, but a great deal +of it must be seriously damaged. (<i>P. S. 10 o'clock.</i>—It is cloudy and +raining again.)</p> + +<p>Wheat covers perhaps an eighth of all Central England, is now ripening +and generally heavy, but much of it is beaten down by the wind and rain, +and looks as if a herd of buffaloes had been chased through it by a +tribe of mounted Indians. If the weather should be mainly fair +henceforth, the crop may be saved, but it must already have received +material damage, and the process of harvesting it must be tedious. +Barley is considerably grown, and has also been a good deal prostrated. +Oats have suffered less, being more backward.—Potatoes look vigorous, +though not yet out of danger from blight or rot. Not a patch of Indian +Corn is to be seen throughout. Considerable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>grass-land has been plowed +up for Wheat next season, and some Turnips are just visible; but it is +evident that Grass and Stock, under the influence of the low prices of +Grain produced by the repeal of the Corn-laws, are steadily gaining upon +Tillage, of course throwing tens of thousands of Agricultural laborers +out of employment, and driving them to emigration, to manufactures, or +the poor-house. Thus the rural population of England is steadily and +constantly decreasing.</p> + +<p>The best feature of English landscape is formed by its Trees. Though +rarely relied on for fuel, there is scarcely an area of forty acres +without them, while single trees, copses, more rarely rows, and often +petty forests, are visible in all quarters. The trees are not the +straight, tall, trim, short-limbed, shadeless Poplars, &c., of France +and Italy, but wide-spreading, hospitable Oaks, Yews and other sturdy +battlers with wind and storm, which have a far more genial and +satisfactory appearance. And the trees of England have a commercial as +well as a less measurable value; for timber of all sorts is in demand in +the collieries, manufactories and mines, and bears a high price, the +consumption far exceeding the domestic supply. But for the trees, these +sullen skies and level grounds would render England dreary enough.</p> + +<p>Newcastle is the location of one of those immense structures which +illustrate the Industrial greatness and pecuniary strength of Britain, +and illustrate also the meagerness of her Railroad dividends. The Tyne +is here a furlong wide or more, running through a narrow valley or wide +ravine perhaps 150 feet below the average level of the great plain which +encloses it, and hardly more than half a mile wide at the top. Across +this river and gorge is thrown a bridge of iron, with abutments and +piers of hewn stone, the arches of said bridge having a total length of +1,375 feet, with 512 feet water-way, while the railway is 112½ feet +above high-water mark, with a fine carriage and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>footway underneath it +at a hight of 86 feet, and a total hight from river-bed to parapet of +132½ feet. The gigantic arches have a span of over 124 feet each, and +the total cost of the work was £304,500, or about $1,500,000. Near this +is a Central Railway Station (there are two others in the place), built +entirely, including the roof, of cut stone, save a splendid row of glass +windows on either side—said dépôt being over 592 feet long, the +passengers' department being 537 by 183 feet, and the whole costing over +$500,000. Here, then, are about $2,000,000 expended on a single mile of +railroad, in a city of by no means primary importance. If any one can +see how fair dividends could be paid on railroads constructed at such +expense, the British shareholders generally would be glad to avail +themselves of his sagacity. And it is stated that the Law Expenses of +several of the British roads, including procurement of charter and right +of way, have exceeded $2,500,000. Add to this rival lines running near +each other, and often three where one should suffice, and you have the +explanation of a vast, enormous and ruinous waste of property. Let the +moral be heeded.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>THE BORDER—SCOTLAND.</h3> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, July 29—<i>Evening</i>.</p> + +<p>From Newcastle to the Tweed (70 miles) the country continues level and +mainly fertile, but the Grain is far more backward than in the vicinity +of London, and very little of it has been blown down. More Wheat and far +less Grass are grown here than below York, while Barley, Oats and +Potatoes cover a good share of the ground, and the Turnip is often seen. +All look well, but the Potato, though late, is especially hearty and +thrifty. Shade-trees in the cultivated fields are rare; in fact, wood is +altogether rarer than at the south, though small forests are generally +within sight. I should judge from what I see and feel that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>shade is +seldom wanting here, except as a shield from the rain. Desperate +attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many +men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and +a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, +drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the +half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to +bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as +to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for +fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen; they were scarce from London to +York, but now have disappeared. Our road runs nearer and nearer the +North Sea, which at length is close beside us on the right, but no town +of any importance is visible until we cross the Tweed on a long, high, +costly stone bridge just above Berwick of historic fame, and are in</p> + +<br /> +<h3>SCOTLAND.</h3> + +<p>Here the growing crops are much the same as throughout the North of +England—Wheat, Potatoes, Barley, Oats, and Grass—save that the Turnip +has become an article of primary importance. From some points, hundreds +of acres of the Swedish and French may be seen, and they are rarely or +never out of view. They are sown in rows or drills, some eighteen inches +or two feet apart, so as to admit of cultivation by the plow, which is +now in progress. The most forward of the plants now display a small +yellow blossom. All are healthy and promising, and are kept thoroughly +clear of weeds. I infer that they are mainly grown for feeding cattle, +and this seems a good idea, since they can be harvested in defiance of +rain and mist, which is rather more difficult with Hay. They become more +and more abundant as we approach this city, and are grown up to its very +doors. Heavy stone walls laid in mortar and copses or little forests of +Oak are among the characteristics <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>of the rural district around +Edinburgh, whereof the culture is widely famed for its excellence. The +only Scottish town of any note we pass is Dunbar, by the sea-side, +though Dunse, Haddington and Dalkeith lie but a few miles inland from +our road, with which they are connected by branches. We reached this +city about 3 P. M. or in five hours from Newcastle, 130 miles.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>EDINBURGH.</h3> + +<p>I knew this was a city of noble and beautiful structures, but the +reality surpasses my expectation. The old town was mainly built in a +deep valley running northward into the Firth of Forth, with the Royal +Palace of Holyrood in its midst, the port of Leith on the Firth a few +miles northward, and the Castle on a commanding crag overlooking the old +town from the west. The Canongate and High-street lead up to the +esplanade of the Castle from the east, but its other sides are +precipitous and inaccessible, a deep valley skirting it on the north, +while the south end of the old town fills the other side. The former or +more northern valley has for the most part been kept clear of buildings, +the spacious Prince's-street Gardens and the grounds of several +charitable institutions having had possession of it, until they were +recently required to surrender a part for the Railroads running south to +Berwick, &c., and west to Glasgow for a General Depot. Across this deep +valley or chasm, northward, rises the eminence on which the new town of +Edinburgh is constructed, with the deep chasm in which runs the rapid +mill-stream known as the "Water of Leith," separating it from a like, +though lower, hill still further north and west, on which a few fine +buildings and very pleasant gardens are located. The new town is thus +perhaps 150 feet above the old town, a mile and a half long by half a +mile wide, commanding magnificent views of the old town, the port of +Leith, the broad, ocean-like Firth of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>Forth, and the finely cultivated +country stretching southward; and, as if these were not enough to secure +its salubrity, it has more gardens and public squares than any other +city of its size in the world. Its streets are broad and handsome; its +houses built almost wholly of stone, and I never saw so many good ones +with so few indifferent. If I were to choose from all the world a city +wherein to make an effort for longevity, I would select the new town of +Edinburgh; but I should prefer to live fewer years where there is more +sunshine.</p> + +<p>Public Monuments would seem to be the grand passion of the Edinburghers. +The most conspicuous are those of Lord Nelson on Calton Hill (next to +the Castle, if not before it, the most commanding location in the city) +and of Walter Scott on Prince's-street, nearly opposite the Castle, +across the glen, in full sight of all who arrive in Edinburgh by +Railroad, as also from the Castle and its vicinity, as well as from the +broad and thronged street beside which it is located. But there are +Monuments also to Pitt, to Lord Melville, and some twenty or thirty +other deceased notables. These are generally located in the higher +squares or gardens which wisely occupy a large portion of the +ground-plot of the new town. Public Hospitals and Infirmaries are also a +prominent feature of the Scottish capital, there being several spacious +and fine edifices devoted to the healing of the sick, most if not all of +them founded and endowed by private munificence. There are several +Bridges across the two principal and more on the secondary or cross +valleys, ravines or gorges which may well attract attention. These +Bridges are often several hundred feet long, and from thirty to eighty +feet high, and you look down from their roadway upon the red-tiled roofs +of large eight or nine-story houses beside and below them. Nearly or +quite every house in Edinburgh is built of stone, which is rather +abundant in Scotland, and often of a fair, free, easily worked quality. +Many even of the larger houses, especially in the old town, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>are built +of coarse, rough, undressed stone, often of round, irregular boulders, +made to retain the places assigned them by dint of abundant and +excellent mortar. In the better buildings, however, the stone is of a +finer quality, and handsomely cut, though almost entirely of a brown or +dark gray color. The winding drive to the summit of Calton Hill, looking +down upon large, tall, castle-like houses of varied material and +workmanship, with the prospect from the summit, are among the most +impressive I have seen in Europe.</p> + +<p>I was interested this afternoon in looking around from one to another of +the edifices with which History or the pen of the Wizard of the North +has rendered us all familiar—the Tolbooth, the Parliament House, the +Castle, the house of John Knox, the principal Churches, &c., &c. I spent +most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, which, though unwisely +located, never gorgeously furnished, and long since abandoned of Royalty +to dilapidation and decay, still wears the stamp of majesty and will be +regal even when crumbled into ruins. Its tapestries are faded and +rotten; its paintings, never brilliant specimens of the art, have also +felt the tooth of Time; its furniture, never sumptuous, would but poorly +answer at this day the needs of an ordinary family; its ball-room is now +a lumber-room; its royal beds excite premonitions of rheumatism: its +boudoir says nought of Beauty but that it passeth away. Yet the +carefully preserved ivory miniature of the hapless Queen of Scots is +still radiant with that superlative loveliness which seems unearthly and +prophetic of coming sorrows; and it were difficult to view without +emotion the tapestry she worked, the furniture she brought over from +France, some mementoes of her unwise marriage, the little room in which +she sat at supper with Rizzio and three or four friends when the +assassins rushed in through a secret door, stabbed her ill-starred +favorite, and dragged him bleeding through her bed-room into an outer +audience chamber, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>there left him to die, his life-blood oozing out +from fifty-six wounds. The partition still stands which the Queen caused +to be erected to shut off the scene of this horrible tragedy from that +larger portion of the reception-room which she was obliged still to +occupy, therein to greet daily those whom public cares and duties +constrained her to confer with and listen to, though Murder had stained +ineffaceably the floor of that regal hall. Alas! unhappy Queen!—and yet +not all unhappy. Other sovereigns have their little day of pomp and +adulation, then shrivel to dust and are forgotten; but she still lives +and reigns wherever Beauty finds admirers or Suffering commands +sympathy. Other Queens innumerable have lived and died, and their +scepters crumbled to dust even sooner than their clay; but Mary is still +Queen of Scots, and so will remain forever.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XXXIX.</h2> +<h2>SCOTLAND.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Clyde</span>, Wednesday, July 30, 1851.</p> + +<p>I am leaving Scotland without having seen half enough of it. My chief +reasons are a determination to run over a good part of Ireland and an +engagement to leave Europe in my favorite ship Baltic next week; but, +besides these, this continual prevalence of fog, mist, cloud, drizzle +and rain diminish my regret that I am unable to visit the Highlands. My +friends who, having a day's start of me, went up the Forth from +Edinburgh to Stirling, thence visiting Lochs Lomond and Katrine, thence +proceeding by boat to Glasgow, were unable to see aught of the mountains +but their bases, their heads being shrouded in vapor; and, being landed +from a steamboat at the head of Lake navigation on Loch Lomond, found +five miles of land-carriage between them and a comfortable shelter, and +only vehicles enough to take the women and part of the men; the rest +being obliged to make the distance on foot in a drenching rain, with +night just at hand. Such adventures as this,—and they are common in +this region,—console me for my disappointment in not having been able +to see the Heather in its mountain home. The Gorse, the Broom, the +Whins, not to speak of the Scottish Thistle, have been often visible by +the roadside, and the prevalence of evergreens attests the influence of +a colder clime than that of England; indeed, the backwardness of all the +crops argues a difference of at least a fortnight in climate between +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>Edinburgh and London. Wheat has hardly filled yet in the Scottish +Lowlands; Oats are barely headed; and the Grass is little more than half +cut and not half dried into Hay; on the contrary, it now looks as if it +must winter on the ground or be taken in thoroughly water-soaked. Being +so much later, the crops are far less blown down here than they are in +England; but neither Grass nor Grain is generally heavy, while Potatoes +and Turnips, though backward, looked remarkably vigorous and promising. +Beautifully farmed is all this Lowland country, well fenced, clear of +weeds, and evidently in the hands of intelligent, industrious, +scientific cultivators. Wood is quite plentiful, Oak especially, though +shade-trees are not so frequent in cultivated fields as in England; but +rough, rocky, precipitous spots are quite common here, though in the +Lowlands, and these are wisely devoted to growing timber. Belgium is +more genial and more fertile, but I have rarely seen a tract of country +better farmed than that stretching westward from Edinburgh to Glasgow +(48 miles) and thence down the Clyde to Greenock, some 22 miles further. +The farmers in our Mohawk Valley ought to pass through this gloomy, +chilly, misty country, and be shamed into a better improvement of their +rare but misused advantages.</p> + +<p>Traveling is useful in that it gives us a more vivid idea of the immense +amount of knowledge we yet lack. I supposed till to-day that, by virtue +of a Scotch-Irish ancestry (in part) and a fair acquaintance with the +works of Walter Scott, Burns, Hogg, &c., I knew the Lowland Scotch +dialect pretty thoroughly; and yet a notice plainly posted up, "This Lot +To <i>Feu</i>," completely bothered me. On inquiry, I learned that <i>to feu</i> a +lot means to let or lease it for building purposes—in other words, to +be built upon on a ground-rent. I suppose I learned this years ago, but +had entirely forgotten it.</p> + +<p>The Clyde, though a fair stream at Glasgow, is quite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>narrow for twelve +to fifteen miles below that city, seeming hardly equal to the +Connecticut at Hartford, or the Hudson at Waterford; but then it has a +good tide, which helps the matter materially, and has at great expense +been dredged out so as to be navigable for vessels of several hundred +tuns. We passed a fine American packet-ship with a very wholesome +looking body of Scotch emigrants, hard aground some ten miles below +Glasgow, and I was informed that a large vessel, even though towed by a +steamboat, is seldom able to get down into deep water upon a single +tide, but is stopped half way to wait for another. This river fairly +swarms with small steamboats, of which there are regular lines +connecting Glasgow with Londonderry, Belfast, Dublin, Fleetwood +(north-west of England), Liverpool, London, &c. We met four or five +boats returning from Excursion parties crowded with the better paid +artisans and laborers of Glasgow, their wives and children.</p> + +<p>The banks of the Clyde for some miles below Glasgow are low and marshy, +much of the intervale being devoted to pasturage, while a rude +embankment has been interposed on either side, consisting of stones of +five to fifty pounds each, intended to prevent the washing away of the +banks by the ripple raised by the often-passing steamboats. The end is +fairly though not cheaply subserved. As we descend, the shores become +bolder; the rugged hills, at first barely visible on the right, come +near and nearer the water: low rocks begin to lift their heads above the +surface of the stream, while others have their innate modesty +overpowered by wooden fixtures lifting their heads above the highest +tides to warn the mariner of his danger. At length a gigantic cone of +rock rises out of the water on the right of the channel to a height of +fifty or sixty feet, resembling some vast old cathedral: this is +Dumbarton Castle, with the anciently famous but now decaying town of +Dumbarton lying at the head of a small bay behind it. A little lower on +the left is Port Glasgow, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>the head of navigation for very large +vessels; and three miles lower still is Greenock, quite a stirring +seaport, somewhat addicted to ship-building. Here our boat, which had +left Glasgow (22 miles above) at 4 P. M. held on till 8 for the train +which left the same port at 7 with the mail and additional passengers; +and then laid her course directly across the channel to Belfast, 138 +miles from Glasgow, where she is due at 5 to-morrow morning.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>GLASGOW.</h3> + +<p>Looks more American than any other city I have seen in Europe. Half of +Pittsburgh spliced on to half of Philadelphia would make a city very +like Glasgow. Iron is said to be made cheaper here than elsewhere in the +world, the ore being alloyed with a carbonaceous substance which +facilitates the process and reduces the cost of melting. Tall chimneys +and black columns of smoke are abundant in the vicinity. The city is +about twice the size of Edinburgh, with more than double the trade of +that capital, and has risen rapidly from relative insignificance. New +rows of stately houses have recently been built, and the "court end" of +the city is extending rapidly toward the West. A brown or dark gray +stone, as in Edinburgh, is the principal material used, and gives the +city a very substantial appearance. Most of the town, being new, has +wide and straight streets; in the older part, they are perverse and +irrational, as old concerns are apt obstinately to be. They have an old +Cathedral here (now Presbyterian) of which the citizens seem quite +proud, I can't perceive why. Architecturally, it seems to me a sad waste +of stone and labor. The other churches are also mainly Presbyterian, +and, while making less pretensions, are far more creditable to the taste +of their designers. The town is built on both sides of the Clyde, which +is crossed by fine stone bridges, but seven-eighths of it lie on the +north. Ancient Glasgow, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>embracing the narrow and crooked streets, lies +nearly in the center, and is crowded with a squalid and miserable +population, at least half the women and children, including mothers with +children in their arms, and grandmothers, or those who might well be +such, being without shoes or stockings in the cold and muddy streets. +Intemperance has many votaries here, as indeed, throughout Scotland; +"Dealers in Spirits," or words to that effect, being a fearfully common +sign. I am afraid the good cause of Total Abstinence is making no +headway here—Glasgow has a daily paper (the first in Scotland) and many +weeklies, one of the best of them being a new one, "The Sentinel," which +has a way of going straight to the core of public questions, and +standing always on the side of thorough Reform. Success to it, and a +warm good-bye to the rugged land of Song and Story—the loved home of +Scott and Burns.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XL" id="XL"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XL.</h2> +<h2>IRELAND—ULSTER.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dublin</span>, Thursday, July 31, 1851.</p> + +<p>Though the night was thick, the wind was light, and we had a very good +passage across the North Channel, though our boat was very middling, and +I was nearly poisoned by some of my fellow-sleepers in the gentlemen's +cabin insisting that every window should be closed. O to be Pope for one +little week, just long enough to set half a million pulpits throughout +the world to ringing the changes on the importance, the vital necessity, +of pure, fresh air! The darkness, or rather the general misapprehension, +which prevails on this subject, is a frightful source of disease and +misery. Nine-tenths of mankind have such a dread of "a draught" or +current of air that they will shut themselves up, forty together, in a +close room, car or cabin, and there poison each other with the +exhalations of their mutual lungs, until disease and often death are the +consequences. Why won't they study and learn that a "draught" of pure +air will injure only those who by draughts of Alcoholic poison or some +other evil habit or glaring violation of the laws of life, have rendered +themselves morbidly susceptible, and that even a cold is better than the +noxiousness of air, already exhausted of its oxygen by inhalation? +Nothing physical is so sorely needed by the great majority as a +realizing sense of the blessedness, the indispensable necessity of pure, +fresh air.</p> + +<p>We landed at Belfast at 5 this morning under a pouring rain, which +slacked off two hours later, but the skies are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>still clouded, as they +have been since Tuesday of last week, and there has been some sprinkling +through the day.</p> + +<p>Of course the Crops are suffering badly. Flax is a great staple of the +North of Ireland, and three fourths of it is beaten flat to the earth. +Wheat is injured and poor, though not so generally prostrate; Oats look +feeble, and as if half drowned; some of these are, and considerable +Barley is thrown down; Grass is light, much of it uncut, and much that +is cut has lain under the stormy or cloudy skies through the last week +and looks badly; only the Potatoes look strong and thrifty, and promise +an ample yield. I shall be agreeably disappointed if Ireland realizes a +fair average harvest this year.</p> + +<p>Belfast is a busy, growing town, the emporium of the Linen Manufacture, +and the capital of the Province of Ulster, the Northern quarter of +Ireland. It seems prosperous, though no wise remarkably so; and I have +been painfully disappointed in the apparent condition of the rural +peasantry on the line of travel from Belfast to Dublin, which I had +understood formed an exception to the general misery of Ireland. Out of +the towns not one habitation in ten is fit for human beings to live in, +but mere low, cramped hovels of rock, mud and straw; not one-half the +families on the way seem to have so much as an acre of land to each +household; not half the men to be seen have coats to their backs; and +not one in four of the women and children have each a pair of shoes or +stockings. And those feet!—if the owners would only wash them once a +week, the general aspect of affairs in this section would be materially +brightened. Wretchedness, rags and despair salute me on every side; and +if this be the best part of Ireland, what must the state of the worst +be?</p> + +<p>From Belfast we had railroad to Armagh, 35 miles; then 13 miles by +omnibus to Castle Blayney. We came over this latter route with ten or +twelve passengers, and a tun or so of luggage on the outside of the +Railroad Company's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>omnibus, with thirteen of us stowed inside, beside a +youngster in arms, who illustrated the doctrine of Innate Depravity by a +perpetual fight with his mother. Yet, thus overloaded we were driven the +thirteen miles of muddy road in about two hours, taking at Castle +Blayney another railroad train, which brought us almost to Drogheda, +some 25 miles, where we had to take another omnibus for a mile or two, +for want of a railroad bridge over the Boyne, thus reaching another +train which brought us into Dublin, 32 miles. The North of Ireland is +yet destitute of any other railroads than such patches and fragments as +these, whereby I am precluded from seeing Londonderry, and its vicinity, +which I much desired. At length we were brought into Dublin at half-past +three o'clock, or in eight hours from Belfast, about one hundred and +thirty miles.</p> + +<p>The face of the country through this part of Ireland is moderately +rolling, though some fair hills appear in the distance. The land is +generally good, though there are considerable tracts of hard, thin soil. +Small bogs are frequently seen, but no one exceeding a dozen acres; the +large ones lying farther inland. Taking so little room and supplying the +poor with a handy and cheap fuel, I doubt that these little bogs are any +detriment to the country. Some of them have been made to take on a soil +(by draining, cutting, drying and burning the upper strata of peat, and +spreading the ashes over the entire surface), and are now quite +productive.—Drainage and ridging are almost universally resorted to, +showing the extraordinary humidity of the atmosphere. The Potato is now +generally in blossom, and, having a large breadth of the land, and being +in fine condition, gives an appearance of thrift and beauty to the +landscape. But, in spite of this, the general yield of Ireland in 1851 +is destined to be meager. There is more misery in store for this unhappy +people.</p> + +<p>We cross two small lakes some ten to fifteen miles north <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>of this city, +and run for some distance close to the shore of the Channel. At length, +a vision of dwellings, edifices and spires bounds the horizon of the +level plain to the south-west, and in a few minutes we are in Dublin.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XLI.</h2> +<h2>WEST OF IRELAND—ATLANTIC MAILS.</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Galway</span>, Ireland, Aug. 2, 1851.</p> + +<p>I came down here yesterday from Dublin (126½ miles) by the first +Railroad train ever run through for the traveling public, hoping not +only to acquire some personal knowledge of the West of Ireland, but also +to gain some idea of the advantages and difficulties attending the +proposed establishment of a direct communication by Mail Steamers +between this port and our own country. And although my trip is +necessarily a hurried one, yet, having been rowed down and nearly across +the Bay, so as to gain some knowledge of its conformation and its +entrance, and having traversed the town in every direction, and made the +acquaintance of some of its most intelligent citizens, I shall at all +events return with a clearer idea of the whole subject than ever so much +distant study of maps, charts and books could have given me.</p> + +<p>The Midland Railroad from Dublin passes by Maynooth, Mullingar, Athlone +(where it crosses the Shannon by a noble iron bridge), and Ballinasloe +to this place, at the head of Galway Bay, some twenty-five miles inland +from the broad Atlantic. The country is remarkably level throughout, and +very little rock-cutting and but a moderate amount of excavation have +been required in making the Railroad, of which a part (from Dublin to +Mullingar) has been for some time in operation, while the residue has +just been opened. (The old stage-road from Dublin to Galway <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>measures +133 miles, or nearly seven more than the Railroad.) I presume there is +nowhere an elevation of forty feet to the mile, and with a good double +track (now nearly completed), there can be no difficulty in running +express trains through in three hours. From Dublin to Holyhead will +require four hours, and from Holyhead to London six more, making fifteen +hours in all (including two for coming into Galway) for the +transportation of the Mails from the broad Atlantic off this port to +London. Allow three more for leeway, and still the entire Mails may be +distributed in London about the time that the steamship can now be +telegraphed as off Holyhead, and at least twelve (I hope fifteen) hours +earlier than the Mails can now be received in London, to say nothing of +the saving of thirty or forty hours on the Mails to and from Ireland, +and twenty or so for those of Scotland. Is there any good reason why +those hours should not be saved? I can perceive none, even though the +steamships should still proceed to Liverpool as heretofore.</p> + +<p>Galway Bay is abundantly large enough and safe enough for steamships, +even as it is, though its security is susceptible of easy improvement. +It has abundant depth inside, but hardly twenty feet at low water on a +bar in the harbor, so that large steamships coming in would be obliged +to anchor a mile or so from the dock for high water if they did not +arrive so as to hit it, as they must now wait off the bar at Liverpool, +only much further from the dock. But what I contemplate as a beginning +is not the bringing in of the Steamships but of their Mails. Let a small +steamboat be waiting outside when a Mail Steamer is expected (as now off +the bar at Liverpool), and let the Mails and such passengers as would +like to feel the firm earth under their feet once more, be swiftly +transferred to the little boat, run up to Galway, put on an express +train, started for Dublin, and thence sent over to Holyhead, and +dispatched to London and Liverpool forthwith. Let Irish Mails for +Galway, Dublin, &c., and Scotch Mails for Glasgow be made up on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>our +side, and let us see, by three or four fair trials, what saving of time +could be effected by landing the Mails at Galway, and then we shall be +in a position to determine the extent and character of the permanent +changes which are required. That a saving of fully twelve hours for +England and thirty for Ireland may be secured by making Galway the +European terminus of the Atlantic Mail Route, I am very confident, while +in the calculations of those who feel a local and personal interest in +the change the saving is far greater. But this is quite enough to +justify the inconsiderable expense which the experiment I urge would +involve.</p> + +<p>Galway was formerly a place of far greater commerce and consequence than +it now is. It long enjoyed an extensive and profitable direct trade with +Spain, which, since the Union of Ireland with England, is entirely +transferred to London, so that not a shadow of it remains. At a later +day, it exported considerable Grain, Bacon, &c., to England, but the +general decline of Irish Industry, and the low prices of food since Free +Trade, have nearly destroyed this trade also, and there are now, except +fishing-boats, scarcely half a dozen vessels in the harbor, and of these +the two principal are a Russian from the Black Sea <i>selling</i> Corn, to a +district whose resources are Agricultural or nothing, and a +smart-looking Yankee clipper taking in a load of emigrants and luggage +for New-York—the export of her population being about the only branch +of Ireland's commerce which yet survives the general ruin. Galway had +once 60,000 inhabitants; she may now have at most 30,000; but there is +no American seaport with 5,000 which does not far surpass her annual +aggregate of trade and industry. What should we think in America of a +seaport of at least 35,000 inhabitants, the capital of a large, populous +county, located at the head of a noble, spacious bay, looking off on the +broad Atlantic some twenty miles distant, with cities of twenty, fifty, +and a hundred thousand inhabitants within a few hours' reach on either +side of her, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>yet not owning a single steamboat of any shape or nature, +and not even visited by one daily, weekly, monthly, or at any stated +period? Truly, the desolation of Ireland must be witnessed or it cannot +be realized.</p> + +<p>I judge that of nearly thirty thousand people who live here not ten +thousand have any regular employment or means of livelihood. The +majority pick up a job when they can, but are inevitably idle and +suffering two-thirds of the time. Of course, the Million learn nothing, +have nothing, and come to nothing. They are scarcely in fault, but those +who ought to teach them, counsel them, employ them, until they shall be +qualified to employ themselves, are deplorably culpable. Here are +gentlemen and ladies of education and wealth (dozens where there were +formerly hundreds) who year after year and generation after generation +have lived in luxury on the income wrung from these poor creatures in +the shape of Rent, without ever giving them a helping hand or a kind +word in return—without even suspecting that they were under moral +obligation to do so. Here is a Priesthood, the conscience-keepers and +religious instructors of this fortunate class, who also have fared +sumptuously and amassed wealth out of the tithes wrenched by +law-sanctioned robbery from the products of this same wretched +peasantry, yet never proffered them anything in return but conversion to +the faith of their plunderers—certainly not a tempting proffer under +the circumstances. And here also is a Priesthood beloved, reverenced, +confided in by this peasantry, and loving them in return, who I think +have done far less than they might and should have done to raise them +out of the slough in which generation after generation are sinking +deeper and deeper. I speak plainly on this point, for I feel strongly. +The Catholic Priesthood of Ireland resist the education of the Peasantry +under Protestant auspices and influences, for which we will presume they +have good reason; but, in thus cutting them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>off from one chance of +improving their social and intellectual condition, they double their own +moral responsibility to secure the Education of the Poor in some manner +not inconsistent with the preservation of their faith. And, seeing what +I have seen and do see of the unequaled power of this Priesthood—a +power immensely greater in Ireland than in Italy, for there the Priests +are generally regarded as the allies of the tyrant and plundering class, +while here they are doubly beloved as its enemies and its victims—I +feel an undoubting conviction that simply an earnest determination of +the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland that every Catholic child in the +country shall receive a good education would secure its own fulfilment +within five years, and thenceforth for ever. Let but one generation be +well educated, and there can be no rational apprehension that their +children or grandchildren will be allowed to grow up in ignorance and +helplessness. Knowledge is self-perpetuating, self-extending. And, +dreadfully destitute as this country is, the Priesthood of the People +can command the means of educating that People, which nobody without +their coöperation can accomplish. Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an +earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thousands +and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents, +from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign +lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without +earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which +the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every +parish would gladly proffer them. There is really no serious obstacle in +the way of this first great step toward Ireland's regeneration if the +Priesthood will zealously attempt it.</p> + +<p>But closely allied to this subject, and not inferior to it in +importance, stands that of Industrial Training. The Irish Peasantry are +idle, the English say truly enough; but who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>inquires whether there is +any work within their reach? Suppose there was always <i>something</i> to do, +what avails that to millions who know not how to do that precise +something? Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of +Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years +old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend +roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that +labor. She answered, "Six-pence a car-load." "How long will it take you +to break a car-load?" "<i>About a fortnight.</i>" Further questions +respecting her family, &c., were answered with equal directness and +propriety, and with manifest truth. Here was a mere child, who should +have been sent to school, delving from morning till night at an +employment utterly unsuited to her sex and her strength, and which I +should consider dangerous to her eyesight, to earn for her poor parents +a half-penny per day. Think of this, ye who talk, not always without +reason, of "factory slaves" and the meagre rewards of labor in America. +In any community where labor is even decently rewarded, that child +should have been enabled to earn every day at least as much as her +fortnight's work on the stone-heap would command. And even in Galway, a +concerted and systematic Industrial Education for the Poor would enable +her to earn at some light and suitable employment six times what she now +does.</p> + +<p>In every street of the town you constantly meet girls of fourteen to +twenty, as well as old women and children, utterly barefoot and in +ragged clothing. I should judge from the streets that not more than +one-fourth of the females of Galway belong to the shoe-wearing +aristocracy. Now no one acquainted with Human Nature will pretend that +girls of fourteen to twenty will walk the streets barefoot if the means +of buying shoes and stockings by honest labor are fairly within their +reach. But here there are none such for thousands. Born in wretched huts +of rough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>stone and rotten straw, compared with which the poorest +log-cabin is a palace, with a turf fire, no window, and a mass of filth +heaped up before the door, untaught even to read, and growing up in a +region where no manufactures nor arts are prosecuted, the Irish +peasant-girl arrives at womanhood less qualified by experience, +observation or training for industrial efficiency and usefulness than +the daughter of any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, not <i>all</i> the +Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but +a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and +utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and +ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and +undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness," +which means only inability to do what one has never even <i>seen</i> done, is +not confined to any class or nation, and should be regarded with every +allowance.</p> + +<p>An Industrial School, especially for girls, in every town, village and +parish of Ireland, is one of the crying needs of the time. I am +confident there are in Galway alone five thousand women and girls who +would hail with gratitude and thoroughly improve an opportunity to earn +six-pence per day. If they could be taught needle-work, plain +dressmaking, straw-braiding, and a few of the simplest branches of +manufactures, such as are carried on in households, they might and would +at once emerge from the destitution and social degradation which now +enshroud them into independence, comfort and consideration. Knowing how +to work and to earn a decent subsistence, they would very soon seek and +acquire a knowledge of letters if previously ignorant of them. In short, +the Industrial Education of the Irish Peasantry is the noblest and the +most hopeful idea yet broached for their intellectual and social +elevation, and I have great hope of its speedy triumph. It is now being +agitated in Dublin and many other localities, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>central and many +auxiliary schools having already been established. But I will speak +further on this point in another letter.</p> + +<p>Galway has an immense and steady water-power within half a mile of its +harbor, on the outlet of Lakes Corrib and Mash, by means of which it +enjoys an admirable internal navigation extending some sixty miles +northward. Here Manufactures might be established with a certainty of +commanding the cheapest power, cheapest labor and cheapest fuel to be +had in the world. I never saw a spot where so much water power yet +unused could be obtained at so trifling a cost as here directly on the +west line of the town and within half a mile of its center. A beautiful +Marble is found on the line of the Railroad only a few miles from the +town, and all along the line to Dublin the abundance and excellence of +the building-stone are remarkable. Timber and Brick come down the Lake +outlet as fast as they are wanted, while Provisions are here cheap as in +any part of the British Isles. Nature has plainly designed Galway for a +great and prosperous city, the site of extensive manufactures, the +emporium of an important trade, and the gateway of Europe toward +America; but whether all this is or is not to be dashed by the fatality +which has hitherto attended Irish prospects, remains to be seen. I trust +that it is not, but that a new Liverpool is destined soon to arise here; +and that, should I ever again visit Europe, I shall first land on the +quay of Galway.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XLII.</h2> +<h2>IRELAND—SOUTH.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dublin</span>, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 1851.</p> + +<p>I had hoped to see all of Ireland that is accessible by Railroad from +this city, but Time will not permit. Having remained here over Sunday, I +had only Monday left for a trip Southward, and that would just suffice +for reaching Limerick and returning without attempting Cork. So at 7 +yesterday morning I took the "Great Southern and Western Railroad," and +was set down in Limerick (130 miles) at a quarter before 1, passing +Kildare, with its "Curragh" or spacious race-ground, Maryborough and +Thurles on the way. Portarlington, Mount Melick, Mountrath and +Templemore—all considerable towns—lie a few miles from the Railroad, +on the right or west, as Naas, Cashel and Tipperary are not far from it +on the left; while another Railroad, the "Irish South-Eastern," diverges +at Kildare to Carlow, Bagnalstown and Kilkenny (146 miles from Dublin) +on the South; while from Kilkenny the "Kilkenny and Waterford" has +already been constructed to Thomastown (some 20 miles), and is to reach +Waterford, at the head of ship navigation on the common estuary at the +mouth of the Suir and Barrow, when completed.</p> + +<p>I left the Great Southern and Western at Limerick Junction, 107 miles S. +S. W. of Dublin, and took the crossroad from Tipperary to Limerick (30 +miles), but the main road proceeds south-westerly to Charleville, 22½ +miles further, and thence leads due south to Mallow, on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>Blackwater, +and then south by east to Cork, 164½ miles from Dublin, while another +railroad has just been opened from Cork to Bandon, 18¾ miles still +further south-west, making a completed line from Dublin to Bandon, 183½ +miles, with branches to Limerick, Tipperary and Kilkenny, the latter to +be continued to Waterford. In a country so easily traversed by +Railroads, and so swarming with population as Ireland, these roads +should be not only most useful but most productive to their +stockholders, but they are very far from it. Few of the peasantry can +afford to travel by them, except when leaving the country for ever, and +their scanty patches of ground produce little surplus food for +exportation, while they can afford to buy little that the Railroads +bring in. Were the population of Ireland as well fed and as enterprising +as that of New-England, with an industry as well diversified, her +Railroads would pay ten per cent, on their cost; as things now are, they +do not pay two per cent. Thus the rapacity of Capital defeats itself, +and actually impoverishes its owners when it deprives Labor of a fair +reward. If all the property-holders of Ireland would to-day combine in a +firm resolve to pay at least half a dollar per day for men's labor, and +to employ all that should present themselves, introducing new arts and +manufactures and improving their estates in order to furnish such +employment, they would not only speedily banish destitution and +ignorance from the land but they would double the value of their own +possessions. This is one of the truths which sloth, rapacity and +extravagance are slow to learn, yet which they cannot safely ignore. The +decay and ruin of nearly all the "old families" in Ireland are among the +penalties of disregarding it.</p> + +<p>To talk of an excess of labor, or an inability to employ it, in such a +country as Ireland, is to insult the general understanding. In the first +place, there is an immediate and urgent demand for at least Half a +Million comfortable rain-proof dwellings. The inconceivable wretched +hovels <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>in which nine-tenths of the peasantry endure existence +inevitably engender indolence, filthiness and disease. Generation after +generation grows up ignorant and squalid from never having had a +fireside by which they could sit down to read or study, nor an example +of home comfort and cleanliness in their own class to profit by. In +those narrow, unlighted, earth-floored, straw-thatched cabins, there is +no room for the father and his sons to sit down and enjoy an evening, so +they straggle off to the nearest groggery or other den in search of the +comfort their home denies them. Of course, men who have grown up in this +way have no idea of anything better and are slow to mend; but the +personal influence of their superiors in wealth and station is very +great, and might be ten times greater if the more fortunate class would +make themselves familiar with the wants and woes, the feelings and +aspirations of the poor, and act toward them as friends and wiser +brethren, instead of seeming to regard them only as strange dogs to be +repelled or as sheep to be sheared. But the first practical point to be +struggled for is that of steady employment and just reward for labor. So +long as men's wages (without board) range from fourpence to one and +six-pence per day, and women's from a penny to six-pence (which, so far +as I can learn, are the current rates at present, and nothing to do for +half the year at any price), no radical improvement can be hoped for. A +family with nothing to do, very little to eat and only a hog-pen to live +in, will neither acquire mental expansion, moral integrity, nor habits +of neatness and industry. On the contrary, however deficient they may +originally be in these respects, they are morally certain to grow worse +so long as their circumstances remain unchanged. But draw them out of +their wretched hovel into a neat, dry, glass-lighted, comfortable +dwelling, offer them work at all seasons, and a fair recompense for +doing it, and you will have at least rendered improvement possible. The +feasibility of cleanliness will instill the love <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>of it, at least in the +younger members; the opportunity of earning will awaken the instinct of +saving as well as the desire to maintain a comely appearance in the eyes +of friends and neighbors. The laborer, well paid, will naturally be +adequately fed, and both able and willing to perform thrice the work per +day he now does or can; seeing the more efficient often step above them +to posts better paid and more respected, the dullest workers will aspire +to greater knowledge and skill in order that they too may attain more +eligible positions. "It is the first step that costs"—the others follow +almost of course. If the Aristocracy of Ireland would unitedly resolve +that every individual in the land should henceforth have constant work +and just recompense, the outlay involved need not be great and the +return would be abundant and certain. They have ample water-power for a +thousand factories, machine-shops, foundries, &c., which has run to +waste since creation, and can never bring them a dollar while Irish +Industry remains as rude, ill-paid and inefficient as it now is. Every +dollar wisely spent in improving this power will add two to the value of +their estates. So they have stone-quarries of immense value all over the +island which never produced anything and never will while the millions +live in hovels and confine their attention to growing oats and potatoes +for a subsistence. Agriculture alone and especially such Agriculture, +can never adequately employ the people; when the Oats and Potatoes have +been harvested, the peasant has very little to do but eat them until the +season for planting them returns. But introduce a hundred new arts and +processes—let each village have its mechanics, each county its +manufacturers of the various wares and fabrics really needed in the +country, and the excess of work done over the present aggregate would +speedily transform general poverty into general competence. The Six +Millions of People in Ireland are doing far less work this year than the +Three Millions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>of New-England, although the Irish in New-England are at +least as industrious and efficient as the natives. They work well +everywhere but at home, because they everywhere else find the more +powerful class ready to employ them, instruct them, pay them. In Ireland +alone are they required to work for six pence to eighteen pence per day, +and even at these rates stand idle half the year for want of anything to +do; so that the rent which they would readily double (for better +tenements) if they were fully employed and fairly paid, now benumbs and +crushes them, and their little patches of land, which ought to be in the +highest degree productive, are often the worst cultivated of any this +side of the Alps. Ignorance, want, and hopelessness have paralysed their +energies, and the consequent decay of the Peasantry has involved most of +the Aristocracy in the general ruin. The Encumbered Estates Commission +is now rapidly passing the soil of Ireland out of the hands of its +bankrupt landlords into those of a new generation. May these be wise +enough to profit by the warning before them, and by uniting to elevate +the condition of the Laboring Millions place their own prosperity on a +solid and lasting foundation!</p> + +<br /> +<h3>GENERAL ASPECTS.</h3> + +<p>The South of Ireland is decidedly more fertile and inviting than the +North or West. There is a deeper, richer soil, with far less stone on +the level low lands. The railroad from Dublin to Limerick runs +throughout over a level plain, and though it passes from the valley of +the Liffey across those of the Barrow, the Durrow and the Suir to that +of the Shannon, no perceptible ridge is crossed, no tunnel traversed, +and very little rock-cutting or embankment required. Although the +highways are often carried over the track at an absurd expense, while +the principal dépôts are made to cost thrice what they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>should, I still +cannot account for the great outlay on Irish railroads. They would have +been built at one-half the cost in the States, where the wages of labor +are thrice as much as here: who pockets the difference? Of course, there +is stealing in the assessment of land damages; but so there is +everywhere. When I was in Galway, a case was tried in which a +proprietor, whose bog was crossed by the Midland Railroad, sued the +company for more than the Appraisers had awarded him, and it was proved +on the trial that his bog, utterly worthless before, had been partially +drained and considerably increased in value by the railroad. There seems +to be no conscience in exacting damages of those who invest their money, +often most reluctantly, in railroads, of which the main benefits are +universal. In Ireland they have palpably and greatly benefited every +class but the stockholders, and these they have well nigh ruined.</p> + +<p>There are fewer remains of dwellings recently "cleared" and thrown down +in the South than in the West of Ireland; though they are not unknown +here; but I saw no new ones going up, save in immediate connection with +the Railroads, in either section. If Government, Society and Ideas are +to remain as they have been, the country may be considered absolutely +finished, with nothing more to do but decay. I trust, however, that a +new leaf is about to be turned over; still, it is mournful to pass +through so fine a country and see how the hand of death has transfixed +it. Even Limerick, at the head of ship navigation on the glorious +estuary of the Shannon, with steamboat navigation through the heart of +this populous kingdom for sixty or eighty miles above it, shows scarcely a +recent building except the Railroad Dépôt and the Union Poor-House, while +its general aspect is that of stagnation, decline and decay. The smaller +towns between it and Dublin have a like gloomy appearance—Kildare, with +with its deserted "Curragh" and its towering ruins, looking most dreary +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>all. Happy is the Irishman who, in a new land and amid the activities +and hopes which it inspires, is spared the daily contemplation of his +country's ruin.</p> + +<p>And yet there are brighter shades to the picture. Nature, ever buoyant +and imperative, does her best to remedy the ills created by "Man's +inhumanity to Man." The South of Ireland seems far better wooded than +either the North or West, and thrifty young forests and tree plantations +soften the gloom which unroofed and ruinous cabins would naturally +suggest. Though the Railroad runs wholly through a tame, dull level +sweeping ranges of hills appear at intervals on either side, exhibiting +a lovely alternation of cultivation, grass and forest, to the delighted +traveler. The Hay crop is badly saved so far, and some that has been cut +several days is still under the weather, while a good deal, though long +ripe, remains uncut; the Wheat looks to me thin and uneven; Oats (the +principal grain here) are short and generally poor; but I never saw the +Potato more luxuriant or promising, and the area covered with this noble +root is most extensive. The poor have a fashion of planting in <i>beds</i> +three to six feet wide, with narrow alleys between; which, though +involving extra labor, must insure a large yield, and presents a most +luxuriant appearance. Little Rye was sown, but that little is very good; +Barley is suffering from the stormy weather, but is quite thrifty. Yet +there is much arable land either wholly neglected or only yielding a +little grass, while I perceive even less bog undergoing reclamation than +in the West. I did not anticipate a tour of pleasure through Ireland, +but the reality is more painful than I anticipated. Of all I have seen +at work in the fields to-day, cutting and carrying turf, hoeing +potatoes, shaking out Hay, &c., at least one-third were women. If I +could believe that their fathers and husbands were in America, clearing +lands and erecting cabins for their future homes, I should not regret +this. But the probability is that only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>a few of them are there or +hopefully employed anywhere, while hundreds of neglected, weedy, +unpromising patches of cultivation show that, narrow as the holdings +mainly are, they are yet often unskillfully cultivated. The end of this +is of course ejectment, whence the next stage is the Union Work-House. +Alas! unhappy Ireland!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XLIII.</h2> +<h2>PROSPECTS OF IRELAND.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dublin</span>, Tuesday, August 5, 1851.</p> + +<p>Of Irish stagnation, Irish unthrift, Irish destitution, Irish misery, +the world has heard enough. I could not wholly avoid them without giving +an essentially false and deceptive account of what must be painfully +obvious to every traveler in Ireland; yet I have chosen to pass them +over lightly and hurriedly, and shall not recur to them. They are in the +main sufficiently well known to the civilized world, and, apart from +suggestions of amendment, their contemplation can neither be pleasant +nor profitable. I will only add here that though, in spite of Poor Laws +and Union Poor-Houses, there are still much actual want, suffering and +beggary in Ireland, yet the beggars here are by no means so numerous nor +so importunate as in Italy, though the excuses for mendicity are far +greater. What I propose now to bring under hasty review are the +principal plans for the removal of Ireland's woes and the conversion of +her myriads of paupers into independent and comfortable laborers. I +shall speak of these in succession, beginning with the oldest and +closing with the newest that has come under my observation. And first, +then, of</p> + +<br /> +<h3>REPEAL.</h3> + +<p>The hope of obtaining from the British Crown and Parliament the +concession of a separate Legislature of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>their own seems nearly to have +died out of the hearts of the Irish millions. The death of O'Connell +deprived the measure of its mightiest advocate; Famine and other +disasters followed; and fresher projects of amelioration have since to a +great extent supplanted it in the popular mind. Yet it is to-day most +palpable that such a Legislature is of the highest moment to the +National well-being, and that its concession would work the greatest +good to Ireland without injury to England. Nay; I see fresh reasons for +my hope that such concession is far nearer than is generally imagined.</p> + +<p>On all hands it is perceived and conceded that the amount of legislation +required by the vast, widely scattered and diversely constituted +portions of the British Empire is too great to be properly affected by +any deliberative body. Parliament is just closing a long session, yet +leaving very much of its proper business untouched for want of time, and +that pertaining to Ireland is especially neglected. Then it has just +passed a most unwise and irritating act with regard to the titles of the +Catholic Prelates, which, because every act of Parliament must extend to +Ireland unless that country is expressly excluded, is allowed to operate +there, though the bad reasons given for its enactment at all have no +application to that country, while the mischiefs it will do there are +ten times greater than all it can effect in Great Britain. Had Ireland a +separate Parliament, no British Minister would have been mad enough to +propose the extension of this act over that country, where it is certain +to excite disaffection and disloyalty, arouse slumbering hatreds, and +impede the march of National and Social improvement. An Irish +Parliament, with specified powers and duties akin to those of an +American State Legislature, would be a great relief to a British +Parliament and Ministry, a great support to Irish loyalty and Irish +improvement, and no harm to anybody. These truths seem to me so palpable +that I think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>they cannot long be disregarded, but that some one of the +Political changes frequently occurring in Great Britain will secure to +Ireland a restoration of her domestic Legislature. Neither Canada, +Jamaica nor any other British colony can show half so good reasons for a +domestic Legislature.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>TENANT-RIGHT.</h3> + +<p>The agitation for Tenant-Right in Ireland is destined to fail—in fact, +has virtually failed already. The Imperial Parliament will never concede +that right, nor will any Legislature similarly constituted. And yet the +demand has the clearest and strongest basis of natural and eternal +justice, as any fair mind must confess. What is that demand? Simply that +the creator of a new value shall be legally entitled to that value, or, +in case he is required to surrender it to another, shall be paid a fair +and just equivalent therefor. Here is a farm, for instance, whereof one +man is recognised by law as the owner, and he lets it for three lives or +a specific term of years to a tenant-cultivator for ten, fifteen or +twenty shillings per acre. The tenant occupies it, cultivates it, pays +the rent and improves it. At the close of his term, he is found to have +built a good house on it instead of the old rookery he found there, +while by fencing, draining, manuring and subsoiling he has doubled its +productive capacity, and consequently its annual value. He wishes to +cultivate it still, and offers to renew the lease for any number of +years, and pay the rent punctually. "But no," says the landlord, "you +must pay twice as much rent as hitherto." "Why so?" "Because the land is +more valuable than it was when you took it." "Certainly it is; but that +value is wholly the fruit of my labor—it has cost you nothing." "Can't +help that, Sir; you improved for your own benefit, and with a full +knowledge that the additional value would revert to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>me on the +expiration of your lease; so pay my price or clear out!"—Is this right? +The law says Yes; but Justice says No; Public Good says even more +imperatively No. The laws of the land should encourage every occupier to +improve the land he holds, to expend capital and employ labor upon it, +so as to increase its value and productive capacity from year to year; +but the law of the British Empire discourages improvement and impedes +the employment of labor by taking the product from the producer and +giving it arbitrarily to the landlord. Yet the landlord influence in +Parliament is so predominant, so overwhelming, that no repeal, no +mitigation even, of this great wrong is probable; and every demand for +it is overborne by a senseless outcry against Agrarianism. Still, the +agitation for Tenant-Right does good by imbuing the popular mind with +some idea of the monster evil and wrong of the Monopoly of Land—an idea +which will not always remain unfruitful.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>EMIGRATION.</h3> + +<p>Emigration is now proceeding with gigantic strides, and is destined for +some time to continue. I think a full third of the present population of +Ireland are anxious to leave their native land, and will do so if they +shall ever have the means before better prospects are opened to them. +Packet-ships are constantly loading with emigrants at all the principal +ports, while thousands are flocking monthly to Liverpool to find ready +and cheap conveyance to America. But this emigration, however advisable +for the departing, does little for those left behind, and is in the main +detrimental to the country. The energetic, the daring, the high-spirited +go, leaving the residue more abject and nerveless than ever. If Two +Millions more were to leave the country next year, the condition of the +remainder would not be essentially improved. Over population is not a +leading cause of Ireland's present miseries.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> + +<br /> +<h3>EDUCATION.</h3> + +<p>Rudimental knowledge is being slowly diffused in Ireland, in spite of +the serious impediments interposed by Religious jealousy and bigotry. +But this remedy, as now applied, does not reach the seat of the disease. +They are mainly the better class of poor children who are educated in +the National and other elementary schools; the most depraved, benighted, +degraded, are still below their reach. The destitute, hungry, +unemployed, unclad, despairing, cannot or do not send their children to +school; the wife and mother who must work daily in the turf-bog or +potato-field for a few pence per day must keep her older child at home +to mind the younger ones in her absence. Education, in its larger, truer +meaning, is the great remedy for Ireland's woes; but until the parents +have steadier employment and a juster recompense the general education +of the children is impracticable.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>ENCUMBERED ESTATES.</h3> + +<p>The act authorizing and requiring the sale of irredeemably Encumbered +Estates in Ireland is one of the best which a British Parliament has +passed in many years. Under its operation, a large portion of the soil +is rapidly passing from the nominal ownership of bankrupts wholly unable +and unqualified to improve it into those of new proprietors who, it may +fairly be hoped, will generally be able to improve it, giving employment +to more labor and increasing the annual product. The benefits of this +change, however, can be but slowly realized, and are for the present +hardly perceptible.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>IRISH MANUFACTURES.</h3> + +<p>Within the past few months, a very decided interest has been awakened in +the minds of enlightened and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>patriotic Irishmen in Dublin and other +places, with regard to the importance and possibility of establishing +various branches of Household Manufactures throughout the country. It is +manifest that the general cheapness of Labor and Food, the facilities +now enjoyed for communication, not only with Great Britain, but with all +Europe and America also, and the extraordinary amount of unemployed and +undeveloped capacity in Ireland, render the introduction of Manufactures +at once eminently desirable and palpably feasible. Even though nothing +could be immediately earned thereby, the simple diffusion of industrial +skill and efficiency which must ensue from such introduction would be an +inestimable gain to the peasantry of Ireland. But allow that all the +idle poor of this island could in six months be taught how to earn six +pence each per day, the aggregate benefit to the Irish and to mankind +would be greater than that of all the gold mines yet discovered. The +Poorhouse Unions could be nearly emptied in a year, and this whole +population comfortably fed, clad and housed within the next three years. +A beginning must be made with the simplest or household manufactures, +for want of means to establish the more complex, costly and efficient +branches, which require extensive Machinery and aggregation of Laborers; +but if the first step be successfully taken, others are certain to +follow. With abundant water-power and inexhaustible beds of fuel yet +untouched, it is demonstrable that Manufactures of Cotton and Woolen, as +well as Linen, might be prosecuted in Ireland even cheaper than in +England, though the average recompense of Labor should thereby be +doubled.</p> + +<p>The first impulse to the Manufacture movement appears to have been given +by Mr. Thomas Mooney, a gentleman well known to his countrymen +throughout the United States, whence he returned some eighteen months +ago. Primarily at his suggestion, a "Parent Board of Irish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>Manufacture" +was organized in Dublin several months since, funds collected by +voluntary subscription, an office opened, and a central school +established, with a view to the qualification of teachers for the +superintendence of auxiliary schools throughout the country. The +enterprise was proceeding vigorously and with daily increasing momentum +when Dissension, the evil genius of Ireland, broke out among its leading +supporters, which has resulted in the division of the original Society +into two, one of them sustaining Mr. Mooney and the other claiming to +have taken the movement entirely out of his hands. Thus the case stands +at present, but thus I trust it will not long remain. The enterprise is +one of the most feasible and hopeful of the many that have been +undertaken for the benefit of Ireland, and affords ample scope and +occupation for all who may see fit to labor for its success. I trust +that all differences will speedily be harmonized, and that the friends +of the movement, once more united, may urge it forward to a most +complete and beneficent triumph.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>PEAT MANUFACTURE.</h3> + +<p>The Peat Bogs of Ireland cover some Three Millions of Acres of its +surface, mainly in the heart of the country, though extending into every +part of it. Perhaps One Hundred Thousand Acres, chiefly in the +north-east, have been brought into cultivation; of the residue, some +yields a little sour pasturage, but the greater portion is of no use +whatever, save as it supplies a very poor but cheap fuel to the +peasantry. These bogs are of all depths from a few inches to thirty or +forty feet, though the very shallow have generally been reclaimed. This +is effected in some cases by removing the Peat or Turf altogether; but +sometimes, where it is quite deep, by ditching and draining it, and then +cutting and heaping up some six to twelve inches at the top, so that it +can be thoroughly burned, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>ashes spread over the entire surface +for a soil. This is not so deep as could be desired, but the climate is +so uniformly moist and the skies so rarely unclouded that it suffices to +insure very tolerable crops thereafter.</p> + +<p>I do not know how the origin of these Bogs is accounted for by the +learned, but I presume the land they cover was originally a dense +forest, and that the Peat commenced growing as a sort of moss or fungus, +carpeting the ground and preventing the germination of any more trees. +In the course of ten or fifteen centuries, the forest trees (mainly of +Oak or Fir) decayed and fell into the Peat, which, dying at the top, +continued to grow at the bottom, while the perpetual moisture of the +climate prevented its destruction by fire. Thus the forest gradually +disappeared, and the Peat alone remained, gaining a foot in depth in the +course of two or three centuries until it slowly reached its present +condition.</p> + +<p>Many efforts have been made to render this Peat available as a basis of +Manufacture and Commerce, but hitherto with little success. The +magnificent chemical discoveries heralded some two years ago, whereby +each bog was to be transformed into a mimic California, have not endured +the rough test of practical experience. There is no doubt that Peat +contains all the valuable elements therein set forth—Carbon, Ammonia, +Stearine, Tar, &c., but unfortunately it has hitherto cost more to +extract them than they will sell for in market; so the high-raised +expectations of 1849 have been temporarily blasted, like a great many +predecessors.</p> + +<p>But further chemical investigations have resulted in new discoveries, +which, it is confidently asserted, render the future success of the Peat +Charcoal manufacture a matter of demonstrable certainty. A company has +just been organized in London, under commanding auspices, which proposes +to embark £500,000 directly and £1,000,000 ultimately in Peat-Works, +having secured the exclusive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>right of using the newly patented +processes of Messrs. J. S. Gwynne and J. J. Hays, which are pronounced +exceedingly important and valuable. By a combination of these patented +processes, it is calculated that the company will be able to manufacture +from the inexhaustible Bogs of Ireland, 1. Peat Coal, or solidified +Peat, of intense calorific power, exceedingly cheap, almost as dense as +Bituminous Coal, while absolutely free from Gases injurious to metals as +well as from "clinker," and therefore especially valuable for +Locomotives and for innumerable applications in the arts; 2. Peat +Charcoal, thoroughly carbonized, of compact and heavy substance, free +from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for +fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply +as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible +into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of +Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of +abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have +six working stations in different parts of the country, professing its +ability to manufacture for 14s. per tun, Peat Charcoal readily selling +in London for 45s., while they expect to realize 5s. worth of Tar, +Ammonia, &c., with every tun of Charcoal, while on Solidified Peat they +anticipate still larger profits. These may be very greatly reduced by +practical experience without affecting the vital point, that sagacious +and scrutinizing capitalists have been found willing to invest their +money in an enterprise which, if it succeeds at all, must secure +illimitable employment to Labor in Ireland and strongly tend to increase +its average reward.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>BEET SUGAR.</h3> + +<p>A similar Company, with a like capital, has also been formed to +prosecute extensively in Ireland the manufacture <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>of Beet Sugar, and +this can hardly be deemed an experiment. That the Sugar Beet grows +luxuriously here I can personally bear witness; indeed, I doubt whether +there is a soil or climate better adapted to it in the world. That the +Beet grown in Ireland yields a very large proportion of Sugar is +attested by able chemists; that the manufacture of Beet Sugar is +profitable, its firm establishment and rapid extension in France, +Belgium, &c., abundantly prove. The Irish Company have secured the +exclusive use of two recently patented inventions, whereby they claim to +be able to produce a third more sugar than has hitherto been obtained, +and of a quality absolutely undistinguishable from the best Cane Sugar. +They say they can make it at a profit of fully twenty-five per cent. +after paying an excise of £10 per tun to the Government, working their +mills all the year (drying their roots for use in months when they +cannot otherwise be fit for manufacture). Mr. Wm. K. Sullivan, Chemist +to the Museum of Irish Industry, states that the Beet Sugar manufactured +in France has increased from 51,000 tuns in 1840 to more than 100,000 +tuns in 1850, in defiance of a large increase in the excise levied +thereon—that the average production of Sugar Beet is in Ireland 15 tuns +per acre, against less than 11 tuns in France and Germany—that each +acre of Beets will yield 4½ tuns (green) of tops or leaves, worth 7s. +6d. per tun for feeding cattle, making the clear profit on the +cultivation of the Beet, at 15s. per tun, over £5 per acre—that there +is no shadow of difference between the Sugar of the Beet and that of the +Cane, all the difference popularly supposed to exist being caused by the +existence of foreign substances in one or both—that Irish roots +generally, and Beet roots especially, contain considerably <i>more</i> Sugar +than those grown on the Continent—and that Beet Sugar may be made in +Ireland (without reference to the newly patented processes from which +the Company expect such great advantages) at a very handsome profit. As +the soil and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>climate of Ireland are at least equal to, and the Labor +decidedly cheaper than, that employed in the same pursuit on the +Continent, while Ireland herself, wretched as she is, consumes over two +thousand tuns of Sugar per annum, and Great Britain, some twenty-five +thousand tuns—every pound of it imported—I can perceive no reasonable +basis for a doubt that the Beet Culture and Sugar Manufacture will +speedily be naturalized in Ireland, and that they will give employment +and better wages at all seasons to many thousands of her sons.</p> + +<p>Such are some of the grounds of my hope that the deepest wretchedness of +this unhappy country has been endured—that her depopulation will +speedily be arrested, and that better days are in store for her +long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and +Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages +of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to +eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and +Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are +beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said +less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's +calamities, it is because I would rather draw attention to practical +though slow remedies than invoke fruitless indignation against the +wrongs which have rendered them necessary. Peace and Concord are the +great primary needs of Ireland—Peace between her warring +Churches—Concord between her rulers and landlords on one side and her +destitute and desperate Millions on the other. I wish the latter had +sufficient courage and self-trust to demand and enforce emancipation +from the Political and Social vassalage in which they are held; to +demand not merely Tenant-Right but a restitution of the broad lands +wrested from their ancestors by fire and sword—not merely equal rights +with Englishmen in Church and State, but equal right also to judge +whether <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>the existing Union of the two islands is advantageous to +themselves, and if not, to insist that it be made so or cease +altogether. But Ireland has suffered too long and too deeply for this; +her emancipation is now possible only through the education and social +elevation of her People. This is a slow process, but earnest hearts and +united minds will render it a sure one. If the Irish but will and work +for it, the close of this century will find them a Nation of Ten +Millions, with their Industry as diversified, their Labor, as efficient, +its Recompense as liberal, and their general condition as thrifty and +comfortable as those of any other Nation. Thus circumstanced, they could +no longer be treated as the appendage of an Empire, the heritage of a +Crown, the conquest of a selfish and domineering Race, but must be +accounted equals with the inhabitants of the Sister Isle in Civil and +Religious Rights or break the connection without internal discord and +almost without a struggle. There shall yet be an Ireland to which her +sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with +sadness; but alas! who can say how soon!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +<hr /><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a> +<br /> +<h2>XLIV.</h2> +<h2>THE ENGLISH.</h2> +<br /> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Liverpool</span>, Wednesday, August 6, 1851.</p> + +<p>I do not wholly like these cold and stately English, yet I think I am +not blind to their many sterling qualities. The greatness of England, it +is quite confidently asserted, is based upon her conquests and +plunderings—on her immense Commerce and unlimited Foreign Possessions. +I think otherwise. The English have qualities which would have rendered +them wealthy and powerful though they had been located in the center of +Asia instead of on the western coast of Europe. I do not say that these +qualities could have been developed in Central Asia, but if they <i>had</i> +been, they would have insured to their possessors a commanding position. +Personally, the English do not attract nor shine; but collectively they +are a race to make their mark on the destinies of mankind.</p> + +<p>In the first place, they are eminently <i>industrious</i>. I have seen no +country in which the proportion of idlers is smaller. I think American +labor is more efficient, day to day or hour to hour, than British; but +we have the larger proportion of non-producers—petty clerks in the +small towns, men who live by their wits, loungers about barrooms, &c. +There is here a small class of wealthy idlers (not embracing nearly +<i>all</i> the wealthy, nor of the Aristocracy, by any means), and a more +numerous class of idle paupers or criminals; but Work is the general +rule, and the idlers constitute but a small proportion of the whole +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>population. Great Britain is full of wealth, not entirely but mainly +because her people are constantly producing. All that she has plundered +in a century does not equal the new wealth produced by her people every +year.</p> + +<p>The English are eminently devotees of <i>Method</i> and <i>Economy</i>. I never +saw the rule, "A place for everything, and everything in its place," so +well observed as here. The reckless and the prodigal are found here as +every where else, but they are marked exceptions. Nine-tenths of those +who have a competence know what income they have, and are careful not to +spend more. A Duchess will say to a mere acquaintance, "I cannot afford" +a proposed outlay—an avowal rarely and reluctantly made by an American, +even in moderate circumstances. She means simply that other demands upon +her income are such as to forbid the contemplated expenditure, though +she could of course afford this if she did not deem those of prior +consequence. No Englishman is ashamed to be economical, nor to have it +known that he is so. Whether his annual expenditure be fifty pounds or +fifty thousand, he tries to get his money's worth. I have been +admonished and instructed by the systematic economy which is practiced +even in great houses. You never see a lighted candle set down carelessly +and left to burn an hour or two to no purpose, as is so common with us; +if you leave one burning, some one speedily comes and quietly +extinguishes the flame. Said a friend: "You never see any paper in the +streets here as you do in New-York [swept out of the stores, &c.] the +English throw nothing away." We speak of the vast parks and lawns of the +Aristocracy as so much land taken out of use and devoted to mere +ostentation; but all that land is growing timber or furnishing +pasturage—often both. The owner gratifies his taste or his pride by +reserving it from cultivation, but he does not forget the main chance. +So of his Fisheries and even Game-Preserves. Of course, there <i>are</i> +noblemen who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>would scorn to sell their Venison or Partridges; but Game +is abundant in the hotels and refectories—too much so for half of it to +have been obtained by poaching. Few whose estates might yield them ten +thousand a year are content with nine thousand.</p> + +<p>The English are eminently a <i>practical</i> people. They have a living faith +in the potency of the Horse-Guards, and in the maxim that "Safe bind is +sure find." They have a sincere affection for roast beef. They are quite +sure "the mob" will do no harm if it is vigilantly watched and +thoroughly overawed. Their obstreperous loyalty might seem inconsistent +with this unideal character, but it is only seeming. When the portly and +well-to-do Briton vociferates "God save the Queen!" with intense +enthusiasm, he means "God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my +consols, my expectations." The fervor of an Englishman's loyalty is +usually in a direct ratio with the extent of his material possessions. +The poor like the Queen personally, and like to gaze at royal pageantry; +but they are not fanatically loyal. One who has seen Gen. Jackson or +Harry Clay publicly enter New-York or any other city finds it hard to +realize that the acclamations accorded on like occasions to Queen +Victoria can really be deemed enthusiastic.</p> + +<p><i>Gravity</i> is a prominent feature of the English character. A hundred +Englishmen of any class, forgathered for any purpose of conference or +recreation, will have less merriment in the course of their sitting than +a score of Frenchmen or Americans would have in a similar time. Hence it +is generally remarked that the English of almost any class show to least +advantage when attempting to enjoy themselves. They are as awkward at a +frolic as a bear at a dance. Their manner of expressing themselves is +literal and prosaic; the American tendency to hyperbole and exaggeration +grates harshly on their ears. They can only account for it by a +presumption of ill breeding on the part <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>of the utterer. Forward lads +and "fast" people are scarce and uncurrent here. A Western "screamer," +eager to fight or drink, to run horses or shoot for a wager, and +boasting that he had "the prettiest sister, the likeliest wife and the +ugliest dog in all Kentuck," would be no where else so out of place and +incomprehensible as in this country, no matter in what circle of +society.</p> + +<p>The <i>Women</i> of England, of whatever rank, studiously avoid peculiarities +of dress or manner and repress idiosyncrasies of character. No where +else that I have ever been could so keen an observer as Pope have +written:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Nothing so true as what you once let fall;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.75em;">Most women have no character at all."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Each essays to think, appear and speak as nearly according to the +orthodox standard of Womanhood as possible. Hardly one who has any +reputation to save could tolerate the idea of attending a Woman's Rights +Convention or appearing in a Bloomer any more than that of standing on +her head in the Haymarket or walking a tight-rope across the pit of +Drury Lane. So far as I can judge, the ideas which underlie the Woman's +Rights movement are not merely repugnant but utterly inconceivable to +the great mass of English women, the last Westminster Review to the +contrary notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>I do not judge whether they are better or worse for this. Their +conversation is certainly tamer and less piquant than that of the +American or the French ladies. I think it evinces a less profound and +varied culture than that of their German sisters; but none will deny +them the possession of sterling and amiable qualities. Their physical +development is unsurpassed, and for good reasons—their climate is mild +and they take more exercise than our women do. Their fullness of bust is +a topic of general admiration among the foreigners now so plentiful in +England, and their complexions are marvelously fair and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>delicate. +Except by a very few in Ireland, I have not seen them equaled. And, on +the whole, I do not know that there are better mothers than the English, +especially of the middle classes.</p> + +<p>I did not find the Aristocracy so remarkable for physical perfection and +beauty as I had been taught to expect. Some of them are large, well +formed and vigorous; but I think the caste is not noticeably so. Among +the ladies of "gentle blood," however, there is more of the asserted +aristocratic symmetry and beauty than among the men.</p> + +<p>The general stiffness of English manners has often been noted. Not that +a gentleman is aught but a gentleman anywhere, but courtesy is certainly +not the Englishman's best point. No where else will a perplexed stranger +inquiring his way receive more surly answers or oftener be refused any +answer at all than in London. Even the policeman who is paid to direct +you, replies to your inquiry with the shortest and gruffest monosyllable +that will do.</p> + +<p>Awkwardness of manner pervades all classes; the most thoroughly natural, +modest and easy mannered man I met was a Duke, whose ancestors had been +dukes for many generations; but some of the most elaborately ill bred +men I met also inherited titles of nobility. And, while I have been +thrown into the company of Englishmen of all ranks who were cordial, +kind, and every way models of good breeding, I have also met here more +constitutionally arrogant and, unbearable persons than had crossed my +path in all my previous experience. These, too, are found in all ranks; +I think the Military service exhibits some of the worst specimens. But +Bull in authority anywhere is apt to exhibit his horns to those whom he +suspects of being nobodies. Elevation is unpropitious to the display of +his more amiable qualities.</p> + +<p>I have elsewhere spoken of the indifferent figure made by most +Englishmen at public speaking. Many of them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>say good things; hardly one +delivers them aptly or gracefully. Any Frenchman having Lord Granville's +brains would make a great deal more out of them in a speech. I attribute +this National defect to two causes; first, the habitually prosaic level +of British thought and conversation; next, the intense pride which is +also a National characteristic. John is called out at a festive +gathering, and springs to his feet really intending to be clever. But +the next moment the thought strikes him—"This is beneath my dignity, +after all. Why should I subject myself to miscellaneous criticism? Why +put myself on the verdict of this crowd? Does it become a gentleman of +my standing to fish for their plaudits? What will success amount to, if +attained?" Or else he criticises his own thoughts and meditated forms of +expression, pronounces them tame, trite or feeble, and recoils from +their enunciation as unworthy of his abilities, position and reputation. +The result is the same in either case—he hesitates, blunders, chokes, +and finally stammers out a few sentences and subsides into his seat, +sweating at every pore, red-faced with chagrin, vexed with himself and +every body else on account of his failure, which might not have +occurred, and certainly would not have been so palpable, had his +self-consciousness been less diseased and extravagant.</p> + +<p>I have said that the British are not in manner a winning people. Their +self-conceit is the principal reason. They have solid and excellent +qualities, but their self-complacency is exorbitant and unparalleled. +The majority are not content with esteeming Marlborough and Wellington +the greatest Generals and Nelson the first Admiral the world ever saw, +but claim alike supremacy for their countrymen in every field of human +effort. They deem Machinery and Manufactures, Railroads and Steamboats, +essentially British products. They regard Morality and Philanthropy as +in effect peculiar to "the fast anchored isle," and Liberty as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>an idea +uncomprehended, certainly unrealized, any where else. They are +horror-stricken at the toleration of Slavery in the United States, in +seeming ignorance that our Congress has no power to abolish it and that +their Parliament, which <i>had</i> ample power, refused to exercise it +through generations down to the last quarter of a century. They cannot +even consent to go to Heaven on a road common to other nations, but must +seek admission through a private gate of their own, stoutly maintaining +that their local Church is the very one founded by the Apostles, and +that all others are more or less apostate and schismatic. Other Nations +have their weak points—the French, Glory; the Spaniards, Orthodoxy; the +Yankees, Rapacity; but Bull plunders India and murders Ireland, yet +deems himself the mirror of Beneficence and feeds his self-righteousness +by resolving not to fellowship slaveholders of a different fashion from +himself; he is perpetually fighting and extending his possessions all +over the globe, yet wondering that French and Russian ambition <i>will</i> +keep the world always in hot water. Our Yankee self-conceit and +self-laudation are immoderate; but nobody else is so perfect on all +points—himself being the judge—as Bull.</p> + +<p>There is one other aspect of the British character which impressed me +unfavorably. Everything is conducted here with a sharp eye to business. +For example, the manufacturing and trafficking classes are just now +enamored of Free Trade—that is, freedom to buy raw staples and sell +their fabrics all over the world—from which they expect all manner of +National and individual benefits. In consequence, these classes seize +every opportunity, however unsuitable, to commend that policy to the +strangers now among them as dictated by wisdom, philanthropy and +beneficence, and to stigmatize its opposite as impelled by narrow-minded +selfishness and only upheld by prejudice and ignorance. The French widow +who appended to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>high-wrought eulogium engraved on her husband's +tombstone that "His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop No 16 Rue +St. Denis," had not a keener eye to business than these apostles of the +Economic faith. No consideration of time or place is regarded; in +festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where +men of various lands and views are notoriously congregated, and where no +reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the +attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to +interlard their harangues with advice to foreigners substantially +thus—"N. B. Protection is a great humbug and great waste. Better +abolish your tariffs, stop your factories and buy at our shops. We're +the boys to give you thirteen pence for every shilling." I cannot say +how this affected others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered +than impolitic.</p> + +<p>Yet the better qualities in the English character decidedly +preponderate. Naturally, this people love justice, manly dealing, fair +play; and though I think the shop-keeping attitude is unfavorable to +this tendency, it has not effaced it. The English have too much pride to +be tricky or shabby, even in the essentially corrupting relation of +buyer and seller. And the Englishman who may be repulsive in his +out-of-door intercourse or spirally inclined in his dealings, is +generally tender and truthful in his home. There only is he seen to the +best advantage. When the day's work is over and the welcome shelter of +his domestic roof is attained, he husks off his formality with his +great-coat and appears to his family and his friends in a character +unknown to the outer world. The quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of +an English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. These Britons, like +our own people, are by nature not demonstrative; they do not greet their +wives before strangers with a kiss, on returning from the day's +business, as a Frenchman may do; and if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>very glad to see you on +meeting, they are not likely to say so in words; but they cherish warm +emotions under a hard crust of reserve and shyness, and lavish all their +wealth of affection on the little band collected within the magic circle +of Home. Said an American who had spent two years as a public lecturer +throughout Great Britain: "Circumstances have introduced me favorably to +the intimacy and regard of many English families, and I can scarcely +recollect one which was not in its own sphere, a model household." My +own opportunities have been very limited, yet so far as they go they +tend to maintain the justice of this remark. There are of course +exceptions, but they would be more abundant elsewhere. And I regard the +almost insuperable obstacles here interposed to the granting of +Divorces, no matter on what grounds, as one cause of the general harmony +and happiness of English homes.</p> + +<p>But I must not linger. The order to embark is given; our good ship +Baltic is ready; another hour and I shall have left England and this +Continent, probably for ever. With a fervent good-bye to the friends I +leave on this side of the Atlantic, I turn my steps gladly and proudly +toward my own loved Western home—toward the land wherein Man enjoys +larger opportunities than elsewhere to develop the better and the worse +aspects of his nature, and where Evil and Good have a freer course, a +wider arena for their inevitable struggles, than is allowed them among +the heavy fetters and cast-iron forms of this rigid and wrinkled Old +World. Doubtless, those struggles will long be arduous and trying: +doubtless, the dictates of Duty will there often bear sternly away from +the halcyon bowers of Popularity; doubtless, he who would be singly and +wholly right must there encounter ordeals as severe as those which here +try the souls of the would-be champions of Progress and Liberty. But +Political Freedom, such as white men enjoy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>in the United States, and +the mass do not enjoy in Europe, not even in Britain, is a basis for +confident and well-grounded hope; the running stream, though turbid, +tends ever to self-purification; the obstructed, stagnant pool grows +daily more dank and loathsome. Believing most firmly in the ultimate and +perfect triumph of Good over Evil, I rejoice in the existence and +diffusion of that Liberty which, while it intensifies the contest, +accelerates the consummation. Neither blind to her errors nor a pander +to her vices, I rejoice to feel that every hour henceforth till I see +her shores must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, +whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has taught me +to appreciate more clearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a +glow of unwonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward +the setting sun, and strive to realize that only some ten days separate +me from those I know and love best on earth. Hark! the last gun +announces that the mail-boat has left us, and that we are fairly afloat +on our ocean journey: the shores of Europe recede from our vision; the +watery waste is all around us; and now, with God above and Death below, +our gallant bark and her clustered company together brave the dangers of +the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy watch over our onward path and bring +us safely to our several homes; for to die away from home and kindred +seems one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. This mortal +tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean shroud; this spirit reluctantly +resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine; these eyes close +regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospitality of the sullen +and stormy main. No! let me see once more the scenes so well remembered +and beloved; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of Friendship and +hear the thrilling accents of proved Affection, and when sooner or later +the hour of mortal agony <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes +that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that +congenial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or hated, is still</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"My own green land forever!"</span><br /> +</p> + + +<br /> +<h2>THE END.</h2> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen">Transcriber's Note</p> + +Inconsistent hyphenation, punctuation and +spelling in the original document have been +preserved. +<br /> +<br /> +Periods have been added to dollar amounts. +<br /> +<br /> +Typographical errors corrected in the text: +<br /> +<br /> +Page 16 merchandize changed to merchandise<br /> +Page 26 Sythes changed to Scythes<br /> +Page 31 Ignots changed to ingots<br /> +Page 57 skilful changed to skillful<br /> +Page 60 Cöoperative changed to Coöperative<br /> +Page 63 then changed to than<br /> +Page 151 Germains changed to Germain<br /> +Page 161 armfull changed to armful<br /> +Page 166 extraneous double quote removed<br /> +Page 181 warming changed to warning<br /> +Page 195 Belvidere changed to Belvedere<br /> +Page 207 Belvidere changed to Belvedere<br /> +Page 212 Reactionist changed to Reäctionist<br /> +Page 213 Hew-Haven changed to New-Haven<br /> +Page 277 bofogged changed to befogged<br /> +Page 310 detrimen changed to detriment<br /> +Page 349 Believng changed to Believing<br /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Glances at Europe, by Horace Greeley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLANCES AT EUROPE *** + +***** This file should be named 24930-h.htm or 24930-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/3/24930/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Glances at Europe + In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, + Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. + +Author: Horace Greeley + +Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24930] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLANCES AT EUROPE *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + + + + + + + + + GLANCES AT EUROPE: + + IN A + + Series of Letters + + FROM + + GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, &c. + + DURING + + THE SUMMER OF 1851. + + + + INCLUDING NOTICES OF THE + + GREAT EXHIBITION, OR WORLD'S FAIR. + + + + BY HORACE GREELEY. + + + + NEW YORK: + DEWITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS. + 1851. + + + + ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by + + DEWITT & DAVENPORT, + + in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for + the Southern District of New York. + + + + _R. Craighead, Printer and Stereotyper,_ + _112 Fulton Street._ + + + + +NO APOLOGY. + + +If there be any reader impelled to dip into notes of foreign travel +mainly by a solicitude to perfect his knowledge of the manners and +habits of good society, to which end he is anxious to learn how my Lord +Shuffleton waltzes, what wine Baron Hob-and-nob patronizes, which tints +predominate in Lady Highflyer's dress, and what is the probable color of +the Duchess of Doublehose's garters, he will only waste his time by +looking through this volume. Even if the species of literature he +admires had not already been overdone, I have neither taste nor capacity +for increasing it. It was my fortune sometimes while in Europe to "sit +at good men's feasts," but I brought nothing away from them for the +public, not even the names of my entertainers and their notable guests. +If I had felt at liberty to sketch what struck me as the personal +characteristics of some gentlemen of note or rank whom I met, especially +in England, I do not doubt that the popular interest in those letters +would have been materially heightened. I did not, however, deem myself +authorized to do this. In a few instances, where individuals challenged +observation and criticism by consenting to address public gatherings, I +have spoken of the matter and manner of their speeches and indicated the +impressions they made on me. Beyond this I did not feel authorized to +go, even in the case of public men speaking to the public through +reports for the daily press; while those whom I only met privately or in +the discharge of kindred duties, as Jurors at the Exhibition, I have not +felt at liberty to bring before the public at all. Having thus explained +what will seem to many a lack of piquancy, in the following pages, +implying a privation of social opportunities, I drop the subject. + +No one can realize more fully than the writer the utter absence of +literary merit in these Letters. He does not deprecate nor seek to +disarm criticism; he only asks that his sketches be taken for what they +profess and strive to be, and for nothing else. That they are +superficial, their title proclaims; that they were hurriedly written, +with no thought of style nor of enduring interest, all whom they are +likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling +in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes of his +habitual readers or at least of their ancestors, cannot well refrain +from writing of what he sees and hears; his observations have a value in +the eyes of those readers which will be utterly unrecognized by the +colder public outside of the sympathizing circle. For the habitual +readers of The Tribune especially were these Letters written, and their +original purpose has already been accomplished. Here they would have +rested, but for the unsolicited offer of the publishers to reproduce +them in a book at their own cost and risk, and on terms ensuring a fair +share of any proceeds of their sale to the writer. Such offers from +publishers to authors who have no established reputation as book-makers +are rarely made and even more rarely refused. Therefore, Sir Critic! +whose dog-eared manuscript has circulated from one publisher's drawer to +another until its initial pages are scarcely readable, while the ample +residue retain all their pristine freshness of hue, you are welcome to +your revenge! Your novel may be tedious beyond endurance; your epic a +preposterous waste of once valuable foolscap; but your slashing review +is sure to be widely read and enjoyed. + +My aim in writing these Letters was to give a clear and vivid +daguerreotype of the districts I traversed and the incidents which came +under my observation. To this end I endeavored to sec, so far as +practicable, through my own eyes rather than those of others. To this +end, I generally shunned guide-books, even those of the "indispensable" +Murray, and relied mainly for routes and distances on the shilling +hand-book of Bradshaw. That I have been misled into many inaccuracies +and some gross blunders as to noted edifices, works of art, &c., is +quite probable; but that I have truthfully though hastily indicated the +topography, rural aspects, agricultural adaptations and more obvious +social characteristics of the countries I traversed, I am nevertheless +confident. I made a point of penning my impressions of each day's +journey within the succeeding twenty-four hours if practicable, for I +found that even a day's postponement impaired the distinctness of my +recollections of the ever-varying panorama of hill and dale, moor and +mountain, with long, level or undulating stretches of intermingled +woods, grain, grass, &c., &c. I trust the picture I have attempted to +give of out-door life in Western Europe, the workers in its fields and +the clusters in its streets, will be recognized by competent judges as +substantially correct. + +The opinions expressed with respect to national characteristics or +aptitude will of course appear crude and rash to those who regard them +as based exclusively on the few days' personal observation in which they +may seem to have originated. To those who regard them as grounded in +some knowledge of history and of the present political and social +condition of those nations, corrected and modified indeed by the +personal observation aforesaid, their crudity and audacity will be +somewhat less astounding. No one will doubt that other travelers in +Europe have been far better qualified to observe and to judge than I +was, yet I see and think, and am not forbidden to speak. We know already +how Europe appears in the eyes of the learned and wise; but if some +Nepaulese Embassador or vagrant Camanche were to publish his "first +impressions" of Great Britain or Italy, should we utterly refuse to open +it because Baird or Thackeray could give us more accurate information on +that identical theme? Would not the Camanche's criticisms possess some +value _as_ his, quite apart from their intrinsic worth or worthlessness? +Might they not afford some insight into Indian modes of thought, if none +into European modes of life? + +I deeply regret that the general impression made on me by the Italians +was such that my estimate of their character and capabilities gave +offence to their brethren now settled in this country. Their feeling is +a natural, creditable one; I will not reply to their strictures, yet I +must let what I wrote in Italy of the Italians stand unmodified. I shall +be most happy indeed to confess my mistake whenever it shall have been +proved such, but I cannot as yet perceive it. And to those who, not +unreasonably, dilate on the rashness of such judgment on the part of one +who was only some few weeks in Italy, and did not even understand its +people's language, I beg leave to commend a perusal of "Casa Guidi +Windows," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I had not seen it when I wrote, +and the coincidence of its estimate of the Italians with mine is of +course utterly unpremeditated. Mrs. Browning speaks Italian and knows +the Italians; she lived among them throughout the late eventful years; +she sympathizes with their sufferings and prays for their deliverance, +but without shutting her eyes to the faults and grave defects of +character which impede that deliverance if they do not render it +doubtful. To those who will read her brief but noble poem, I need say no +more; on those who refuse to read it, words from me would be wasted. +Believing that among the most imminent perils of the Republican cause in +Europe is the danger of a premature, sanguinary, fruitless insurrection +in Italy, I have done what I could to prevent any such catastrophe. When +Liberty shall have been re-vindicated in France and shall thereupon have +triumphed in Germany, the reign of despotism will speedily terminate in +Italy; until that time, I do not see how it can wisely be even resisted. + +A word of explanation as to the "World's Fair" must close this too long +introduction. The letters in this volume which refer to the great +Exhibition of Industry were mainly written when the persistent and +unsparing disparagement of the British Press had created a general +impression that the American Exposition was a mortifying failure, and +when even some of the Americans in Europe, taking their cue from that +Press, were declaring themselves "ashamed of their country" because of +such failure. Of course, these letters were written to correct the then +prevalent errors. More recently, the tide has completely turned, until +the danger now imminent is that of extravagant if not groundless +exultation, so that this Fair would be treated somewhat differently if I +were now to write about it. The truth lies midway between the extremes +already indicated. Our share in the Exhibition was creditable to us as a +nation not yet a century old, situated three to five thousand miles from +London; it embraced many articles of great practical value though +uncouth in form and utterly unattractive to the mere sight-seer; other +nations will profit by it and we shall lose no credit; but it fell far +short of what it might have been, and did not fairly exhibit the +progress and present condition of the Useful Arts in this country. We +can and must do better next time, and that without calling on the +Federal Treasury to pay a dollar of the expense. + +Friends in Europe! I may never again meet the greater number of you on +earth; allow me thus informally to tender you my hearty thanks for many +well remembered acts of unsought kindness and unexpected hospitality. +That your future years may be many and prosperous, and your embarkation +on the Great Voyage which succeeds the journey of life may be serene and +hopeful, is the fervent prayer of + + Yours, sincerely, + H. G. + + _New-York, October 1st, 1851._ + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + _Page_ + + I. Crossing the Atlantic, 9 + + II. Opening of the Fair, 19 + + III. The Great Exhibition, 29 + + IV. England--Hampton Court, 38 + + V. The Future of Labor--Day-Break, 47 + + VI. British Progress, 53 + + VII. London--New-York, 62 + + VIII. The Exhibition, 69 + + IX. Sights in London, 77 + + X. Political Economy, as Studied at the World's + Exhibition, 87 + + XI. Royal Sunshine, 96 + + XII. The Flax-Cotton Revolution, 107 + + XIII. Leaving the Exhibition, 113 + + XIV. London to Paris, 120 + + XV. The Future of France, 127 + + XVI. Paris, Social and Moral, 134 + + XVII. Paris, Political and Social, 141 + + XVIII. The Palaces of France, 149 + + XIX. France, Central and Eastern, 157 + + XX. Lyons to Turin, 164 + + XXI. Sardinia--Italy--Freedom, 174 + + XXII. Pisa--The Leaning Tower (Letter Missing), 184 + + XXIII. First Day in the Papal States, 186 + + XXIV. The Eternal City, 191 + + XXV. St. Peter's, 201 + + XXVI. The Romans of To-day, 208 + + XXVII. Central Italy--Florence, 214 + + XXVIII. Eastern Italy--The Po, 222 + + XXIX. Venice, 231 + + XXX. Lombardy, 238 + + XXXI. Switzerland, 248 + + XXXII. Lucerne to Basle, 256 + + XXXIII. Germany, 261 + + XXXIV. Belgium, 268 + + XXXV. Paris to London, 273 + + XXXVI. Universal Peace Congress, 279 + + XXXVII. America at the World's Fair, 286 + + XXXVIII. England, Central and Northern, 293 + + XXXIX. Scotland, 303 + + XL. Ireland--Ulster, 308 + + XLI. West of Ireland--Atlantic Mails, 312 + + XLII. Ireland--South, 320 + + XLIII. Prospects of Ireland, 328 + + XLIV. The English, 340 + + + + +GLANCES AT EUROPE. + + + + +I. + +CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. + + + LIVERPOOL (Eng.), April 28th, 1851. + +The leaden skies, the chilly rain, the general out-door aspect and +prospect of discomfort prevailing in New York when our good steamship +BALTIC cast loose from her dock at noon on the 16th inst., were not +particularly calculated to inspire and exhilarate the goodly number who +were then bidding adieu, for months at least, to home, country, and +friends. The most sanguine of the inexperienced, however, appealed for +solace to the wind, which they, so long as the City completely sheltered +us on the east, insisted was blowing from "a point _West_ of +North"--whence they very logically deduced that the north-east storm, +now some thirty-six to forty-eight hours old, had spent its force, and +would soon give place to a serene and lucid atmosphere. I believe the +Barometer at no time countenanced this augury, which a brief experience +sufficed most signally to confute. Before we had passed Coney Island, it +was abundantly certain that our freshening breeze hailed directly from +Labrador and the icebergs beyond, and had no idea of changing its +quarters. By the time we were fairly outside of Sandy Hook, we were +struggling with as uncomfortable and damaging a cross-sea as had ever +enlarged _my_ slender nautical experience; and in the course of the next +hour the high resolves, the valorous defiances, of the scores who had +embarked in the settled determination that they _would not_ be sea-sick, +had been exchanged for pallid faces and heaving bosoms. Of our two +hundred passengers, possibly one-half were able to face the dinner-table +at 4 P. M.; less than one-fourth mustered to supper at 7; while a stern +but scanty remnant--perhaps twenty in all--answered the summons to +breakfast next morning. + +I was not in any one of these categories. So long as I was able, I +walked the deck, and sought to occupy my eyes, my limbs, my brain, with +something else than the sea and its perturbations. The attempt, however, +proved a signal failure. By the time we were five miles off the Hook, I +was a decided case; another hour laid me prostrate, though I refused to +leave the deck; at six o'clock a friend, finding me recumbent and +hopeless in the smokers' room, persuaded and helped me to go below. +There I unbooted and swayed into my berth, which endured me, perforce, +for the next twenty-four hours. I then summoned strength to crawl on +deck, because, while I remained below, my sufferings were barely less +than while walking above, and my recovery hopeless. + +I shall not harrow up the souls nor the stomachs of landsmen, as yet +reveling in blissful ignorance of its tortures, with any description of +sea-sickness. They will know all in ample season; or if not, so much the +better. But naked honesty requires a correction of the prevalent error +that this malady is necessarily transient and easily overcome. Thousands +who imagine they have been sea-sick on some River or Lake steamboat, or +even during a brief sleigh-ride, are annually putting to sea with as +little necessity or urgency as suffices to send them on a jaunt to +Niagara or the White Mountains. They suppose they may very probably be +"qualmish" for a few hours, but that (they fancy) will but highten the +general enjoyment of the voyage. Now it is quite true that any green +sea-goer _may_ be sick for a few hours only; he may even not be sick at +all. But the _probability_ is very far from this, especially when the +voyage is undertaken in any other than one of the four sunniest, +blandest months in the year. Of every hundred who cross the Atlantic for +the first time, I am confident that two-thirds endure more than they had +done in all the five years preceding--more than they would do during two +months' hard labor as convicts in a State Prison. Of _our_ two hundred, +I think fifty did not see a healthy or really happy hour during the +passage; while as many more were sufferers for at least half the time. +The other hundred were mainly Ocean's old acquaintances, and on that +account treated more kindly; but many of these had some trying hours. + +Utter indifference to life and all its belongings is one of the +characteristics of a genuine case of sea-sickness No. 1. I enjoyed some +opportunities of observing this during our voyage. For instance: One +evening I was standing by a sick gentleman who had dragged himself or +been carried on deck and laid down on a water-proof mattress which +raised him two or three inches from the floor. Suddenly a great wave +broke square over the bow of the ship and rushed aft in a river through +either gangway--the two streams reuniting beyond the purser's and +doctor's offices, just where the sick man lay. Any live man would have +jumped to his feet as suddenly as if a rattlesnake were whizzing in his +blanket; but the sufferer never moved, and the languid coolness of eye +wherewith he regarded the rushing flood which made an island of him was +most expressive. Happily, the wave had nearly spent its force and was +now so rapidly diffused that his refuge was not quite overflowed. + +Of course, those who have voyaged and not suffered will pronounce my +general picture grossly exaggerated; wherein they will be faithful to +their own experience, as I am to mine. I write for the benefit of the +uninitiated, to warn them, not against braving the ocean when they must +or ought, but against resorting to it for pastime. Voyaging cannot be +enjoyment to most of them; it must be suffering. The sonorous rhymesters +in praise of "A Life on the Ocean Wave," "The Sea! the Sea! the Open +Sea!" &c. were probably never out of sight of land in a gale in their +lives. If they were ever "half seas over," the liquid which buoyed them +up was not brine, but wine, which is quite another affair. And, as they +are continually luring people out of soundings who might far better have +remained on terra firma, I lift up my voice in warning against them. "A +home on the raging deep," is _not_ a scene of enjoyment, even to the +sailor, who suffers only from hardship and exposure; no other laborer's +wages are so dearly earned as his, and his season of enjoyment is not +the voyage but the stay in port. He is compelled to work hardest just +when other out-door laborers deem working at all out of the question. To +him Night and Day are alike in their duties as in their exemptions; +while the more furious and blinding the tempest, the greater must be his +exertions, perils and privations. In fair weather his hours of rest are +equal to his hours of labor; in bad weather he may have _no_ hours of +rest whatever. Should he find such, he flings himself into his bunk for +a few hours in his wet clothes, and turns out smoking like a coal-pit at +the next summons to duty, to be drenched afresh in the cold affusions of +sea and sky--and so on. An old sea-captain assured me that his crew were +sometimes in wet clothing throughout an Atlantic voyage. + +Our weather was certainly bad, though not the worst. We started on our +course, after leaving Sandy-Hook, in the teeth of a North-Easter, and it +clung to us like a brother. It varied to East North-East, East +South-East, South East, and occasionally condescended to blow a little +from nearly North or nearly South, but we had not six hours of Westerly +or semi-Westerly wind throughout the passage. There may have been two +days in all, though I think not, in which some of the principal sails +could be made to draw; but they were necessarily set so sharply at +angles with the ship as to do little good. Usually, one or two trysails +were all the canvass displayed, and they rather served to steady the +ship than to aid her progress; while for days together, stripped to her +naked spars, she was compelled to push her bowsprit into the wind's very +eye by the force of her engines alone. And that wind, though no +hurricane, had a will of its own; while the waves, rolled perpetually +against her bow by so long a succession of easterly winds, were a +decided impediment to our progress. I doubt whether there is another +steamship which could have made the passage safely and without extra +effort in less time than the Baltic did. + +Our weather was not all bad, though we had no thoroughly fair day--no +day entirely free from rain--none in which the decks were dry +throughout. In fact, the spray often kept them thoroughly drenched, +especially aft, when there was no rain at all. During four or five of +the twelve days we had some hour or more of semi-sunshine either at +morning, midday or toward night. The only gales of much account were +those of our first night off Long Island and our last before seeing land +(Saturday), when on coming into soundings off the coast of Ireland, we +had a very decided blow and (the ship having become very light by the +consumption of most of her coal) the worst kind of a sea. It gave me my +sickest hour, though not my worst day. + +Our dreariest days were Wednesday and Thursday, 23d and 24th, when we +were a little more than half way across. With the wind precisely ahead +and very strong, the skies black and lowering, a pretty constant rain, +and a driving, blinding spray which drenched every thing above the +decks, themselves ankle-deep in water, I cannot well imagine how two +hundred fellow-passengers, driven down and kept down in the cabins and +state-rooms of a steamship, could well be treated to a more dismal +prospect. I thought the philosophy even of the card-players (who were by +far the most industrious and least miserable class among us) was tried +by it. + +Spacious as the Baltic is, two hundred passengers with fifty or sixty +attendants, confined for days together to her cabins, fill her quite +full enough. For those who are thoroughly well, there are society, +reading, eating, play and other pastimes; but for the sick and helpless, +who can neither read nor play, whom even conversation fatigues, and to +whom the under-deck smell, especially in connection with food, is +intensely revolting, I can imagine no heavier hours short of absolute +torture. Having endured these, I had nothing beyond them to dread, and +it was rather a satisfaction, on reaching the Irish coast, to be greeted +with a succession of hail-squalls--to work up the Channel against a wet +North-Easter, and be landed in Liverpool (after a tedious detention for +lack of water on the bar at the mouth of the Mersey) under sullen skies +and in a dripping rain. I wanted to see the thing out, and would have +taken amiss any deceitful smiles of Fortune after I had learned to +dispense with her favors. + +There yet remains the grateful duty of speaking of the mitigations of +our trials. And in the first place, the Baltic herself is unquestionably +one of the safest and most commodious sea-boats in the world. She is +probably not the fastest, especially with a strong head wind and sea, +because of her great bulk and the area of resistance she presents both +above and below the water-line; but for strength and excellence of +construction, steadiness of movement, and perfection of accommodations, +she can have no superior. Her wheels never missed a revolution from the +time she discharged her New-York pilot till the time she stopped them to +take on board his Liverpool counterpart, off Holyhead: and her sailing +qualities, tested under the most unfavorable auspices, are also +admirable. She needs but good weather to make the run in ten days from +dock to dock; she would have done it this time had the winds been the +reverse of what they were or as the Asia had them before her. The luck +cannot always be against her. + +Praise of commanders and officers of steamships has become so common +that it has lost all emphasis, all force. I presume this is for the most +part deserved; for it is not likely that the great responsibility of +sailing these ships would be entrusted to any other than the very +fittest hands; and this is a matter wherein mistakes may by care be +avoided. The qualities of a seaman, a commander, do not lie dormant; the +ocean tries and proves its men; while in this service the whole +traveling public are the observers and judges. But such a voyage as we +have just made tries the temper as well as the capacity, it calls into +exercise every faculty, and lays bare defects if such there be. To sweep +gaily on before a fresh, fair breeze, is comparatively easy, but few +landsmen can realize the patient assiduity and nautical skill required +to extract propelling power from winds determined to be dead ahead. How +nicely the sails must be set at the sharpest angle with the course of +the vessel, and sometimes that course itself varied a point or two to +make them draw at all; how often they must be shifted, or reefed, or +furled; how much labor and skill must be put in requisition to secure a +very slight addition to the speed of the ship--all this I am not seaman +enough to describe, though I can admire. And during the entire voyage, +with its many vicissitudes, I did not hear one harsh or profane word +from an officer, one sulky or uncivil response from a subordinate. And +the perfection of Capt. Comstock's commandership in my eyes was that, +though always on the alert and giving direction to every movement, he +did not need to command half so much nor to make himself anything like +so conspicuous as an ordinary man would. I willingly believe that some +share of the merit of this is due to the admirable qualities of his +assistants, especially Lieuts. Duncan and Hunter, of the U. S. Navy. + +In the way of food and attendance, nothing desirable was wanting but +Health and Appetite. Four meals per day were regularly provided--at 8, +12, 4 and 7 o'clock respectively--which would favorably compare with +those proffered at any but the very best Hotels; and some of the +dinners--that of the last Sunday especially--would have done credit to +the Astor or Irving. Of course I state this with the reservation that +the best water and the best milk that can be had at sea are to me +unpalatable, and that, even when I can eat under a deck, it is a penance +to do so. But these drawbacks are Ocean's fault, or mine; not the +Baltic's. Many of the passengers ate their four meals regularly, after +the first day out, with abundant relish; and one young New-Yorker added +a _fifth_, by taking a supper at ten each night with a capital appetite, +after doing full justice to the four regular meals. If he could only +patent his digestion and warrant it, he might turn his back on +merchandise evermore. + +The attendance on the sick was the best feature of all. Aside from the +constant and kind assiduities of Dr. Crary, the ship's physician, the +patience and watchfulness with which the sick were nursed and tended, +their wants sought out, their wishes anticipated, were remarkable. Many +had three meals per day served to them separately in their berths or on +deck, and even at unseasonable hours, and often had special delicacies +provided for them, without a demur or sulky look. As there was no extra +charge for this, it certainly surpassed any preconception on my part of +steamship amenity. I trust the ever-moving attendants received something +more than their wages for their arduous labors: they certainly deserved +it. + +The notable incidents of our passage were very few. An iceberg was seen +to the northward one morning about sunrise, by those who were on deck at +that hour; but it kept at a respectful distance, and we thought the +example worthy of our imitation. I understand that the rising sun's rays +on its surface produced a fine effect. A single school of whales +exhibited their flukes for our edification--so I heard. Several vessels +were seen the first morning out, while we were in the Gulf Stream: one +or two from day to day, and of course a number as we neared the entrance +of the Channel on this side; but there were days wherein we saw no sail +but our own; and I think we traversed nearly a thousand miles at one +time on this great highway of nations, without seeing one. Such facts +give some idea of the ocean's immensity, but I think few can realize, +save by experiment, the weary length of way from New-York to Liverpool, +nor the quantity of blue water which separates the two points. Friends +who went to California by Cape-Horn and were sea-sick, I proffer you my +heart felt sympathies!--It was some consolation to me, even when most +ill and impatient, to reflect that the gales, so adverse to us, were +most propitious to the many emigrant-freighted packets which at this +season are conveying thousands to our country's shores, and whose clouds +of canvas occasionally loomed upon us in the distance. What were our +"light afflictions" compared with those of the multitudes crowded into +_their_ stifling steerages, so devoid of conveniences and comforts! +Speed on, O favored coursers of the deep, bearing swiftly those +suffering exiles to the land of Hope and Freedom! + +We had a law trial by way of variety last Saturday--Capt. Comstock +having been duly indicted and arraigned for _Humbug_, in permitting us +to be so long beset by all manner of easterly winds with never a puff +from the westward. Hon. Ashbel Smith, from Texas, officiated as Chief +Justice; a Jury of six ladies and six gentlemen were empaneled; James T. +Brady conducted the prosecution with much wit and spirit; while AEolus, +Neptune, Capt. Cuttle, Jack Bunsby, &c. testified for the prosecution, +and Fairweather, Westwind, Brother Jonathan and Mr. Steady gave evidence +for the defence. The fun was rather heavy, but the audience was very +good natured, and whatever the witnesses lacked in wit, they made up +in extravagance of costume, so that two hours were whiled away quite +endurably. The Jury not only acquitted the Captain without leaving their +seats, but subjected the prosecutors to heavy damages (in wine) as +malicious defamers. The verdict was received with unanimous and hearty +approval. + +But I must stop and begin again. Suffice it, that, though we ought to +have landed here inside of twelve days from New York, the difference in +time (Liverpool using that of Greenwich for Railroad convenience) being +all but five hours--yet the long prevalence of Easterly winds had so +lowered the waters of the Mersey by driving those of the Channel +westerly into the Atlantic, that the pilot declined the responsibility +of taking our ship over the Bar till high water, which was nearly seven +o'clock. We then ran up opposite the City, but there was no dock-room +for the Baltic, and passengers and light baggage were ferried ashore in +a "steam-tug" which we in New York should deem unworthy to convey market +garbage. At last, after infinite delay and vexation, caused in good part +by the necessity of a custom-house scrutiny even of carpet-bags, because +men _will_ smuggle cigars ashore here, even in their pockets, we were +landed about 9 o'clock, and to-morrow I set my watch by an English sun. +There is promise of brighter skies. I shall hasten up to London to +witness the opening of the World's Fair; and so, "My Native Land, Good +Night!" + + + + +II. + +OPENING OF THE FAIR. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 1, 1851. + +Our Human Life is either comic or tragic, according to the point of view +from which we regard it. The observer will be impelled to laugh or to +weep over it, as he shall fix his attention on men's follies or their +sufferings. So of the Great Exhibition, and more especially its Royal +Inauguration, which I have just returned from witnessing. There can be +no serious doubt that the Fair has good points; I think it is a good +thing for London first, for England next, and will ultimately benefit +mankind. And yet, it would not be difficult so to depict it (and truly), +that its contrivers and managers would never think of deeming the +picture complimentary. + +But let us have the better side first by all means. The show is +certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the +excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto +seen. The Crystal Palace, which covers and protects all, is better than +any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of +inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not +merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet +built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and +varied utility. Depend on it, stone and timber will have to stand back +for iron and glass hereafter, to an extent not yet conceivable. The +triumph of Paxton is perfect, and heralds a revolution. + +The day has been very favorable--fair, bland and dry. It is now 4 P. M. +and there has been no rain since daylight, but a mere sprinkle at noon +unregarded by us insiders--the longest exemption from "falling weather" +I have known since I left New York, and I believe the daily showers or +squalls in this city reach still further back. True, even this day would +be deemed a dull one in New York, but there was a very fair imitation of +sunshine this morning, and we enjoy rather more than American moonlight +still, though the sky is partially clouded. [How can they have had the +conscience to tax _such_ light as they get up in this country?] Of +course the turn out has been immense; I estimate the number inside of +the building at thirty thousand, and I presume ten times as many went +out of their way to gaze at the Procession, though that was not much. Our +New York Fire Department could beat it; so could our Odd-Fellows.--Then +the most perfect order was preserved throughout; everything was done in +season and without botching; no accident occurred to mar the festivity, +and the general feeling was one of hearty satisfaction. If it were a new +thing to see a Queen, Court and aristocracy engaged in doing marked honor +to Industry, they certainly performed gracefully the parts allotted them, +and with none of the awkwardness or blundering which novel situations are +expected to excuse. But was the play well cast? + +The Sovereign in a monarchy is of course always in order: to be honored +for doing his whole duty; to be honored more signally if he does more +than his duty. Prince Albert's sphere as the Sovereign's consort is very +limited, and he shows rare sense and prudence in never evincing a desire +to overstep it. I think few men live who could hold his neutral and +hampered position and retain so entirely the sincere respect and esteem +of the British Nation. His labors in promoting this Exhibition began +early and have been arduous, persistent and effective. Any Inauguration +of the Fair in which he did not prominently figure would have done him +injustice. The Queen appears to be personally popular in a more direct +and positive sense. I cannot remember that any one act of her public +life has ever been condemned by the public sentiment of the Country. +Almost every body here appears to esteem it a condescension for her to +open the Exhibition as though it were a Parliament, and with far more of +personal exertion and heartiness on her part. And while I must regard +her vocation as one rather behind the intelligence of this age and +likely to go out of fashion at no distant day, yet I am sure that change +will not come through _her_ fault. I was glad to see her in the pageant +to-day, and hope she enjoyed it while ministering to the enjoyment of +others. + +But let us reverse the glass for a moment. The ludicrous, the dissonant, +the incongruous, are not excluded from the Exhibition: they cannot be +excluded from any complete picture of its Opening. The Queen, we will +say, was here by Right Divine, by right of Womanhood, by Universal +Suffrage--any how you please. The ceremonial could not have spared her. +But in inaugurating the first grand cosmopolitan Olympiad of Industry, +ought not Industry to have had some representation, some vital +recognition, in her share of the pageant? If the Queen had come in state +to the Horse-Guards to review the _elite_ of her military forces, no one +would doubt that "the Duke" should figure in the foreground, with a +brilliant staff of Generals and Colonels surrounding him. So, if she +were proceeding to open Parliament her fitting attendants would be +Ministers and Councillors of State. But what have her "Gentleman Usher +of Sword and State," "Lords in Waiting," "Master of the Horse," "Earl +Marshal," "Groom of the Stole," "Master of the Buckhounds," and such +uncouth fossils, to do with a grand Exhibition of the fruits of +Industry? What, in their official capacity, have these and theirs ever +had to do with Industry unless to burden it, or with its Products but +to consume or destroy them? The "Mistress of the Robes" would be in +place if she ever fashioned any robes, even for the Queen; so would the +"Ladies of the Bedchamber" if they did anything with beds except to +sleep in them. As the fact is, their presence only served to strengthen +the presumption that not merely their offices but that of Royalty itself +is an anachronism, and all should have deceased with the era to which +they properly belonged. It was well indeed that Paxton should have a +proud place in the procession; but he held it in no representative +capacity; he was there not in behalf of Architecture but of the Crystal +Palace. To have rendered the pageant expressive, congruous, and really a +tribute to Industry, the posts of honor next the Queen's person should +have been confided on this occasion to the children of Watt, of +Arkwright and their compeers (Napoleon's _real_ conquerors;) while +instead of Grandees and Foreign Embassadors, the heirs of Fitch, of +Fulton, of Jacquard, of Whitney, of Daguerre, &c., with the discoverers, +inventors, architects and engineers to whom the world is primarily +indebted for Canals, Railroads, Steamships, Electric Telegraphs, &c., +&c., should have been specially invited to swell the Royal cortege. To +pass over all these, and summon instead the descendants of some dozen +lucky Norman robbers, none of whom ever contemplated the personal doing +of any real work as even a remote possibility, and any of whom would +feel insulted by a report that his father or grandfather invented the +Steam Engine or Spinning Jenny, is not the fittest way to honor +Industry. The Queen's Horticulturists, Gardeners, Carpenters, +Upholsterers, Milliners, &c., would have been far more in place in the +procession than her "gold stick," "silver stick," and kindred +absurdities. + +And yet, empty and blundering as the conception of this pageant may seem +and is, there is nevertheless marrow and hope in it. "The world _does_ +move," O Galileo! carrying onward even those who forced you to deny the +truth you had demonstrated! We may well say that these gentlemen in +ribbons and stars cannot truly honor Labor while they would deem its +performance by their own sons a degradation; but the grandfathers of +these Dukes and Barons would have deemed themselves as much dishonored +by uniting in this Royal ovation to gingham weavers and boiler-makers as +these men would by being compelled to weave the cloth and forge the iron +themselves. Patience, impetuous souls! the better day dawns, though the +morning air is chilly. We shall be able to elect something else than +Generals to the Presidency before this century is out, and the Right of +every man to live by Labor--consequently, to a place where he _may_ +live, on the sole condition that he is willing to labor--stands high on +the general orders, and must soon be up for National and universal +discussion. The Earls and Dukes of a not distant day will train their +sons in schools of Agriculture, Architecture, Chemistry, Mineralogy, +&c., inspiring each to win fame and rank for himself by signal and +brilliant usefulness, instead of resting upon and wearing out the fame +won by some ancestor on the battle-field of the old barbarian time. Even +To-Day's hollow pageant is an augury of this. It is Browning, I think, +who says, + + "All men become good creatures, _but so slow_." + +Let us, taking heart from the reflection that we live in the age of the +Locomotive and the Telegraph, cheerfully press onward! + +We will consider the Fair opened. + +I shall venture no especial criticisms as yet--first because the +Exhibition is not ready for it; next because I am in the same +predicament. A few general observations must close this letter. + +Immense as the quantity of goods offered for exhibition is, it is not +equal to the enormous capacity of the building, to which Castle Garden +is but a dog-kennel. [I do hope we may have a Crystal Palace of like +proportions in New-York within two years; it would be of inestimable +worth as a study to our young architects, builders and artisans. If such +an edifice were constructed in some fit locality to be leased out in +portions, under proper regulations, for stores, I believe it would pay +handsomely. Each store might be separated from those next it by +partitions of iron and glass; the fronts might be made of movable plates +of glass or left entirely open; the entire building being opened at +eight in the morning, closed at eight at night, and carefully watched at +all times.] True, many things are yet to be received, and some already +in the building remain in the boxes; still, I think there will be some +nakedness, even a week hence. The opportunity for seeing every thing, +judging every thing, is all the better for this, and indeed is +unexampled. + +The display from different countries is very unequal, even in proportion: +Old England is of course here in her might; France has a vast collection, +especially of articles appealing to taste or fancy; but Germany and the +rest of the Continent have less than I expected to see; and the show from +the United States disappoints many by its alleged meagerness. I do not +view it in the same light, nor regret, with a New-York merchant whom I +met in the Fair to-day, that Congress did not appropriate $100,000 to +secure a full and commanding exhibition of American products at this +Fair. I do not see how any tangible and adequate benefit to the Nation +would have resulted from such a dubious disposition of National funds. +In the first place, our great Agricultural staples--at least, all such +as find markets abroad--are already accessible and well known here. +Bales of Cotton, casks of Hams or other Meats, barrels of Flour or +Resin, hogsheads of Tobacco, &c., might have been heaped up here as high +as St. Paul's steeple--to what end? Europeans already know that we +produce these staples in abundance and perfection, and when they want them +they buy of us. I doubt whether cumbering the Fair with them would have +either promoted the National interest or exalted the National reputation. +It would have served rather to deepen the impression, already too general +both at home and abroad, that we are a rude, clumsy people, inhabiting a +broad, fertile domain, affording great incitements to the most slovenly +description of Agriculture, and that it is our policy to stick to that, +and let alone the nicer processes of Art, which require dexterity and +delicacy of workmanship. We must outgrow this error. + +Our Manufacturers are in many departments grossly deficient, in others +inferior to the best rival productions of Europe. In Silks and Linens, +we have nothing now to show; I trust the case will be bravely altered +within a few years. In broad cloths, we are behind and going behind, but +in Satinets, Flannels, (woolen) Shawls, De Laines, Ginghams, Drills and +most plain Cottons, we are producing as effectively as our rivals, and +in many departments gaining upon them. But few of these are goods which +make much show in a Fair; three cases of Parisian gewgaws will outshine +in an exhibition a million dollars' worth of admirable and cheap +Muslins, Drills, Flannels, &c. And beside, our Manufacturers, who find +themselves met at every turn, and often supplanted at their own doors by +showy fabrics from abroad, are shy of calling attention in Europe to the +few articles which, by the help of valuable American inventions, they +are able to make and sell at a profit. I know this consideration has +kept some goods and more machinery at home which would otherwise have +been here. The manufacturers are here or are coming, to see what +knowledge or skill they can pick up, but they are not so ready to tell +all they know. They think the odds in favor of those who work against +them backed by the cheap Labor and abundant Capital of Europe, are +quite sufficient already. + +Still, there are some Yankee Notions that I wish had been sent over. I +think our Cut Nails, our Pins, our Wood Screws, &c. should have been +represented. India Rubber is abundant here, but I have seen no Gutta +Percha, and our New-York Company (Hudson Manufacturing) might have put a +new wrinkle on John Bull's forehead by sending over an assorted case of +their fabrics. The Brass and kindred fabrics of Waterbury (Conn.) ought +not to have come up missing, and a set of samples of the "Flint Enameled +Ware" of Vermont, I should have been proud of for Vermont's sake. A +light Jersey wagon, a Yankee ox-cart, and two or three sets of American +Farming Implements, would have been exactly in play here. Our Scythes, +Cradles, Hoes, Rakes, Axes, Sowing, Reaping, Threshing and Winnowing +machines, &c., &c., are a long distance ahead of the British--so the +best judges say; and where their machines are good they cost too much +ever to come into general use. There is a pretty good set of Yankee +Ploughs here, and they are likely to do good. I believe Connecticut +Clocks and Maine (North Wayne) Axes are also well represented. But +either Rochester, Syracuse, or Albany could have beaten the whole show +in Farming Tools generally. + +Yet there are many good things in the American department. In +Daguerreotypes, it seems to be conceded that we beat the world, when +excellence and cheapness are both considered--at all events, England is +no where in comparison--and our Daguerreotypists make a great show +here.--New Jersey Zinc, Lake Superior Copper, Adirondack Iron and Steel, +are well represented either by ores or fabrics, and I believe California +Gold is to be.--But I am speaking on the strength of a very hasty +examination. I shall continue in attendance from day to day and hope to +glean from the show some ideas that may be found or made useful. + +P. S.--The Official Catalogue of the Fair is just issued. It has been +got up in great haste, and must necessarily be imperfect, but it extends +to 320 double-column octavo pages on brevier type (not counting +advertisements) and is sold for a shilling--(24 cents). Some conception +of the extent of the Fair may be obtained from the following hasty +summary of a portion of the contents, showing the number of Exhibitors +in certain departments, as classified in the Official Catalogue, viz: + + GREAT BRITAIN. + + Coal, Slate, Grindstone, Limestone, Granite, &c. + (outside the building), 44 + + Mining and Mineral Products (inside), 366 + + Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products, 103 + + Substances used as Food, 133 + + Vegetable and Animal Substances + used in Manufactures, 94 + + Machines for Direct Use, including + Carriages, Railway and Marine Mechanism, 339 + + Manufacturing Machines and Tools, 225 + + Civil Engineering and Building Contrivances, 177 + + Naval Architecture, Guns, Weapons, &c. 260 + + Agricultural and Horticultural Machines + and Implements, 287 + + Philosophical, Musical, Horological and + Surgical Instruments, 535 + ---- + Total, so far, 2563 + +The foregoing occupy but 55 of the 300 pages devoted expressly to the +Catalogue, so that the whole number of Exhibitors cannot be less than +Ten Thousand, and is probably nearer Fifteen Thousand; and as two +articles from each would be a low estimate, I think the number of +distinct articles already on exhibition cannot fall below Thirty +Thousand, counting all of any class which may be entered by a single +exhibitor as one article. Great Britain fills 136 pages of the +Catalogue; her Colonies and Foreign possessions 48 more; Austria 16; +Belgium 8, China 2, Denmark 1, Egypt 2 1/2, France and Algiers 35, Prussia +and the Zoll Verein States 19; Bavaria 2, Saxony 5, Wirtemburg 2, Hesse, +Nassau and Luxemburg 3, Greece 1, Hamburgh 1, Holland 2, Portugal 3 1/2; +Madeira 1, Papal State 1/2, Russia 5, Sardinia 1 1/2, Spain 5, Sweden and +Norway 1, Switzerland 5, Tunis 2 1/2, Tuscany 2, United States 8 1/2. So the +United States stands fifth on the list of contributing Countries, +ranking next after Great Britain herself, France, Austria, and Prussian +Germany, and far ahead of Holland and Switzerland, which have long been +held up as triumphant examples of Industrial progress and thrift under +Free Trade; and these, with all the countries which show more than we +do, are close at hand, while our country is on the average more than +4,000 miles off.--I am confirmed in my view that the cavils at the +meagerness of our contribution are not well grounded. + + + + +III. + +THE GREAT EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 6th, 1851. + +"The World's Fair," as we Americans have been accustomed to call it, has +now been open five days, but is not yet in complete order, nor anything +like it. The sound of the saw and the hammer salutes the visiter from +every side, and I think not less than five hundred carpenters and other +artisans are busy in the building to-day. The week will probably close +before the fixtures will have all been put up and the articles duly +arranged for exhibition. As yet, a great many remain in their +transportation boxes, while others are covered with canvas, though many +more have been put in order within the last two days. Through the great +center aisle very little remains unaccomplished; but on the sides, in +the galleries, and in the department of British Machinery, there is yet +work to do which another week will hardly see concluded. Meantime, the +throng of visiters is immense, though the unexampled extent of the +People's Palace prevents any crush or inconvenience. I think there +cannot have been less than Ten Thousand visiters in the building to-day. + +Of course, any attempt to specify, or to set forth the merits or defects +of particular articles, must here be futile. Such a universe of +materials, inventions and fabrics defies that mode of treatment. But I +will endeavor to give some general idea of the Exhibition. + +If you enter the building at the East, you are in the midst of the +American contributions, to which a great space has been allotted, which +they meagerly fill. Passing westward down the aisle, our next neighbor +is Russia, who had not an eighth of our space allotted to her, and has +filled that little far less thoroughly and creditably than we have. It +is said that the greater part of the Russian articles intended for the +Fair are yet ice-bound in the Baltic. France, Austria, Switzerland, +Prussia and other German States succeed her; the French contributions +being equal (I think) in value, if not in extent and variety, to those +of all the rest of the Continent. Bohemia has sent some admirable +Glassware; Austria a suit of apartments thoroughly and sumptuously +furnished, which wins much regard and some admiration. There is of +course a great array of tasteful design and exquisite workmanship from +France, though I do not just now call to mind any article of transcendent +merit. + +The main aisle is very wide, forming a broad promenade on each side with +a collection of Sculpture, Statuary, Casts, &c. &c. between them. +Foremost among these is Powers's Greek Slave, never seen to better +advantage; and I should say there are from fifty to a hundred other +works of Art--mainly in Marble or Bronze.--Some of them have great +merit. Having passed down this avenue several hundred Feet, you reach +the Transept, where the great diamond "Koh-i-Noor" (Mountain of Light) +with other royal contributions, have place. Here, in the exact center of +the Exhibition, is a beautiful Fountain (nearly all glass but the +water,) which has rarely been excelled in design or effect. The fluid is +projected to a height of some thirty feet, falling thence into a +succession of regularly enlarging glass basins, and finally reaching in +streams and spray the reservoir below. A hundred feet or more on either +side stand two stately, graceful trees, entirely included in the +building, whose roof of glass rises clear above them, seeming a nearer +sky. These trees (elms, I believe) are fuller and fresher in leaf than +those outside, having been shielded from the chilling air and warmed by +the genial roof. Nature's contribution to the Great Exhibition is +certainly a very admirable one, and fairly entitles her to a first-class +Medal. + +The other half of the main aisle is externally a duplicate of that +already described, but is somewhat differently filled. This is the +British end of the Exhibition, containing far more in quantity than all +the rest put together. The finest and costliest fabrics are ranged on +either side of this end of the grand aisle. + +The show of Colonial products is not vast but comprehensive, giving a +vivid idea of the wide extent and various climates of Britain's +dependencies. Corn, Wheat, &c., from the Canadas; Sugar and Coffee from +the West Indies; fine Wood from Australia; Rice, Cotton, &c., from +India; with the diversified products of Asia, Africa and America, fill +this department. Manufactured textile fabrics from Sydney, from India, +and from Upper Canada, are here very near each other; while Minerals, +Woods, &c., from every land and every clime are nearly in contact. I +apprehend John Bull, whatever else he may learn, will not be taught +meekness by this Exhibition. + +The Mineral department of the British display is situated on the south +side. I think it can hardly be less than five hundred feet long by over +one hundred wide, and it is doubtless the most complete ever thus set +before the public. Here are shown every variety and condition of Coal, +and of Iron, Copper, Lead, Tin, &c. Of Gold there is little, and of +Silver, Zinc, Quicksilver, &c., not a great deal. But not only are the +Ores of the metals first named varied and abundant, with Native Copper, +Silver, &c., but the metals are also shown in every stage of their +progress, from the rude elements just wrenched from the earth to the +most refined and perfect bars or ingots. This department will richly +reward the study of the mineralogists, present and future. + +Directly opposite, on the North side of the British half of the main +avenue, is the British exhibition of Machinery, occupying even more +space than the Minerals. I never saw one-fourth as much Machinery +together before; I do not expect ever to see so much again. Almost every +thing that a Briton has ever invented, improved or patented in the way +of Machinery is here brought together. The great Cylinder Press on which +_The Times_ is printed (not the individual, but the kind) may here be +seen in operation; the cylinders revolve horizontally as ours do +vertically; and though something is gained in security by the British +press, more must be lost in speed. Hoe's last has not yet been equaled +on this island. But in Spinning, Weaving, and the subsidiary arts there +are some things here, to me novelties, which our manufacturers must +borrow or surpass; though I doubt whether spinning, on the whole, is +effected with less labor in Great Britain than in the United States. +There are many recent improvements here, but I observe none of absorbing +interest. However, I have much yet to see and more to comprehend in this +department. I saw one loom weaving Lace of a width which seemed at least +three yards; a Pump that would throw very nearly water enough to run a +grist-mill, &c. &c. I think the American genius is quicker, more +wide-awake, more fertile than the British; I think that if our +manufactures were as extensive and firmly established as the British, we +should invent and improve machinery much faster than they do; but I do +not wish to deny that this is quite a considerable country. + + + Wednesday, May 7--4 P. M. + +I have just returned from another and my seventh daily visit to the +Great Exhibition. I believe I have thus far been among the most +industrious visitors, and yet I have not yet even glanced at one-half +the articles exhibited, while I have _only_ glanced at most of those I +have seen. Of course, I am in no condition to pronounce judgments, and +any opinion I may express must be taken subject to future revisal and +modification. + +I know well that so large and diversified a show of Machinery could not +be made up in the United States as is here presented in behalf of +British Invention; yet I think a strictly American Fair might be got up +which would evince more originality of creation or design. If I am wrong +in this, I shall cheerfully say so when convinced of it. Many of these +machines are very good of their kind without involving any novel +principle or important adaptation. With regard to Flax-Dressing, for +example, I find less here than I had hoped to see; and though what I +have seen appears to do its work well and with commendable economy of +material, I think there are more efficient and rapid Flax-Dressers in +the United States than are contained in this Exhibition. I have not yet +examined the machinery for Spinning and Weaving the dressed Flax fiber, +but am glad to see that it is in operation. The report that the +experiments in Flax-Cotton have "failed" does not in the least +discourage me. Who ever heard of a great economical discovery or +invention that had not been repeatedly pronounced a failure before it +ultimately and indubitably succeeded? + +I found one promising invention in the British department to-day, viz: +Henley's Magnetic Telegraph, or rather, the generator of its power. The +magnet, I was assured, _did not require nor consume any substance +whatever_, but generated its electricity spontaneously, and in equal +measure in all varieties of weather, so that the wildest storm of +lightning, hail, snow or rain makes no difference in the working of the +Telegraph. If such be the fact, the invention is one of great merit and +value, and must be speedily adopted in our country, where the liability +of Telegraphs to be interrupted by storms is a crying evil. I trust it +is now near its end. + +Switzerland has a very fine show of Fabrics in the Fair--I think more in +proportion to her numbers than any other Foreign Nation. Of Silks she +displays a great amount, and they are mainly of excellent quality. She +shows Shawls, Ginghams, Woolens, &c., beside, as well as Watches and +Jewelry; but her Silk is her best point. The Chinese, Australian, +Egyptian and Mexican contributions are quite interesting, but they +suggest little or nothing, unless it be the stolidity of their +contrivers. + +I see that _Punch_ this week reiterates _The Times's_ slurs at the +meagerness and poverty of the American contribution. This is meanly +invidious and undeserved. The inventors, artisans and other producers of +our Country who did not see fit to incur the heavy expense of sending +their most valuable products to a fair held three to five thousand miles +away are unaffected by this studied disparagement, and those who _have_ +sent certainly do not deserve it. They are in no manner responsible for +the setting apart for American contributions of more space than they +fill; they have rather deserved consideration and kind treatment on the +part of the London Press. Beside, the value of their contributions is +not at all gauged by the space they fill nor by the impression they make +on the wondering gaze; articles of great merit and utility often making +no figure at all compared with a case of figured silks or mantel +ornaments which answer no purpose here but the owner's. And when it is +considered that the manufacturers of France, Germany and Switzerland, as +well as England, are here displaying their wares and fabrics before the +eyes of thousands and tens of thousands of their customers--that their +cases in the Crystal Palace are in fact so many gigantic advertisements, +read and admired by myriads of merchants and other buyers from all parts +of the world, the unfairness of the comparison instituted by the London +Press becomes apparent. Our exhibitors can derive no such advantage from +the Fair--certainly not to any such extent. The "Bay State Mills," for +example, has a good display of Shawls here, hardly surpassed, considering +quality and price, by any other; yet nobody but Americans will thereby be +tempted to give them orders; while a British, Scotch, French or Swiss +shawl-manufacturer exhibiting just such a case, is morally certain of +gaining customers thereby in all parts of the world. But enough on this +head. + +I may add that many Americans have been deterred from sending by an +impression that nothing would be admitted that was not sent out in the +St. Lawrence, or at all events unless received early in April. But +articles are still acceptable, at least in our department; and I venture +to say that any invention, model, machine or fabric of decided merit +which may reach our Commissioner free of charge before the end of June +will have a place assigned it, although it will probably be too late to +have a chance for the prizes. + +These are to be mainly Medals of the finest Bronze, to cost $25, $12 +and $5 respectively. Probably about one thousand of the first class, +two thousand of the second and five thousand of the third will be +distributed. But they are not to be given for different grades of +excellence in the same field of exertion, but for radically diverse +merits. The first class will be mainly if not wholly given for +Inventions, Discoveries or Original Designs of rare excellence; the +second class for novel applications or combinations of principles +already known so as to produce articles of signal utility, cheapness or +beauty; the third class will be given for decided excellence of quality +or workmanship without regard to originality. By this course, it is +hoped that personal heart-burnings and invidious rivalries among +exhibitors may to a great extent be avoided. + +I cannot close without a word of acknowledgment to our Embassador, Hon. +Abbott Lawrence, for the interest he has taken and the labor he has +cheerfully performed in order that our Country should be creditably +represented in this Exhibition. For many months, the entire burthen of +correspondence, &c., fell on his shoulders; and I doubt whether the Fair +will have cost him less than five thousand dollars when it closes. That +he has exerted himself in every way in behalf of his countrymen +attending the Exhibition is no more than all who knew him anticipated; +and his convenient location, his wide acquaintance and marked popularity +here have enabled him to do a great deal. Every American voice is loud +in his praise. + +I walked through a good part of the galleries of the Crystal Palace this +morning, with attention divided between the costly and dazzling wares +and fabrics around me and the grand panorama below. Ten thousand men and +women were moving from case to case, from one theme of admiration to +another, in that magnificent temple of Art, so vast in its proportions +that these thousands no where crowded or jostled each other; and as many +more might have gazed and enjoyed in like manner without incommoding +these in the least. And these added thousands will come, when the +Palace, which is still a laboratory or workshop, shall have become what +it aims to be, and when the charge for daily admission shall have been +still farther reduced from five shillings (sterling) to one. Then will +the artisans, the cultivators, the laborers, not of London only, but to +a considerable extent of Great Britain, flock hither by tens of +thousands to gaze on this marvellous achievement of Human Genius, Skill, +Taste, and Industry, and be strengthened in heart and hope by its +contemplation. And as they observe and rejoice over these trophies of +Labor's might and beneficence, shall they not also perceive foreshadowed +here that fairer, grander, gladder Future for them and theirs, whereof +this show is a prelude and a prediction--wherein Labor shall build, +replenish and adorn mansions as stately, as graceful, as commodious as +this, not for others' delight and wonder, but for its own use and +enjoyment--for the life-long homes of the builders, their wives and +their children, who shall find within its walls not Subsistence merely, +but Education, Refinement, Mental Culture, Employment and seasonable +Pastime as well? Such is the vista which this edifice with its contents +opens and brightens before me. Heaven hasten the day when it shall be no +longer a prospect but a benignant and sure realization! + + + + +IV. + +ENGLAND--HAMPTON COURT. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, May 6, 1851. + +I have seen little yet of England, and do not choose to deal in +generalities with regard to it until my ignorance has lost something of +its density. Liverpool impressed me unfavorably, but I scarcely saw it. +The working class seemed exceedingly ill dressed, stolid, abject and +hopeless. Extortion and beggary appeared very prevalent. I must look +over that city again if I have time. + +We came up to London by the "Trent Valley Railroad," through Crewe, +Rugby, Tamworth, &c., avoiding all the great towns and traversing (I am +told) one of the finest Agricultural districts of England. The distance +is two hundred miles. The Railroads we traveled in no place cross a road +or street on its own level, but are invariably carried under or over +each highway, no matter at what cost; the face of the country is +generally level; hills are visible at intervals, but nothing fairly +entitled to the designation of mountain. I was assured that very little +of the land I saw could be bought for $300, while much of it is held at +$500 or more per acre. Of course it is good land, well cultivated, and +very productive. Vegetation was probably more advanced here than in +Westchester Co. N. Y., or Morris Co. N. J., though not in every respect. +I estimated that two-thirds of the land I saw was in Grass, one-sixth in +Wheat, and the residue devoted to Gardens, Trees, Oats or Barley, &c. +There are few or no forests, properly so called, but many copses, +fringes and clumps of wood and shrubbery, which agreeably diversify the +prospect as we are whirled rapidly along. Still, nearly all the wooded +grounds I saw looked meager and scanty, as though trees grew less +luxuriantly here than with us, or (more probably) the best are cut out +and sold as fast as they arrive at maturity. Friends at home! I charge +you to spare, preserve and cherish some portion of your primitive +forests; for when these are cut away I apprehend they will not easily be +replaced. A second growth of trees is better than none; but it cannot +rival the unconscious magnificence and stately grace of the Red Man's +lost hunting grounds, at least for many generations. Traversing this +comparatively treeless region carried my thoughts back to the glorious +magnificence and beauty of the still unscathed forests of Western +New-York, Ohio, and a good part of Michigan, which I had long ago +rejoiced in, but which I never before prized so highly. Some portions of +these fast falling monuments of other days ought to be rescued by public +forecast from the pioneer's, the woodman's merciless axe, and preserved +for the admiration and enjoyment of future ages. Rochester, Buffalo, +Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, &c., should each purchase for +preservation a tract of one to five hundred acres of the best forest +land still accessible (say within ten miles of their respective +centers), and gradually convert it into walks, drives, arbors, &c., for +the recreation and solace of their citizens through all succeeding time. +Should a portion be needed for cemetery or other utilitarian purposes, +it may be set off when wanted; and ultimately a railroad will afford the +poor the means of going thither and returning at a small expense. If +something of this sort is ever to be done, it cannot be done too soon; +for the forests are annually disappearing and the price of wood near our +cities and business towns rapidly rising. + +I meant to have remarked ere this the scarcity of Fruit throughout this +region. I think there are fewer fruit-trees in sight on the two hundred +miles of railway between Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles +of Harlem Railroad directly north of White Plains. I presume from +various indications that the Apple and Peach do not thrive here; and I +judge that the English make less account of Fruit than we do, though we +use it too sparingly and fitfully. If their climate is unfavorable to +its abundant and perfect production, they have more excuse than we for +their neglect of one of Heaven's choicest bounties. + +The approach to London from the West by the Trent Valley Railroad is +unlike anything else in my experience. Usually, your proximity to a +great city is indicated by a succession of villages and hamlets which +may be designated as more or less shabby miniatures of the metropolis +they surround. The City maybe radiant with palaces, but its satellites +are sure to be made up in good part of rookeries and hovels. But we were +still passing through a highly cultivated and not over-peopled rural +district, when lo! there gleamed on our sight an array of stately, +graceful mansions, the seeming abodes of Art, Taste and Abundance; we +doubted that this could be London; but in the course of a few moments +some two or three miles of it rose upon the vision, and we could doubt +no longer. Soon our road, which had avoided the costly contact as long +as possible, took a shear to the right, and charged boldly upon this +grand array of masonry, and in an instant we were passing under some +blocks of stately edifices and between others like them. Some mile or +two of this brought us to the "Euston-square Station," where our +Railroad terminates, and we were in London. Of course, this is not "the +City," specially so called, or ancient London, but a modern and +well-built addition, distinguished as Camden-town. We were about three +miles from the Bank, Post-Office, St. Paul's Church, &c., situated in +the heart of the City proper, though nearer the East end of it. + +I shall not attempt to speak directly of London. The subject is too +vast, and my knowledge of it too raw and scanty. I choose rather to give +some account of an excursion I have made to the royal palace at Hampton +Court, situated fifteen miles West of the City, where the Thames, which +runs through the grounds adjacent, has shrunk to the size of the Mohawk +at Schenectady, and I think even less. A very small steamboat sometimes +runs up as high as this point, but not regularly, and for all practical +purposes the navigation terminates at Richmond, four or five miles +below. + +Leaving the City by Temple Bar, you pass through the Strand, Charing +Cross, the Haymarket, Pall Mall and part of Regent-street into +Piccadilly, where you take an omnibus at "the White Horse Cellar" (I +give these names because they will be familiar to many if not most +American readers), and proceed down Piccadilly, passing St. James's Park +on the left, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens on the right, and so by +Kensington Road to a fine suspension bridge over the Thames; you cross, +and have passed westerly out of London. You traverse some two miles of +very rich gardens, meadows, &c., and thence through the village of +Barnes, composed mainly of some two or three hundred of the oldest, +shabbiest tumble-down apologies for human habitations that I ever saw so +close together. Thence you proceed through a rich, thoroughly cultivated +garden district, containing several fine country seats, to Richmond, a +smart, showy village ten miles above London, and a popular resort for +holiday pleasure-seekers from the great city, whether by steamboat, +railway, omnibus or private conveyance. Here is a fleet of rowboats kept +for hire, while "the Star and Garter" inn has a wide reputation for +dinners, and the scene from its second-story bow window is pronounced +one of the finest in the kingdom. It certainly does not compare with +that from the Catskill Mountain House and many others in our State, but +it is a good thing in another way--a lovely blending of wood, water and +sky, with gardens, edifices and other pleasing evidences of man's +handiwork. Pope's residence at Twickenham, and Walpole's Strawberry Hill +are near Richmond. + +Proceeding, we drove through a portion of Bushy Park, the royal +residence of the late Queen Dowager Adelaide, widow of William IV., who +here manages, having house, grounds, &c. thrown in, to support existence +on an allowance of only $500,000 a year. The Park is a noble one, about +half covered with ancient, stately trees, among which large herds of +tame, portly deer are seen quietly feeding. A mile or two further +brought us to the grounds and palace of Hampton Court, the end and aim +of our journey. + +This palace was built by the famous Cardinal Wolsey, so long the proud, +powerful, avaricious and corrupt favorite of Henry VIII. Wolsey +commenced it in 1515. Being larger and more splendid than any royal +palace then in being, its erection was played upon by rival courtiers to +excite the King to envy and jealousy of his Premier--whereupon Wolsey +gave it outright to the monarch, who gave him the manor of Richmond in +requital. Wolsey's disgrace, downfall and death soon followed; but I +leave their portrayal to Hume and Shakspeare. This palace became a +favorite residence of Henry VIII. Edward VI. was born here; Queen Mary +spent her honeymoon here, after her marriage with Philip of Spain; +Queen Elizabeth held many great festivals here; James I. lived and Queen +Anne his wife died here; Charles I. retired here first from the Plague, +and afterwards to escape the just resentment of London in the time of +the Great Rebellion. After his capture, he was imprisoned here. Cromwell +saw one daughter married and another die during his residence in this +palace. William III., Queen Anne, George I. and George II. occasionally +resided here; but it has not been a regal residence since the death of +the latter. Yet the grounds are still admirably kept; the shrubbery, +park, fish-pond, &c. are quite attractive; while a famous grape-vine, 83 +years old, bears some 1,100 pounds per annum of the choicest "Black +Hamburghs," which are reserved for the royal table, and (being under +glass) are said to keep fresh and sweet on the vine till February. A +fine avenue of trees leads down to the Thames, and the grounds are gay +with the flowers of the season. The Park is very large, and the location +one of the healthiest in the kingdom. + +Hampton Court Palace, though surrounded by guards and other +appurtenances of Royalty, is only inhabited by decayed servants of the +Court, impoverished and broken-down scions of the Aristocracy, &c. to +whom the royal generosity proffers a subsistence within its walls. I +suppose about two-thirds of it are thus occupied, while the residue is +thrown open at certain hours to the public. I spent two hours in +wandering through this portion, consisting of thirty-four rooms, mainly +attractive by reason of the Paintings and other works of Art displayed +on their walls. As a whole, the collection is by no means good, the best +having been gradually abstracted to adorn those Palaces which Royalty +still condescends to inhabit, while worse and worst are removed from +those and deposited here; yet it was interesting to me to gaze at +undoubted originals by Raphael, Titian, Poussin, Rembrandt, Teniers, +Albert Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, Tintoretto, Kneller, Lely, &c., though +not their master-pieces. The whole number of pictures, &c. here +exhibited is something over One Thousand, probably five-sixths +Portraits. Some of these have a strong Historical interest apart from +their artistic merit. Loyola, Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, Admiral +Benbow, William III., Mary Queen of Scots, Mary de Medicis, Louis XIV., +are a few among scores of this character. The Cartoons of Raphael and +some beautifully, richly stained glass windows are also to be seen. The +bed-rooms of William III., Queen Anne, and I think other sovereigns, +retain the beds as they were left; but little other furniture remains, +the mirrors excepted. I think Americans who have a day to spare in +London may spend it agreeably in visiting this Palace, especially as +British Royal Residences and galleries are reputed not very accessible +to common people. At this one, every reasonable facility is afforded, +and no gratuities are solicited or expected by those in attendance. I +should prefer a day for such a jaunt on which there are fewer squalls of +hail, snow and rain than we encountered--which in May can hardly be +deemed unreasonable--but if no better can be found, take such as may +come and make the best of it. This Palace is a good deal larger on the +ground than our Capitol--larger than the Astor House, but, being less +lofty, contains (I should judge) fewer rooms than that capacious +structure. It is built mainly of brick, and if it has great +Architectural merits I fail to discern them. + + +COUNSEL TO THE SEA-GOING. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, May 6th, 1851. + +I desire to address a few words of advice to persons about to cross the +Atlantic or any other ocean for the first time. I think those who follow +my counsel will have reason to thank me. + +I. Begin by providing yourself with a pair of stout, well-made thick +boots--the coarser and firmer the better. Have them large enough to +admit two pair of thick, warm stockings, yet sit easily on the feet. Put +them on before you leave home, and never take them off during the voyage +except when you turn in to sleep. + +II. Take a good supply of flannels and old woolen clothes, and +especially an overcoat that has seen service and is not afraid of seeing +more. Should you come on board as if just out of a band-box, you will +forget all your dandyism before your first turn of sea-sickness is over, +and will go ashore with your clothes spoiled by the salt spray and your +own careless lounging in all manner of places and positions. Put on +nothing during the voyage that would sell for five dollars. + +III. Endure your first day of sea-sickness in your berth; after that, if +you cannot go on deck whenever the day is fair, get yourself carried +there. You may be sick still--the chance is two to one that you will be; +but if you are to recover at all while on the heaving surge this is the +way. + +IV. Move about as much as possible; think as little as you can of your +sickness; but interest yourself in whatever (except vomiting) may be +going forward--the run of the ship, the management of her sails, &c. &c. +Keep clear of all sedentary games, as a general rule; they may help you +to kill a few hours, but will increase your headache afterwards. Talk +more than you read; and determine to walk smartly at least two hours +every fair day, and one hour any how. + +V. As to eating, you are safe against excess so long as you are sick; +and if you have bad weather and a rough sea, that will be pretty nearly +all the way. I couldn't advise you, though ever so well, to eat the +regular four times per day; though my young friend who constantly took +_five_ hearty meals seemed to thrive on that regimen. In the matter of +drink, if you can stick to water, do so; I could not, nor could I find +any palatable substitute. Try Congress Water, Seidlitz, any thing to +keep clear of Wines and Spirits. If there were some portable, healthful +and palatable acid beverage devoid of Alcohol, it would be a blessed +thing at sea. + +VI. Finally, rise early if you can; be cheerful, obliging, and +determined to see the sunny side of everything whereof a sunny side can +be discovered or imagined; and bear ever in mind that each day is +wearing off a good portion of the distance which withholds you from your +destination. The best point of a voyage by steam is its brevity; +wherefore, I pray you, Mr. Darius Davidson, to hurry up that new steamer +or screamer that is to cross the Atlantic in a week. I shall want to be +getting home next August or September. + +VII. Don't bother yourself to procure British money at any such rate as +$4.90 for sovereigns, which was ruling when I came away. Bring American +coin rather than pay over $4.86. You can easily obtain British gold here +in exchange for American, and I have heard of no higher rate than $4.87. + +VIII. Whatever may be wise at other seasons, never think of stopping at +a London hotel this summer unless you happen to own the Bank of England. +If you know any one here who takes boarders or lets rooms at reasonable +rates, go directly to him; if not, drive at once to the house of Mr. +John Chapman, American Bookseller, 142 Strand, and he will either find +you rooms or direct you to some one else who will. + +IX. If the day of your embarkation be fair, take a long, earnest gaze at +the sun, so that you will know him again when you return. They have +something they call the sun over here which they show occasionally, but +it looks more like a boiled turnip than it does like its American +namesake. Yet they cheer us with the assurance that there _will be_ real +sunshine here by-and-by. So mote it be! + + + + +V. + +THE FUTURE OF LABOR--DAY-BREAK. + + + LONDON, Friday, May 9, 1851. + +I have spent the forenoon of to-day in examining a portion of the Model +Lodging-Houses, Bathing and Washing establishments and Cooperative Labor +Associations already in operation in this Great Metropolis. My companions +were Mr. Vansittart Neale, a gentleman who has usefully devoted much time +and effort to the Elevation of Labor, and M. Cordonnaye, the actuary or +chosen director of an Association of Cabinet-Makers in Paris, who are +exhibitors of their own products in the Great Exposition, which explains +their chief's presence in London. We were in no case expected, and enjoyed +the fairest opportunity to see everything as it really is. The beds were +in some of the lodging-houses unmade, but we were everywhere cheerfully +and promptly shown through the rooms, and our inquiries frankly and +clearly responded to. I propose to give a brief and candid account of +what we saw and heard. + +Our first visit was paid to the original or primitive Model +Lodging-House, situated in Charles-st. in the heart of St. Giles's. The +neighborhood is not inviting, but has been worse than it is; the +building (having been fitted up when no man with a dollar to spare had +any faith in the project) is an old-fashioned dwelling-house, not very +considerably modified. This attempt to put the new wine into old bottles +has had the usual result. True, the sleeping-rooms are somewhat +ventilated, but not sufficiently so; the beds are quite too abundant, +and no screen divides those in the same room from each other. Yet these +lodgings are a decided improvement on those provided for the same class +for the same price in private lodging-houses. The charge is 4_d._ (eight +cents) per night, and I believe 2_s._ (50 cents) per week, for which is +given water, towels, room and fire for washing and cooking, and a small +cupboard or safe wherein to keep provisions. Eighty-two beds are made up +in this house, and the keeper assured us that she seldom had a spare one +through the night. I could not in conscience praise her beds for +cleanliness, but it is now near the close of the week and her lodgers do +not come to her out of band-boxes.--Only men are lodged here. The +concern pays handsomely. + +We next visited a Working Association of Piano Forte Makers, not far +from Drury Lane. These men were not long since working for an employer +on the old plan, when he failed, threw them all out of employment, and +deprived a portion of them of the savings of past years of frugal +industry, which they had permitted to lie in his hands. Thus left +destitute, they formed a Working Association, designated their own +chiefs, settled their rules of partnership; and here stepped in several +able "Promoters" of the cause of Industrial Organization of Labor, and +lent them at five per cent. the amount of capital required to buy out +the old concern--viz: $3,500. They have since (about six weeks) been +hard at work, having an arrangement for the sale at a low rate of all +the Pianos they can make. The associates are fifteen in number, all +working "by the piece," except the foreman and business man, who receive +$12 each per week; the others earn from $8 to $11 each weekly. I see +nothing likely to defeat and destroy this enterprise, unless it should +lose the market for its products. + +We went thence to a second Model Lodging House, situated near Tottenham +Court Road. This was founded subsequently to that already described, its +building was constructed expressly for it, and each lodger has a +separate apartment, though its division walls do not reach the ceiling +overhead. Half the lodgers have each a separate window, which they can +open and close at pleasure, in addition to the general provision for +ventilation. In addition to the wash-room, kitchen, dining-tables, &c., +provided in the older concern, there is a small but good library, a +large conversation room, and warm baths on demand for a penny each. The +charge is _2s. 4d._ (58 cents) per week; the number of beds is 104, and +they are always full, with numerous applications ahead at all times for +the first vacant bed. Not a single case of Cholera occurred here in +1849, though dead bodies were taken out of the neighboring alley +(Church-lane) six or eight in a day. So much for the blasphemy of +terming the Cholera, with like scourges, the work of an "inscrutable +Providence." The like exemption from Cholera was enjoyed by the two or +three other Model Lodging-Houses then in London. Their comparative +cleanliness, and the coolness in summer caused by the great thickness of +their walls, conduce greatly to this freedom from contagion. + +The third and last of the Model Lodging-Houses we visited was even more +interesting, in that it was designed and constructed expressly to be +occupied by Families, of which it accommodates forty-eight, and has +never a vacant room. The building is of course a large one, very +substantially constructed on three sides of an open court paved with +asphaltum and used for drying clothes and as a children's play-ground. +All the suits of apartments on each floor are connected by a corridor +running around the inside (or back) of the building, and the several +suits consist of two rooms or three with entry, closets, &c., according +to the needs of the applicant. That which we more particularly examined +consisted of three apartments (two of them bed-rooms) with the +appendages already indicated. Here lived a workman with his wife and six +young children from two to twelve years of age. Their rent is 6s. ($1.50 +per week, or $78 per annum); and I am confident that equal +accommodations in the old way cannot be obtained in an equally central +and commodious portion of London or New York for double the money. Suits +of two rooms only, for smaller families, cost but $1 to $1.25 per week, +according to size and eligibility. The concern is provided with a +Bath-Room, Wash-Room, Oven, &c., for the use of which no extra charge is +made. The building is very substantial and well constructed, is +fire-proof, and cost about $40,000. The ground for it was leased of the +Duke of Bedford for 99 years at $250 per annum. The money to construct +it was mostly raised by subscription--the Queen leading off with $1,500; +which the Queen Dowager and two Royal Duchesses doubled; then came +sundry Dukes, Earls, and other notables with $500 each, followed by a +long list of smaller and smaller subscriptions. But this money was given +to the "Society for Bettering the Condition of the Laboring Classes," to +enable them to try an experiment; and that experiment has triumphantly +succeeded. All those I have described, as well as one for single women +only near Hatton Garden, and one for families and for aged women near +Bagnigge Wells, which I have not yet found time to visit, are constantly +and thoroughly filled, and hundreds are eager for admittance who cannot +be accommodated; the inmates are comparatively cleanly, healthy and +comfortable; and _the plan pays_. This is the great point. It is very +easy to build edifices by subscription in which as many as they will +accommodate may have very satisfactory lodgings; but even in England, +where Public Charity is most munificent, it is impossible to build such +dwellings for _all_ from the contributions of Philanthropy; and to +provide for a hundredth part, while the residue are left as they were, +is of very dubious utility. The comfort of the few will increase the +discontent and wretchedness of the many. But only demonstrate that +building capacious, commodious and every way eligible dwellings for the +Poor is a safe and fair investment, and that their rents may be +essentially reduced thereby while their comfort is promoted, and a very +great step has been made in the world's progress--one which will not be +receded from. + +I saw in the house last described a newly invented Brick (new at least +to me) which struck me favorably. It is so molded as to be hollow in the +centre, whereby the transmission of moisture through a wall composed of +this brick is prevented, and the dampness often complained of in brick +houses precluded. The brick is larger than those usually made, and one +side is wedge-shaped. + +We went from the house above described to the first constructed Bathing +and Washing establishment, George-st. Euston-square. In the Washing +department there are tubs, &c., for one hundred and twenty washers, and +they are never out of use while the concern is open--that is from 9 +A. M. to 7 P. M. There is in a separate Drying Room an apparatus for +freeing the washed clothes from water (instead of Wringing) by whirling +them very rapidly in a machine, whereby the water is thrown out of them +by centrifugal force or attraction. Thence the clothes, somewhat damp, are +placed in hot-air closets and speedily dried; after which they pass into +the Ironing-room and are finished. The charge here is 4 cents for two +hours in the Washing-room and 2 cents for two hours in the Ironing-room, +which is calculated to be time enough for doing the washing of an average +family. Everything but soap is supplied. The building is not capacious +enough for the number seeking to use it, and is to be speedily enlarged. +I believe that the charges are too small, as I understand that the concern +merely supports itself without paying any interest on the capital which +created it. + +The Female part of the Bathing establishment is in this part of the +building, but that for men is entered from another street. Each has Hot +and Vapor Baths of the first class for 12 cents; second class of these +or first-class cold baths for 8 cents; and so down to cold water baths +for 2 cents or hot ditto for 4 cents each. I think these, +notwithstanding their cheapness, are not very extensively--at least not +regularly--patronized. The first class are well fitted up and contain +everything that need be desired; the others are more naked, but well +worth their cost. Cold and tepid Plunge Baths are proffered at 6 and 12 +cents respectively. + +I must break off here abruptly, for the mail threatens to close. + + + + +VI. + +BRITISH PROGRESS. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 15, 1851. + +Apart from the Great Exhibition, this is a season of intellectual +activity in London. Parliament is (languidly) in session; the +Aristocracy are in town; the Queen is lavishly dispensing the +magnificent hospitalities of Royalty to those of the privileged caste +who are invited to share them; and the several Religious and +Philanthropic Societies, whether of the City or the Kingdom, are +generally holding their Anniversaries, keeping Exeter Hall in blast +almost night and day. I propose to give a first hasty glance at +intellectual and general progress in Great Britain, leaving the subject +to be more fully and thoroughly treated after I shall have made myself +more conversant with the facts in the case. + +A spirit of active and generous philanthropy is widely prevalent in this +country. While the British pay more in taxes for the support of Priests +and Paupers than any other people on earth, they at the same time give +more for Religious and Philanthropic purposes. Their munificence is not +always well guided; but on the whole very much is accomplished by it in +the way of diffusing Christianity and diminishing Human Misery. But I +will speak more specifically. + +The _Religious Anniversaries_ have mainly been held, but few or none of +them are reported--indeed, they are scarcely alluded to--in the Daily +press, whose vaunted superiority over American journals in the matter +of Reporting amounts practically to this--that the debates in Parliament +are here reported _verbatim_, and again presented in a condensed form +under the Editorial head of each paper, while scarcely anything else +(beside Court doings) is reported at all. I am sure this is consistent +neither with reason nor with the public taste--that if the Parliamentary +debates were condensed one-half, and the space so saved devoted to +reports of the most interesting Public Meetings, Lectures, &c., after +the New-York fashion, the popular interest in the daily papers would +become wider and deeper, and their usefulness as aids to General +Education would be largely increased. To a great majority of the reading +class, even here, political discussions--and especially of questions so +trite and so unimportant as those which mainly engross the attention of +Parliament--are of quite subordinate interest; and I think less than one +reader in four ever peruses any more of these debates than is given in +the Editorial synopsis, leaving the _verbatim_ report a sheer waste of +costly print and paper.--I believe, however, that in the aggregate, the +collections of the last year for Religious purposes have just about +equaled the average of the preceding two or three years; some Societies +having received less, others more. I think the public interest in +comprehensive Religious and Philanthropic efforts does not diminish. + +For _Popular Education_, there is much doing in this Country, but in a +disjointed, expensive, inefficient manner. Instead of one all-pervading, +straight-forward, State-directed system, there are three or four in +operation, necessarily conflicting with and damaging each other. And yet +a vast majority really desire the Education of All, and are willing to +pay for it. John Bull is good at paying taxes, wherein he has had large +experience; and if he grumbles a little now and then at their amount as +oppressive, it is only because he takes pleasure in grumbling, and this +seems to afford him a good excuse for it. He would not be deprived of +it if he could: witness the discussions of the Income Tax, which every +body denounces while no one justifies it abstractly; and yet it is +always upheld, and I presume always will be. If the question could now +be put to a direct vote, even of the tax-payers alone--"Shall or shall +not a system of Common School Education for the United Kingdoms be +maintained by a National Tax?"--I believe Free Schools would be +triumphant. Even if such a system were matured, put in operation, and to +be sustained by Voluntary Contributions alone or left to perish, I +should not despair of the result. + +But there is a lion in the path, in the shape of the Priesthood of the +Established Church, who insist that the children shall be indoctrinated +in the dogmas of their creed, or there shall be no State system of +Common Schools; and, behind these, stand the Roman Catholic Clergy, who +virtually make a similar demand with regard to the children of +Catholics. The unreasonableness, as well as the ruinous effects of these +demands, is already palpable on our side of the Atlantic. If, when our +City was meditating the Croton Water Works, the Episcopal and Catholic +Priesthood had each insisted that those works should be consecrated by +their own Hierarchy and by none other, or, in default of this, we should +have no water-works at all, the case would be substantially parallel to +this. Or if there were in some city a hundred children, whose parents +were of diverse creeds, all blind with cataract, whom it was practicable +to cure altogether, but not separately, and these rival Priesthoods were +respectively to insist--"They shall be taught our Creed and Catechism, +and no other, while the operation is going on, or there shall be no +operation and no cure," that case would not be materially diverse from +this. In vain does the advocate of Light say to them, "Pray, let us give +the children the inestimable blessing of sight, and then _you_ may teach +your creed and catechism to all whom you can persuade to learn them," +they will have the closed eyes opened according to Loyola or to Laud, or +not opened at all! Do they not provoke us to say that their insisting on +an impossible, a suicidal condition, is but a cloak, a blind, a fetch, +and that their real object is to keep the multitude in darkness? I am +thankful that we have few clergymen in America who manifest a spirit +akin to that which to this day deprives half the children of these +Kingdoms of any considerable school education whatever. + +I think nothing unsusceptible of mathematical demonstration, can be +clearer than the imperative necessity of Universal Education, as a +matter simply of Public Economy. In these densely peopled islands, where +service is cheap, and where many persons qualified to teach are +maintaining a precarious struggle for subsistence, a system of General +Education need not cost half so much as in the United States, while +wealth is so concentrated that taxes bear less hardly here, in +proportion to their amount, than with us. Every dollar judiciously spent +on the education of poor children, would be more than saved in the +diminution of the annual cost of pauperism and crime, while the +intellectual and industrial capacity of the people would be vastly +increased by it. I do not see how even Clerical bigotry, formidable as +it deplorably is, can long resist this consideration among a people so +thrifty and saving, as are in the main the wielders of political power +in this country. + +_Political Reforms_ move slowly here. Mr. Hume's motion for Household +Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, &c. was denied a +consideration, night before last, by the concerted absence from the +House of nearly all the members--only twenty-one appearing when forty +(out of over six hundred) are required to constitute a quorum. So the +subject lost its place as a set motion, and probably will not come up +again this Session. The Ministry opposed its consideration now, +promising themselves to bring forward a measure for the Extension of +the Franchise _next Session_, when it is very unlikely that they will be +in a position to bring forward anything. It seems to me that the current +sets strongly against their continuance in office, and that, between the +hearty Reformers on one side and the out-spoken Conservatives on the +other, they must soon surrender their semblance of power. Still, they +are skillful in playing off one extreme against another, and may thus +endure or be endured a year longer; but the probability is against this. +To my mind, it seems clear that their retirement is essential to the +prosecution of Liberal Reforms. So long as they remain in power, they +will do, in the way of the People's Enfranchisement, as near nought as +possible. + + (----"Nothing could live + Twixt that and silence.") + +Their successors, the avowed Conservatives, will of course do nothing; +but they cannot hold power long in the Britain of to-day; and whoever +shall succeed them must come in on a popular tide and on the strength of +pledges to specific and comprehensive Reforms which cannot well be +evaded. Slow work, say you? Well, there is no quicker practicable. When +the Tories shall have been in once more and gone out again, there will +be another great forward movement like the Reform Bill, and I think not +till then, unless the Continent shall meantime be convulsed by the +throes of a general Revolution. + +I should like to see a chance for the defeat of that most absurd of all +Political stupidities, the _Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill_, but +I do not. Persecution for Faith's sake is most abhorrent, yet sincerity +and zeal may render it respectable; but this bill has not one redeeming +feature. While it insults the Catholics, it is perfectly certain to +increase their numbers and power; and it will do this without inflicting +on them the least substantial injury. Cardinal Wiseman will be the +local head of the Catholic Church in England, whether he is legally +forbidden to be styled "Archbishop of Westminster" or not, and so of the +Irish Catholic prelates. The obstacles which the ministerial bill +attempts to throw in the way of bequests to the Catholic Bishops as +such, will be easily evaded; these Bishops will exercise every function +of the Episcopate whether this Bill shall pass or fail: and their moral +power will be greatly increased by its passage. But the Ministry, which +has found the general support of the Catholics, and especially of the +Irish Catholic Members, very opportune at certain critical junctures, +will henceforth miss that support--in fact, it has already been +transformed into a most virulent and deadly hostility. Rural England was +hostile to the ministry before, on account of the depressing effect of +Free Trade on the agricultural interest; and now Ireland is turned +against them by their own act--an act which belies the professions of +Toleration in matters of Faith which have given them a great hold of the +sympathies of the best men in the country throughout the last half +century. I do not see how they can ride out the storm which they by this +bill have aroused. + +The cause of _Temperance_--of Total Abstinence from all that can +intoxicate--is here about twenty years behind its present position in +the United States. I think there are not more absolute drunkards here +than in our American cities, but the habit of drinking for drink's sake +is all but universal. The Aristocracy drink almost to a man; so do the +Middle Class; so do the Clergy; so alas! do the Women! There is less of +Ardent Spirits imbibed than with us; but Wines are much cheaper and in +very general use among the well-off; while the consumption of Ale, Beer, +Porter, &c. (mainly by the Poor) is enormous. Only think of L5,000,000 +or _Twenty-Five Millions of Dollars_, paid into the Treasury in a single +year by the People of these Islands as Malt-Tax alone, while the other +ingredients used in the manufacture of Malt Liquors probably swell the +aggregate to Thirty Millions of Dollars. If we suppose this to be a +little more than one-third of the ultimate cost of these Liquors to the +consumers, that cost cannot be less than _One Hundred Millions of +Dollars per annum!_--a sum amply sufficient, if rightly expended, to +banish Pauperism and Destitution for ever from the British Isles. And +yet the poor trudge wearily on, loaded to the earth with exactions and +burdens of every kind, yet stupifying their brains, emptying their +pockets and ruining their constitutions with these poisonous, +brutalizing liquors! I see no hope for them short of a System of Popular +Education which shall raise them mentally above their present low +condition, followed by a few years of systematic, energetic, omnipresent +Temperance Agitation. A slow work this, but is there any quicker that +will be effective? The Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge would greatly +contribute to the Education of the Poor, but that Reform has yet to be +struggled for. + +Of _Social Reform_ in England, the most satisfactory agency at present +is the Society for improving the Dwellings of the Poor. This Society has +the patronage of the Queen, is presided over (I believe) by her husband, +and is liberally patronized by the better portion of the Aristocracy and +the higher order of the Clergy. These, aided by wealthy or philanthropic +citizens, have contributed generously, and have done a good work, even +though they should stop where they are. The work would not, could not +stop with them. They have already proved that good, substantial, +cleanly, wholesome, tight-roofed, well ventilated dwellings for the Poor +are absolutely cheaper than any other, so that Shylock himself might +invest his fortune in the construction of such with the moral certainty +of receiving a large income therefrom, while at the same time rescuing +the needy from wretchedness, disease, brutalization and vice. Shall not +New-York, and all her sister cities, profit by the lesson? + +Of the correlative doings of the organized Promoters of Working Men's +Associations, Cooeperative Stores, &c., I would not be justified in +speaking so confidently, at least until I shall have observed more +closely. My present impression is that they are both far less mature in +their operations, and that, as they demand of the Laboring Class more +confidence in themselves and each other, than, unhappily, prevails as +yet, they are destined to years of struggle and chequered fortunes +before they will have achieved even the measure of success which the +Model Lodging and the Bathing and Washing Houses have already achieved. +Still, I have not yet visited the strongest and most hopeful of the +Working Men's Associations. + +I spent last evening with the friends of ROBERT OWEN, who celebrated his +80th birthday by a dinner at the Cranbourne Hotel. Among those present +were Thornton Hunt, son of Leigh Hunt, and one of the Editors of "The +Leader;" Gen. Houg, an exile from Germany from Freedom's sake; Mr. +Fleming, Editor of the Chartist "Northern Star;" Mons. D'Arusmont and his +daughter, who is the daughter also of Frances Wright. Mr. Owen was of +course present, and spoke quite at length in reiteration and enforcement +of the leading ideas wherewith he has so long endeavored to impress the +world respecting the absolute omnipotence of circumstances in shaping the +Human Character, the impossibility of believing or disbelieving save as +one must, &c. &c. Mr. Owen has scarcely looked younger or heartier at any +time these ten years; he did not seem a shade older than when I last +before met him, at least three years ago. And not many young men are more +buoyant in spirit, more sanguine as to the immediate future, more genial +in temper, more unconquerable in resolution, than he is. I cannot see many +things as he does; it seems to me that he is stone blind on the side of +Faith in the Invisible, and exaggerates the truths he perceives until they +almost become falsehoods; but I love his sunny, benevolent nature, I admire +his unwearied exertions for what he deems the good of Humanity; and, +believing with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, that "Now abide Faith, +Hope, Charity: these three; but the greatest of these is Charity," I +consider him practically a better Christian than half those who, +professing to be such, believe more and do less. I trust his life may be +long spared, and his sun beam cloudless and rosy to the last. + + + + +VII. + +LONDON--NEW-YORK. + + + LONDON, Monday, May 15, 1851. + +I have now been fifteen days in this magnificent Babel, but so much +engrossed with the Exhibition that I have seen far less of the town than +I otherwise should. Of the City proper (in the center) I know a little; +and I have made my way thence out into the open country on the North and +on the West respectively, but toward the South lies a wilderness of +buildings which I have not yet explored; while Eastward the metropolitan +districts stretch further than I have ever been. The south side of Hyde +Park and the main line of communication thence with the City proper is +the only part of London with which I can claim any real acquaintance. +Yet, on the strength of what little I _do_ know, I propose to say +something of London as it strikes a stranger; and in so doing I shall +generally refer to New-York as a standard of comparison, so as to render +my remarks more lucid to a great portion of their readers. + +The _Buildings_ here are generally superior to those of our City--more +substantial, of better materials, and more tasteful. There are, I think, +as miserable rookeries here as anywhere; but they are exceptions; while +most of the houses are built solidly, faithfully, and with a thickness +of walls which would be considered sheer waste in our City. Among the +materials most extensively used is a fine white marble[A] of a +peculiarly soft, creamy appearance, which looks admirably until +blackened by smoke and time. Regent-street and several of the +aristocratic quarters west of it are in good part built of this marble; +but one of the finest, freshest specimens of it is St. George's +Hospital, Piccadilly, which to my eye is among the most tasteful +edifices in London. If (as I apprehend) St. Paul's Church, Somerset +House, and the similarly smoke-stained dwellings around Finsbury Oval +were built of this same marble, then the murky skies of London have much +to answer for. + +Throughout the Western and Northern sections of the Metropolis, the +dwellings are far less crowded than is usual in the corresponding or +up-town portion of New-York, are more diverse in plan, color and finish, +and better provided with court-yards, shrubbery, &c. In the matter of +Building generally, I think our City would profit by a study of London, +especially if our lot-owners, builders, &c., would be satisfied with +London rates of interest on their respective investments. I think four +per cent. is considered a tolerable and five a satisfactory interest on +money securely invested in houses in London. + +By the way: the apostles of Sanitary Reform here are anticipating very +great benefits from the use of the Hollow Brick just coming into +fashion. I am assured by a leading member of the Sanitary Commission +that the hollow brick cost much less than the solid ones, and are a +perfect protection against the dampness so generally experienced in +brick houses, and often so prejudicial to health. That there is a great +saving in the cost of their transportation is easily seen; and, as they +are usually made much larger than the solid brick, they can be laid up +much faster. I think Dr. Southwood Smith assured me that the saving in +the first cost of the brickwork of a house is _one-third_; if that is a +mistake, the error is one of misapprehension on my part. The hollow +brick is a far less perfect conductor of heat and cold than the solid +one; consequently, a house built of the former is much cooler in Summer +and warmer in Winter. It is confidently and reasonably hoped here that +very signal improvements, in the dwellings especially of the Poor, are +to be secured by means of this invention. Prince Albert has caused two +Model Cottages of this material to be erected at his cost in Hyde Park +near the Great Exhibition in order to attract general attention to the +subject. + +The _Streets_ of London are generally better paved, cleaner and better +lighted than those of New-York. Instead of our round or cobble stone, +the material mainly used for paving here is a hard flint rock, split and +dressed into uniform pieces about the size of two bricks united by their +edges, so as to form a surface of some eight inches square with a +thickness of two inches. This of course wears much more evenly and lasts +longer than cobble-stone pavements. I do not know that we could easily +procure an equally serviceable material, even if we were willing to pay +for it. One reason of the greater cleanness of the streets here is the +more universal prevalence of sewerage; another is the positive value of +street-offal here for fertilizing purposes. And as Gas is supplied here +to citizens at 4s. 6d. ($1.10) per thousand feet, while the good people +of New-York must bend to the necessity of paying $3.50, or more than +thrice as much for the like quantity, certainly of no better quality, it +is but reasonable to infer that the Londoners can afford to light their +streets better than the New-Yorkers. + +But there are other aspects in which _our_ streets have a decided +superiority. There are half a dozen streets and places here having the +same name, and only distinguished by appending the name of a neighboring +street, as "St. James-place, St. James-st.," to distinguish it from +several other St. James-places, and so on. This subjects strangers to +great loss of time and vexation of spirit. I have not yet delivered half +the letters of introduction which were given me at home to friends of +the writers in this city, and can't guess when I shall do it. Then the +numbering of the streets is absurdly vicious--generally 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., +up one side and down the other side, so that 320 will be opposite 140, +and 412 opposite 1, and so throughout. Of course, if any street so +numbered is extended beyond its original limit, the result is +inextricable confusion. But the Londoners seem not to have caught the +idea of numbering by lots at all, but to have numbered only the houses +that actually existed when the numbering was undertaken; so that, if a +street happened to be numbered when only half built up, every house +erected afterward serves to render confusion worse confounded. On this +account I spent an hour and a half a few evenings since in fruitless +endeavors to find William and Mary Howitt, though I knew they lived at +No. 28 Upper Avenue Road, which is less than half a mile long. I found +Nos. 27, 29, 30, and 31, and finally found 28 also, but in another part +of the street, with a No. 5 near it on one side and No. 16 ditto on the +other--and this in a street quite recently opened. I think New-York has +nothing equal to this in perplexing absurdity. + +The _Police_ here is more omnipresent and seems more efficient than +ours. I think the use of a common and conspicuous uniform has a good +effect. No one can here pretend that he defied or resisted a policeman +in ignorance of his official character. The London police appears to be +quite numerous, is admirably organized, and seems to be perfectly docile +to its superiors. Always to obey and never to ask the reason of a +command, is the rule here; it certainly has its advantages, but is not +well suited to the genius of our people. + +The _Hotels_ of London are decidedly inferior to those of New-York. I do +not mean by this that every comfort and reasonable luxury may not be +obtained in the London inns for money enough, but simply that the same +style of living costs more in this city than in ours. I think $5 per day +would be a fair estimate for the cost of living (servants' fees +included) as well in a London hotel as you may live in a first-class +New-York hotel for half that sum. One main cause of this disparity is +the smallness of the inns here. A majority of them cannot accommodate +more than twenty to forty guests comfortably; I think there are not four +in the entire Metropolis that could find room for one hundred each. Of +course, the expense of management, supervision, attendance, &c., in +small establishments is proportionably much greater than in large ones, +and the English habit of eating fitfully _solus_ instead of at a common +hour and table increases the inevitable cost. Considering the National +habits, it might be hazardous to erect and open such a hotel as the +Astor, Irving or New-York in this city; but if it were once well done, +and the experiment fairly maintained for three years, it could not fail +to work a revolution. _Wines_ (I understand) cost not more than half as +much here, in the average, as they do in New-York. + +In _Cabs_ and other Carriages for Hire, London is ahead of New-York. The +number here is immense; they are of many varieties, some of them better +calculated for fine weather than any of ours; while the legal rates of +fare are more moderate and not so outrageously exceeded. While the +average New-York demand is fully double the legal fare, the London +cabman seldom asks more than fifty per cent. above what the law allows +him; and this (by Americans, at least) is considered quite reasonable +and cheerfully paid. If our New-York Jehus could only be made to realize +that they keep their carriages empty by their exorbitant charges, and +really double-lock their pockets against the quarters that citizens +would gladly pour into them, I think a reform might be hoped for. + +The _Omnibuses_ of London are very numerous and well governed, but I +prefer those of New-York. The charges are higher here, though still +reasonable; but the genius of this people is not so well adapted to the +Omnibus system as ours is. For example: an Omnibus (the last for the +night) was coming down from the North toward Charing Cross the other +evening, when a lady asked to be taken up. The stage was full; the law +forbids the taking of more than twelve passengers inside; a remonstrance +was instantly raised by one or more of the passengers against taking +her; and she was left to plod her weary way as she could. I think that +could not have happened in New-York. In another instance, a stage-full +of passengers started eastward from Hyde Park, one of the women having a +basket of unwashed clothes on her knee. It was certainly inconvenient, +and not absolutely inoffensive; but the hints, the complaints, the +slurs, the sneers, with which the poor woman was annoyed and tortured +throughout--from persons certainly well-dressed and whom I should +otherwise have considered well-bred--were a complete surprise to me. In +vain did the poor woman explain that she was not permitted to deposit +her basket on the roof of the stage, as it was raining; the growls and +witticisms at her expense continued, and women were foremost in this +rudeness. I doubt that a woman was ever exposed to the like in New-York, +unless she was suspected of having Ethiopian blood in her veins. + +The _Parks_, _Squares_ and _Public Gardens_ of London beat us clean out +of sight. The Battery is very good, but it is not Hyde Park; Hoboken +_was_ delightful; Kensington Gardens _are_ and ever will remain so. Our +City ought to have made provision, twenty years ago, for a series of +Parks and Gardens extending quite across the island somewhere between +Thirtieth and Fiftieth streets. It is now too late for that; but all +that can be should be done immediately to secure breathing-space and +grounds for healthful recreation to the Millions who will ultimately +inhabit New-York. True, the Bay, the North and East Rivers, will always +serve as lungs to our City, but these of themselves will not suffice. +Where is or where is to be the Public Garden of New York? where the +attractive walks, and pleasure-grounds of the crowded denizens of the +Eastern Wards? These must be provided, and the work cannot be commenced +too soon. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] It seems that this plain marble is but an _imitation_--a stone or +brick wall covered with a composition, which gives it a smooth and +creamy appearance. + + + + +VIII. + +THE EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Wednesday, May 21, 1851. + +"All the world"--that is to say, some scores of thousands who would +otherwise be in London--are off to-day to the Epsom Races, this being +the "Derby Day," a great holiday here. Our Juries at the Fair generally +respect it, and I suppose I ought to have gone, since the opportunity +afforded for seeing out-door "life" in England may not occur to me +again. As, however, I have very much to do at home, and do not care one +button which of twenty or thirty colts can run fastest, I stay away; and +the murky, leaden English skies conspire to justify my choice. I +understand the regulations at these races are superior and ensure +perfect order; but Gambling, Intoxication and Licentiousness--to say +nothing of Swindling and Robbery--always did regard a horse-race with +signal favor and delight, and probably always will. Other things being +equal, I prefer that their delight and mine should not exactly coincide. + +I am away from the Exhibition to-day for the second time since it +opened; yet I understand that, in spite of the immense number gone to +Epsom (perhaps in consequence of the general presumption that few would +be left to attend), the throng is as great as ever. Yesterday there were +so many in the edifice that the Juries which kept together often found +themselves impeded by the eddying tide of Humanity; and yet there have +been no admissions paid for with so little as one dollar each. Next +Monday the charge comes down to _one_ shilling (24 cents), and it is +already evident that extraordinary measures must be taken to preserve +the Exhibition from choking up. I presume it will be decreed that no +more than Forty, Fifty or at most Sixty Thousand single admissions shall +be sold in one day, and that each apartment, lane or avenue in the +building shall be entered from one prescribed end only and vacated from +the other. The necessity for some such regulation is obviously +imperative. + +The immense pecuniary success of the Exhibition is of course assured. I +presume the Commissioners will be able to pay all fair charges upon +them, and very nearly, if not quite, clear the Crystal Palace from the +proceeds, over $15,000 having been taken yesterday, and an average of +more than $10,000 per day since the commencement. If we estimate the +receipts of May inclusive at $400,000 only, and those of June and July, +at $150,000 each, the total proceeds will, on the 1st of August, have +reached $700,000--a larger sum than was ever before realized in a like +period by any Exhibition whatever. But then no other was ever comparable +to this in extent, variety or magnificence. For example: a single London +house has _One Million Dollars'_ worth of the most superb Plate and +Jewelry in the Exhibition, in a by no means unfavorable position; yet I +had spent the better portion of five days there, roaming and gazing at +will, before I saw this lot. There are three Diamonds exhibited which +are worth, according to the standard method of computing the value of +Diamonds, at least Thirty millions of Dollars, and probably could be +sold in a week for Twenty Millions; I have seen but one of them as yet, +and that stands so conspicuously in the center of the Exhibition that +few who enter can help seeing it. And there are several miles of cases +and lots of costly wares and fabrics exposed here, a good share of which +are quite as attractive as the great Diamonds, and intrinsically far +more valuable. Is there cause for wonder, then, that the Exhibition is +daily thronged by tens of thousands, even at the present high prices? + +Yet very much of this immediate and indisputable success is due to the +personal influence and example of the Queen. Had she not seen fit to +open the display in person, and with unusual and imposing formalities, +there would have been no considerable attendance on that occasion; and +nothing less than her repeated and almost daily visits since, reaching +the building a little past nine in the morning (sometimes after being +engrossed with one of her State Balls or other festivities till long +after midnight), could have secured so general and constant an +attendance of the Aristocratic and Fashionable classes. No American who +has not been in Europe can conceive the extent of Royal influence in +this direction. What the Queen does every one who aspires to Social +consideration makes haste to imitate if possible. This personal +deference is often carried to an extent quite inconsistent with her +comfort and freedom, as I have observed in the Crystal Palace; where, +though I have never crowded near enough to recognize her, I have often +seen a throng blockading the approaches to the apartment or avenue in +which she and her cortege were examining the articles exhibited, and +there (being kept back from a nearer approach by the Police) they have +stood gaping and staring till she left, often for half an hour. This may +be intense loyalty, but it is dubious civility. Even on Saturday +mornings, when none but the Royal visiters are admitted till noon, and +only Jurors, Police and those Exhibitors whose wares or fabrics she +purposes that day to inspect are allowed to be present, I have noted +similar though smaller crowds facing the Police at the points of nearest +approach to her. At such times, her desire to be left to herself is +clearly proclaimed, and this gazing by the half hour amounts to positive +rudeness. + +I remarked the other evening to Charles Lane that, while I did not doubt +the sincerity of the Queen's interest in the articles exhibited, I +thought there was some purpose in these continual and protracted +visits--that, for England's sake and that of her husband, whose personal +stake in the undertaking was so great, she had resolved that it should +not fail if she could help it--and she knew how to help it. Lane +assentingly but more happily observed: "Yes: though she seems to be +standing on _this_ side of the counter, she is perhaps really standing +on _the other_."--As I regard such Exhibitions as among the very best +pursuits to which Royalty can addict itself, I should not give utterance +to this presumption if I did not esteem it creditable to Victoria both +as a Briton and a Queen. And it is very plain that her conduct in the +premises is daily, among her subjects, diffusing and deepening her +popularity. + + +DINNER AT RICHMOND. + +The London Commissioners gave a great Dinner at Richmond, yesterday, to +the foreign Commissioners in attendance on the Exhibition: Lord +Ashburton presiding, flanked by Foreign Ministers and Nobles. The feast +was of course superb; the speaking generally fair; the Music abundant +and faultless. Good songs were capitally given by eminent vocalists, +well sustained by instruments, between the several toasts with their +responses--a fashion which I suggest for adoption in our own country, +especially with the condition that the Speeches be shortened to give +time for the Songs. At this dinner, no Speech exceeded fifteen minutes +in duration but that of Baron Dupin, which may have consumed half an +hour, but in every other respect was admirable. The Englishmen who spoke +were Lords Ashburton and Granville, Messrs. Crace and Paxton; of the +Foreigners, Messrs. Dupin (France), Van de Weyer (Belgian Charge), Von +Viebhan (Prussian), and myself. Lord Ashburton spoke with great good +sense and good feeling, but without fluency. Lord Granville's remarks +were admirable in matter but also defective in manner. Barons Van de +Weyer and Dupin were very happy. The contrast in felicity of expression +between the British and the Continental speakers was very striking, +though the latter had no advantage in other respects. + +I went there at the pressing request of Lord Ashburton, who had desired +that an American should propose the health of Mr. Paxton, the designer +of the Crystal Palace, and Mr. Riddle, our Commissioner, had designated +me for the service; so I spoke about five minutes, and my remarks were +most kindly received by the entire company; yet _The Times_ of to-day, +in its report of the festival, suppresses not merely what I said, but +the sentiment I offered and even my name, merely stating that "Mr. +Paxton was then toasted and replied as follows." The _Daily News_ does +likewise, only it says Mr. Paxton's health was proposed by a Mr. +_Wedding_ (a Prussian who sat near me). I state these facts to expose +the falsehood of the boast lately made by _The Times_ in its +championship of dear newspapers like the British against cheap ones like +the American that "In this country fidelity in newspaper reporting is a +religion, and its dictates are never disregarded," &c. The pains taken +to suppress not merely what I said but its substance, and even my name, +while inserting Mr. Paxton's response, refutes the Pharisaic assumption +of The Times so happily that I could not let it pass.--Nay, I am willing +to brave the imputation of egotism by appending a faithful transcript of +what I _did_ say on that occasion, that the reader may guess _why_ The +Times deemed its suppression advisable: + +After Baron Dupin had concluded, + +HORACE GREELEY, being next called upon by the chair, arose and said: + + "In my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where Nature is still + so rugged and unconquered, where Population is yet so scanty + and the demands for human exertion are so various and urgent, + it is but natural that we should render marked honor to Labor, + and especially to those who by invention or discovery + contribute to shorten the processes and increase the + efficiency of Industry. It is but natural, therefore, that + this grand conception of a comparison of the state of Industry + in all Nations, by means of a World's Exhibition, should there + have been received and canvassed with a lively and general + interest--an interest which is not measured by the extent of + our contributions. Ours is still one of the youngest of + Nations, with few large accumulations of the fruits of + manufacturing activity or artistic skill, and these so + generally needed for use that we were not likely to send them + three thousand miles away, merely for show. It is none the + less certain that the progress of this great Exhibition from + its original conception to that perfect realization which we + here commemorate, has been watched and discussed not more + earnestly throughout the saloons of Europe, than by the + smith's forge and the mechanic's bench in America. Especially + the hopes and fears alternately predominant on this side with + respect to the edifice required for this Exhibition--the + doubts as to the practicability of erecting one sufficiently + capacious and commodious to contain and display the + contributions of the whole world--the apprehension that it + could not be rendered impervious to water--the confident + assertions that it could not be completed in season for + opening the Exhibition on the first of May as promised--all + found an echo on our shores; and now the tidings that all + these doubts have been dispelled, these difficulties removed, + will have been hailed there with unmingled satisfaction. + + "I trust, gentlemen, that among the ultimate fruits of this + Exhibition we are to reckon a wider and deeper appreciation of + the worth of Labor, and especially of those 'Captains of + Industry' by whose conceptions and achievements our Race is so + rapidly borne onward in its progress to a loftier and more + benignant destiny. We shall not be likely to appreciate less + fully the merits of the wise Statesman, by whose measures a + People's thrift and happiness are promoted--of the brave + Soldier who joyfully pours out his blood in defense of the + rights or in vindication of the honor of his Country--of the + Sacred Teacher by whose precepts and example our steps are + guided in the pathway to heaven--if we render fit honor also + to those 'Captains of Industry' whose tearless victories + redden no river and whose conquering march is unmarked by the + tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. I give you, + therefore, + + "_The Health of Joseph Paxton, Esq._, _Designer of the Crystal + Palace_--Honor to him whose genius does honor to Industry and + to Man!" + +If the reader shall discern in the above (which is as nearly literal as +may be--I having only recollection to depend on) the _reason_ why _The +Times_ saw fit to suppress not merely the remarks, but the words of the +toast and the name of the proposer, I shall be satisfied; though I think +the exposure of that journal's argument for dear newspapers as +preferable to cheap ones, on the ground that the former always gave fair +and accurate reports of public meetings while the latter never did, is +worth the space I have given to this matter. I am very sure that if my +remarks had been deemed discreditable to myself or my country, they +would have been fully reported in _The Times_. + + +EXHIBITION ITEMS. + +The Queen and Prince Albert spent an hour in the American department a +few mornings since, and appeared to regard the articles there displayed +with deep interest. Prince Albert (who is esteemed here not merely a man +of sterling good sense, but thoroughly versed in mechanics and +manufactures) expressed much surprise at the variety of our +contributions and the utility and excellence of many of them. I mention +this because there are some Americans here who declare themselves +_ashamed of their country_ because of the meagerness of its share in the +Exhibition. I do not suppose their country will deem it worth while to +return the compliment; but I should have been far more ashamed of the +prodigality and want of sense evinced in sending an indiscriminate +profusion of American products here than I am of the actual state of the +case. It is true, as I have already stated, that we are deficient in +some things which might have been sent here with advantage to the +contributors and with credit to the country; but for Americans to send +here articles of luxury and fashion to be exhibited in competition with +all the choicest wares and fabrics of Europe, which must have beaten +them if only by the force of mere quantity alone, would have evinced a +want of sense and consideration which I trust is not our National +characteristic. If I ever _do_ feel ashamed in the American department, +it is on observing a pair of very well shaped and exquisitely finished +oars, labeled, "A Present for the Prince of Wales," or something of the +sort. Spare me the necessity of blushing for what we _have_ there, and I +am safe enough from shame on account of our deficiencies. + +Mr. A. C. Hobbs, of the lock-making concern of Day & Newell, has +improved his leisure here in picking a six-tumbler Bank Lock of Mr. +Chubb, the great English locksmith, and he now gives notice that he can +pick _any_ of Chubb's locks, or any other based on similar principles, +as he is willing to demonstrate in any fair trial. I trust he will have +a chance. + +The Queen quits the Exhibition for a time this week, and retires to her +house on the Isle of Wight, where she will spend some days in private +with her family. I presume the Aristocracy will generally follow her +example, so far as the Exhibition is concerned, leaving it to the poorer +class, to whom five shillings is a consideration. Absurd speculations +are rife as to what "the mob" will do in such a building--whether they +will evacuate it quietly and promptly at night--whether there will not +be a rush made at the diamonds and other precious stones by bands of +thieves secretly confederated for plunder, &c. &c. I do not remember +that like apprehensions were ever entertained in our country; but faith +in Man abstractly is weak here, while faith in the Police, the +Horse-Guards and the Gallows, is strong.--There are always two hundred +soldiers and three hundred policemen in the building while it is open to +the public; and in case of any attempt at robbery, every outlet would +(by means of the Telegraph) be closed and guarded within a few seconds, +while hundreds if not thousands of soldiers are at all times within +call. But they will not be needed. + + + + +IX. + +SIGHTS IN LONDON. + + LONDON, Friday, May 23, 1851. + +I have been much occupied, through the last fortnight, and shall be for +some ten days more, with the Great Exhibition, in fulfillment of the +duties of a Juror therein. The number of Americans here (not exhibitors) +who can and will devote the time required for this service is so small +that none can well be excused; and the fairness evinced by the Royal +Commissioners in offering to place as many foreigners (named by the +Commissioners of their respective countries) as Britons on the several +Juries well deserves to be met in a corresponding spirit. I did not, +therefore, feel at liberty to decline the post of Juror, to which I had +been assigned before my arrival, though it involves much labor and care, +and will keep me here somewhat longer than I had intended to stay. On +the other hand, it has opened to me sources of information and +facilities for observation which I could not, in a brief visit to a land +of strangers, have otherwise hoped to enjoy. I spend each secular day at +the Exhibition--generally from 10 to 3 o'clock--and have my evenings for +other pursuits and thoughts. I propose here to jot down a few of the +notes on London I have made since the sailing of the last steamship. + + +WESTMINSTER ABBEY. + +I attended Divine worship in this celebrated edifice last Sunday +morning. Situated near the Houses of Parliament, the Royal Palaces of +Buckingham and St. James, and in the most aristocratic quarter of the +city, its external appearance is less imposing than I had expected, and +what I saw of its interior did not particularly impress me. Lofty +ceilings, stained windows, and a barbaric profusion of carving, groining +and all manner of costly contrivances for absorbing money and labor, +made on me the impression of waste rather than taste, seeming to give +form and substance to the orator's simile of "the contortions of the +sibyl without her inspiration." A better acquaintance with the edifice, +or with the principles of architecture, might serve to correct this +hasty judgment; but surely Westminster Abbey ought to afford a place of +worship equal in capacity, fitness and convenience to a modern church +edifice costing $50,000, and surely it does not. I think there is no one +of the ten best churches in New York which is not superior to the Abbey +for this purpose. + +I supposed myself acquainted with all the approved renderings of the +Episcopal morning service, but when the clergyman who officiated at the +Abbey began to twang out "Dearly beloved brethren," &c., in a nasal, +drawling semi-chant, I was taken completely aback. It sounded as though +some graceless Friar Tuck had wormed himself into the desk and was +endeavoring, under the pretense of reading the service, to caricature as +broadly as possible the alleged peculiarity of Methodistic pulpit +enunciation superimposed upon the regular Yankee drawl. As the service +proceeded, I became more accustomed and more reconciled to this mode of +utterance, but never enough so to like it, nor even the responses, which +were given in the same way, but much better. After I came away, I was +informed that this semi-chant is termed _intoning_, and is said to be a +revival of an ancient method of rendering the church service. If such be +the fact, I can only say that in my poor judgment that revival was an +unwise and unfortunate one. + +The Service was very long--more than two hours--the Music excellent--the +congregation large--the Sermon, so far as I could judge, had nothing bad +in it. Yet there was an Eleventh-Century air about the whole which +strengthened my conviction that the Anglican Church will very soon be +potentially summoned to take her stand distinctly on the side either of +Romanism or of Protestantism, and that the summons will shake not the +Church only but the Realm to its centre. + + +RAGGED SCHOOLS + +In the evening I attended the Ragged School situated in Carter's-field +Lane, near the Cattle-Market in Smithfield [where John Rogers was burned +at the stake by Catholics, as Catholics had been burned by Protestants +before him. The honest, candid history of Persecution for Faith's sake, +has never yet been written; whenever it shall be, it must cause many +ears to tingle]. + +It was something past 7 o'clock when we reached the rough old building, +in a filthy, poverty-stricken quarter, which has been rudely fitted up +for the Ragged School--one of the first, I believe, that was attempted. +I should say there were about four hundred pupils on its benches, with +about forty teachers; the pupils were at least two-thirds males from +five to twenty years old, with a dozen or more adults. The girls were a +hundred or so, mainly from three to ten years of age; but in a separate +and upper apartment ascending out of the main room, there were some +forty adult women, with teachers exclusively of their own sex. The +teachers were of various grades of capacity; but, as all teach without +pay and under circumstances which forbid the idea of any other than +philanthropic or religious attractiveness in the duty, they are all +deserving of praise. The teaching is confined, I believe, to rudimental +instruction in reading and spelling, and to historic, theologic and +moral lessons from the Bible. As the doors are open, and every one who +sees fit comes in, stays so long as he or she pleases, and then goes +out, there is much confusion and bustle at times, but on the whole a +satisfactory degree of order is preserved, and considerable, though very +unequal, progress made by the pupils. + +But such faces! such garments! such daguerreotypes of the superlative of +human wretchedness and degradation! These pupils were gathered from +among the outcasts of London--those who have no family ties, no homes, +no education, no religious training, but were born to wander about the +docks, picking up a chance job now and then, but acquiring no skill, no +settled vocation, often compelled to steal or starve, and finally +trained to regard the sheltered, well fed, and respected majority as +their natural oppressors and their natural prey. Of this large class of +vagrants, amounting in this city to thousands, Theft and (for the +females) Harlotry, whenever the cost of a loaf of bread or a night's +lodging could be procured by either, were as matter-of-course resorts +for a livelihood as privateering, campaigning, distilling or (till +recently) slave-trading was to many respected and well-to-do champions +of order and Conservatism throughout Christendom. And the outcasts have +ten times the excuse for their moral blindness and their social misdeeds +that their well-fed competitors in iniquity ever had. They have simply +regarded the world as their oyster and tried to open its hard shells as +they best could, not indicating thereby a special love of oysters but a +craving appetite for food of some kind. It was oyster or nothing with +them. And in the course of life thus forced upon them, the males who +survived the period of infancy may have averaged twenty-five years of +wretched, debased, brutal existence, while the females, of more delicate +frame and subjected to additional evils, have usually died much younger. +But the gallows, the charity hospitals, the prisons, the work-houses +(refuges denied to the healthy and the unconvicted), with the unfenced +kennels and hiding-places of the destitute during inclement weather, +generally saw the earthly end of them all by the time that men in better +circumstances have usually attained their prime. And all this has been +going on unresisted and almost unnoticed for countless generations, in +the very shadows of hundreds of church steeples, and in a city which +pays millions of dollars annually for the support of Gospel +ministrations. + +The chief impression made on me by the spectacle here presented was one +of intense sadness and self-reproach. I deeply realised that I had +hitherto said too little, done too little, dared too little, sacrificed +too little, to awaken attention to the infernal wrongs and abuses which +are inherent in the very structure and constitution, the nature and +essence, of civilised Society as it now exists throughout Christendom. +Of what avail are alms-giving, and individual benevolence, and even the +offices of Religion, in the presence of evil so gigantic and so inwoven +with the very framework of Society? There have been here in all recent +times charitable men, good men, enough to have saved Sodom, but not +enough to save Society from the condemnation of driving this outcast +race before it like sheep to the slaughter, as its members pressed on in +pursuit of their several schemes of pleasure, riches or ambition, +looking up to God for His approbation on their benevolence as they +tossed a penny to some miserable beggar after they had stolen the earth +from under his feet. How long shall this endure? + +The School was dismissed, and every one requested to leave who did not +choose to attend the prayer-meeting. No effort was made to induce any to +stay--the contrary rather. I was surprised to see that three-fourths (I +think) staid; though this was partly explained afterwards by the fact +that by staying they had hopes of a night's lodging here and none +elsewhere. That prayer-meeting was the most impressive and salutary +religious service I have attended for many years. Four or five prayers +were made by different teachers in succession--all chaste, appropriate, +excellent, fervent, affecting. A Hymn was sung before and after each by +the congregation--and well sung. Brief and cogent addresses were made by +the superintendent and (I believe) an American visitor. Then the School +was dismissed, and the pupils who had tickets permitting them to sleep +in the dormitory below filed off in regular order to their several +berths. The residue left the premises. We visiters were next permitted +to go down and see those who staid--of course only the ladies being +allowed to look into the apartment of the women. O the sadness of that +sight! There in the men's room were perhaps a hundred men and boys, +sitting up in their rags in little compartments of naked boards, each +about half-way between a bread-tray and a hog-trough, which, planted +close to each other, were to be their resting-places for the night, as +they had been for several previous nights. And this is a very recent and +very blessed addition to the School, made by the munificence of some +noble woman, who gave $500 expressly to fit up some kind of a +sleeping-room, so that those who had attended the School should not +_all_ be turned out (as a part still necessarily are) to wander or lie +all night in the always cold, damp streets. There are not many hogs in +America who are not better lodged than these poor human brethren and +sisters, who now united, at the suggestion of the superintendent, in a +hymn of praise to God for all His mercies. Doubtless, many did so with +an eye to the shelter and hope of food (for each one who is permitted to +stay here has a bath and six ounces of bread allowed him in the +morning); yet when I contrasted this with the more formal and stately +worship I had attended at Westminster Abbey in the morning, the +preponderance was decidedly not in favor of the latter. + +It seemed to me a profanation--an insult heaped on injury--an +unjustifiable prying into the saddest secrets of the great prison-house +of human woe--for us visiters to be standing here; and, though I +apologised for it with a sovereign, which grain of sand will, I am sure, +be wisely applied to the mitigation of this mountain of misery, I was +yet in haste to be gone. Yet I leaned over the rail and made some +inquiry of a ragged and forlorn youth of nineteen or twenty who sat next +us in his trough, waiting for our departure before he lay down to such +rest as that place could afford him. He replied that he had no parents +nor friends who could help him--had never been taught any trade--always +did any work he could get--sometimes earned six-pence to a shilling per +day by odd jobs, but could get no work lately--had no money, of +course--and had eaten nothing that day but the six ounces of bread given +him on rising here in the morning--and had only the like six ounces in +prospect between him and starvation. That hundreds so situated should +unite with seeming fervor in praise to God shames the more polished +devotion of the favored and comfortable; and if these famishing, +hopeless outcasts were to pilfer every day of their lives (as most of +them did, and perhaps some of them still do), I should pity even more +than I blamed them. + +The next night gave me a clearer idea of + + +BRITISH ANTI-SLAVERY. + +The Annual meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was +held on Monday evening, in Freemasons' Hall--a very fine one. There were +about One Thousand persons present--perhaps less, certainly not more. I +think JOSEPH STURGE, Esq., was Chairman, but I did not arrive till after +the organization, and did not learn the officers' names. At all events, +Mr. Sturge had presented the great practical question to the Meeting--"What +can we Britons do to hasten the overthrow of Slavery?"--and Rev. H. H. +GARNETT (colored) of our State was speaking upon it when I entered. He +named me commendingly to the audience, and the Chairman thereupon invited +me to exchange my back seat for one on the platform, which I took. Mr. +Garnett proceeded to commend the course of British action against Slavery +which is popular here, and had already been shadowed forth in the set +resolves afterward read to the meeting. The British were told that they +could most effectually war against Slavery by refusing the courtesies of +social intercourse to slaveholders--by refusing to hear or recognise +pro-slavery clergymen--by refusing to consume the products of Slave Labor, +&c. Another colored American--a Rev. Mr. CRUMMILL, if I have his name +right,--followed in the same vein, but urged more especially the duty of +aiding the Free Colored population of the United-States to educate and +intellectually develop their children. Mr. S. M. PETO, M. P. followed in +confirmation of the views already expressed by Mr. Garnett, insisting that +he could not as a Christian treat the slaveholder otherwise than as a +tyrant and robber. And then a very witty negro from Boston (Rev. Mr. +Heuston, I understood his name), spoke quite at length in unmeasured +glorification of Great Britain, as the land of _true_ freedom and +equality, where simple Manhood is respected without regard to Color, and +where alone he had ever been treated by all as a man and a brother. + +By this time I was very ready to accept the Chairman's invitation to say +a few words. For, while all that the speakers had uttered with regard to +Slavery was true enough, it was most manifest that, whatever effect the +course of action they urged might have in America, it could have no +other than a baneful influence on the cause of Political Reform in this +country. True, it did not always say in so many words that the Social +and Political institutions of Great Britain are perfect, but it never +intimated the contrary, while it generally implied and often distinctly +affirmed this. The effect, therefore, of such inculcations, is not only +to stimulate and aggravate the Phariseeism to which all men are +naturally addicted, but actually to impede and arrest the progress of +Reform in this Country by implying that nothing here needs reforming. +And as this doctrine of "Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou," +was of course received with general applause by a British audience, the +vices of speaker and hearer reaected on each other; and, judging from the +specimens I had that evening, I must regard American, and especially +Afric-American lecturers against Slavery in this country as among the +most effective upholders of all the enormous Political abuses and wrongs +which are here so prevalent. + +When the stand was accorded me, therefore, I proceeded, not by any means +to apologize for American Slavery, not to suggest the natural obstacles +to its extinction, but to point out, as freely as the audience would +bear, some modes of effective hostility to it in addition to those +already commended. Premising the fact that Slavery in America now +justifies itself mainly on the grounds that the class who live by rude +manual toil always are and must be degraded and ill-requited--that there +is more debasement and wretchedness on their part in the Free States and +in Great Britain itself than there is in the Slave States--and that, +moreover, Free laborers will not work in tropical climates, so that +these must be cultivated by slaves or not at all--I suggested and +briefly urged on British Abolitionists the following course of action: + +1. Energetic and systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labor +and the comfort and consideration of the depressed Laboring Class here +at home; and to diffuse and cherish respect for Man as Man, without +regard to class, color or vocation. + +2. Determined efforts for the eradication of those Social evils and +miseries _here_ which are appealed to and relied on by slaveholders and +their champions everywhere as justifying the continuance of Slavery; And + +3. The colonization of our Slave States by thousands of intelligent, +moral, industrious Free Laborers, who will silently and practically +dispel the wide-spread delusion which affirms that the Southern States +must be cultivated and their great staples produced by Slave Labor or +not at all. + +I think I did not speak more than fifteen minutes, and I was heard +patiently to the end, but my remarks were received with no such +"thunders of applause" as had been accorded to the more politic efforts +of the colored gentlemen. There was in fact repeatedly evinced a +prevalent apprehension that I _would_ say something which it would be +incumbent on the audience to resent; but I did not. And I have a faint +hope that some of the remarks thus called forth will be remembered and +reflected on. I am sure there is great need of it, and that +denunciations of Slavery addressed by London to Charleston and Mobile +will be far more effective after the extreme of destitution and misery +uncovered by the Ragged Schools shall have been banished forever from +this island--nay, after the great body of those who here denounce +Slavery so unsparingly shall have earnestly, unselfishly, thoroughly +_tried_ so to banish it. + + + + +X. + +POLITICAL ECONOMY, AS STUDIED AT THE WORLD'S EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, May 27, 1851. + +To say, as some do, that the English hate the Americans, is to do the +former injustice. Even if we leave out of the account the British +millions who subsist by rude manual toil, and who certainly regard our +country, so far as they think of it at all, with an emotion very +different from hatred, there is evinced by the more fortunate classes a +very general though not unqualified admiration of the rapidity of our +progress, the vastness of our resources, and the extraordinary physical +energy developed in our brief, impetuous career. Dense as is the +ignorance which widely prevails in Europe with regard to American +history and geography, it is still very generally understood that we +were, only seventy years since, but Three Millions of widely scattered +Colonists, doubtfully contending, on a narrow belt of partially cleared +sea-coast, with the mother country on one side and the savages on the +other, for a Political existence; and that now we are a nation of +Twenty-three Millions, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and +from the cane-producing Tropic to the shores of Lake Superior where snow +lies half the year--from Nantucket and the Chesapeake to the affluents +of Hudson's Bay and the spacious harbors and sheltered roadsteads of +Nootka Sound. And this vast extent of country, the Briton remarks with +pride, we have not merely overrun, as the Spanish so rapidly traversed +South America, but have really appropriated and in good degree +assimilated, so that the far shores of the Pacific, which have but for +three or four years felt the tread of the Anglo-American, are now dotted +with energetic and thriving marts of Commerce, into whose lap gold mines +are pouring their lavish treasures, while a profusion of steamers, ships +and smaller watercraft link them closely with each other, with the +Atlantic States and the Old World, while their numerous daily journals +are aiding to diffuse the English language through the isles of the +immense Pacific, and their "merchant princes" are coolly discussing the +advantages of establishing a direct communication by lines of steamships +with China and opening the wealth of Japan to the commerce of the +civilized world. All this is marked with something of wonder but more of +pride by the ruling classes in Great Britain--the pride of a father +whose son has beaten him and run away, but who nevertheless hears with +interest and gratification that the unfilial reprobate is conquering +fame and fortune, and who with beaming eye observes to a neighbor, "A +wild boy that of mine, sir, but blood will tell!" If the United States +were attacked by any power or alliance strong enough to threaten their +subjugation, the sympathy felt for them in these islands would be +intense and all but universal. + +And yet there is another side of the picture, which in fairness must +also be presented. The favored classes in Great Britain, while they +heartily admire the American energy and its fruits, do and must +nevertheless _dread the contagion of our example_; and this dread must +increase and be diffused as the rapidly increasing power, population and +wealth of our country commend it more and more to the attention of the +world. While we were some sixty days distant, and heard of mainly in +connection with Indian fights or massacres, fatal steamboat explosions +or insolvent banks, this contagion was not imminent and did not +seriously alarm; but, now that New-York is but ten days from London, and +New-Orleans (by Telegraph) scarcely more, the case is bravely altered, +and it becomes daily more and more palpable that the United States and +Great Britain cannot both remain as they are. If we in America can have +a succession of capable and reputable Chief Magistrates for L5,000 a +year, of Chief Justices for L1,000, and of Cabinets at a gross cost of +less than L10,000, it is manifest that John Bull, who, loyal as he is, +has a strong instinct of thrift and a pride in getting the worth of his +money, will not long be content to pay a hundred times as much for his +Chief Executive and ten times as much for his Judiciary and Ministry as +we do. It is a question, therefore, of the deepest practical interest to +the British Nation whether the Americans do really enjoy the advantages +of peace, order and security for the rights of person and property +through instrumentalities so cheap, and so dependent on moral force +only, as those devised and established by Washington and his +compatriots. If we have these with a Civil List of less than L1,000,000 +sterling, an Army of less than Ten Thousand men, and a Navy (why won't +it die and get decently buried?) of a dozen or two active vessels, why +should John tax and sweat himself as he does to maintain a Political +establishment which costs him over $150,000,000 a year beside the +interest on his enormous National Debt? If we, without any Church +endowed by law, have as ample and widely diffused provision for Divine +worship and Religious instruction as he has, why should he pay tithes to +endow Lord Bishops with incomes of L10,000 to L80,000 per annum?--These +and similar questions are beginning to be widely pondered here: they +refuse to be longer drowned by the blare of trumpets and the resonant +melody of "God save the Queen!" I know nobody who objects to that last +quoted sentiment, but there are many here, and the number is increasing, +who think there is an urgent and practical need of salvation also for +the People--salvation from heavy exactions, unjust burthens and galling +distinctions. And, as the interest of the Many in the reform of abuses +and the removal of impositions becomes daily more obvious and palpable, +so does the instinctive grasp of the Few to keep what they have and get +what they can become likewise more muscular and positive. And this +instinct absolutely demands a perversion or suppression of the truth +with regard to America--with regard especially to the prevalence of +order, justice and tranquillity within her borders. And not this only: +it is important to this class that it be made to appear that, while +Republican institutions may possibly answer for a time in a rude and +semi-barbarous community of scattered grain-growers and herdsmen, they +are utterly incompatible with a dense population, with general +refinement, the upbuilding of Manufactures and the prevalence of the +arts of civilized life. + +Here, then, is the cue to the cry so early and generally raised, so +often and invidiously renewed by the London daily press, of surprise at +the meagerness of our country's share in the Great Exhibition. Had any +other young nation of Twenty Millions, located three to five thousand +miles off, sent a collection so large and so creditable to its +industrial proficiency and inventive power, it would have been warmly +commended by these same journals; but it is deemed desirable to make an +impression on the public mind of Europe adverse to American skill and +attainment in the Arts, and hence these representations and sneers. + +Yet, gentlemen! what would you have? For years you have been devoting +your energies to the task of convincing our people that they should be +content to grow Food and Cotton and send them hither in exchange for +Wares and Fabrics, especially those of the finer and costlier varieties. +You have written reams of essays intended to prove that this course of +Industry and Trade is dictated by Nature, by Providence, by Public +good; and that only narrow and short-sighted selfishness would seek to +overrule it. Well: here are American samples of all the staples you say +our Country _ought_ to produce and be content with, in undeniable +abundance and excellence--Cotton, Wool, Wheat, Flour, Indian Corn, Hams, +Beef, &c., &c., yet these you run over with a glance of cool contempt, +and say we have nothing in the Exhibition! Is this kind or politic +treatment of the supporters of your policy in the States? If a seeming +approximation to your Utopia should subject them to such compliments, +what may they expect from its perfect consummation? Let all our States +become as purely Agricultural as the Carolinas or the lower valley of +the Mississippi, and what would then be your estimation of us? If a +half-way obedience to your counsels exposes us to such disparagement, +what might we fairly expect from a thorough submission? + +The vital truth, everywhere demonstrable, is nowhere so palpable as +here--that a diversification of Industrial pursuits is essential not +only to the prosperity and thrift, but also to the education and +intellectual activity of a People. A community which witnesses from year +to year the processes of Agricultural labor only, lacks a stimulus to +mental cultivation of inestimable value. If Europe were to say to +America, "Sit still, and we will send you from year to year all the +Wares and Fabrics you need for nothing, on the simple condition that you +will not attempt to produce any yourselves," it would be most unwise and +suicidal to accept the offer. For we need not more the Wares and Fabrics +than the skill which fashions and the taste which beautifies them. We +need that multiform capacity and facility of hand and brain which only +experience in the Arts can bestow and diffuse. The National Industry is +the People's University; to confine it to a few and those the ruder +branches is to stunt and stagnate the popular mind--is to arrest the +march of improvement in Agriculture itself. Hence, nearly or quite all +the modern improvements in Cultivation have been made in immediate +proximity to a dense Manufacturing population; hence Belgium is now a +garden, while Ireland (except the manufacturing North) is to a great +extent stagnant and decaying. Other causes doubtless conspire, as in +England contrasted with Italy and Spain, to produce these results, but +they do not unsettle the general truth that Industry advances through a +symmetric and many-sided development or does not advance at all. + +We have yet much to learn in the Arts, but the first lesson of all is a +well-founded confidence in our own artisans, our own capacities, with a +patriotic resolution to encourage the former and develop the latter. And +this confidence is abundantly justified even by what is exhibited here. +While our show of products is much less than it might and less even than +it should have been, those who have really studied it draw thence hope +and courage. No other nation exhibits within a similar compass so great +a diversity of excellence--no other exhibits so large a proportion of +inventions and valuable improvements. Even in the vast apartment devoted +to British Machinery, the number and importance of the American +inventions exhibited (some of them adapted to new uses or improved upon +in this country; others merely incorporated with British improvements), +is very striking. I doubt whether England during the last half century +has borrowed so many inventions from all the world beside--I am sure she +has not from all except France--as she has from the United States. And +yet we are blessed with the presence of sundry Americans here who, +without having examined our contributions, without knowing anything more +about them than they have gleaned from _The Times_ and _Punch_, aided by +a hurried walk through the department, are busily proclaiming that this +show makes them ashamed of their country! + +Here is the great source of our weakness--a want of proper pride in and +devotion to our own Industrial interests. Every sort of patriotism is +abundant in America but that which is most essential--that which aids to +develop and strengthen the Nation's productive energies. No other people +buy Foreign fabrics extensively in preference to the equally cheap and +more substantial products of their own looms, yet ours do it habitually. +I had testimony after testimony from American merchants on the voyage +over, as well as before and since, that foreign fabrics habitually sell +in our markets for ten to twenty per cent. more than is asked for +equally good American products, while thousands of pieces of the latter +are readily sold on the strength of fabricated Foreign marks at prices +which they would not command to customers who would not buy them, if +their origin were known. This is certainly disgraceful to the +seller--what is it to the buyer? The mercantile interest naturally leans +toward the more distant production--the margin for profit is larger +where an article is brought across an ocean, while the cost of a home +made article is so notorious that there is little chance of putting on a +large profit. Give American producers the prices now readily paid +throughout our country for Foreign fabrics and they will grow rich by +manufacturing articles in no respect inferior to the former. But with +only a share of the American market, and this mainly for the coarsest +and cheapest goods, while the purchasers of the more costly and +fanciful, on which the larger profits are made, must have "Fabrique de +Paris" or some such label affixed to render them current, our +manufacturers have no fair chance. While fools could be found to buy +"Cashmere Shawls," costing fifty to a hundred dollars, for five hundred +to a thousand, under the absurd delusion that they came from Eastern +Asia, the fabrication and the profits were European; let an American +begin to make just such Shawls and the secret is out, so the price sinks +at once to the neighborhood of the cost of production. So with De +Laines, Counterpanes, Brussels Carpetings and fabrics generally; and yet +Americans will talk as though the encouragement given by protective +Duties to home Manufacturers were given at the expense of our consumers. +Vainly are they challenged from day to day to name one single article +whereof the production has been transplanted from Europe to America +through Protection, which has not thereby been materially cheapened to +the American consumer; it suits them better to assume that the duty is a +tax on the consumer than to examine the case and admit the truth. But +delusion cannot be eternal. + +That our Country would at some future day work its way gradually out of +its present semi-Colonial dependence on European tastes, European +fashions, European fabrication, even though all Legislative +encouragement were withheld, I firmly believe. The genius, the activity, +the energy, the enterprise of our people conspire to assure it. So the +thief, the burglar, the forger, are certain to suffer for their misdeeds +though all the penalties of human laws were repealed, and yet I consider +state prisons and houses of correction salutary if not indispensable. It +is difficult for even an ingenious and inventive race to make +improvements in an art or process which has no existence among them. +Whitney's Cotton-Gin presupposed the growth of Cotton; Fulton's +steamboat the existence of internal commerce and navigation; without +Lowell, Bigelow might have invented a new trap for muskrats but not +looms for weaving Carpets, Ginghams, Coach-Lace, &c. I deeply feel that +our Country owes to mankind the duty of so sustaining her Manufacturing +Industry that further and more signal triumphs of her inventive genius +may yet be evolved and realised, not merely in the domain of Fabrics but +in that of Wares and Metals also, and especially in that of the chief +metal, Iron. Had Iron enjoyed for twenty years such a measure of +Protection among us as Plain Cottons obtained from 1816 through Mr. +Calhoun's minimum of six cents per square yard, we should, in all +probability, have been producing Iron by this time as cheaply as drills +and sheetings--that is, as cheaply (quality considered) as any nation on +the globe--as cheaply as we produce School-Books, Newspapers, and nearly +every article whereof the American maker is shielded by circumstances +from Foreign competition. Had the Tariff of 1842 but stood unaltered +till this time, who believes that even the greenest and silliest +American could have fancied himself blushing for the meagerness of his +country's share in the Great Exhibition? + + + + +XI. + +ROYAL SUNSHINE. + + + LONDON, Thursday, May 29, 1851. + +I have now been four weeks in this metropolis, and, though confined +throughout nearly every day to the Crystal Palace, I have enjoyed large +and various opportunities for studying the English People. I have made +acquaintances in all ranks, from dukes to beggars--all ranks, I should +say, but that which is esteemed the highest. I have of course seen the +Royal family repeatedly at the Exhibition, which is open at all hours to +Jurors, and the Queen times her visits so as to be there mainly while it +is closed to the public. But I have barely seen her party, as I passed +it with a double row of gazers interposed, all eager to catch the +sunlight of Majesty, appearing to care little how much she might be +annoyed or they abased by their unseemly gaping. I hope no Americans +contributed to swell these groups, but after what I have seen here I am +by no means sure of it. + +A young countrywoman who has not yet been long enough in Europe to +forget what it cost our forefathers to be rid of all this, but who had +in her own case adequate reasons for desiring a presentation at Court, +gave me some days since a graphic account of the ceremonial, which I +wish I had committed to paper while it was freshly remembered. It is of +course understood that every one presented to her Majesty must appear in +full dress--that of gentlemen (not Military) being a Court suit alike +costly, fantastic and utterly useless elsewhere, while ladies are +expected to appear in rich --> _British_ silk (Free Trade +notwithstanding) with a train three yards long (perhaps it is only three +feet), with plumes, &c. Thus equipped, they proceed to the Palace, where +at the appointed hour the Queen makes her appearance, with her family by +her side and backed by a double row of maids of honor, attendants, &c. +Each palpitating aspirant to the honor of presentation awaits his or her +turn standing, and may thus wait two hours. The Foreign Embassadors have +precedence in presenting; others follow; in due season your name is +called out; you pass before the Royal presence, make your bow or +courtesy, receive the faint suggestion of a response, and pass along and +away to make room for the next customer. Unless you belong essentially +to the Diplomatic circle (being presented by an Embassador will not +answer), you are not allowed to remain and see those behind you take the +plunge, but must hasten forthwith from the presence. And, as ordinary +Humanity has but one aspect in which it is fit to be gazed on by Royal +eyes, you must contrive to quit the presence with your face constantly +turned toward it. Now this need not be difficult for those in masculine +attire, but to the wearers of the rich Spitalfields silks and trains +aforesaid, even though the trains be but three feet long instead of +three yards, the evolution must require no moderate share of feminine +tact and dexterity. It is consoling to hear that all manage to +accomplish it, by dint of severe training through the week preceding the +event; though some are so frightened when the awful moment arrives that +their ghastly visages and tottering frames evince how narrowly they +escape swooning. The fact that it is over in a moment serves materially +to mitigate the torture! + +"What ridiculous formalities!--What absurd requirements!" exclaims +Brother Jonathan. No, sir! You are judging without knowledge or without +consideration. These and kindred formalities, considered apart, may be +ludicrous, but, regarded as portions of a system, they are essential. In +a country where everything gravitates so intensely toward the Throne, +there must be impediments to presentation at Court, if the Sovereign is +to enjoy any leisure, peace, comfort, or even time for the most pressing +public duties. There is and should be no absolute barrier to the +presentation of any well-bred, well-behaved person, whether subject or +foreigner; and, if it were as easy as visiting the Exhibition, the Queen +would be required to hold a drawing-room every day, and devote the whole +of it to unmeaning and useless introductions. As the matter is actually +managed, those who have any good reason for it undergo the ceremony, +with many who have none; while the great majority are content with the +knowledge that they _might be_ admitted to the august presence if they +chose to incur the bother and expense. Those who cherish a moth-like +reverence for Royalty indulge it at their own cost and to the advantage +of Trade; weavers, costumers and shop-keepers are very glad to pocket +the money which the presentee must disburse; and even those ladies who +have the _entree_, and so attend half a dozen drawing-rooms per annum, +are expected to appear at each in a new dress--thus the interests of the +shop are never lost sight of. These Court formalities, Brother J., are +_not_ absurd--very far from it. They are rational, politic, beneficent, +indispensable. Whether it is wise or unwise for _your_ young folks to +subject themselves to the inevitable expense and vexation for the sake +of standing a few feet nearer a Queen, is another affair altogether. +When I contrast these presentations with the freedom and ease (except +when there is a jam) of our Presidential receptions--when I remember +that any whole dress is good enough for the White House, and any honest +man or woman (with some not so honest) may go up on a levee night and be +introduced to the President and his lady, saunter through the rooms, +converse with friends and pass in review half the notables of the +Nation--I deeply realize the superiority of Republicanism to Royalty, +but without seeking to put the new wine into old bottles. The forms +appropriate to our simpler institutions would be utterly unsuitable +here--nay, they would be found impossible. + +The Queen left London last week for her private residence on the Isle of +Wight, I supposed for weeks; but she was back in the Exhibition early on +Tuesday morning, and has since been holding a Drawing-Room, giving +Dinners, a Concert, &c. with her accustomed activity. She seems resolved +to make the Exhibition Summer an agreeable one for the Foreigners in +attendance, many of whom are included in her invitations. As the +"shilling days" opened meagerly on Monday, to the disappointment +(perhaps because) of the general apprehension of a crush, and as the +numbers thronging thither have rapidly increased ever since, the Queen's +renewed countenance receives a good share of the credit, and her +condescension in coming on a "shilling day" is duly commended. It is +already plain enough that the attendance consequent on the cheap +admission is destined to be enormous. To-day over Fifty Thousand paid +their shilling each, over six thousand per hour--to say nothing of the +thousands who came in on season tickets, or as exhibitors, jurors, &c. +The money taken at the doors to-day must have exceeded $12,000, though +no "excursion trains" have yet come in from the Country. These will +begin to pour in next week, by which time it is to be hoped that the +Juries will have completed their examinations if not their awards; for +they will have scanty elbow-room afterward except at early hours in the +morning. I presume there will be Fifty Thousand admissions paid for +during each of the four "shilling days," of next week. Fridays +henceforth the admission is to be 2s. 6d. (60 cents), and Saturdays 5s. +($1.20), and many believe the Palace will be as crowded on these as on +other days. I doubt. + + +THE LITERARY GUILD. + +"The Guild of Literature and Art" will have already been heard of in +America. It is an undertaking of several fortunate authors and their +friends to make some provision for their unsuccessful brethren--for +those who had the bad luck to be born before their time, as well as +those who would apparently have done better by declining to be born at +all. The world overflows with writers who would fain transmute their +thoughts into bread, and lacking the opportunity, have a slim chance for +any bread at all, even the coarsest. No other class has less worldly +wisdom, less practical thrift; no other suffers more keenly from "the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than unlucky authors. If +anything can be done to mitigate the severity of their fate, and +especially if their more favored brethren can do it, there ought to be +but one opinion as to its propriety. + +And yet I fear the issue of this project. The world is scourged by +legions of drones and adventurers who have taken to Literature as in +another age they would have taken to the highway--to procure an easy +livelihood. They write because they are too lazy to work, or because +they would scorn to live on the meager product of manual toil. Of +Genius, they have mainly the eccentricities--that is to say, a strong +addiction to late hours, hot suppers and a profusion of gin and water, +though they are not particular about the water. What Authorship needs +above all things is purification from this Falstaff's regiment, who +should be taught some branch of honest industry and obliged to earn +their living by it. So far, therefore, am I from regretting that every +one who wishes cannot rush into print, and joining in the general +execration of publishers for their insensibility to unacknowledged +merit, that I wish no man could have his book printed until he had +earned the cost thereof by _bona fide_ labor, and that no one could +live by Authorship until after he had practically demonstrated both his +ability and willingness to earn his living in a different way. I greatly +fear the proposed "Guild," even under the wisest regulations, will do as +much harm as good, by aggravating the prevalent tendency toward +Authorship among thousands who never asked whether the world is likely +to profit by their lucubrations, but only whether _they_ may hope to +profit by them. If the "Guild" should tend to increase the number of +aspirants to the honors and rewards of Authorship, it will incite more +misery than it is likely to overcome. + +However, this is an attempt to mend the fortunes of unlucky British +Authors; and as we Americans habitually steal the productions of British +Authorship, and deliberately refuse them that protection to which all +producers are justly entitled, I feel myself fairly indebted to the +class, by the amount of my reading of their works to which Copyright in +America is denied. I meant to have attended the first dramatic +entertainment given at Devonshire House in aid of this enterprise, but I +did not apply for a ticket (price L5) till too late; so I took care to +be in season for next time--that is, Tuesday evening of this week. + +The play (as before) was "Not so Bad as We Seem, or Many Sides to a +Character," written expressly in aid of the "Guild" by Bulwer, and +performed at the town mansion of the Duke of Devonshire, one of the most +wealthy and popular of the British nobility. On the former evening the +Queen and Royal Family attended, with some scores of the Nobility; this +time there was a sprinkling of Duchesses, &c., but Commoners largely +preponderated, and the hour of commencing was changed from 9 to 7 1/2 +P. M. The apartment devoted to the performance is a very fine +one, and the whole mansion, though common-place enough in its exterior, +is fitted up with a wealth of carving, gilding, sculpture, &c., which +can hardly be imagined. The scenes were painted expressly in aid of the +"Guild," and admirably done. The Duke's private band played before and +between the acts, and nothing had been spared on his part to render the +entertainment a pleasant one. Every seat was filled, and, at $10 each +and no expenses out, a handsome sum must have been realized in aid of +the benevolent enterprise. + +The male performers, as is well understood, are all Literary amateurs; +the ladies alone being actresses by profession. Charles Dickens had the +principal character--that of a profligate though sound-hearted young +Lord--and he played it very fairly. But stateliness sits ill upon him, +and incomparably his best scene was one wherein he appears in disguise +as a bookseller tempting the virtue of a poverty-stricken author. +Douglas Jerrold was for the nonce a young Mr. Softhead, and seemed quite +at home in the character. It was better played than Dickens's. The +residue were indifferently good--or rather, indifferently bad--and on +the whole the performance was indebted for its main interest to the +personal character of the performers. I was not sorry when it was +concluded. + +After a brief interval for refreshments, liberally proffered, a comic +afterpiece, "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," was given with far greater +spirit. Dickens personated the principal character--or rather, the four +or five principal characters--for the life of the piece is sustained by +his appearance successively as a lawyer, a servant, a vigorous and +active gentleman relieved of his distempers by water-cure, a feeble +invalid, &c., &c. It is long since I saw much acting of any account, but +this seemed to me perfect; and I am sure the raw material of a capital +comedian was put to a better use when Charles Dickens took to +authorship. The other characters were fairly presented, and the play +heartily enjoyed throughout. + +The curtain fell about half an hour past midnight amidst tumultuous and +protracted applause. The company then mainly repaired to the supper +room, where a tempting display of luxuries and dainties was provided for +them by the munificence of their noble host. I did not venture to +partake at that hour, but those who did would be quite unlikely to +repent of it--till morning. Thence they were gradually moving off to +another superb apartment, where the violins were beginning to give note +of coming melody, to which flying feet were eager to respond; but I +thought one o'clock in the morning quite late enough for retiring, and +so came away before the first set was made up. I do not doubt the +dancing was maintained with spirit till broad daylight. + + +THE FISHMONGERS' DINNER. + +A sumptuous entertainment was given on Wednesday (last) evening by the +"Ancient and Honorable Company of Fishmongers"--this being their regular +annual festival. The Fishmongers' is among the oldest and wealthiest of +the Guilds of London, having acquired, by bequest or otherwise, real +estate which has been largely enhanced in value by the city's extension. +Originally an association of actual fishmongers for mutual service as +well as the cultivation of good fellowship, it has been gradually +transformed by Time's changes until now no single dealer in fish (I +understood) stands enrolled among its living members, and no fish is +seen within the precincts of its stately Hall save on feast-days like +this. Still, as its rents are ample, its privileges valuable, its +charities bounteous, its dinners superlative, its cellars stored with +ancient wines, and its leaning decided toward modern ideas, its roll of +members is well filled. Most of them are city men extensively engaged in +business, two or three of the City's Members of Parliament being among +them. There were perhaps a dozen Members present, including Lord +Palmerston, Foreign Secretary of State, and Joseph Hume, the +world-known Economist. The chair was filled by "Sir John Easthope, Prime +Warden." The chairmen of the several Juries at the Exhibition were among +the guests. + +Having recently described the Dinner to the Foreign Commissioners at +Richmond, I can dispatch this more summarily, only noting what struck me +as novel. Suffice it that the company, three hundred strong, was duly +seated, grace said, the dinner served, and more than two hours devoted +to its consumption. It was now ten o'clock, and Lord Palmerston, who was +expected to speak and reputed to be rarely gifted with fluency, was +obliged to leave for the Queen's Concert. Up to this time, no man had +been plied with more than a dozen kinds of wine, each (I presume) very +good, but altogether (I should suppose) calculated to remind the drinker +of his head on rising in the morning. The cloth was now removed and +after-grace sung by a choir, for even _with_ two prayers this sort of +omnivorous feasting at night is not quite healthy. I trust there is no +presumption involved in the invocation of a blessing on such +indulgences, yet I could imagine that an omission of one of the prayers +might be excused if half the dinner were omitted also. + +But the eatables were removed, silence restored, and three enormous +flagons, apparently of pure gold, placed on the table near its head. The +herald or toast-master now loudly made proclamation: "My Lord Viscount +Ebrington, my Lord de Mauley, Baron Charles Dupin (&c. &c., reciting the +names and titles of all the guests), the honorable Prime Warden, the +junior Wardens and members of the ancient and honorable Company of +Fishmongers bid you welcome to their hospitable board, and in token +thereof beg leave to drink your healths"--whereupon the Prime-Warden +rose, bowing courteously to his right-hand neighbor (who rose also), and +proceeded to drink his health, wiping with his napkin the rim of the +flagon, and passing it to the neighbor aforesaid, who in turn bowed and +drank to _his_ next neighbor and passed the wine in like manner, and so +the flagons made the circuit of the tables. Then the festive board was +re-covered with decanters, and the intellectual enjoyments of the +evening commenced, the vinous not being intermitted. + +The toasts were, "The Queen," "Prince Albert and the Royal Family," "The +Foreign Commissioners to the World's Exhibition," "The Royal +Commissioners," "The Army and Navy," "The House of Lords," "The House of +Commons," "The Health of the Prime Warden," "Civil and Religious +Liberty," "The Ministry," "The Bank of England," &c. The responsive +speeches were made by Baron Dupin for the Foreign Commissioners, Earl +Granville for the Royal ditto, Lord de Mauley for the Peers, Viscount +Ebrington for the Commons, Gen. Sir Hugh de Lacy Evans for the Army, +Solicitor General Wood (in the absence of Lord Palmerston) for the +Ministry, the Deputy-Governor in behalf of the Governor of the Bank of +England, Dr. Lushington in response to Civil and Religious Liberty, and +so on. When Baron Dupin rose to respond for the Foreign Commissioners, +they all rose and stood while he spoke, and so in turn with the Royal +Commissioners, Members of the House of Commons, &c. Earl Granville's was +the most amusing, Dr. Lushington's the most valuable speech of the +evening. It briefly glanced at past struggles in modern times for the +extension of Freedom in England, and hinted at similar struggles to +come, pointing especially to Law Reform. Dr. L. is a very earnest +speaker, and has won a high rank at the Bar and in public confidence. + +I was more interested, however, in the remarks of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, +author of "Ion," and of Sir James Brooke, "Rajah of Sarawak" (Borneo, E. +I.), who spoke at a late hour in reply to a personal allusion. I do not +mean that Mr. Talfourd's remarks especially impressed me, for they did +not, but I was glad of this opportunity of hearing him. The Rajah is a +younger and more vivacious man than I had fancied him, rather ornate in +manner, and spoke (unlike an Englishman) with more fluency than force, +in self-vindication against the current charge of needless cruelty in +the destruction of a nest of pirates in the vicinity of his Oriental +dominions. From reading, I had formed the opinion that he is doing a +good work for Civilization and Humanity in Borneo, but this speech did +not strengthen my conviction. + +Farther details would only be tedious. Enough that the Fishmongers' +Dinner ended at midnight, when all quietly and steadily departed. In +"the good old days," I presume a considerable proportion both of hosts +and guests would by this time have been under the table. Let us rejoice +over whatever improvement has been made in social habits and manners, +and labor to extend it. + + + + +XII. + +THE FLAX-COTTON REVOLUTION. + + + LONDON, Wednesday, June 4, 1851. + +Although I have not yet found time for a careful and thorough +examination of the machinery and processes recently invented or adopted +in Europe for the manufacture of cheap fabrics from Flax, I have seen +enough to assure me of their value and importance. I have been +disappointed only with regard to machinery for Flax-Dressing, which +seems, on a casual inspection, to be far less efficient than the best on +our side of the Atlantic, especially that patented of late in Missouri +and Kentucky. That in operation in the British Machinery department of +the Exhibition does its work faultlessly, except that it turns out the +product too slowly. I roughly estimate that our Western machines are at +least twice as efficient. + +M. CLAUSSEN is here, and has kindly explained to me his processes and +shown me their products. He is no inventor of Flax-dressing Machinery at +all, and claims nothing in that line. In dressing, he adopts and uses the +best machines he can find, and I think is destined to receive important +aid from American inventions. What he claims is mainly the discovery of a +cheap chemical solvent of the Flax fiber, whereby its coarseness and +harshness are removed and the fineness and softness of Cotton induced in +their stead. This he has accomplished. Some of his Flax-Cotton is scarcely +distinguishable from the Sea Island staple, while to other samples he has +given the character of Wool very nearly. I can imagine no reason why this +Cotton should not be spun and woven as easily as any other. The staple may +be rendered of any desired length, though the usual average is about two +inches. It is as white as any Cotton, being made so by an easy and cheap +bleaching process. M. Claussen's process in lieu of Rotting requires but +three hours for its completion. It takes the Flax as it came from the +field, only somewhat dryer and with the seed beaten off, and renders it +thoroughly fit for breaking. The plant is allowed to ripen before it is +harvested, so that the seed is all saved, while the tediousness and injury +to the fiber, not to speak of the unwholesomeness, of the old-fashioned +Rotting processes are entirely obviated. Where warmth is desirable in the +fabrics contemplated, the staple is made to resemble Wool quite closely. +Specimens dyed red, blue, yellow, &c., are exhibited, to show how readily +and satisfactorily the Flax-Cotton takes any color that may be desired. +Beside these lie rolls of Flannels, Feltings, and almost every variety of +plain textures, fabricated wholly or in good part from Flax as prepared +for Spinning under M. Claussen's patent, proving the adaptation of this +fiber to almost every use now subserved by either Cotton or Wool. The +mixtures of Cotton and Flax, Flax-Cotton and Wool, are excellent and +serviceable fabrics. + +The main question still remains to be considered--will it _pay_? Flax +may be grown almost anywhere--two or three crops a year of it in some +climates--a crop of it equal to three times the present annual product +of Cotton, Flax and Wool all combined could easily be produced even next +year. But unless cheaper fabrics, all things considered, can be produced +from Flax-Cotton than from the Mississippi staple, this fact is of +little worth. On this vital point I must of course rely on testimony, +and M. Claussen's is as follows: + +He says the Flax-straw, or the ripe, dry plant as it comes from the +field, with the seed taken off, may be grown even here for $10 per tun, +but he will concede its cost for the present to be $15 per tun, +delivered, as it is necessary that liberal inducements shall be given +for its extensive cultivation. Six tuns of the straw or flax in the +bundle will yield one tun of dressed and clean fiber, the cost of +dressing which by his methods, so as to make it Flax Cotton, is $35 per +tun. (Our superior Western machinery ought considerably to reduce this.) +The total cost of the Flax-Cotton, therefore, will be $125 per tun or +six cents per pound, while Flax-straw as it comes from the field is +worth $15 per tun; should this come down to $10 per tun, the cost of the +fiber will be reduced to $95 per tun, or less than five cents per pound. +At that rate, good "field-hands" must be rather slow of sale for +Cotton-planting at $1,000 each, or even $700. + +Is there any doubt that Flax-straw may be profitably grown in the United +States for $15 or even $10 per tun? Consider that Flax has been +extensively grown for years, even in our own State, for the seed only, +the straw being thrown out to rot and being a positive nuisance to the +grower. Now the seed is morally certain to command, for two or three +years at least, a higher price than hitherto, because of the increased +growth and extended use of the fiber. Let no farmer who has Flax growing +be tempted to sell the seed by contract or otherwise for the present; +let none be given over to the tender mercies of oil-mills. We shall need +all that is grown this year for sowing next Spring, and it is morally +certain to bear a high price even this Fall. The sagacious should +caution their less watchful neighbors on this point. I shall be +disappointed if a bushel of Flax-seed be not worth two bushels of Wheat +in most parts of our Country next May. + +Our ensuing Agricultural Fairs, State and local, should be improved for +the diffusion of knowledge and the attainment of concert and mutual +understanding with regard to the Flax-Culture. For the present, at any +rate, few farmers can afford or will choose to incur the expense of the +heavy machinery required to break and roughly dress their flax, so as to +divest it of four-fifths of its bulk and leave the fiber in a state for +easy transportation to the central points at which Flax-Cotton machinery +may be put in operation. If the Flax-straw has to be hauled fifty or +sixty miles over country roads to find a purchaser or breaking-machine, +the cost of such transportation will nearly eat up the proceeds. If the +farmers of any township can be assured beforehand that suitable +machinery will next Summer be put up within a few miles of them, and a +market there created for their Flax, its growth will be greatly +extended. And if intelligent, energetic, responsible men will now turn +their thoughts toward the procuring and setting up of the best +Flax-breaking machinery (not for fully dressing but merely for +separating the fibre from the bulk of the woody substance it incloses) +they may proceed to make contracts with their neighboring farmers for +Flax-straw to be delivered in the Autumn of next year on terms highly +advantageous to both parties. The Flax thus roughly dressed may be +transported even a hundred miles to market at a moderate cost, and there +can be no reasonable doubt of its commanding a good price. M. Claussen +assures me that he could now buy and profitably use almost any quantity +of such Flax if it were to be had. The only reason (he says) why there +are not now any number of spindles and looms running on Flax-Cotton is +the want of the raw material. (His patent is hardly yet three mouths +old.) Taking dressed and hetcheled Flax, worth seven to nine cents per +pound, and transforming it into Flax-Cotton while Cotton is no higher +than at present, would not pay. + +Of course, there will be disappointments, mistakes, unforeseen +difficulties, disasters, in Flax-growing and the consequent fabrications +hereafter as heretofore. I do not presume that every man who now rushes +into Flax will make his fortune; I presume many will incur losses. I +counsel and urge the fullest inquiry, the most careful calculations, +preliminary to any decisive action. But that such inquiry will lead to +very extensive Flax-sowing next year,--to the erection of Flax-breaking +machinery at a thousand points where none such have ever yet +existed--and ultimately to the firm establishment of new and most +important branches of industry, I cannot doubt. Our own country is +better situated than any other to take the lead in the Flax-business; +her abundance of cheap, fertile soil and of cheap seed, the intelligence +of her producers, the general diffusion of water or steam power, and our +present superiority in Flax-breaking machinery, all point to this +result. It will be unfortunate alike for our credit and our prosperity +if we indolently or heedlessly suffer other nations to take the lead in +it. + +_P. S._--M. Claussen has also a Circular Loom in the Exhibition, wherein +Bagging, Hosiery, &c., may be woven without a seam or anything like one. +This loom may be operated by a very light hand-power (of course, steam +or water is cheaper), and it does its work rapidly and faultlessly. I +mention this only as proof of his inventive genius, and to corroborate +the favorable impression he made on me. I have seen nothing more +ingenious in the immense department devoted to British Machinery than +this loom. + +I understand that overtures have been made to M. Claussen for the +purchase of his American patent, but as yet without definite result. +This, however, is not material. Whether the patent is sold or held, +there will next year be parties ready to buy roughly dressed Flax to +work up under it, and it is preparation to grow such Flax that I am +urging. I believe nothing more important or more auspicious to our +Farming Interest has occurred for years than this discovery by M. +Claussen. He made it in Brazil, while engaged in the growth of Cotton. +It will not supersede Cotton, but it will render it no longer +indispensable by providing a substitute equally cheap, equally +serviceable, and which may be grown almost everywhere. This cannot be +realized too soon. + + + + +XIII. + +LEAVING THE EXHIBITION. + + + LONDON, Friday, June 6, 1851. + +The great "Exposition" (as the French more accurately term it) has now +been more than five weeks open, and is nearly complete. You may wander +for miles through its richly fringed avenues without hearing the sound +of saw or hammer, except in the space allotted to Russia, which is now +boarded up on all sides, and in which some twenty or thirty men are at +work erecting stands, unpacking and arranging fabrics, &c. I visited it +yesterday, and inferred that the work is pushed night and day, since a +part of the workmen were asleep (under canvas) at 2 o'clock. This +apartment promises to be most attractive when opened to the public. Its +contents will not be numerous, but among them are very large and showy +manufactures of Porcelain, Bronze, &c., and tables of the finest +Malachite, a single piece weighing (I think) nearly or quite half a ton. +Not half the wares are yet displayed, but "Russia" will be the center of +attraction for some days after it is thrown open. + +The Exhibition has become a steady, business-like concern. The four +"shilling days" of each week are improved and enjoyed by the common +people, who quietly put to shame the speculation of the Aristocratic +oracles as to their probable behavior in such a magazine of wealth and +splendor--whether they might not make a general rush on the precious +stones, plate and other valuables here staring them in the face, with +often but a single policeman in sight--whether they might not refuse to +leave at the hour of closing, &c., &c. The gates are surrounded a little +before ten in the morning by a gathering, deepening crowd, but all +friendly and peaceable; and when they open at the stroke of the clock, a +dense column pours in through each aperture, each paying his shilling as +he passes (no tickets being used and no change given--the holders of +season, jurors' and exhibitors' tickets have separate entrances), and +all proceeding as smoothly as swiftly. Within half an hour, ten thousand +shillings will have thus been taken: within the next hour, ten thousand +more; thence the admissions fall off; but the number ranges pretty +regularly from Forty to Fifty Thousand per day, making the daily +receipts from $10,000 to $12,000. Yesterday was a great Race Day at +Ascot, attended by the Queen and Royal Family, as also by most of the +habitual idlers, with a multitude beside (and a miserably raw, rainy, +chilly day they had of it, with very poor racing), yet I should say that +the attendance at the Exhibition was greater than ever before. Certainly +not less than fifty thousand shillings, or $12,000, can have been taken. +For hours, the Grand Avenue, which is nearly or quite half a mile long +and at least thirty feet wide, was so filled with the moving mass that +no vacant spaces could be seen from any position commanding an extensive +prospect, though small ones were occasionally discoverable while +threading the mazes of the throng. The visiters were constantly turning +off into one or another department according to their several tastes; +but their places were as constantly supplied either by new-comers or by +those who, having completed their examinations in one department, were +hastening to another, or looking for one especially attractive. Turn +into whatever corner you might, there were clusters of deeply interested +gazers, intent on making the most of their day and their shilling, while +in the quieter nooks from 1 to 3 o'clock might be seen families or +parties eating the lunch which, with a prophetic foresight of the +miserable quality and exorbitant price of the viands served to you in +the spacious Refreshment Saloons, they had wisely brought from home. But +these saloons were also crowded from an early to a late hour, as they +are almost every day, and I presume the concern which paid a high price +for the exclusive privilege of ministering to the physical appetites +within the Crystal Palace will make a fortune by it, though the +interdiction of Wines and Liquors must prove a serious drawback. It must +try the patience of some of the visiters to do without their beer or ale +from morning to night; and if you leave the building on any pretext, +your shilling is gone. Every actual need of the day is provided for +inside, even to the washing of face and hands (price 2d.). But Night +falls, and the gigantic hive is deserted and closed, leaving its fairy +halls, its infinite wealth, its wondrous achievements, whether of Nature +or of Art, to darkness and silence. Of course, a watch is kept, and, +under pressing and peculiar circumstances, work has been permitted; but +the treasures here collected must be guarded with scrupulous vigilance. +If a fire should consume the Crystal Palace, the inevitable loss must +exceed One Hundred Millions of Dollars, even supposing that a few of the +most precious articles should be snatched from the swift destruction. +Ten minutes without wind, or five with it, would suffice to wrap the +whole immense magazine in flames, and not a hundredth part of the value +of building and contents would remain at the close of another hour. + + +POPULAR EDUCATION. + +The Exhibition is destined to contribute immensely to the Industrial and +Practical Education of the British People. The cheap Excursion Trains +from the Country have hardly commenced running yet; but it is certain +that a large proportion of the mechanics, artisans and apprentices of +the manufacturing towns and districts will spend one or two days each in +the Palace before it closes. Superficial as such a view of its contents +must be, it will have important results. Each artisan will naturally be +led to compare the products of his own trade with those in the same line +from other Nations, especially the most successful, and will be +stimulated to discern and master the point wherein his own and his +neighbor's efforts have hitherto comparatively failed. Of a million who +come to gaze, only an hundred thousand may come with any clear idea of +profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back +more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army; +and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing +such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it, +cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more +fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here +demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; and the simple +adaptation of the forces now attained, the principles established, the +machines already invented, to all the beneficent uses of which they are +capable, would speedily transform the Industrial and Social condition of +mankind. I am perfectly satisfied, for example, that Boots and Shoes may +be cut out and made up by machinery with less than one-fourth the labor +now required--that this would require no absolutely new inventions, but +only an adaptation of those already well known. So in other departments +of Industry. There is no reason for continuing to sew plain seams on +thick cloth by hand, when machinery can do the work even better and +twenty times as fast. I shall be disappointed if this Exhibition be not +speedily followed by immense advances in Labor-Saving Machinery, +especially in this country. + +But out of the domain of Industry, British Progress in Popular Education +is halting and partial. And the chief obstacle is not a want of means, +nor even niggardliness; for the Nation is wealthy, sagacious and +public-spirited. I think the influential classes generally, or at least +very extensively, realize that a well managed system of Common Schools, +supported by taxation on Property, would save more in diminishing the +burthen of Pauperism than it would cost. I believe the Ministry feel +this. And yet Mr. Fox's motion looking to such a system was voted down +in the House of Commons by some three to one, the Ministry and their +reliable supporters vieing with the Tories in opposing it! So the Nation +is thrown back on the wretched shift of Voluntaryism, or Instruction for +the poor and ignorant children to be provided, directed and paid for by +their poor, ignorant and often vicious parents, with such help and +guidance as self-constituted casual associations may see fit to give +them. The result is and will be what it ever has been and must be--the +virtual denial of Education to a great share of the rising generation. + +For this suicidal crime, I hold the Episcopal and Roman Catholic +Priesthoods mainly responsible, but especially the former. If they would +only stand out of the way, a system of efficient Common Schools for the +whole Nation might be speedily established. But they will not permit it. +By insisting that no Nationally directed and supported system shall be +put in operation which does not recognize and affirm the tenets of their +respective creeds, they render the adoption of any such system +impossible. They see this; they know it; they _mean_ it. And nothing +moves me to indignation quicker than their stereotyped cant of "Godless +education," "teaching infidelity," "knowledge worthless or dangerous +without Religion," &c. &c. Why, Sirs, it is very true that the People +need Religious as well as purely Intellectual culture, but the former +has been already provided for. You clergymen of the Established Church +have been richly endowed and beneficed expressly for this work--_why +don't you_ DO _it?_ Why do you stand here darkening and +stopping the gateway of secular instruction with a self-condemning +assumption that your own duties have been and are criminally neglected, +and that therefore others shall likewise remain unperformed? Teach the +children as much Religion as you can; very few of you ever lack pupils +when you give your hearts to the work; and if they prove less apt or +less capable learners because they have been taught reading, writing, +grammar, geography and arithmetic in secular schools, it argues some +defect in your theology or its teachers. If you really wanted the +children taught Religious truth, you would be right glad to have them +taught letters and other rudimental lessons elsewhere, so as to be +fitted to apprehend and retain your inculcations. It should suffice for +the condemnation of all Established Churches ever more, that the +State-paid Priesthood of Great Britain is to-day the chief impediment to +a system of Common Schools throughout the British Isles. + +The Catholic Clergy have more excuse. They, too unite in the +impracticable requirement that the dogmas of their Church shall be +taught in the schools attended by Catholic children, when they ought to +teach them these dogmas out of School-hours, and be content that no +antagonist dogmas are taught in the secular Schools. But _they_ receive +nothing from the State, and have good reason to regard it as hostile to +their faith, therefore to suspect its purposes and watch narrowly its +movements. If they would only take care to have a good system of Common +School Education established and efficiently sustained in Spain, +Portugal, Italy, Mexico, and other Countries wherein they are the +conscience-keepers of the great majority and practically omnipotent in +the sphere of moral and social effort, I could better excuse their +unfortunate attitude here. As it is, the difference between them and +their State-paid rivals here seems one of position rather than of +principle. And, in spite of either or both, this generation will yet see +Common Schools free and universal throughout this realm. But even a year +seems long to wait for it. + + +TOWN GOSSIP. + +Preparations are on foot for a grand banquet at Birmingham to the Royal +Commissioners, the Foreign Commissioners and the Jurors at the +Exhibition, to take place on or about the 16th. This is to be followed +by one still more magnificent given by the Mayor and Council of London, +which the Queen is expected to attend. The East India Company give one +to-morrow evening, but I hope then to be in France, as I intend to leave +for Paris to-morrow. The advertisements promise to put us "through in +eleven hours" by the quickest and dearest route. Others take twice as +many. + +Miss CATHARINE HAYES, a Vocalist of European reputation, who sang the +last winter mainly in Rome, means to visit America in September. She is +here ranked very high in her profession, and profoundly esteemed and +respected in private life. I have heard her but once, having had but two +evenings' leisure for public entertainments since I came here. There is +but one Jenny Lind, but Miss Hayes need not shrink from a comparison with +any other singer. She is very highly commended by the best Musical critics +of London. I cannot doubt that America will ratify their judgment. + +We have had tolerably fair, pleasant weather for some time until the +last two days, when clouds, chilly winds and occasional rain have +returned. The "oldest inhabitant" don't remember just such weather at +this season--as he probably observed last June. I shall gladly leave it +for dryer air and brighter skies. + + + + +XIV. + +LONDON TO PARIS. + + + PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851. + +I left London Bridge at 11 1/2 on Saturday for this City, via South-Eastern +Railway to Dover, Steamboat to Calais and Railroad again to Paris. This +is the dearest and quickest route between the two capitals, and its +advertisements promised for $13 1/2 to take us "Through in Eleven Hours," +which was a lie, as is quite usual with such promises. We came on quite +rapidly to Dover--a very mean, old town--but there lost about an hour in +the transfer of our baggage to the steamboat, which was one of those +long, black, narrow scow contrivances, about equal to a buttonwood +"dug-out," which England appears to delight in. They would not be +tolerated as ferry-boats on any of our Western rivers, yet they are made +to answer for the conveyance of Mails and Passengers across an arm of +the sea on the most important route in Europe. In this wretched concern, +which was too insignificant to be slow, we went cobbling and wriggling +across the Channel (27 miles) in something less than two hours, often +one gunwale nearly under water and the other ten or twelve feet above +it, with no room under deck for half our passengers, and the spray +frequently dashing over those above it, three fourths of the whole +number deadly sick (this individual of course included), when with a +decent boat the passage might be regularly made, in spite of such a +smartish breeze as we encountered, in comparative comfort. Perhaps we +felt glad enough on reaching the shore to pay for this needless misery, +and I readily believe that an hour or two of sea-sickness may be harshly +wholesome, yet I do think that a good boat on such a route might well be +afforded and cannot reputably be withheld. That part of England through +which we passed on this route is much like that I have already described +on the other side of London. The face of the country is very moderately +undulating; there is a fair proportion of trees and shrubbery, though no +considerable forest that I noticed; perhaps an eighth of the land may be +sowed with Wheat, but Grass is the general staple. I should say three +fourths of all the land in sight from this railway is covered with it, +while very little is planted or devoted to gardening after the few miles +next to London. Hops engross considerable attention, and I presume pay +well, being demanded by the national addiction to beer drinking. Still, +Grass, Cattle and Sheep are the Staples; and these require so much less +human labor per acre than Grain and Vegetables that I cannot see how the +rural, laboring population can find adequate employment or subsistence. +It looks as though the gradual substitution of Grass for Grain since the +repeal of the Corn-laws must deprive a large portion of the best British +peasantry of work, compelling them to emigrate to America or Australia +for a subsistence. Such emigration is already very active, and must +increase if the present low prices of Breadstuffs prove permanent. + +I was again disappointed in seeing so little attention to Fruit Culture. +I know this is not the Fruit region of England, but the destitution of +fruit trees is quite universal. Since it is plain that an acre of choice +Apple trees will yield at least a hundred bushels of palatable food, +with little labor, and grass enough beside to pay for all the care it +requires, I cannot see why Fruit is so neglected. The peach, I hear, +does poorly throughout the kingdoms, requiring extra shelter and +sunshine, yet yielding indifferent fruit in return, which is reason +enough for neglecting it; but the Apple is hardier, and does well in +other localities no more genial than this. I think it has been unwisely +slighted. + +An important and profitable business, I think, might be built up in our +country in the production of Dried Fruits, especially peaches, and their +exportation to Europe, or at any rate to England. I was among those who +"sat at good men's feasts," both rich and poor (the men, not the +feasts), during the six weeks I was in England, yet I cannot remember +that Dried Apples or Peaches were ever an element of the repast, though +Gooseberries, Rhubarb, Raisins, Currants, &c., are abundantly resorted +to. If some American of adequate capital and capacity would embark in +the growth and curing of Apples, Peaches, &c., expressly for the English +market, drying them perfectly, preparing them with scrupulous neatness, +and putting them up in clean wooden boxes of twenty-five, fifty and one +hundred pounds, I think he might do well by it. For such a purpose, +cheap lands and cheap labor (that of aged persons and young children) +might be made available, while in years of bountiful Peach harvests, +like the last, even New-Jersey and Delaware could be drawn upon for an +extra supply. The miscellaneous exportation of any Dried Fruits that +might happen to be on the market would probably involve loss, because +time and expenditure are required to make these products known to the +great majority of British consumers, and assure them that the article +offered them has been prepared with scrupulous cleanliness. With proper +exertion and outlay, I believe an advantageous market might thus be +opened for several Millions' worth of American products of which little +or nothing is now known in Europe. + +We were detained a long hour in Calais--a queer old town, with little +trade and only a historical importance--although our baggage was not +examined there, but sealed up for custom-house scrutiny at Paris. They +made a few dollars out of us by charging for extra baggage, one of them +out of me, though my trunk contained only clothing and three or four +books. Small business this for a Railroad, though it will do in stage +transportation. Our passports were scrutinized--mine not very +thoroughly--we (the green ones) obtained an execrable dinner for 37 1/2 +cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which +was not atrocious. Finally, we were all let go. + +The face of the country inland from Calais is flat and marshy--more like +Holland, as we conceive it, than like England or France. Of course, the +railroad avoids the higher ground, but I did not see a cliff nor steep +acclivity until darkness closed us in, though some moderate hills were +visible from time to time, mainly on the right. Here, too, as across the +Channel, Grass largely predominated, but I think there was a greater +breadth of Wheat. I saw very few Fruit-trees, though much more growing +Timber than I had expected, from the representations I had read of the +treeless nakedness of the French soil. I think trees are as abundant for +fifty miles southward from Calais as in any part of England, but they +are mainly Elms and Willows, scarcely an orchard anywhere, and of course +no vineyards, for the Grape loves a more Southern sun. The cultivation +is scarcely equal to the English, though not strikingly inferior, and +the evidences of a minute subdivision of the soil are often palpable. +Fences are very rare, save along the sides of the railway; ditches serve +their purpose near Calais, and nothing at all answers afterward. I +presume wood becomes much scarcer as we approach Paris, but darkness +forbade observation. + +By the terms of the enticing advertisement, we should have been here at +10 1/2 P. M., but, though we met with none other than the ordinary +detentions, it was half-past two on Sunday morning when we actually +reached the station at the barrier of the city. Here commenced the +custom-house search, and I must say it was conducted with perfect +propriety and commendable energy, though with determined rigor. Our +trunks and valises were all arranged on a long table according to the +numbers affixed to them respectively at Calais, and each, being opened +by its owner, was searched in its turn, and immediately surrendered, if +found "all right." I had been required to pay smartly on my books at +Liverpool, though nobody could have suspected that they were for any +other than my own use; so I left most of them at London and had no +difficulty here. [One unlucky wight, who had pieces of linen in his +trunk, had to see them taken out and put safely away for farther +consideration.] I did not at first comprehend that the number on my +trunk, standing out fair before me in honest, unequivocal Arabic +figures, could possibly mean anything but "fifty-two," but a friend +cautioned me in season that those figures spelled "cinquante-deux," or +phonetically "sank-on-du" to the officer, and I made my first attempt at +mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself +intelligible. + +It was fair daylight when we left the railway station for our various +destinations. Mine was the "Hotel Choiseul," Rue St. Honore, which had +been warmly commended to me, and where I managed to stop _pro tem._ +though there was not an unoccupied bed in the house. Paris, by the way, +is quite full--scarcely a room to be had in any popular hotel, and, +where any is to be found, the price is very high or the accommodations +quite humble. London, on the contrary, where the keepers of hotels and +lodging-houses had been induced to expect a grand crush, and had +aggravated their prices accordingly, is comparatively empty. Thousands +after thousands go there, but few remain for any time; consequently the +hotels make what money is spent, while the boarding and lodging-houses +are often tenantless. Many sharp landladies have driven away their old +lodgers to the Country or the Continent by exorbitant charges, in the +hope of extorting many times as much from visiters to the Exhibition; +and have thus far been bitterly disappointed. I presume it will be so to +the end. Sixty thousand people are as many as the Crystal Palace will +comfortably hold, in addition to its wares and their attendants, and +these make no impression on the vast capacity of London, while they go +away as soon as they have satisfied their curiosity and ceased to attend +the Fair, giving place to others, who require no more room than they +did. I suspect theirs are not the only calculations which will be +disappointed by the ultimate issues of the World's Exhibition. + + +THE MADELEINE. + +My first day in Paris was Sunday, so, after breakfast, I repaired to the +famous modern Church of the Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in +Europe. This was the day of Pentecost, and fitly commemorated by the +Church. The spacious edifice was filled in every part, though at least a +thousand went out at the close of the earlier service, before the +attendance was fullest. + +I think I was never in a place of worship so gorgeous as this. Over the +main altar there is a magnificent picture on the largest scale, +purporting to represent the Progress of Civilization from Christ's day +to Bonaparte's, Napoleon being the central figure in the foreground, +while the Saviour and the Virgin Mary occupy a similar position in the +rear. In every part, the Church is very richly and I presume tastefully +ornamented. + +I did not comprehend the service, and cannot intelligibly describe it. +The bowings and genuflexions, the swinging of censers and ringing of +bells, the frequent appearance and disappearance of a band of gorgeously +dressed priests or assistants bearing what looked like spears, were +"inexplicable dumb show" to me, and most of them unlike anything I +remember to have seen in American Catholic Churches. The music was +generally fine, especially that of a chorus of young boys, and the +general bearing of the people in attendance, that of reverence and +interest. + + "Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds, + With all who send up holy thoughts on high." + +But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of +several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents +for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of +the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded +the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have +been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one +o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may +have been one afterward. + + + + +XV. + +THE FUTURE OF FRANCE. + + + PARIS, Wednesday, June 11, 1851. + +"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a +question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not +of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even +fettered and stifled as the Republic now is--a shorn and blind Samson in +the toils of the Philistines--it is still a potent fact, and its very +name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who +are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the +debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French +Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the +Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his +vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,--it is the overthrow of the French +Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which +engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout +Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general +aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably +moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility, +only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as +Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to +be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far +sooner see her bloody, turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest +than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton, +Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the +Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully +pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or +Lamartine. + +While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by +the Press and readily credited as well as diffused by the fortunate +classes with regard to the deplorable condition of France and the +absolute necessity existing for some radical change in her Government. +"O yes, you get along very well with a Republic in the United States, +where you had cheap lands, a vast and fertile wilderness, common schools +and a general reverence for Religion and Order to begin with; but just +look at France!"--such was and is a very general line of argument. If +the French had been equally divisible into felons, bankrupts, paupers +and lunatics, their hopeless state could hardly have been referred to +more compassionately. All this time France was substantially as tranquil +as England herself, and decidedly more prosperous, though annoyed and +impeded by the incessant plottings of traitors in her councils and other +exalted stations to resubject her to kingly sway. A thrifty, provident, +frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his +dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much +plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does; +but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and +the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade, +France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a +division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently +amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. The Californian +digs gold, which mainly comes to New-York in payment for goods; but on +that gold England has a mortgage running fast to maturity, for the goods +were in part bought of her and we owe her for Millions' worth beside. +But France has a similar mortgage on it for the Grain supplied to +England to feed the fabricators of the goods, and it has hardly reached +the Bank of England before it is on its way to Paris. A great share of +the golden harvests of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin +now find their resting-place here. + +"But what," asks a Say-Bastiat economist, "if they do? Isn't all +Commerce an exchange of equivalents? Must we not buy in order to sell? +Isn't Gold a commodity like any other? If our Imports exceed our +Exports, doesn't that prove that we are obtaining more for our Exports +than their estimated value?" &c. &c. &c. + +No, Sir! commerce is _not_ always an exchange of genuine equivalents. +The savage tribe which sells its hunting grounds and its ancestors' +graves for a few barrels of firewater, whereby its members are +debauched, diseased, rendered insanely furious, and set to cutting each +other's throats, receives no real equivalent for what it parts with. Nor +is it well for ever so civilized a people to be selling its Specie and +mortgaging its Lands and Houses for Silks, Liquors, Laces, Wines, +Spices, &c.--trading off the essential and imperishable for the +factitious and transitory--and so eating itself out of house and home. +The farmer who drinks up his farm at the cross-roads tavern may have +obtained "more for his exports" (of produce from his farm), than they +were worth in the market--at least, it would seem so from the fact that +he has run over head and ears in debt--but he has certainly done a +pernicious, a losing business. So does any Nation which buys more wares +and fabrics than its exports will pay for, and finds itself in debt at +the year's end for imports that it has eaten, drunk or worn out. The +thrifty household is the true model of the Nation. And, thus tested, +France, in spite of her enormous, locust-like Army and other relics of +past follies which the National mind is outgrowing though the Nation's +rulers still cling to them, is this day one of the most prosperous +countries on earth. + +But when I hear the aristocratic plotters talk of the necessity of a +Revision of the Constitution in order to restore to France tranquillity +and prosperity, I am moved not to mirth but to indignation. For these +plotters and their schemes are themselves the causes of the mischiefs +they affect to deplore and the dangers they pretend to be bent on +averting. Whatever is now feverish and ominous in French Politics grows +directly out of two great wrongs--the first positive and +accomplished--the law of the 31st May, whereby Three Millions of +Electors were disfranchised--the other contingent and meditated--the +overthrow of the Republic. All the agitation, the apprehension, the +uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the +last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the +Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented +discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and +bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy _might_ have done, had they +been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact +is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of +Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their +faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into +convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the +factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have +been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined, +watchful, intrepid attitude of the calumniated Democracy. + +The law of the 31st May still stands on the statute-book, and I +apprehend is destined to remain (though many who are better informed are +sanguine that it will be repealed before the next Presidential +Election), but the Republic will endure and its Constitution cannot be +overthrown. All the Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists in the +Assembly combined are insufficient to change the Constitution legally; +and if a bare majority sufficed for that purpose (instead of +three-fourths), they could not to-day command a working majority for any +practical measure of Revision. It is easy to club their votes and +vaguely declare _some_ change necessary--but _what_ change? A Bourbon +Restoration? An Orleans Middle-Class Royalty? A Napoleonic Empire? For +no one of these can a majority even of this Reaectionist Assembly be +obtained. What, then, is their chance with the People? + +As to the signing of Petitions for Revision, that is easily understood. +The Prefect, the Mayor, &c., of a locality readily procure the +signatures of all the Government _employes_ and hangers-on, who +constitute an immense army in France; the great manufacturers circulate +the petitions among their workmen, and most of them sign, not choosing +to risk their masters' displeasure for a mere name more or less to an +unmeaning paper. But the plotters know perfectly well that the People +are _not_ for Revision in _their_ sense of the word; if they did not +fear this, they would restore Universal Suffrage. By clinging with +desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually +confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of +Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they +prate, therefore, of _the people's_ desire for Revision, the Republican +retort is ready and conclusive--"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can +then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain +that law, you confess that you dare not abide the verdict of the whole +People. You appeal to a Jury which you have packed--one whose right to +try this question we utterly deny. Restore Universal Suffrage, and we +can then tell what the People really do wish and demand; but until you +do this, we shall resist every attempt to change the Constitution even +by as much as a hair." Who can doubt that this is right? + +"Therefore, Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily +says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army +will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a +Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout +the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; +the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the +popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. +It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be +attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread +the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are +on their side--that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed +to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, +are all for the Republic--that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an +Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique +is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain +Military officers, mainly relics of the Empire; the class includes a +good part of the lucky Parisian shop-keepers and Government _employes_ +during the reign of Louis Philippe; the party embraces the remnants of +the anti-Revolutionary Aristocracy, most of the influential Priesthood, +and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may +number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is +France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether +by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open +attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a +prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have +the same effect. Four years more of tranquil though nominal +Republicanism would only render a return to Monarchy more difficult; +wherefore the Royalist party will never assent to it, and without their +aid the project has no chance. To obtain that aid, "the Prince" must +secretly swear that after four years more he will turn France over to +Henry V.; this promise only the last extreme of desperation could extort +from him, and then to no purpose, since he could not fulfill it and the +Legitimists could not trust him. And thus, alike by its own strength and +by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured. + + + + +XVI. + +PARIS, SOCIAL AND MORAL. + + + PARIS, Thursday, June 12, 1851. + +A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen +a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built +around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is +entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the +minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining +their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of +goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of +the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most +celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue +Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and +"Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a +considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, +"restaurants," "cafes," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think +of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in +Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss +his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here +it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds +sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise +during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink +or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his +newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in +one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. +which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly +necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is +Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere +is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or +paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or +forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have +signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, +vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but +willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same +time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the +Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere +are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old +Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would +eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but +no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred +stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of +Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as +Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of +by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to +those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very +cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18 3/4 +cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the +comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is +very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is +scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor +girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a +man of wealth, or one who can support her in luxury and idleness, is +the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by +which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly +designated, involve the idea of demoralization--no man would apply them +to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In +no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so +great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else +is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of +London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris--that is, +they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in +view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active +there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. +Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and +Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, +and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with +that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to +strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in +the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself. + + +SIGHTS OF PARIS. + +The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the COLUMN OF NAPOLEON +in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning +of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, was formed of +cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories which +irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was Emperor +of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the pyramid; +it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and a resolute +attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too firmly +rooted. The Statue was not replaced till after the Revolution of 1830. +The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately +Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and +especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should +not regard it very highly. + +Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, +is the OBELISK OF LUXOR, which for thousands of years had overshadowed +the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of +Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the +Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed +me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious +inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand +years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but yesterday. The +removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from Egypt to Paris is +one of the most marvelous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for +me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor. + +The TUILERIES strikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with little +pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great capacity, and +nothing more. The LOUVRE is much finer, yet still not remarkable, but its +wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all time surprised as well as +delighted me. I never saw anything at all comparable to it. But of this +another time. + + +THE FRENCH OPERA. + + + PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851. + +Having the evening on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the +Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her +Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National +institution, but a National trait, and as such I visited it. + +The house is very spacious, admirably planned, superbly fitted up, and +every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience +large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their +business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's +"L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften +into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and +indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken +from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. +There were no great singers included in the cast for this evening, not +even Alboni who remains here, while most of her compeers are in London. +I am a poor judge, but I should say the music is not remarkable. + +This is a drama of Action and of Spectacle, however, to which the Music +is subordinate. Such a medley of drinking and praying, dancing and +devotion, idol-worship and Delilah-craft, I had not before encountered. +At least three hundred performers were at once on the stage. The +dancing-girls engaged were not less than one hundred in number, +apparently all between fourteen and eighteen years of age, generally +good-looking, and with that aspect of innocence and freshness to which +the Stage is so fatal. The most agile and eminent among them was a Miss +Plunkett, said to be an American, with a face of considerable beauty and +a winning, joyous manner. I should say that half the action of the +piece, nearly half the time, and more than half the attention of the +audience, were engrossed by these dancing demoiselles. + +France is the cradle and home of the Ballet. In other lands it is an +exotic, here a natural outgrowth and expression of the National mind. Of +the spirit which conceived it, here is the abode and the Opera Francais +the temple; and here it has exerted its natural and unobstructed +influence on the manners and morals of a People. If you would comprehend +the Englishman, follow him to his fireside; if a Frenchman, join him at +the Opera and contemplate him during the performance of the Ballet. + +I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the Dance. Restricted to proper +hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. +Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. +Why the dancing of the Theater should be rendered disgusting, I can not +yet comprehend. The "poetry of motion," of harmonious evolutions and the +graceful movement of "twinkling feet," I think I appreciate. All these +are natural expressions of innocent gaiety and youthful elasticity of +spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more +of them. + +But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, +in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot +to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of +muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the +capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts and at the +cost of much suffering. Why is it kept on the stage? Admit that it is +not lascivious; who will pretend that it is essentially graceful? I was +glad to see that the more extravagant distortions were not specially +popular with the audience--that nearly all the applause bestowed on +those ballet-feats which seem devised only to favor a liberal display of +the person came from the little knot of hired "claqueurs" in the center +of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so +shameless as to applaud. + +If the Opera is ever to become an element of Social life and enjoyment +in New-York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may +take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do +not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one; I know +_this_ is not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency, is "earthly, +sensual, devilish." In none was the instinct of Purity ever strengthened +by beholding it; in many, it must, in the nature of things, be weakened +with each repetition of the spectacle. It is no marvel that the French +are reputed exceedingly reckless of the sanctions and obligations of +Marriage, if this is a part of their State-supported education. + +I came away at the close of the third act, leaving two more to be +performed. The play is transcendent in spectacle, and has had a very +great success here. + + + + +XVII. + +PARIS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. + + + PARIS, Sunday, June 15, 1851. + +I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing +in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic and the +restoration of Monarchy. Such prophets must belong essentially to that +school which teaches the omnipotence of paper Constitutions and dilates +with bristling hair on the appalling possibility that Washington, or +Hamilton, or Franklin, might not have been chosen to the Convention +which framed our Federal Constitution, and that Constitution +consequently have remained unperfected or unadopted. The true view I +understand to be that if the Constitution had thus failed to be +constructed in '87 or adopted in '88, the necessity for it would still +have existed, growing daily more urgent and palpable, so that Convention +after Convention would from time to time have been called, and sooner or +later a Constitution would have been elaborated and adopted; and the +longer this consummation was delayed the stronger and more controlling +the Constitution ultimately formed would have been. So with the French +Republic. It is simply an expression of the intellectual convictions and +social instincts of the French People. You meet it on the Boulevards and +in the cafes where the wealthy and luxurious most do congregate; your +cabman and boot-black, though perfectly civil and attentive, let you +understand, if you have eyes, that they are Republicans; while in the +quarters tenanted or frequented only by the Artisan and the Laborer you +meet none but devotees of "the Republic Democratic and Social." The +contrast between the abject servility of the Poor in London and their +manner here cannot be realized without actual observation. A hundred +Princes or illustrious Dukes in Paris would not attract as much +attention as any one of them would in London. Democracy triumphed in the +drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the +streets; and all subsequent efforts in behalf of Monarchy here have +produced and can produce only a fitful, spasmodic, unnatural life. If +three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have +not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will +be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the +immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate +ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange +Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary +caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other +than Republican, though the possessors of power, controlling the Press, +the Bureaux, the Assembly and the Army, may fancy that their personal +interests would be promoted by a less popular system, and so be seen for +a season following strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will +speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind. + +The immediate peril of the Republic is the Election of May, '52, in view +of the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the Democratic +voters, the manacled condition of the Press, the denial to the People of +the Right of Meeting for deliberation and concert, and the betrayal of +all the enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the +Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a +Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be +promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract +and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential +candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or +meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and +fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, +passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice +should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a +character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope +to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional +overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should +fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis +Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be no further apprehension. + +I hear, as from an official source, that there are now Three Thousand +Americans in Paris, most of them residing here for months, if not for +years. It gives me pleasure to state that, contrary to what I have often +heard of the bearing of our countrymen in Europe, a large majority of +these, so far as I may judge from meeting a good many and learning the +sentiments of more, are warmly and openly on the side of the Republic +and opposed to the machinations of the motley host who seek its +overthrow. + +The conviction of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' +imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in the _Evenement_ +in condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I +think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party +of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated +institution. The _Times'_ Paris correspondent, I perceive, takes up the +tale of Hugo's article having been calculated to expose the ministers of +the law to popular odium, and naively protests against a line of +argument by which "those who _execute_ the law are stigmatized as +_executioners_." I suppose we must call them _executors_ hereafter to +obviate the hardship complained of. How singular that those who glory in +the deed should shrink indignantly from the name? + +American attention will naturally be drawn to the recent debate in the +Assembly involving the principle of the _Higher Law_. The subject was a +bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as +clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a +nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical +conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier +solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert +menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets +and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of +France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a +"Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its +bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the +Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such +commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a +violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay +d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the +proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the +deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his +being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order," +having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very +little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further +discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the +tribune that _No one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it +would be wrong for him to do as a man_--that, no matter what human +rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of +God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order +to do so from any functionary or potentate whatever. The idea is a +fruitful one, and France is now pondering it. + +I attended divine worship to-day at NOTRE DAME, which seems to me not +only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. The +Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and +got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all +the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion +to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a +fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York +City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with +ample space and a rare position, which most of the Paris edifices want, +seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers +proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect surpassed. +It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less extensive. As a +place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, which has the +damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre Dame. I trust +no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, and on the +Sabbath if possible. + + +AMERICAN ART AND INDUSTRY--BRITISH JOURNALISM. + +Since I left London, _The Times_ has contained two Editorials on +American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require +comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general +tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the +London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds +of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the +people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are +now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the +whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous by attempting to do and +to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions +could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be +America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe +also, &c., &c. + + "It is the _attempt_, and not the _deed_, confounds me." + +But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our +countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the +production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been +content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently +invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their +art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if +they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here; +since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is +best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest +mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia, +have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands +have examined with eager and gratified interest--an interest as real as +that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe, +though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing +these products of a more primitive industry; all have welcomed and been +instructed by them. And so ours would have been treated had they been in +fact the wretched affairs which the London Commercial press has +represented them. It is precisely because they are quite otherwise that +it has been deemed advisable systematically to disparage them--to +declare our Pianos "gouty" structures--"mere wood and iron;" our +Calicoes beneath the acceptance of a British servant-girl; our Farming +Tools half a century behind their British rivals; our Hats "shocking +bad," &c., &c.,--all this, in the first months of the Exhibition, while +the Jurors appointed to judge and report upon the merits of rival +fabrics were making the requisite investigations. Their verdict is thus +substantially forestalled, and the millions who visit the Exhibition are +invited to look at the American department merely to note the bad taste +and incapacity therein displayed, and learn to avoid them. + +But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that +Art is not their province--that they should be content to grow Corn and +Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent +necessities, their secondary wants--are they impartial advisers? Are +they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of +Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would +they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were +really the miserable abortions they represent them? + +These indications of paternal care for American Industry, in danger of +being warped and misdirected, are not quite novel. An English friend +lately invited me to visit him at his house in the neighborhood of +Birmingham, holding out as an inducement the opportunity of inspecting +the great Iron and Hardware manufactories in that neighborhood. A moment +afterward he recollected himself and said, "I am not quite sure that I +could procure you admittance to them, because the rule has been that +_Americans were not to be admitted_. Gentlemen taking their friends to +visit these works were asked, at the door, 'Is your friend an American?' +and if the answer was affirmative, he was not allowed to enter--but I +think this restriction has been generally abrogated." Here you see, was +a compassionate regard for American Industry, in danger of being misled +and deluded into unprofitable employments, which neither The Times nor +any of its co-laborers has been able to more than humbly imitate. + +To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than the intimation that, in +attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of +Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought +to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of +Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her +Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her +Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot," +&c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and +who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the +rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy +disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various +Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they +have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European +and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an +impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate +that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country +has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be +instructed and benefited than our own. + + + + +XVIII. + +THE PALACES OF FRANCE. + + + PARIS, Monday, June 16, 1851. + +France, now the most Democratic, was long the most absolutely governed +and the most loyally infatuated among the great Nations of Europe. Her +cure of the dust-licking distemper was Homoeopathic and somewhat slow, +but it seems to be thorough and abiding. Those who talk of the National +passion for that bloody phantom Glory--for Battle and Conquest--speak of +what was, rather than of what is, and which, even in its palmiest days, +was rather a _penchant_ of the Aristocratic caste than a characteristic +of the Nation. The Nobles of course loved War, for it was their high +road to Royal favor, to station and renown; all the spoils of victory +enured to them, while nine-tenths of its calamities fell on the heads of +the Peasantry. But, though all France rushed to arms in 1793 to defend +the National liberties and soil, yet Napoleon, in the zenith of his +power and glory, could only fill the ranks of his legions by the +abhorred Conscription. The great body of the People were even then +averse to the din of the camp and the clangor of battle: the years of +unmixed disaster and bitter humiliation which closed his Military +career, served to confirm and deepen their aversion to garments rolled +in blood; and I am confident that there is at this moment no Nation in +Europe more essentially peaceful than France. Her Millions profoundly +sympathise with their brethren of Germany, Italy and Hungary, groaning +beneath the heavy yoke of the Autocrat and his vassals; but they +realize that the deliverance of Nations must mainly be wrought out from +within, and they would much rather aid the subject Nations to recover +their rights by the influence of example and of a Free Press than by +casting the sword of Brennus into the scale where their liberties and +happiness hang balanced and weighed down by the ambition and pride of +their despots. The establishment of the Democratic and Social Republic +is the appointed end of war in Europe. It will not erase the boundaries +of Nations, but these boundaries will no longer be overshadowed by +confronted legions, and they will be freed from the monster nuisance of +Passports. Then German, Frank, Briton, Italian, will vie with each +other, as now, in Letters, Arts and Products, but no longer in the +hideous work of defacing and desecrating the image of God; for Liberty +will have enlightened and Fraternity united them, and a permanent +Congress of Nations will adjust and dispose of all causes of difference +which may from time to time arise.--Freedom, Intelligence and Peace are +natural kindred: the ancient Republics were Military and aggressive only +because they tolerated and cherished Human Slavery; and it is this which +recently fomented hostilities between the two Republics of North +America, and now impotently threatens the internal peace of our own. +Liberty, if thorough and consistent, always did and must incline to +Peace; while Despotism, being founded in and only maintainable by Force, +inevitably fosters a martial spirit, organizes Standing Armies, and +finds delight and security in War. + +These reflections have been recalled by my walks through several of the +late Royal (now National) Palaces of France, the most striking monuments +which endure of long ages of absolute kingly sway. How many there are of +these Palaces I have forgotten or never knew; but I recall the names of +the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, the Elisee Bourbon, St. Germain, St. +Cloud, Versailles, Meudon, and Rambouillet. These do not include the +Palais Royal, which was built by the Orleans branch of the Bourbon +family, nor any of the spacious edifices erected for the several +Ministers of State and for the transaction of public business. The +Palaces I have named were all constructed from time to time to serve as +residences for the ten to thirty persons recognized as of the blood +Royal, who removed from one to the other as convenience or whim may have +suggested. They are generally very spacious, probably averaging one to +two hundred apartments each, all constructed of the best materials and +furnished and adorned with the most lavish disregard of cost. I roughly +estimate the cost of these Palaces, if they were now to be built and +furnished in this style, at One Hundred Millions of Dollars; but the +actual cost, in the ruder infancy of the arts when most of them were +erected, was probably much more. Versailles alone cost some Thirty +Millions of Dollars at first, while enormous sums have since been +expended in perfecting and furnishing it. It would be within the truth +to say that France, from the infancy of Louis XIV. to the expulsion of +Louis Philippe, has paid more as simple interest on the residences of +her monarchs and their families than the United States, with a larger +population and with far greater wealth than France has averaged through +that period, now pays for the entire cost of the Legislative, Executive +and Judicial departments of her Government. All that we have paid our +Presidents from Washington inclusive, adding the cost of the +Presidential Mansion and all the furniture that has from time to time +been put into it, would not build and furnish one wing of a single Royal +Palace of France--that of Versailles. + +But the point to which I would more especially call attention is that of +the unwearied exertions of Royalty to foster and inflame the passion for +Military glory. I wandered for hours through the spacious and +innumerable halls of Versailles, in which Art and Nature seem to have +been taxed to the utmost to heap up prodigies of splendor. At least one +hundred of these rooms would each of itself be deemed a marvel of +sumptuous display anywhere else; yet here we passed over floors of the +richest Mosaic and through galleries of the finest and most elaborately +wrought Marble as if they had been but the roughest pavement or the +rudest plaster. The eye is fatigued, the mind bewildered, by an almost +endless succession of sumptuous carving, gilding, painting, &c., until +the intervention of a naked ante-room or stair-case becomes a positive +relief to both. And the ideas everywhere predominant are War and its +misnamed Glory. Here are vast, expensive paintings purporting to +represent innumerable Sieges and Battles in which the French arms were +engaged, many of them so insignificant that the world has wisely +forgotten them, yet here preserved to inflame and poison the minds of +hot-blooded, unreflecting youth, impelling them to rush into the +manufacture of cripples and corpses under the horrible delusion that +needless, aimless Slaughter, if perpetrated by wholesale, can really be +honorable and glorious. These paintings, as a whole, are of moderate +value as works of Art, while their tendency is horrible and their +details to me revolting. Carriages shattered and overturned, animals +transfixed by spear-thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men +riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls and ghastly with +coming death, such are the spectacles which the more favored and +fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire +and enjoy. These battle-pieces have scarcely more Historic than Artistic +value, since the names of at least half of them might be transposed and +the change be undetected by ninety-nine out of every hundred who see +them. If _all_ the French battles were thus displayed, it might be urged +with plausibility that these galleries were historical in their +character; but a full half of the story, that which tells of French +disaster and discomfiture--is utterly suppressed. The Battles of +Ptolemais, of Ivry, of Fontenoy, of Rivoli, of Austerlitz, &c., are here +as imposing as paint can make them, but never a whisper of Agincourt, +Crecy, Poictiers, Blenheim, or Ramillies, nor yet of Salamanca, of +Vittoria, of Leipsic, or Waterloo. Even the wretched succession of +forays which the French have for the last twenty years been prosecuting +in Algerine Africa here shines resplendent, for Vernet has painted, by +Louis Philippe's order and at France's cost, a succession of +battle-pieces wherein French numbers and science are seen prevailing +over Arab barbarism and irregular valor in combats whereof the very +names have been wisely forgotten by mankind, though they occurred but +yesterday. One of these is much the largest painting I ever saw, and is +probably the largest in the world, and it seems to have been got up +merely to exhibit one of Louis Philippe's sons in the thickest of the +fray. Last of all, we have the "Capture of Abd-el-Kader," as imposing as +Vernet could make it, but no whisper of the persistent perfidy wherewith +he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the +express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its +general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit +War as always glorious and France as uniformly triumphant. It is by +means like these that the business of shattering knee-joints and +multiplying orphans is kept in countenance. + +Versailles is a striking monument of the selfish profligacy of +King-craft and the long-suffering patience of Nations. Hundreds of +thousands of laborers' children must have gone hungry to their straw +pallets in order that their needy parents might pay the inexorable taxes +levied to build this Palace. Yet after all it has stood mainly +uninhabited! Its immense extent and unequalled splendor require an +immeasurable profusion in its occupant, and the incomes even of kings +are not absolutely without limit. So Versailles, with six or eight other +Royal Palaces in and around Paris, has generally stood empty, entailing +on the country an enormous annual expense for its simple preservation. +And now, though France has outgrown Royalty, it knows not what to do +with its costly, spacious, glittering shells. A single Palace +(Rambouillet) standing furthest from Paris, was converted (under Louis +Philippe) into a gigantic storehouse for Wool, while its spacious Parks +and Gardens were wisely devoted to the breeding and sustenance of the +choicest Merino Sheep. The others mainly stand empty, and how to dispose +of them is a National perplexity. Some of them may be converted into +Hospitals, Insane Retreats, &c., others into Libraries or Galleries of +Art and Science; but Versailles is too far from Paris for aught but a +Retreat as aforesaid, and has cost so immense a sum that any use which +may be made of it will seem wasteful. I presume it could not be sold as +it stands for a tenth of its actual cost. Perhaps it will be best, +therefore, to convert all the others into direct uses and preserve this +for public inspection as a perpetual memorial of the reckless +prodigality and all-devouring pomp of Kings, and as a warning to Nations +never again to entrust their destinies to men who, from their very +education and the influences surrounding them through life, must be led +to consider the Toiling Millions as mainly created to pamper their +appetites, to gratify their pride, and to pave with their corpses their +road to extended dominion. + +ST. CLOUD is a much smaller but more pleasantly situated, more tastefully +furnished and decorated Palace, some miles nearer than Versailles to +Paris, and commanding an admirable view of the city. The LUXEMBOURG, +situated in the southern section of the city, is externally a chaste and +well-proportioned edifice, containing some fine pictures by living artists, +and surrounded by spacious and delightful woods, shrubbery, &c., termed +"the Gardens of the Luxembourg." The TUILERIES, in the heart of the city, +near the Seine, I have not seen internally, and the exterior seems low, +straggling, and every way unimposing. Its extent is almost incredible by +those who have not seen it--scarcely less than that of Versailles. The +LOUVRE is the finest structure of all, and most worthily devoted. Its +lower story is filled with Sculptures of no considerable merit, but its +galleries contain more strikingly good Paintings than I shall ever again +see under one roof. I have spent a good part of two days there, and mean +to revisit it on my return. + + +PASSPORTS, ETC. + +If each American could spend three days on this continent, his love of +Country and of Liberty could not fail to be quickened and intensified, +if only by an experience of the enormity of the Passport nuisance. It +has cost me precious hours already, not to speak of dollars, and is +certain to cost many more of each. I have nearly concluded to given up +Germany on account of it, while Italy fairly swarms with petty +sovereignties and with Yankee Consuls, the former afraid of their own +black shadows, the latter intent on their beloved two dollars each from +every American traveler. Such is the report I have of them, and I +presume the reality is equal to the foreshadowing. It is a shame that +Republican France stands far behind Aristocratic Britain in this +respect, but I trust the contrast will not endure many more years. + +Two Americans who arrived here last week caused some perplexity to their +landlord. Every man who lodges a stranger here must see forthwith that +he has a Passport in good condition, in default of which said host is +liable to a penalty. Now, these Americans, when applied to, produced +Passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not +transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly +designated in his Passport as a "_Loafer_" the other as a "_Rowdy_" and +they informed him, on application, that, though these professions were +highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French +synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content +with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirming that all was right, +applied to an American friend for a translation of the inexplicable +professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully +enlightened with regard to them. + +I am off to-day (I hope) for Lyons and Italy. + + + + +XIX. + +FRANCE, CENTRAL AND EASTERN. + + + LYONS, Tuesday, June 17, 1851. + +I came out of Paris through the spacious _Boulevards_,[B] which, under +various second appellations, stretch eastward from the Madeleine Church +nearly to the barrier, and then bend southward, near the beautiful +column which marks the site and commemorates the fall of the Bastile, so +long the chief dungeon wherein Despotism stifled Remonstrance and tamed +the spirit of Freedom. Liberty in France is doomed yet to undergo many +trials--nay, is now enduring some of them--but it is not within the +compass of probability that another Bastile should ever rear its head +there, nor that the absolute power and abject servitude which it fitly +symbolized should ever be known there hereafter. Very near it on the +south lies the famous Faubourg St. Antoine, inhabited mainly by bold, +free-souled working-men, who have repeatedly evinced their choice to die +free rather than live slaves, and in whom the same spirit lives and +rules to-day. I trust that dire alternative will never again be forced +upon them, but if it should be there is no Bastile so impregnable, no +despotism so fortified by prescription, and glorious recollections, and +the blind devotion of loyalty, as those they have already leveled to the +earth. + +The Paris Station of the Lyons Railway is at the eastern barrier of the +City. I received here another lesson in French Railroad management. I +first bought at the office my ticket for Chalons on the Saone, which is +the point to which the road is now completed. The distance is 243 miles; +the fare (first-class) $7.50. But the display of my ticket did not +entitle me to enter the passengers' sitting-room, much less to approach +the cars. Though I had cut down my baggage, by two radical +retrenchments, to two light carpet-bags, I could not take these with me, +nor would they pass without weighing. When weighed, I was required to +pay three or four sous (cents) for extra baggage, though there is no +stage-route in America on which those bags would not have passed +unchallenged and been accounted a very moderate allowance. Now I was +permitted to enter the sacred precincts, but my friend, who had spent +the morning with me and come to see me off, was inexorably shut out, and +I had no choice but to bid him a hasty adieu. Passing the entrance, I +was shown into the apartment for first-class passengers, while the +second-class were driven into a separate fold and the third-class into +another. Thus we waited fifteen minutes, during which I satisfied myself +that no other American was going by this train, and but three or four +English, and of these the two with whom I scraped an acquaintance were +going only to Fontainbleau, a few miles from Paris. They were required +to take their places in a portion of the train which was to stop at +Fontainbleau, and so we moved off. + +The European Railway carriages, so far as I have yet seen them, are more +expensive and less convenient than ours. Each is absolutely divided into +apartments about the size of a mail-coach, and calculated to hold eight +persons. The result is thirty-two seats where an American car of equal +length and weight would hold at least fifty, and of the thirty-two +passengers, one-half must inevitably ride backward. I believe the +second-class cars are more sociable, and mean to make their +acquaintance. I should have done it this time, but for my desire to meet +some one with whom I could converse, and Americans and Englishmen are +apt to cling to the first-class places. My aim was disappointed. My +companions were all Frenchmen, and, what was worse, all inveterate +smokers. They kept puff-puffing, through the day; first all of them, +then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon +near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the +atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and +went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules +posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or +decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women +are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by +the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope of it. + +The Railroad from Paris to Chalons passes through a generally level +region, watered by tributaries of the Seine and of the Saone, with a +range of gentle hills skirting the valleys, generally on the right and +sometimes on either hand. As in England, the track is never allowed to +cross a carriage-road on its own level, but is carried either under or +over each. The soil is usually fertile and well cultivated, though not +so skillfully and thoroughly as that of England. There are places, +however, in which the cultivation could not easily be surpassed, but I +should say that the average product would not be more than two-thirds +that of England, acre for acre. There are very few fences of any kind, +save a slight one inclosing the Railway, beyond which the country +stretches away as far as the eye can reach without a visible landmark, +the crops of different cultivators fairly touching each other and +growing square up to the narrow roads that traverse them. You will see, +for instance, first a strip of Grass, perhaps ten rods wide, and +running back sixty or eighty rods from the Railroad; then a narrower +strip of Wheat; then one of Grape-Vines; then one of Beans; then one of +Clover; then Wheat again, then Grass or Oats, and so on. I saw very +little Rye; and if there were Potatoes or Indian Corn, they were not up +sufficiently high to be distinguished as we sped by them. The work going +forward was the later Weeding with the earlier Hay-making, and I saw +nearly as many women as men working in the fields. The growing crops +were generally kept pretty clear of weeds, and the grass was most +faithfully but very slowly cut. I think one Yankee would mow over more +ground in a day than two Frenchmen, but he would cut less hay to the +acre. Of course, in a country devoid of fences and half covered with +small patches of grain, there could not be many cattle: I saw no oxen, +very few cows, and not many horses. The hay-carts were generally drawn +by asses, or by horses so small as not to be easily distinguished from +asses as we whirled rapidly by. The wagons on the roads were generally +drawn by small horses. I judge that the people are generally industrious +but not remarkably efficient, and that the women do the larger half of +the work, house-work included. The hay-carts were wretchedly small, and +the implements used looked generally rude and primitive. The dwellings +are low, small, steep-roofed cottages, for which a hundred dollars each +would be a liberal offer. Of course, I speak of the rural habitations; +those in the villages are better, though still mainly small, +steep-roofed, poor, and huddled together in the most chaotic confusion. +The stalls and pastures for cattle were in the main only visible to the +eye of faith; though cattle there must be and are to do the ploughing +and hauling. I suspect they are seldom turned loose in summer, and that +there is not a cow to every third cottage. I think I did not see a yoke +of oxen throughout the day's ride of 243 miles. + +I was again agreeably disappointed in the abundance of Trees. Wood +seems to be the peasants' sole reliance for fuel, and trees are planted +beside the roads, the streams, the ditches, and often in rows or patches +on some arable portion of the peasants' narrow domain. This planting is +mainly confined to two varieties--the Lombardy Poplar and what I took to +be the Pollard, a species of Willow which displays very little foliage, +and is usually trimmed up so as to have but a mere armful of leaves and +branches at the top of a trunk thirty to fifty feet high, and six to +twelve inches through. The Lombardy Poplar is in like manner preferred, +as giving a large amount of trunk to little shade, the limbs rarely +extending three feet from the trunk, while the growth is rapid. Such are +the means employed to procure fuel and timber with the least possible +abstraction of soil from the uses of cultivation. There are some +side-hills so rocky and sterile as to defy human industry, and these are +given up to brush-wood, which I presume is cut occasionally and bound +into faggots for fuel. Some of it may straggle up, if permitted, into +trees, but I saw little that would fairly justify the designation of +Forest. Of Fruit-trees, save in the villages, there is a deplorable +scarcity throughout. + +We passed through few villages and no town of note but DIJON, the capital +of ancient Burgundy, where its Parliament was held and where its Dukes +reigned and were buried. Their palace still stands, though they have +passed away. Dijon is 200 miles from Paris, and has 25,000 inhabitants, +with manufactures of Cotton, Woolen and Silk. Here and henceforth the +Vine is more extensively cultivated than further Northward. + +We reached CHALONS on the Saone (there is another Chalons on the Marne) +before 9 P. M. or in about ten hours from Paris. Here a steamboat was +ready to take us forthwith to Lyons, but French management was too much +for us. Our baggage was all taken from the car outside and carried piece +by piece into the depot, where it was very carefully arranged in order +according to the numbers affixed to the several trunks, &c., in Paris. +This consumed the better part of half an hour, though half as many +Yankees as were fussing over it would have had it all distributed to the +owners inside of ten minutes. Then the holders of the first three or four +numbers were let into the baggage-room, and when they were disposed of as +many more were let in, and so on. Each, as soon as he had secured his +baggage, was hustled into an omnibus destined for the boat. I was among +the first to get seated, but ours was the last omnibus to start, and when +the attempt was made, the carriage was overloaded and wouldn't start! At +last it was set in motion, but stopped twice or thrice to let off +passengers and baggage at hotels, then to collect fare, and at last, when +we had got within a few rods of the landing, we were cheered with the +information that "_Le bateau est parti!_" The French may have been better +than this, but its purport was unmistakable--the boat was gone, and we +were done. I had of course seen this trick played before, but never so +clumsily. There was no help for us, however, and the amount of useless +execration emitted was rather moderate than otherwise. Our charioteers +had taken good care to obtain their pay for carrying us some time before, +and we suffered ourselves to be taken to our predestined hotel in a frame +of mind approaching Christian resignation. In fact, when I had been shown +up to a nice bed-room, with clean sheets and (for France) a fair supply +of water, and had taken time to reflect that there is no accommodation +for sleeping on any of these European river-boats, I was rather glad we +had been swindled than otherwise. So I am still. But you may travel the +same route in a hurry; so look out! + +We rose at 4 and made for the boat, determined not to be caught twice in +the same town. At five we bade good-bye to Chalons-sur-Saone (a pleasant +town of 13,000 people), under a lowering sky which soon blessed the +earth with rain--a dubious blessing to a hundred people on a steamboat +with no deck above the guards and scarcely room enough below for the +female passengers. However, the rain soon ceased and the sky gradually +cleared, so that since 9 o'clock the day has been sunny and delightful. + +The distance from Chalons to Lyons by the Saone is some 90 miles. The +river is about the size of the Connecticut from Greenfield to Hartford, +but is sluggish throughout, with very low banks until the last ten or +fifteen miles. After an intervale of half a mile to two miles, the land +rises gently on the right to an altitude of some two to five hundred +feet, the slope covered and checkered the whole distance with vineyards, +meadows, woods, &c. The Poplar and the Pollard are still planted, but +the scale of cultivation is larger and the houses much better than +between Paris and Dijon. The intervale (mainly in meadow) is much wider +on the left bank, the swell beyond it being in some places scarcely +visible. The scenery is greatly admired here, and as a whole may be +termed pretty, but cannot compare with that of the Hudson or Connecticut +in boldness or grandeur. There are some craggy hill-sides in the +distance, but I have not yet seen an indisputable mountain in France, +though I have passed nearly through it in a mainly southerly course for +over five hundred miles. + +As we approach Lyons, the hills on either side come nearer and finally +shut in the river between two steep acclivities, from which much +building-stone has been quarried. Elsewhere, these hill-sides are +covered with tasteful country residences of the retired or wealthy +Lyonnais, surrounded by gardens, arbors, shrubbery, &c. The general +effect is good. At last, houses and quays begin to line and bridges to +span the river, and we halt beside one of the quays and are in Lyons. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] _Boulevard_ means, I presume, rampart or fortified works (hence our +English _bulwark_). The rampart was long ago removed, as the city +outgrew it, but the name is retained by the ample street which took its +place. Our _Battery_ at New-York illustrates this origin of a name. + + + + +XX. + +LYONS TO TURIN. + + + TURIN (Italy), June 20, 1851. + +LYONS, though a French city, and the second in the Republic, wears a sad, +disheartened aspect. In '91 a stronghold of decaying Loyalty, it is +to-day the very focus of Democratic Socialism, being decidedly more "Red" +than Paris.--Here is concentrated the Sixth Military Division of the +French Army, under chiefs not chary of using the sabre and bayonet, and +with instructions to apply efficient poultices of grape and canister on +the first palpable appearance of local inflammation. Should Louis Napoleon +be enabled to override the Constitution and prolong his sway, it is +possible that, by the aid of the act of May 31st, 1850, whereby more than +half the Artisans of France are disfranchised, the spirit of Lyons may in +time be subdued, and partisans of "Order" substituted for her present +Socialist Representatives in the Assembly; but, should the popular cause +triumph in the ensuing Elections, I shall be agreeably disappointed if +that triumph is as temperately and forbearingly enjoyed here as was that +of February, 1848. + +Lyons is now undergoing one of those periodical revulsions or +depressions which are the necessary incidents of the false system of +Industry and Trade which the leaders of Commercial opinion are bent on +fortifying and extending.--Here, at the confluence of the Rhone and the +Saone, is concentrated a population of nearly 200,000 souls, half of +whom attempt to live by spinning, weaving and dyeing Silks, while the +residue in good part busy themselves in collecting and buying the raw +material or in exporting and selling the product. But it is not best for +themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 Silk-workers should be clustered +on any square mile or two of earth; if they were distributed over the +world's surface, in communities of five to fifty thousand souls--if the +raw Silk were grown in the various countries wherein the fabrics are +required, where the climate and soil do not forbid, and taken there to +be manufactured where they do--the workers would have space, air, +activity, liberty, development, which are unattainable while they are +cooped within the walls of a single city. If those Silk-weavers, for +instance, whose fabrics are consumed in the United States, were now +located in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, &c. instead of being mainly +crowded into Lyons, they would there obtain many of the necessaries of +life at half the prices they now give for them, while the consumers of +their fabrics would pay for them in good part with Fruits, Vegetables, +Fuel, &c. which, because of their bulk or their perishable nature, they +cannot now sell at all, or can only sell at prices below the cost of +production. No matter if the Silks were held in money a fifth, a fourth, +or even a third higher than now, the great body of our consumers would +obtain them much cheaper, estimating the cost not in dollars but in +days' labor. The workers on both sides would be benefited, because they +would share between them at least three-fourths of the enormous tax +which Commerce now levies upon their Industry through the sale and +resale of its products, to distribute among its importers, shippers, +jobbers, retailers and lackeys of infinite variety. The bringing +together of Producer and Consumer, where Nature has interposed no +barrier, so that their diverse needs may be supplied by direct +interchange, or with the fewest possible intermediates, is the simple +and only remedy for one of the chief scourges under which Industry now +suffers throughout the world. + +"Very true," says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."--Will it, +indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual +agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong +side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk +trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the +manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the +Importer, the Jobber of our own country, has a like interest in keeping +the point of production as distant from their customers as possible. +Very often have I been told by wholesale merchants, "We prefer to sell +Foreign rather than Home-made fabrics, because the profit on the former +is usually much greater." This consideration is active and omnipresent +in Trade generally. The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple +Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is +unorganized, inert, and individually impotent. These Silk-Weavers of +Lyons are no more capable of removing to Virginia or Missouri and +establishing their business there than the Alps are of making an +American tour. Our consumers of Silks, acting as individuals, cannot +bring them over and establish them among us. But the great body of +consumers, animated by Philanthropy and an enlightened Self-Interest, +acting through their single efficient organism, the State, can make it +the interest of Capital and Capacity to bring them over and plant them +in the most eligible localities among us, and ought immediately and +persistently to do so. The inconveniences of such a policy are partial +and transitory, while its blessings are permanent and universal. + + +A RIDE ACROSS THE ALPS. + +Railroads are excellent contrivances for dispatch and economy; +Steamboats ditto, and better still for ease and observation or reading; +Steamships are to be endured when Necessity compels; but an +old-fashioned Coach-and-Four is by no means to be despised, even in +this age of Progress and Enlightenment. While I stay in Europe, I wish +to see as much land and to waste as little time on blue water as +possible. So I turned aside at Lyons from the general stream of +Italy-bound travellers--which flows down the Rhone to Avignon and +Marseilles, thence embarking for Genoa and Leghorn,--and booked myself +for a ride across the Lower Alps by diligence to Turin. And glad am I +that my early resolve to do so was not shaken. + +The European, but more especially French, diligence has often been +described. Ours consisted of a long carriage divided into the _coupe_ or +foremost apartment, directly under the driver, and with an outlook on +each side and in front over the backs of the horses; the middle +apartment, which is much like the interior of our ordinary stage-coach; +and the rumble or rear apartment, calculated for servants or other cheap +travelers. Two-thirds of the roof was covered with a tun or two of +baggage and merchandise; and in front of this, behind and above the +driver's seat, is the _banquette_, a single seat across the top, +calculated to hold four persons, with a chaise top to be thrown back in +fine weather and a glass front to be let down by night or in case of +rain. I chose my seat here, as affording the best possible view of the +country. At 8 P. M. precisely, the driver cracked his whip, and four +good horses started our lumbering vehicle at a lively pace on the road +to Turin, some two hundred miles away in the south-east. + +The road from Lyons to the frontier is one of the best in the world, and +traverses a level, fertile, productive country. I should say that Grass, +Wheat and the Vine are the chief staples. A row of trees adorns either +side of the road most of the way, not the trim, gaunt, limbless +skeletons which are preferred throughout Central France, but +wide-spreading, thrifty shade-trees, which I judged in the darkness to +be mainly Black Walnut, with perhaps a sprinkling of Chestnut, &c. +Through this noble avenue, we rattled on at a glorious pace, a row of +small bells jingling from each horse, and no change of teams consuming +more than two minutes, until we reached the little village on the French +side of the boundary between France and Savoy, some fifty miles from +Lyons. Here our Passports were taken away for scrutiny and _vise_, and +we were compelled to wait from 2 1/2 till 5 o'clock, as the Sardinian +officers of customs would not begin to examine our baggage till the +latter hour. At 5 we crossed the little, rapid river (a tributary of the +Rhone) which here divides the two countries, a French and a Sardinian +sentinel standing at either end of the bridge. We drove into the court +of the custom-house, dismounted, had our baggage taken off and into the +rude building, where half a dozen officers and attendants soon appeared +and went at it. They searched rigidly, but promptly, carefully and like +gentlemen. In half an hour we were pronounced all right; our diligence +was reloaded, and, our passports having been returned, we rattled out of +the village and on our way, in the sunshine of as bright a June morning +as I ever hope to enjoy. + +France is a land of plains, and glades, and gentle acclivities; Savoy is +a country of mountains. They rose before and around us from the moment +of our crossing the boundary--grim, rugged and precipitous, they formed +a striking contrast to all of Europe I had hitherto seen. Throughout the +day and night following, we were rarely or never out of sight of +snow-covered peaks; nay, I have not yet lost sight of them, since they +are distinctly visible in the clear Italian atmosphere from the streets +of this sunny metropolis, at a distance of some thirty miles north. Our +route lay through Savoy for about a hundred miles, and not one acre in +thirty within sight of it can ever be plowed. Yet the mountains are in +good part composed of limestone, so that the narrow, sheltered valleys +are decidedly fertile; and the Vine is often made to thrive on the +steep, rocky hill sides, where the plow could not be forced below the +surface, and where an ox could not keep his footing. Every inch of +ground that can be, is cultivated; little patches of Wheat, or Grass, or +Vines are got in wherever there is a speck of soil, though no larger +than a cart-body; and far up the sides of steep mountains, wherever a +spot is found so moderately inclined that soil will lie on it, there +Grass at least is grown. + +Human Labor, in such a region, fully peopled, is very cheap and not very +efficient. The grape is the chief staple and Wine must be the principal +and probably is the only export, at least one third of the arable soil +being devoted to the Vine. Wheat is pretty extensively sown and is now +heading very thriftily, but I suspect the average size of the patches is +not above a quarter of an acre each. The Grass is good; and not much of +it cut yet. Indian Corn and Potatoes are generally cultivated, but in +deplorable ignorance of their nature. At least four times the proper +quantity of seed is put in the ground, neither Corn nor Potatoes being +allowed more than eighteen inches between the rows, making the labor of +cultivation very great and the chance of a good yield none at all. + +I think I saw quite as many women as men at work in the fields +throughout Savoy. A girl of fourteen driving a yoke of oxen attached to +a cart, walking barefoot beside the team and plying the goadstick, while +a boy of her own age lay idly at length in the cart, is one of my +liveliest recollections of Savoyard ways. Nut-brown, unbonneted women, +hoeing corn with an implement between an adze and a pick-axe (and not a +bad implement, either, for so rugged an unplowed soil), women driving +hogs, cows, &c., to or from market, we encountered at every turn. So +much hard, rough work and exposure are fatal to every trace of beauty, +and I do not remember to have seen a woman in Savoy even moderately +good-looking, while many were absolutely revolting. That this is not +Nature's fault is proved by the general aspect of the children, who, +though swarthy, have often good forms and features. + +We drove down into CHAMBERY, the capital of ancient Savoy, about 9 A. M. +This is a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, pleasantly situated +in the valley of a much larger tributary of the Rhone than that we crossed +at the boundary, and with a breadth of arable soil of perhaps two miles +between the mountains. No where else in Savoy did we traverse a valley +even half a mile wide for any distance. Here is an old ducal palace, with +fine spacious grounds, shrubbery, &c. The road from Geneva and the Baths +of Aix to Turin comes down this valley and here intersects that from Lyons. +We were allowed twenty-five minutes for breakfast, which would have been +very well but that the time required for cooking most of the breakfast had +to come out of it. + +There was enough and good enough to eat, and (as usual throughout all +this region) Wine in abundance without charge, but Tea, Coffee or +Chocolate must be ordered and paid for extra. Even so, I was unable to +obtain a cup of Chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to +make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than +others for breakfast; but to talk English against French or Italian is +to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and +came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had +traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ventured to +expose my ignorance as follows: + +"Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of +you but two and a half?" + +"Don't know--perhaps you had Tea or Coffee." + +"No, Sir--don't drink either." + +"Then perhaps you washed your face and hands." + +"Well, it would be just like me." + +"O, then, that's it! The half franc was for the basin and towel." + +"Ah, _oui, oui_." So the milk in _that_ cocoa-nut was accounted for. + +Our road, though winding constantly among mountains, was by no means a +rugged one. On the contrary, I was surprised to find it so nearly level. +Three or four times during the day we came to a hard hill, and usually a +yoke of oxen, an extra horse or span, stood at the foot, ready to hitch +on and help us up. Of course, we were steadily rising throughout, but so +gradually and on so capital a road as to offer little impediment to our +progress. A better road made of earth I never expect to see. Every mile +of it is plainly under constant supervision, and any defect is instantly +repaired. The only exception to its excellence is caused by the +villages, which occur at an average of ten miles apart, and consist each +of fifty to two hundred poor dwellings, mainly of stone, huddled +chaotically together along the two sides of the road, which is twisted +and turned by them in every direction, and often crowded into a width of +not more than eight or ten feet. It is absolutely impossible that two +carriages should pass each other in these narrow, crooked lanes, and +dangerous for even a pedestrian to stand outside of a house while the +diligence is threading one of these gorges. + +There is no town except Chambery on the whole route from Lyons to Turin; +but we passed about noon through a village in which a Fair was +proceeding. I did not suspect that two thousand people could live within +ten miles of the spot; yet I think fully two thousand were here +collected, with half as many cows, asses, hogs, &c., which had been +brought hither for sale, and about which they were jabbering and +gesticulating. Dealers in coarse chip hats and a few kindred fabrics +were also present; but it looked as if sellers were more abundant and +eager than buyers. It was only by great effort and by the most +exemplary patience that our driver and guard were enabled to clear the +road so that we passed through without inflicting any injury. + +Wilder and narrower was the gorge, nearer and bleaker rose the +mountains, steeper and more palpable became the ascent, keener and +crisper grew the air, as the evening fell upon us pursuing our devious +way. The valleys were not only insignificant but widely separated by +tracts through which the road had with difficulty and at much expense +been cut out of the mountain side without infringing on the impetuous +torrent that tumbled and foamed by our side; and even where little +valleys or glens still existed it was clear that Nature no longer +responded with alacrity and abundance to the summons of human industry. +The Vine no longer clung to the steep acclivities; the summer foliage of +the lower valleys had given place to dark evergreens where shrubbery +could still find foot-hold and sustenance. The snow no longer skulked +timorously behind the peaks of distant mountains, showing itself only on +their northern declivities, but stood out boldly, unblenchingly on all +sides, and seemed within a musket-shot of our path. From slight +depressions in the brows of the overhanging cliffs, streamlets leaped +hundreds of feet in silvery recklessness, falling in feathery foam by +our side. I think I saw half a dozen of these cascades within a distance +of three miles. + +At length, near ten o'clock, we reached the foot of Mount Cenis, where +sinuosity of course could avail us no further. We must now face the +music. Our five tired horses were exchanged for eight fresh ones, and we +commenced the slow, laborious ascent of some six or eight miles. Human +habitations had already become scattered and infrequent; but we passed +three or four in ascending the mountain. Their inmates of course live +upon the travel, in one way or another, for Sterility is here the +inexorable law. Yet our ascent was not so steep as might be expected, +being modified, when necessary, by zig-zags from one direction or one +side of the chasm we followed to the other. The horses were stopped to +breathe but once only; elsewhere for three hours or more they pursued +their firm, deliberate, decided, though slow advance. The shrubbery +dwindled as we ascended and at length disappeared, save in the sheltered +gorges; the snow came nearer and spread over still larger spaces; at +length, it lay in heavy beds or masses, half melted into ice, just by +the side of the road and on its edge, though I think there was none +actually under the wheels. Finally, a little before one o'clock, we +reached the summit, and the moon from behind the neighboring cliff burst +upon us fully two hours high. Two or three houses stood here for the use +of travelers; around them nothing but snow and the naked planet. Before +us lay the valley of the Po, the great plain of Upper Italy. + +Six of our horses were here detached and sent back to the Savoy base of +the mountain, while with the two remaining we commenced our rapid and +dashing descent. Mount Cenis is decidedly steeper on this side than on +the other; it is only surmounted by a succession of zig-zags so near +each other that I think we traveled three miles in making a direct +progress of one, during which we must have descended some 1,500 feet. +Daylight found us at the foot with the level plain before us, and at 8 +o'clock, A. M. we were in Turin. + + + + +XXI. + +SARDINIA--ITALY--FREEDOM. + + + GENOA (Italy), June 22, 1851. + +The Kingdom of Sardinia was formed, after the overthrow of Napoleon, by +the union of Genoa and its dependencies, with the former Kingdom of +Piedmont and Savoy including the island of Sardinia, to whose long +exiled Royal house was restored a dominion thus extended. That dominion +has since stood unchanged, and may be roughly said to embrace the +North-Western fourth of Italy, including Savoy, which belongs +geographically to Switzerland, but which forms a very strong barrier +against invasion from the side of France. Savoy is almost entirely +watered by tributaries of the Rhone, and so might be said to belong +naturally to France rather than to Italy, regarding the crests of the +Alps as the proper line of demarcation between them. Its trade, small at +any rate, is of necessity mainly with France; very slightly, save on the +immediate sea-coast, with Genoa or Piedmont. Its language is French. +Though peopled nearly to the limit of its capacity, the whole number of +its inhabitants can hardly exceed Half a Million, nine-tenths of its +entire surface being covered with sterile, intractable mountains. Savoy +must always be a poor country, with inconsiderable commerce or +manufactures (for though its water-power is inexhaustible, its means of +communication must ever be among the worst), and seems to have been +created mainly as a barrier against that guilty ambition which impels +rulers and chieftains to covet and invade territories which reject and +resist their sway. Alas that the Providential design, though so +palpable, should be so often disregarded! Doubtless, the lives lost from +age to age by mere hardship, privation and exposure, during the passage +of invading armies through Savoy, would outnumber the whole present +population of the country. + +Descending the Alps to the east or south into PIEDMONT, a new world lies +around and before you. You have passed in two hours from the Arctic +circle to the Tropics--from Lapland to Cuba. The snow-crested mountains +are still in sight, and seem in the clear atmosphere to be very near you +even when forty or fifty miles distant, but you are traversing a spacious +plain which slopes imperceptibly to the Po, and is matched by one nearly +as level on the other side. This great plain of upper Italy, with the Po +in its center, commences at the foot of the lower Alps very near the +Mediterranean, far west of Turin and of Genoa, and stretches across the +widest portion of the peninsula till it is lost in the Adriatic. The +western half of this great valley is Piedmont; the eastern is Lombardy. +Its fertility and facility of cultivation are such that even Italian +unthrift and ignorance of Agriculture are unable to destroy the former +or nullify the latter. I never saw better Wheat, Grass, and Barley, than +in my journey of a hundred miles across this noble valley of the Po, or +Piedmont, and the Indian Corn, Potatoes, &c., are less promising only +because of the amazing ignorance of their requirements evinced by +nine-tenths of the cultivators. In the first place, the land is not plowed +half deep enough; next, most of it is seldom or never manured; thirdly, it +is planted too late; and fourthly, three or four times as much seed is +planted as should be. I should judge that twenty seed potatoes, or kernels +of corn, to each square yard is about the average, while five of either is +quite enough. Then both, but especially Corn, are hilled up, sugar-loaf +fashion, until the height of each hill is about equal to its breadth at +the base, so that two days' hot sun dries the hill completely through, +while there is no soil a foot from each stalk for its roots to run in. +From such perverse cultivation, a good yield is impossible. There has been +no rain of consequence here for some weeks, whence Wheat and Barley are +ripening too rapidly, while Corn, Potatoes and Vegetables suffer severely +from drouth, when with deeper plowing and rational culture everything +would have been verdant and flourishing. Yet this great plain in some +parts is and in most might be easily and bountifully irrigated from the +innumerable mountain streams which traverse it on their way to the Po. I +never saw another region wherein a few Sub-soil Plows, with men qualified +to use them and to set forth the nature and advantages of skillful +cultivation generally, are so much wanted as in Piedmont. + +The Vine is of course extensively cultivated in Piedmont, as everywhere +in Italy, but not so universally as in the hilly, rocky region extending +from the great valley to this city (some thirty or forty miles). This +has a warm though a thin soil, which must be highly favorable to the +Vine to induce so exclusive a devotion to it. I think half of the arable +soil I saw between this and Arquata, where the plain and (for the +present) the Railroad stop, and the hills and the diligence begin, was +devoted to the Grape; while from the steeple of the Carignani Church, +which I ascended last evening, the semi-circle of towering, receding +hill-sides which invests Genoa landward, seems covered with the Vine, +and even the Gardens within the town are nearly given up to it. The Fig, +the Orange, the Almond, are also native here or in the vicinity. + +This kingdom is to-day, after France, the chief point of interest in +continental Europe for lovers of Human Liberty. Three years ago, under +the impulse of the general uprising of the Nations, its rulers entered +upon a course of policy in accordance with the wants and demands of the +age, and that policy is still adhered to, though meantime the general +aspect of affairs is sadly changed, and Sardinia herself has experienced +the sorest reverses. The weak, unstable King whose ambition first +conspired to throw her into the current of the movement for the +liberation of Italy, has died defeated and broken-hearted, but his wiser +son and heir has taken his stand deliberately and firmly on the liberal +side, and cannot be driven from his course. His policy, as proclaimed in +his memorable Speech from the Throne on the assembling of the present +Chambers, is "to rear Free Institutions in the midst of surrounding +ruins." A popular Assembly, in which the Ministry have seats, directs +and supervises the National Policy, which is avowedly and efficiently +directed toward the vigorous prosecution of Reforms in every department. +Absolute Freedom in matters of Religion has already been established, +and the long crushed and persecuted Vaudois or Waldenses rejoice in the +brighter day now opening before them. Their simple worship is not only +authorized and protected in their narrow, secluded Alpine valleys, but +it is openly and regularly conducted also in Turin, the metropolis, +where they are now endeavoring to erect a temple which shall fitly set +forth the changed position of Protestantism in Northern Italy. They are +still few and poor, and will apply to their brethren in America for +pecuniary aid, which I trust will be granted expressly on condition that +the church thus erected shall be open, when not otherwise required, to +any Protestant clergyman who produces ample testimonials of his good +standing with his own denomination at home. Such a church in Turin would +be of incalculable service to the cause of Human Emancipation from the +shackles of Force, Prescription and Tradition throughout Italy and the +Eastern World. + +The Freedom of the Press is established in this kingdom, yet no single +journal of the Reaectionist type is issued, because there is no demand +for one. The only division of political sentiment is that which +separates the more impetuous Progressives, or avowed Democrats, from the +larger number (apparently) who believe it wiser and safer to hold fast +by King and Constitution, especially since the Monarch is among the most +zealous and active in the cause of Progress and Reform. I think these +are right, though their opponents have ample justification in History, +even the most recent, for their distrust of the liberal professions and +seemings of Royalty. But were the King and all his House to abdicate and +leave the country to-morrow, I believe that would be a disastrous step +for Sardinia and for Human Liberty. For this kingdom is almost walled in +by enemies--Austria, Tuscany, Rome (alas!) and Naples--all intensely +hating it and seeking its downfall because of the Light and Hope which +its policy and its example are diffusing among the nations. With the +Pope it is directly at variance, on questions of contested jurisdiction +deemed vital alike by the Spiritual and the Temporal power; and repeated +efforts at adjustment have only resulted in repeated failures. This feud +is of itself a source of weakness, since ninety-nine in every hundred of +the population are at least nominally Roman Catholic, and the great mass +of the Peasantry intensely so, while the Priesthood naturally side with +the Ecclesiastical as against the Political contestant. And behind +Austria, notoriously hostile to the present policy of Sardinia, stands +the black, colossal shadow of the Autocrat, with no power east of the +Rhine and the Adriatic able or willing to resist him, and only waiting +for an excuse to pour his legions over the sunny plains of Southern +Europe. A Democratic Revolution in Sardinia, no matter how peacefully +effected, would inevitably, while France is crippled as at present, be +the signal (as with Naples and Spain successively some twenty-five to +thirty years ago) for overwhelming invasion in the interest and by the +forces of utter Despotism. Well-informed men believe that if the present +King were to abdicate to-morrow, he would immediately be chosen +President by an immense majority of the People. + +Yet there is an earnest, outspoken Democratic party in Sardinia, and +this city is its focus. Genoa, in fact, has never been reconciled to the +decree which arbitrarily merged her political existence in that of the +present Kingdom. She fondly cherishes the recollection of her ancient +opulence, power and glory, and remembers that in her day of greatness +she was the center and soul of a Republic. Hence her Revolutionary +struggle in 1848; hence the activity and boldness of her Republican +propaganda now. To see Italy a Federal Republic, whereof Piedmont, +Savoy, Genoa and Sardinia should be separate and sovereign States, along +with Venice, Lombardy, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, &c., would best satisfy +her essential aspirations. + +Yet Genoa is clearly benefited by her present political connection. From +her lovely bay, she looks out over the Mediterranean, Corsica, Sardinia, +Africa and the Levant, but has scarcely a glimpse of the continent of +Italy. No river bears its products to her expectant wharves; only the +most insignificant mill-streams brawl idly down to her harbor and the +adjacent shore; steep, naked mountains rise abruptly behind her, +scarcely allowing room for her lofty edifices and narrow streets; while +from only a few miles back the waters are hurrying to join the Po and be +borne away by that rapid, unnavigable stream to the furthest limit of +Italy. No commercial City was ever more hardly dealt with by Nature on +the land side than Genoa; no one ever stood more in need of intimate +political connections suggestive of and cemented by works of Internal +improvement. These she is now on the point of securing. A very tolerable +Railroad has already been constructed from Turin to Arquata, some +seventy miles on the way to Genoa, and the remaining thirty odd miles +are now under contract, to be completed in 1852. The portion +constructed was easy, while the residue is exceedingly difficult, +following the valleys of impetuous mountain torrents, which to-day +discharge each minute five gallons and to-morrow five thousand +hogsheads. These valleys (or rather clefts) are quite commonly so narrow +and their sides so steep and rock-bound that the Railroad track has to +be raised several feet on solid masonry to preserve it from being washed +away by the floods which follow every violent or protracted rain. +Expensive arches to admit the passage of the streams whenever crossed, +and of the roads, are also numerous, so that these thirty miles, in +spite of the abundance and cheapness of Labor here, will cost at least +Three Millions of Dollars. Yet the road will pay when in full operation, +and will prove a new day-spring of prosperity to Genoa. From Turin, +branches or feeders will run to the Alps in various directions, +benefiting that city considerably, but Genoa infinitely more, since +nine-tenths of the produce even of Piedmont will run past Turin, without +unloading, to find purchasers and exporters here. A coal-mine of promise +has just been discovered at Aosta, at the foot of the Alps, to which one +of these branches is to be constructed. Genoa is now jealous of Turin's +political ascendency, which is just as sensible as would be jealousy of +Albany on the part of New-York. Even already, though it has not come +near her, the Railroad is sensibly improving her trade and industry; and +whenever it shall have reached her wharves every mile added to its +extent or to that of any of its branches will add directly and largely +to the commerce and wealth of this city. In time this Road will connect +with those of France and Germany, by a tunnel through some one of the +Alps (Mount Cenis is now under consideration), but, even without that, +whenever it shall have reached the immediate base of the Alps on this +side and been responded to by similar extensions of the French and +Rhine-valley Railroads on the other, Genoa will supplant Marseilles +while continuing preferable to Trieste as the point of embarkation for +Cairo and Suez on the direct route from England and Paris for India, +China and Southern Asia generally, and can only be superseded in that +preeminence by a railroad running hence or from Lake Maggiore and Milan +direct to Naples or Salerno--a work of whose construction through so +many petty and benighted principalities there is no present probability. + +Still, Sardinia has very much before her unaccomplished. She needs first +of all things an efficient and comprehensive system of Popular +Education. With the enormous superabundance of Sixty Thousand Priests +and other Ecclesiastics to a generally poor population of Four Millions, +she has not to-day five thousand teachers, good, bad and indifferent, of +elementary and secular knowledge. These black-coated gentry fairly +overshadow the land with their shovel hats, so that Corn has no fair +chance of sunshine. The Churches of this City alone must have cost Ten +Millions of Dollars--for you cannot walk a hundred steps without passing +one; and the wealth lavished in their construction and adornment exceeds +all belief--while all the common school-houses in Genoa would not bring +fifty thousand dollars. The best minds of the country are now pondering +the urgent necessity of speedily establishing a system of efficient +Popular Education. + +But the Nation is deeply in debt, and laboring under heavy burdens. Its +Industry is inefficient, its Commerce meager, its Revenues slender, +while the imminent peril of Austrian invasion compels the keeping up of +an Army of Fifty Thousand effective men ready to take the field at a +moment's warming. But for the notorious and active hostility of +three-fourths of Continental Europe to the liberal policy of its rulers, +Sardinia might dispense with three-fourths of this force and save its +heavy cost for Education and Internal Improvement. As things are, women +must toil in the fields while Physical and Mental Improvement must wait +in order that the Nation may sustain in virtual idleness Fifty Thousand +Soldiers and Sixty Thousand Priests. + +Yet mighty are the blessings of Freedom, even under the greatest +disadvantages. Turin is now increasing in Industry and Population with a +rapidity unknown to its former history. Looking only at the new +buildings just erected or now in progress, you might mistake it for an +American city. Unless checked by future wars, Turin will double its +population between 1850 and 1860. Genoa has but recently and partially +felt the new impulse, yet even here the march of improvement is visible. +Three years more of peace will witness the substitution for its long +period of stagnation and decay of an activity surpassed by that of no +city in Europe. + +Turin is eligibly located and well built, most of the houses being +large, tall, and the walls of decided strength and thickness; but Genoa +is even superior in most respects if not in all. I never saw so many +churches so admirably constructed and so gorgeously, laboriously +ornamented as the half dozen I visited yesterday and this morning. My +guide says there are sixty churches in Genoa (a city about the size of +Boston, though with fewer houses and a much smaller area than Brooklyn), +and that they are nearly all built and adorned with similar if not equal +disregard of cost. A modest, graceful monument to Christopher Columbus, +the Genoese discoverer of America, was one of the first structures that +met my eye on entering the city, and an eating-house in the square of +the chief theater is styled "Cafe Restaurant a l'Immortel Chr. Columbo," +or something very near that. I never before saw so many admirable +specimens of costly and graceful architecture as have arrested my +attention in wandering through the streets of Genoa. At least half the +houses were constructed for the private residences of "merchant princes" +in the palmy days of "Genoa the Superb," and their wealth would seem to +have been practically boundless. The "Hotel de Londres," in which I +write, was originally a convent, and no house in New-York can vie with +it in the massiveness of its walls, the hight of its ceilings, &c. My +bed-room, appropriately furnished, would shame almost any American +parlor or drawing-room. All around me testifies of the greatness that +has been; who shall say that it is not soon to return? The narrow +streets (very few of them passable by carriages) and uneven ground-plot +are the chief drawbacks on this magnificence; but the city rises so +regularly and gracefully from the harbor as to seem like a glorious +amphitheater, and the inequality, so wearisome to the legs, is a beauty +and a pleasure to the eye. It gives, besides, opportunity for the finest +Architectural triumphs. The Carignani Church is approached by a massive +bridge thrown across a ravine, from which you look down on the tops of +seven-story houses, and I walked this morning in a public garden which +looks down into a private one some sixty feet below it. The +perpendicular stone wall which separates these gardens is at least five +feet thick at the top, and must have cost an immense sum; but in fact +the whole city has been three times completely walled in, and the latest +and most extensive of these walls is still in good condition, and was +successfully defended by Massena in the siege of 1800, until Famine +compelled him to surrender. May that stand recorded to the end of human +history as the last siege of Genoa! + + + + +XXII. + + +[This letter, written and mailed at Leghorn on the 24th, has never come +to hand, having been entrusted to the tender mercies of the _French_ +mail which was to leave Leghorn next day by steamer for Marseilles, and +thence be taken, via Paris, to Havre, and by steamship to this city. The +wretched old apology for a steamship whereon I had reached Leghorn (80 +miles) in eighteen hours from Genoa may not yet have completed her +return passage between those ports, though I think she has; but whether +her officers know enough to receive and deliver a Mail-bag is +exceedingly doubtful. If they did, I see not how my letter can have been +stopped this side of Marseilles. I remember that it did particular +justice to French Government steamships in the Mediterranean and to +American Consuls in Italy, showing how our traveling countrymen are +crucified between the worthlessness of the former and the rapacity of +the latter. Our Consuls may well rejoice that said Letter XXII. comes up +missing, and perhaps the Tuscan Police has cause to join in their +exultation. + +This letter also gave some account of Leghorn, a well-built modern city, +the only port of Tuscany, situated on a flat or marsh scarcely raised +above the surface of the Mediterranean, and containing some 80,000 +inhabitants. It has few or no antiquities, and not much to attract a +traveler's attention. + +Some thirty miles inland in a north-easterly direction, is _Pisa_, once +a very wealthy and powerful emporium of commerce, now a decaying inland +town of no political importance, with perhaps 30,000 inhabitants. It +lies on both sides of the Arno, several miles from the sea, and I +presume the river-bed has been considerably filled or choked up by +sediment and rains since the days of Pisa's glory and power. Her +wonderful Leaning Tower is worthy of all the fame it has acquired. It is +a beautiful structure, though owing its dignity, doubtless, to some +defect in its foundation or construction. The Cathedral of Pisa is a +beautiful edifice, most gorgeous in its adornments, and with by far the +finest galleries I ever saw. Near these two structures is an extensive +burial-place full of sculptures and inscriptions in memory of the dead, +some of them 2500 years old, and thence reaching down to the present +day. Had I not extended my trip to Rome, I should have brought home far +more vivid and lasting impressions of Pisa, which has nevertheless an +abiding niche in my memory. + +The day before my visit was the anniversary of the Patron Saint of Pisa, +which is celebrated every fourth year with extraordinary pomp and +festivity. This time, I was informed, the fire-works exploded at the +public charge, in honor of this festival, cost over $100,000, though +Pisa _cannot afford_ to sustain Free Common Schools, or make any +provision for the Education of her Children. Of course, she can afford +to die, or is certain to do it, whether she can afford it or not. Pisa +is located on a beautiful and fertile plain, and is surrounded by +gardens, with fruit and ornamental trees; but much of the soil between +it and Leghorn is the property of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who keeps +it entirely in grass, affording subsistence to extensive and beautiful +herds of Cattle, whence he derives a large income, being the chief +milk-seller in his own dominions. So, at least, I was informed.] + + + + +XXIII. + +FIRST DAY IN THE PAPAL STATES. + + + ROME, Thursday, June 26, 1851. + +I left Leghorn night before last in the French steamer Languedoc, which +could not obtain passengers in America, but is accounted one of the best +boats on the Mediterranean. The fare to Civita Vecchia (125 miles) was +40 francs, but 4 added for dinner (without saying "By your leave") made +it $825. There were perhaps twenty-five passengers, mainly for Naples, +but eight or ten for Civita Vecchia and Rome, although it is everywhere +said that "Nobody goes to Rome at this season," meaning nobody that is +anybody--none who can afford to go when they would choose. The night was +fair; the sea calm; we left Leghorn at 6 (nominally 5) and reached +Civita Vecchia about 5 next morning; but were kept on board waiting the +pleasure of the Police until about 7, when we were graciously permitted +to land, our Passports having been previously sent on shore for +inspection. No steamboat in these waters is allowed to come alongside of +the wharf; so we paid a franc each for being rowed ashore; then as much +more to the porters who carried our baggage on their backs to the +custom-house, where a weary hour was spent in overhauling and sealing +it, so that it need not be overhauled again on entering the gate of +Rome. For this service a trifle only was exacted from each. Meantime a +"commissionaire" had gone after our Passports, for which we paid first +the charge of the Papal Police, which I think was about three francs; +then for the _vise_ of our several Consuls, we Americans a dollar each, +which (though but half what is charged by our Consuls at other Italian +ports) is more than is charged by those of any other nation. Then came +the charge of our "commissionaire" for his services. We took breakfast; +but that, though a severe, was not a protracted infliction; hired places +in the Diligence (13 francs in the _coupe_, 10 in the body of the +stage), and at half-past 10 were to have been on our way to Rome. But +the start was rather late, and on reaching the gates of that wretched +village, which seems to subsist mainly on such petty swindles as I have +hastily described, our Passports, which had been thrice scrutinized that +morning within sixty rods, had to run the gauntlet again. I do not +remember paying for this, but while detained by it the ostlers from the +stables of our Diligence were all upon us, clamoring for money. I think +they got little. But we changed horses thrice on the way to Rome, and +each postillion was down upon us for money, and out of all patience with +those passengers who attempted to put him off with copper. + +Aside from those engaged in fleecing us as aforesaid, I saw but three +sorts of men in Civita Vecchia--or rather, men pursuing three several +avocations--those of Priests, Soldiers and Beggars. Some united two of +these callings. A number of brown, bare-headed, wretched-looking women +were washing clothes in the hot sun of the sea-side, but I saw no trace +of masculine industry other than what I have described. The place is +said to contain 7,000 inhabitants, but I think there is scarcely a +garden outside its walls. + +Half the way thence to Rome, the road runs along the shore of the +Mediterranean, through a naturally fertile and beautiful champaign +country, once densely peopled and covered with elegant structures, the +homes of intelligence, refinement and luxury. Now there is not a garden, +scarcely a tree, and not above ten barns and thirty human habitations in +sight throughout the whole twenty-five miles. Such utter desolation and +waste, in a region so eligibly situated, can with difficulty be realized +without seeing it. I should say it can hardly here be unhealthy, with +the pure Mediterranean directly on one side, the rugged hills but two to +five miles distant on the other, and the plain between very much less +marshy than the corresponding district of New-Jersey stretching along +the coast from New-York to Perth Amboy. A few large herds of neat cattle +are fed on these plains, considerable grass is cut, and some summer +grain; but stables for post-horses at intervals of five or six miles, +with perhaps as many dilapidated stone dwellings and a few wretched +herdsmen's huts of straw or rubbish, are all the structures in sight, +save the bridges of the noble "Via Aurelia" which we traversed, the +ruins of some of the stately edifices once so abundant here, and the +mile-stones. There is not even one tavern of the half dozen pretenders +to the name between Civita Vecchia and Rome which would be considered +tolerable in the least civilized portion of Arkansas or Texas. + +Half way to Rome, the road strikes off from the sea, and there is +henceforth more cultivation, more grain, better crops (though all this +land produces excellently both of Wheat and Barley, and of Indian Corn +also where the cultivation is not utterly suicidal), but still there are +very few houses and those generally poor, the wretchedest caricatures of +taverns on one of the great highways of the world, no gardens nor other +evidences of aspiration for comfort and natural beauty, few and ragged +trees, and the very few inhabitants are so squalid, so abject, so +beggarly, that it seems a pity they were not fewer. And this state +continues, except that the grain-crops grow larger and better, up to +within a mile or two of the gates of Rome, which thus seems another +Palmyra in the Desert, only that this is a desert of man's making. I +presume the twenty-five or thirty miles at this end is unhealthy, even +for natives, but it surely need not be so. All this Campagna, with the +more pestilent Pontine Marshes on the south, which are now scourging +Rome with their deadly malaria and threaten to render it ultimately +uninhabitable, were once salubrious and delightful, and might readily be +made so again. If they were in England, Old or New, near a city of the +size of this, they would be trenched, dyked, drained, and reconverted +into gardens, orchards and model-farms within two years, and covered +with dwellings, mansions, country-seats, and a busy, energetic, thrifty +population before 1860. A tenth part of the energy and devotedness +displayed in the attempts to wrest Jerusalem from the Infidels would +rescue Rome from a fate not less appalling. + +We ought by contract to have arrived here at half past six last evening; +we actually reached the gates at half past eight or a little later. +There our Passports were taken from us, and carried into the proper +office; but word came back that all was not right; we must go in +personally. We did so, and found that what was wanted to make all right +was money. There was not the smallest pretext for this--no Barbary +pirate ever had less--as we were not to get our Passports, but must wait +their approval by a higher authority and then go and pay for it. We +submitted to the swindle, however, for we were tired, the hour late, we +had lodgings yet to seek, and the night-air here is said to be very +unwholesome for strangers. This difficulty obviated, another presented +itself. The Custom-House stood on the other side of the street, and word +came that we were wanted there also, though our slender carpet-bags had +been regularly searched and sealed by the Roman functionaries at Civita +Vecchia expressly to obviate any pretext for scrutiny or delay here. No +use--money. By this time, change and patience were getting scarce in our +company. We tried to get off cheap; but it wouldn't do. Finally, rather +than stay out till midnight in the malaria, I put down a +five-franc-piece, which was accepted and we were let go. Still for +form's sake, our baggage was fumbled over, but not opened, and one or +two more heads looked in at the window for "_qualche cosa_," but we gave +nothing, and soon got away. + +We had paid thirteen francs each for a ride of fifty miles over a +capital road, where horses and feed are abundant, and must be cheap; but +now our postillion came down upon us for more money for taking us to a +hotel; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs +to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one +hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or +four rough customers jumped unbidden on the vehicle, and, when we +reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which +we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled +with the postillion, who grumbled and scolded though we paid him more +than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be +paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but +others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, +which the "_facchini_" rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up +stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their +imprecations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of +Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light +carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh +demand for porterage. "Don't you belong to the hotel?" "Yes." "Then +vanish instantly!" I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his +heart's content; and thus closed my first day in the more especial +dominions of His Holiness Pius IX. + + + + +XXIV. + +THE ETERNAL CITY. + + + ROME, Friday, June 27, 1851. + +ROME is mighty even in her desolation. I knew the world had nothing like +her, and yet the impression she has made on me, at the first view, is +unexpectedly great. I do not yet feel able to go wandering from one +church, museum, picture or sculpture gallery to another, from morning +till night, as others do: I need to pause and think. Of course, I shall +leave without seeing even a tenth part of the objects of decided interest; +but if I should thus be enabled to carry away any clear and abiding +impression of a small part, I shall prefer this to a confused and foggy +perception of a greater multiplicity of details. + +That single view of the Eternal City, from the tower of the Capitol, is +one that I almost wish I had given up the first day to. The entire of +Rome and its inhabited suburbs lies so fully and fairly before the eye, +with the Seven Hills, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Obelisks, the +Pillars, the Vatican, the Castle of St. Angelo, the various Triumphal +Arches, the Churches, &c., &c., around you, that it seems the best use +that could be made of one day to simply move from look-out to look-out +in that old tower, using the glass for a few moments and then pausing +for reflection. I have half a mind thus to spend one of my three +remaining days. True, the Coliseum will seem vaster close at hand, but +from no point can it be seen so completely and clearly, in its immensity +and its dilapidation combined, as from that. The Tarpeian Rock seems an +absurd fable--its fatal leap the daily sport of infants--but in all +ancient cities the same glaring discrepancy between ancient and modern +altitudes is presented, and especially, we hear, at Jerusalem. The Seven +Hills whereon Rome was built are all distinguishable, visible to-day; +but they are undoubtedly much lower than at first, while all the +intervening valleys have been filling up through centuries. Monkish +traditions say that what is now the basement of the Church of Sts. Peter +and Paul (not the modern St. Peter's) was originally on the level of the +street, and this is quite probable: though I did not so readily +lubricate the stories I was told in that basement to-day of St. Peter, +Paul and Luke having tenanted this basement, Paul having lived and +preached here for the first two years of his residence in Rome; and when +they showed me the _altar_ at which St. Paul was wont to minister, I +stopped short and didn't _try_ to believe any more. But this soil is +thickly sown with marvels and very productive. + +St. Peter's, or at least its Dome, was in sight through the greater part +of the last eleven or twelve miles of our journey to the city; from most +other directions it is doubtless visible at a much greater distance. I +have of course seen the immense structure afar off, as well as glanced +at it in passing by night; but I am not yet prepared to comprehend its +vast proportions. I mean to visit it last before leaving Rome, so as to +carry away as unclouded an impression of it as possible. + +Of the three hundred and sixty-five Churches of Rome, I have as yet +visited but four, and may find time to see as many more of the most +noteworthy. They seem richer in Sculpture, Porphyry, Mosaic, Carving, +Tapestry, &c. than anything elsewhere well can be; but not equal in +Architecture to the finest Churches in Genoa, the Cathedral at Pisa, and +I think not externally to Notre Dame at Paris. Indeed, though large +portions of the present Rome are very far from ruinous, and some of them +quite modern and fresh-looking, yet the general Architecture of the city +is decidedly inferior to that of Genoa, and I should say even to that of +Leghorn. In making this comparison, I of course leave out of the account +St. Peter's and the Churches of both cities, and refer mainly to private +architecture, in which Rome is not transcendent--certainly not in Italy. +The streets here are rather wide for an Italian city but would be deemed +intolerably narrow in America. + +As to _Sculpture_ and _Painting_, I am tempted to say that if mankind +were compelled to choose between the destruction of what is in Rome or +that of all the rest in the world, the former should be saved at the +expense of the latter. Adequate conception of the extent, the variety, +the excellence of the works of Art here heaped together is impossible. +If every house on Broadway were a gallery, the whole six miles of them +(counting both sides of the street) might be filled from Rome with +Pictures, Statues, &c. of decided merit. + +What little I have seen does not impress me with the superiority of +Ancient over Modern Art. Of course, if you compare the dozen best things +produced in twenty centuries against a like number chosen from the +productions of the last single century, you will show a superiority on +the part of the former; but that decides nothing. The Capitoline Venus +is a paragon, but there is no collection of ancient sculpture which will +compare with the extensive gallery of heads by Canova alone. When +benignant Time shall have done his appointed work of covering with the +pall of oblivion the worse nineteen twentieths of the productions of the +modern chisel, the genuine successes of the Nineteenth Century will +shine out clearer and brighter than they now do. So, I trust, with +Painting, though I do not know what painter of our age to place on a +perilous eminence with Canova as the champion or representative of +Modern as compared with Ancient Art. + +It is well that there should be somewhere an Emporium of the Fine Arts, +yet not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the +limbs destitute. I think Rome has been grasping with regard to works of +Art, and in some instances unwisely so. For instance, in a single +private gallery I visited to-day, there were not less than twenty +decidedly good pictures by Anibal Caracci--probably twice as many as +there are in all the world out of Italy. That gallery would scarcely +miss half of these, which might be fully replaced by as many modern +works of equal merit, whereby the gallery and Rome would lose nothing, +while the world outside would decidedly gain. If Rome would but consider +herself under a sort of moral responsibility to impart as well as +receive, and would liberally dispose of so many of her master-pieces as +would not at all impoverish her, buying in return such as could be +spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by +diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service +and earn the gratitude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her +own permanent well-being. It is in her power to constitute herself the +center of an International Art-Union really worthy of the name--to +establish a World's Exhibition of Fine Arts unequaled in character and +beneficence. Is it too much to hope that she will realize or surpass +this conception? + +These suggestions, impelled by what I have seen to-day, are at all +events much shorter than I could have made any detailed account of my +observations. I have no qualifications for a critic in Art, and make no +pretensions to the character, even had my observations been less hurried +than they necessarily were. I write only for the great multitude, as +ill-instructed in this sphere as I cheerfully admit myself, and who yet +are not unwilling to learn what impression is made by the treasures of +Rome on one like themselves. + + +THE COLISEUM. + + _Evening._ + +I spent the forenoon wandering through the endless halls of the Vatican, +so far as they were accessible to the public, the more important +galleries being only open on Monday, and two or three of the very finest +not at all. I fear this restriction will deprive me of a sight of the +Apollo Belvedere, the Sistine Chapel, and one or two others of the +world's marvels. I know how ungracious it is to "look a gift horse in +the mouth," and yet, since these works exist mainly to be seen, and as +Rome derives so large a share of her income from the strangers whom +these works attract to her, I must think it unwise to send any away +regretting that they were denied a sight of the Apollo or of some of +Raphael's master-pieces contained in the Vatican. I know at what vast +expense these works have been produced or purchased, and, though all who +visit Rome are made to pay a great deal indirectly for the privileges +they enjoy here, yet I wish the Papal Government would frankly exact, as +I for one should most cheerfully pay, a fair price for admission to the +most admirable and unrivaled collections which are its property. If, for +instance, it would abolish all Passport vexations, encourage the opening +of Railroads, and stimulate the establishment of better lines of +Diligences, &c., so that traveling in the Papal States would cease to be +twice as dear and infinitely slower than elsewhere in Italy, in France +or Germany, and would then charge each stranger visiting Rome on errands +other than religious something like five dollars for all that is to be +seen here, taking care to let him see it, and to cut off all private +importunities for services rendered in showing them, the system would be +a great improvement on the present, and the number of strangers in Rome +would be rapidly doubled and quadrupled. There might be some calumny +and misrepresentation, but these would very soon be dispelled, and the +world would understand that the Papacy did not seek to make money out of +its priceless treasures, but simply to provide equitably and properly +for their preservation and due increase. Here, as we all see, have +immense sums been already spent by this Government in excavating, +preserving, and in some cases partially restoring such decayed but +inimitable structures as the Coliseum, the Capitol, the various +Triumphal Arches, the Baths of Titus, Caracalla, &c., all of which +labors and expenditures we who visit Rome share the benefit, and it is +but the simplest justice that we should contribute to defray the cost, +especially when we know that every dollar so paid would be expended in +continuing these excavations, &c., and in completing the galleries and +other modern structures which are already so peerless. Rome is too +commonly regarded as only a ruin, or, more strictly, as deriving all its +eminence from the Past, while in fact it has more inestimable treasures, +the product of our own century, our own day, than any other city, and I +suspect nearly as many as all the rest of the world. Even the Vatican is +still unfinished; workmen were busy in it to-day, laying additional +floors of variegated marble, putting up new book-cases, &c., none of +them restorations, but all extensions of the Library, which, apart from +the value of its books and manuscripts, is a unique and masterly +exposition of ancient and modern Art. Here are single Vases, Tables, +Frescoes, &c., which would be the pride of any other city: one large +vase of Malachite, a present to Pius IX. from the Russian Autocrat, and +unequaled out of Russia, if in the world. I should judge that +three-fourths of the Frescoes which nearly cover the walls and ceiling +of the fifteen or twenty large halls devoted to the Library are less +than two centuries old. This part of the Vatican is approached through a +magnificent corridor, probably five hundred feet long, with an arched +ceiling entirely inlaid with beautiful Mosaic, and the same is +continued through another gallery some two hundred feet long, which +leads at right angles from this to another wing of the edifice; but the +corridor leading down this wing, and facing that first named, has a +naked, barren-looking ceiling, evidently waiting to be similarly inlaid +when time and means shall permit. This is but a specimen of what is +purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome +could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead +of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, +official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. +It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so +little of it should be devoted to those still progressing works, from +which are derived all this instruction and intellectual enjoyment. + +Here let me say one word in justice to the princely families of Rome, +whose palaces and immense collections of Paintings and Sculptures are +almost daily open to strangers without charge, save the trifle that you +choose to give the attendant who shows you through them. I looked for +hours to-day through the ten spacious apartments of the Palace of the +Orsini family devoted to the Fine Arts, as I had already done through +that of the Doria family, and shall to-morrow do through others, and +doubtless might do through hundreds of others--all hospitably open to +every stranger on the simple condition that he shall deport himself +civilly and refrain from doing any injury to the priceless treasures +which are thus made his own without the trouble even of taking care of +them. I know there are instances of like liberality elsewhere; but is it +anywhere else the rule? and is it in our country even the exception? +What American ever thought of spending half an immense fortune in the +collection of magnificent galleries of Pictures, Statues, &c., and then +quietly opening the whole to the public without expecting a word of +compliment or acknowledgment in return?--without being even personally +known to those whom he thus benefited? We have something to learn of +Rome in this respect. Some of the English nobility whom the Press has +shamed into following this munificent example have done it so grudgingly +as to deprive the concession of all practical value. By requiring all +who wish to visit their galleries to make a formal written application +for the privilege, and await a written answer, they virtually restrict +the favor to persons of leisure, position and education. But in Rome not +even a card nor a name is required; and you walk into a strange private +palace as if you belonged there, lay down your stick or umbrella, and +are shown from hall to hall by an intelligent, courteous attendant, +study at will some of the best productions of Claude, Raphael, Salvator +Rosa, Poussin, Murillo, &c., pay two shillings if you see fit, to the +attendant, and are thanked for it as if you were a patron; going thence +to another such collection, and so for weeks, if you have time. If +wealth were always thus employed, it were a pity that great fortunes are +not more numerous. + +But I purpose to speak of the COLISEUM. I will assume that most +of my readers know that this was an immense amphitheater, constructed in +the days of Rome's imperial greatness, used for gladiatorial combats of +men with ferocious beasts and with each other, and calculated to afford +a view of the spectacle to about one hundred thousand persons at once. +The circuit of the building is over sixteen hundred feet; the arena in +its center is about three hundred and eighty by two hundred and eighty +feet. Most of the walls have fallen for perhaps half their height, +though some part of them still retain very nearly their original +altitude. In the darker ages, after this vast edifice had fallen into +ruin, its materials were carried away by thousands and tens of thousands +of tuns to build palaces and churches, and one side of the exterior wall +was actually for ages drawn upon as if it were a quarry. But in later +years the Papal Government has disbursed thousands upon thousands in the +uncovering and preservation of this stupendous ruin, and with the +amplest success. The fall of its roof and a great portion of its walls +had filled and buried it with rubbish to a depth of some twenty to forty +feet, all of which has been taken away, so that the floor of the +interior is now the veritable sand whereon the combatants fought and +bled and rendered up their lives, while the forty or fifty entrances for +emperors, senators and people, and even the underground passage for the +introduction of the wild beasts, with a part of their cages, are now +palpable. In some places, restorations have been made where they were +necessary to avert the danger of further dilapidation, but as sparingly +as possible; and, though others think differently, the Coliseum seems to +me as majestic and impressive in its utter desolation as it ever could +have been in its grandeur and glory. + +We were fortunate in the hour of our visit. As we slowly made the +circuit of the edifice, a body of French cavalry were exercising their +horses along the eastern side of it, while at a little distance, in the +grove or garden at the south, the quick rattle of the drum told of the +evolutions of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away to the +southward, and our attention was drawn to certain groups of Italians in +the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. We entered, and +were witnesses of a strange, impressive ceremony. It is among the +traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were +compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as +gladiators as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable +resistance to the "lower law" then in the ascendant, which the high +priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and +charges to demonstrate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen +to obey, no matter what might be his private, personal convictions with +regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen +little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed +around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are +offered for the eternal bliss of the martyred Christians of the +Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this occasion. Some twenty +or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare-headed, but as +many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks which left +only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a larger number of +women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the +way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, +kneeling and praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the +next oratory, and so on until they had repeated the service before every +one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the +ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much +more numerous. The praying was fervent and I trust excellent,--as the +music decidedly was not; but the whole scene with the setting sun +shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, +with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely +picturesque and to me affecting. I came away before it concluded, to +avoid the damp night-air; but many chequered years and scenes of +stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sunset +and those strange prayers in the Coliseum. + + + + +XXV. + +ST. PETER'S. + + + ROME, Saturday, June 29, 1851. + +St. Peter's is the Niagara of edifices, having the same relation to +other master-pieces of human effort that the great cataract bears to +other terrestrial effects of Divine power. In either case, the first +view disappoints, because the perfection of symmetry dims the +consciousness of magnitude, and the total absence of exaggeration in the +details forbids the conception of vastness in the aggregate. In viewing +London's St. Paul's, you have a realization of bulk which St. Peter's +does not give, yet St. Paul's is but a wart beside St. Peter's. I do not +know that the resemblance has been noticed by others, but the +semi-circle of gigantic yet admirably proportioned pillars which +encloses the grand square in front of St. Peter's reminds me vividly of +the general conformation of our great water-fall, while the column or +obelisk in the center of the square (which column is a mistake, in my +humble judgment, and should be removed) has its parallel in the +unsightly tower overlooking the main cataract from the extreme point of +Goat Island. Eternal endurance and repose may be fitly typified by the +oceans and snow-crested mountains, but power and energy find their best +expressions in the cataract and the dome. Time and Genius may produce +other structures as admirable in their own way and regarded in +connection with their uses; but, viewed as a temple, St. Peter's will +ever stand unmatched and unapproachable. + +I chose the early morning for my first visit. The sky was cloudless, as +it mainly is here save in winter, but the day was not yet warm, for the +summer nights are cooler here than in New-York, and the current English +talk of the excessive heat which prevails in Rome at this season is +calculated to deceive Americans. No one fails to realize from the first +the great beauty and admirable accessories of this edifice, with the +far-stretching but quite other than lofty pile of the Vatican on its +right and its own magnificent colonnade in front, but you do not feel +that it is lofty, nor spacious, nor anything but perfect. You ascend the +steps, and thus gain some idea of the immense proportions prevailing +throughout; for the church seems scarcely at all elevated above the +square, and yet many are the steps leading up to the doors. Crossing a +grand porch with an arched roof of glorious mosaic, you find yourself in +the body of the edifice, which now seems large and lofty indeed, but by +no means unparalleled. But you walk on and on, between opposing pillars +the grandest the world ever saw, the space at either side between any +two pillars constituting a separate chapel with its gorgeous altar, its +grand pictures in mosaic, its sculptured saints and angels, each of +these chapels having a larger area than any church I ever entered in +America; and by the time you have walked slowly and observingly to the +front of the main altar you realize profoundly that Earth has nothing +else to match with St. Peter's. No matter though another church were +twice as large, and erected at a cost of twice the Thirty Millions of +dollars and fifty years expended upon this, St. Peter's would still +stand unrivaled. For every detail is so marvellously symmetrical that no +one is dwarfed, no one challenges special attention. Of one hundred +distinct parts, any one by itself would command your profoundest +admiration, but everything around and beyond it is no less excellent, +and you soon cease to wonder and remain to appreciate and enjoy. + +I devoted most of the day to St. Peter's, seeing it under many different +aspects, but no other view of the interior is equal to that presented in +the stillness and comparative solitude of the early morning. The +presence of multitudes does not cloud your consciousness of its +immensity, for ten thousand persons occupy no considerable portion of +its area and might very easily be present yet wholly invisible to one +who stood just inside the entrance and looked searchingly through the +body of the edifice to find them; but there are usually very few seats, +and those for the privileged, so that hundreds are constantly moving +from place to place through the day, which distracts attention and mars +the feeling of repose and delighted awe which the naked structure is +calculated to inspire. Go very early some bright summer morning, if you +would see St. Peter's in its calm and stately grandeur. + +I ascended to the roof, and thence to the summit of the dome, but, apart +from a profounder consciousness of the vastness and admirable +proportions of the edifice, this is of little worth. True, the entire +city and its suburbs lie clearly and fully beneath and around you; but +so they do from the tower of the Capitol. Views from commanding heights +are obtained in almost every city. The ascent, however, as far as the +roof, is easier than any other I ever found within a building. Instead +of stairs, here is a circular road, more like the ascent of a mountain +than a Church. One single view is obtained, however, which richly +compensates for the fatigue of the ascent. It is that from the interior +of the dome down into the body of the Church below. The Alps may present +grander, but I never expect to have another like this. + +Here I had personal evidence of the mean, reckless selfishness wherewith +public edifices are regarded by too many, and the absolute necessity of +constant, omnipresent watchfulness to preserve them from wanton +dilapidation. Five or six French soldiers had been permitted to ascend +the dome just before I did, and came down nearly at the same time with +me. As I stood gazing down from this point into the church below, two of +these soldiers came in on their way down, and one of them, looking +around to see that no one was present but a stranger, whipped the +bayonet he wore out of its sheath, forced the point into the mosaic +close behind as well as above us, pried out one of the square pieces of +agate or some such stone of which that mosaic is composed, put it in his +pocket and made off. I had no idea that he would deface the edifice +until the moment he did it, and then hastily remonstrated, but of course +without avail. I looked at the wall on which he operated, and found that +two or three had preceded him in the same work of paltry but most +outrageous robbery. Of course, each will boast of his exploit to his +comrades of kindred spirit, and they will be tempted to imitate it, +until the mischief done becomes sufficiently serious to attract +attention, and then Nobody will have a serious reckoning to encounter. A +few acts of unobserved rapine as trifling as these may easily occasion +some signal disaster. In an edifice like this, there should be no point +accessible to visiters unwatched by a faithful guardian even for one +hour. + +In the afternoon, I attended the Celebration of High Mass, this being +observed by the Catholic world as St. Peter's Day, and the Pope himself +officiating in the great Cathedral. Not understanding the service, I +could not profit by it, and the spectacle impressed me unfavorably. Such +a multiplicity of spears and bayonets seem to me strangely out of +keeping in a place of worship; if they belong here, why not bring in a +regiment of horse and a park of artillery as well? There is ample room +for them in St. Peter's, and the cavalry might charge and the cannoniers +fire a few volleys with little harm to the building, and with great +increase both to the numbers and interest of the audience. I am not +pretending to judge this for others, but simply to state how it +naturally strikes one educated in the simple, sober observances of +Puritan New-England. I have heard of Protestants being converted in +Rome, but it seems to me the very last place where the great body of +those educated in really Protestant ways would be likely to undergo +conversion. I have seen very much here to admire, and there is doubtless +many times more such that I have not seen, but the radical antagonism of +Catholic and Protestant ideas, observances and tendencies never before +stood out in a light so clear and strong as that shed upon it by a few +days in Rome. I obtained admission yesterday to the Sistine Chapel of +the Vatican, and saw there, among the paintings in fresco, a +representation of the death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of St. +Bartholomew; and if this were not intended to express approval of that +horrible massacre, I would like to know what was meant by having it +painted and placed there. + +But to return to St. Peter's. The entrance of the grand procession from +the Vatican was a very slow process. In its ranks were the Noble Guard, +the Swiss Guard, the Cardinals, and many other divisions, each in its +own imposing and picturesque costume. At length came the Pope, seated in +a magnificent chair on a raised platform or palanquin, the whole borne +on the shoulders of some ten or twelve servitors. This was a capital +arrangement for us strangers, who wished a good view of His Holiness; +but I am sure it was very disagreeable to him, and that he would much +rather have walked like the rest. He passed into the church out of my +sight, dismounted, and I (having also entered) next saw him approach one +of the altars on the right, where he knelt and silently prayed for some +minutes. He was then borne onward to his throne at the further end, and +the service commenced. + +The singing of the Mass was very good. The Pope's reading I did not +hear, nor was I near enough even to see him, except fitfully. I think +there were more than five thousand persons present, including a +thousand priests and a thousand soldiers. There would doubtless have +been many more, but for the fact that a smart shower occurred just +before and at the hour (5 o'clock), while no public notice had been +given that the Pope would officiate. + +In the evening, St. Peter's and its accessories were illuminated--by far +the most brilliant spectacle I ever saw. All was dark and silent till, +at the first stroke of the bell, light flashed from a hundred thousand +burners, and the entire front of the Church and Dome, up to the very +summit of the spire, was one magnificent galaxy, while the double row of +gigantic pillars or columns surrounding the square was in like manner +radiant with jets of flame. I thought the architecture of St. Peter's +Rome's greatest glory when I had only seen it by daylight, yet it now +seemed more wondrous still. The bells rang sweetly and stirringly +throughout the evening, and there was a like illumination on the summit +of the Pincian Hill, while most of the shops and dwellings displayed at +least one row of burning candles, and bonfires blazed brightly in the +streets, which were alive with moving, animated groups, while the square +of St. Peter's and the nearest bridges over the Tiber were black with +excited thousands. To-night we have fire-works from the Pincian in honor +of St. Peter, which would be thought in New England an odd way of +honoring an Apostle, especially on Sunday evening; but whether Rome or +Boston is right on this point is a question to be pondered. + +_P. S. Monday._--I did not see the Fire-Works last evening, but almost +every one else in Rome did, and the unanimous verdict pronounces them +admirable--extraordinary. Great preparations had been made, and the +success must have been perfect to win so general and hearty a +commendation. The display was ushered in by a rousing salute of +artillery; but this was not needed to assemble in and around the Piazza +del Popolo all the population of Rome that could be spared from their +homes. The Piazza is the great square of Rome, in front of the Pincian +Hill, whence the rockets, wheels, stars, serpents, &c., were let off. +The display was not concluded till after 10 o'clock. + +This day I have devoted to famous private galleries of Paintings and +Sculpture, having been again disappointed in attempting to gain a sight +of the Apollo Belvedere and Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The time for +opening these treasures to the public has lately been changed from 10 +A. M. to noon, and they are only open regularly on Mondays; so +that I was there a little before noon to be ready; but after waiting +(with many others) a full hour, in front of an inexorable gate, without +being able to learn why we were shut out or when the embargo would +cease, I grew weary of the uncertainty and waste of time, and left. A +little past 1 (I now understand), the gate was opened, but too late for +me, as I did not return, and leave Rome for Florence to-morrow. Had the +simplest notice been given that such a delay would take place, or had +the officers at the gates been able to give any information, I should +have had different luck. "They manage these things better in France." + + + + +XXVI. + +THE ROMANS OF TO-DAY. + + + ROME, Monday, June 30, 1851. + +The common people of Rome generally seem to me an intelligent, vivacious +race, and I can readily credit the assurance of well-informed friends +that they are mentally superior to most other Italians. It may be deemed +strange that any other result should be thought possible, since the very +earth around them, with all it bears, is so vivified with the spirit of +Heroism, of Genius, and of whatever is most memorable in History. But +the legitimate influences of Nature, of Art, and of Ancestry, are often +overborne by those of Institutions and Laws, as is now witnessed on all +the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, and I was rather +disappointed in finding the present Romans a race of fully average +capacities, intellectual and physical. A face indicating mental +imbecility, or even low mediocrity, is very rarely met in those streets +where the greater portion of the Romans seem to work and live. The women +are brown, plain, bare-headed, and rather careless of personal +appearance, but ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with +flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and +character. I do not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have +been painted where the women were common-place and unideal. + +But all with whom I can converse, and who are qualified to speak by +residence in the country, give unfavorable accounts of the moral +qualities of the Romans especially, and in these qualities I include +Patriotism and all the civic virtues. That Italians, and those of Rome +especially, are quite commonly sensual, selfish, indolent, fickle, +dishonest, vicious, is the general report of the foreigners residing +among them. Zealous Protestants will readily account for it by their +Catholicism. My own prepossessions naturally lead me to the conclusion +that much of the religious machinery in operation here is unfavorable to +the development of high moral character. Whatever the enlightened and +good may mean by these observances, it does seem to me that the ignorant +and vulgar understand that the evil consequences of pleasant sins may be +cheaply avoided by a liberal use of holy water, by bowings before the +altar and reverent conformity to rituals and ceremonies.--This is +certainly the great danger (in my sight) of the Catholic system, that it +may lead its votaries to esteem conformity to outward and ceremonial +requirements as essentially meritorious, and in some sense an offset for +violations of the moral law. Not that this error is by any means +confined to Catholics, for Christendom is full of Protestants who, +though ready enough to proclaim that kissing the toe of St. Peter's +statue is a poor atonement for violating the Commandments, and Adoration +of the Virgin a very bad substitute for Chastity, do yet themselves +prefer bad Christians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the +conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no +improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such +conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but +how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of +Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries +better husbands, brothers, children, neighbors, kindred, citizens? To my +Protestant eyes, it seems that the general error on this point is more +prevalent and more vital at Rome than elsewhere; and I have been trying +to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary +I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the +Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the +Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. +&c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a +representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the +Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God +is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and +worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." I presume such a +representation must exist in a city where there are so many hundreds if +not thousands of pictures of St. Peter doing, receiving or suffering; +but this certainly is not a favorite subject here, or I should have seen +it many times depicted. Who knows a Protestant city in which the +aforesaid lesson given to Peter has been adequately dwelt on and heeded? + +That the prevalence of Catholicism is not inconsistent with general +uprightness and purity of morals is demonstrated in Ireland, in +Switzerland, in Belgium, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. The testimony of +the great body of travelers and other observers with regard to the +countries just named, affirms the general prevalence therein of those +virtues which are the basis of the Family and the Church. And yet, the +acknowledged state of things here is a grave fact which challenges +inquiry and demands explanation. In the very metropolis of Catholic +Christendom, where nearly all believe, and a great majority are at least +ceremonially devout--where many of the best intellects in the Catholic +communion have flourished and borne sway for more than fifteen +centuries, and with scarcely a divided empire for the last thousand +years--where Churches and Priests have long been more abundant than on +any other spot of earth, and where Divine worship and Christian +ordinances are scarcely intermitted for an hour, but are free and +welcome to all, and are very generally attended--what is the reason that +corruption and degeneracy should be so fearfully prevalent? If only the +enemies of Rome's faith affirmed this degeneracy, we might fairly +suppose it invented or exaggerated; but even the immediate Priesthood of +this people, who may be presumed most unwilling and unlikely to deny +their virtues or magnify their vices, declare them unfit to be trusted +with power over their own political destinies, and indeed incapable of +self-government. Such is the fundamental basis and essential +justification of the rule now maintained in Rome, under the protection +of foreign bayonets. This is a conquered city, virtually if not +nominally in a state of siege, without assignable period. The Pope's +guards are partly Swiss and partly native, that is, chosen from the +families of the Nobility; but the "power behind the throne" is +maintained by the thousands of French soldiers who garrison the city, +and the tens of thousands of Austrian, Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers +who would be pushed here upon the first serious attempt of the Romans to +assert their right of self-government. Thus, "Order reigns in Warsaw," +while Democracy bites its lip and bides its time. + +Has Human Nature degenerated under Christian ministrations? There surely +_was_ a Roman people, some twenty-odd centuries ago, who were capable of +self-government, and who maintained it long and creditably. Why should +it be otherwise with the Romans of to-day? I do not believe it is. They +have great vices I admit, for all testimony affirms it; that they might +somewhat abuse Freedom I fear, for the blessed sunshine is painful and +perilous to eyes long used to the gloom of the dungeon. But the +experience of Freedom must tend to dispel the ignorance and correct the +errors of its votaries, while Slavery only leads from bad to worse. If +ten centuries of such rule as now prevails here have nowise qualified +this people for Self-Government, what rational hope is there that ten +more such would do it? If a reform is ever to be effected, it cannot be +commenced too soon. + +As to the actual government of Rome and her dependencies, it could not +well be worse. The rulers fully understand that they are under no +obligation to the people for the power they exercise, nor for the +submission which it commands. The despotism which prevails is unmodified +even by the hereditary despot's natural desire to secure the throne to +his descendants by cultivating the good will of his people. The Pope is +nominally sovereign, and all regard him as personally a pure and good +man; but he exerts no actual power in the State, his time and thoughts +being wholly devoted to the various and complicated cares of his vast +Spiritual empire. Meantime, the Reaectionist influences so omnipotent +with his predecessor, but which were repressed for a time after the +present Pontiff's accession, have unchecked sway in the political +administration. The way the present rulers of Rome read History is +this--"Pius IX. came into power a Liberal and a Reformer, and did all he +could for the promotion of Republican and Progressive ideas; for all +which his recompense was the assassination of his Prime Minister, and +his own personal expulsion from his throne and territories--which is +quite enough of Liberalism for one generation; we, at least, will have +no more of it." And they certainly live up to their resolution. It is +currently reported that there are now _Seventeen Thousand_ political +prisoners confined here, but nobody who would tell can know how many +there are, and I presume this statement is a gross exaggeration, +significant only as an index of the popular feeling. The essential fact +is that there _might_ be Seventeen or Seventy Thousand thus imprisoned +without publicity, known accusation or trial, save at the convenience of +those ordering their arrest; and with no recognized right of the +arrested to Habeas Corpus or any kindred process. Many of the best +Romans of the age are in exile for Liberty's sake. I was reliably +informed at Turin that there are at this time _Three Hundred Thousand_ +Political Refugees in the Kingdom of Sardinia, nearly all, of course, +from the despotism of Lower Italy. Thus Europe is kept tranquil by a +system of terror, which is efficient while the spell holds; but let it +break at any point, and all will go together. + +The Cardinals are the actual directors of State affairs here, and are +popularly held responsible for all that is disliked in the Government. +They would be likely to fare roughly in case of another revolution. They +are privately accused of flagrant immoralities, as men so powerful and +so unpopular would naturally be, whether with or without cause. I know +no facts that sustain the accusation. + +A single newspaper is now published in Rome, but I have heard it +inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a +Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and +would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed +sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to +the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. +There are very few foreign journals taken or read in the Roman States. +Lynn or Poughkeepsie probably, Newark or New-Haven certainly, buys and +reads more newspapers than the entire Three Millions of People who +inhabit the Papal States. I could not learn to relish such a state of +things. I have just paid $3.70 (more than half of it to our American +Consul) for the privilege of leaving the dominions of His Holiness, and +shall speedily profit by the gracious permission. + + + + +XXVII. + +CENTRAL ITALY--FLORENCE. + + + BOLOGNA, July 6, 1851. + +"See Naples and die!" says the proverb: but I am in no hurry to "shuffle +off this mortal coil," and rather weary of seeing. I think I should have +found a few choice friends in Naples, but my time is limited, and the +traveling through Southern Italy neither pleasant nor expeditious. Of +Vesuvius in its milder moods I never had a high opinion; and, though I +should have liked to tread the unburied streets of Pompeii, yet Rome has +nearly surfeited me with ruins. So I shortened my tour in Italy by +cutting off the farther end of it, and turned my face obliquely homeward +from the Eternal City. What has the world to show of by-gone glory and +grandeur which she cannot at least equal? + +Let no one be sanguine as to his good resolutions. I as firmly resolved, +when I first shook from my feet the dust of Civita Vecchia, that I never +again would enter its gates, as I ever did to do or forbear any act +whatever. But, after a tedious and ineffectual attempt to make up a +party of Americans to come through from Rome to Florence direct, I was +at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on +that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to +wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send +one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly +unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any obligation on the part of +proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra +number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be +found to express it. So some dozen or more who would gladly have gone +through by land to Florence were driven back upon Civita Vecchia and +Leghorn--I among the number. + +Three of us left Rome in a private carriage at noon on Tuesday the 1st, +and reached Civita Vecchia at 10 minutes past 9 P. M.--the +inner gate having been closed at 9. One of my companions was known and +responsibly connected at the port, and so was enabled to negotiate our +admission, though the process was a tedious one, and our carriage had to +be left in the outer court, or between the two walls. Here I left it at +10; it may have been got in afterward. We found all the rooms taken at +the best Hotel (Orlandi), and were driven to accept such as there were +left. The boat (Languedoc) was advertised to start for Leghorn at 7 next +morning, by which time I succeeded in getting my Passport cleared (for +no steamboat in these waters will give you a permit to embark until you +have handed in your Passport, duly cleared, at its office, as well as +paid for your passage); but the boat was coolly taking in water long +after its advertised hour, and did not start until half past eight. + +We had an unusually large number of passengers, about one hundred and +fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number +of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and +propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a +more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of +the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in +the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should +have been well and hearty. We made Leghorn (120 miles) in about eleven +hours, which is very good time for the Mediterranean. But reaching the +harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour +or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of +the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a +powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the +Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was +unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the +medicine I required, and from the moment of taking it I began to +recover. By seasonable effort, I recovered my Passport from the Police +office, duly _vised_, at 10 A. M. and left by Railroad for +Florence at 10 1/2, reaching the capital of Tuscany (60 miles) about 1 +o'clock, P. M. + +Florence (Italian _Firenze_) is pleasantly situated on both sides of the +Arno, some forty miles in a direct line from its mouth. The river is +here about the size of the Hudson at Sandy Hill or the Mohawk at +Canajoharie, but subject to rapid swellings from rains in the Apennines +above. One such occurred the night I was there, though very little rain +fell at Florence. I was awakened in the night by the rushing and roaring +of its waters, my window having only a street between it and the river, +which subsided the next day, without having done any material damage. + +That day was the 4th of July, and I spent most of it, under the guidance +of friends resident at Florence, in looking through the galleries +devoted to Paintings and Statuary in the two famous palaces of the +reigning family and in the Academy. Although the collections embrace the +Venus de Medicis and many admirable Paintings, I cannot say that my +expectations were fully realized. Ill health may in part account for +this; my recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treasures of +Art at Rome may also help explain my obtuseness at Florence. And yet I +saw nothing in Rome with greater pleasure or profit than I derived from +the hour I spent in the studio of our countryman POWERS, whose fame is +already world-wide, and who I trust is now rapidly acquiring that generous +competence which will enable him to spend the evening of his days in ease +and comfort in his native land. The abundance of orders constantly pouring +in upon him at his own prices does not induce him to abandon nor postpone +his efforts in the ideal and more exalted sphere of his art, but rather to +redouble those efforts; and it will yet be felt that his "Greek Slave" and +"Fisher Boy," so widely admired, are not his loftiest achievements. I defy +Antiquity to surpass--I doubt its ability to rival--his "Proserpine" and +his "Psyche" with any models of the female head that have come down to us; +and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I +feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will +fulfill his destiny. If for those who talk of America quitting her proper +sphere and seeking to be Europe when she wanders into the domain of Art, +we had no other answer than POWERS, that name would be conclusive. + +GREENOUGH is now absent from Florence. I met him at Turin, on his way to +America, on account (I casually heard) of sickness in his family. But I +obtained admission to his studio in Florence, and saw there the unfinished +group on which he is employed by order of Congress, to adorn one of the +yet empty niches in the Capitol. His execution is not yet sufficiently +advanced to be judged, but the design is happy and most expressive. + +I saw something of three younger American Sculptors now studying and +working at Florence--HART of Kentucky, GALT of Virginia, and ROGERS of +New-York. (IVES is absent--at Rome, I believe, though I did not meet him +there.) I believe all are preparing to do credit to their country. HART +has been hindered by a loss of models at sea from proceeding with the +Statue of HENRY CLAY which he is commissioned by the Ladies of Virginia +to fashion and construct; but he is wisely devoting much of his time to +careful study and to the modeling of the Ideal before proceeding to commit +himself irrevocably by the great work which must fix his position among +Sculptors and make or mar his destiny. I have great confidence that what +he has already carefully and excellently done is but a foretaste of what +he is yet to achieve, and that his seeming hesitation will prove the +surest and truest efficiency. + +I think there are but few American painters in Florence. I met none but +PAGE, who is fully employed and expects to spend some time in Italy. His +health is better than during his last year in New-York. + + * * * * * + +The strong necessity of moving on compelled me to tear myself away from +a pleasant party of Americans assembled at dinner in Florence last +evening to celebrate the 76th Anniversary of American Independence, and +take the Diligence at 8 o'clock for this place on the road to Venice, +though no other American nor even an Englishman came along. I have found +by experience that I cannot await the motions of others, nor can I find +a party ready to take post-horses and so travel at rational hours. The +Diligence or stage-coach traveling in Italy appears to be organized on +purpose to afford the least possible accommodation at the most +exorbitant cost. This city, for example, is 63 miles from Florence on +the way to Padua and Venice, and the Diligence leaves Florence for +Bologna at no other hour than 8 P. M. arriving here at 1 1/2 o'clock next +day; fare 40 to 45 Tuscan pauls or $4.45 to $5. But when you reach +Bologna at midday, after an all-night ride, you find no conveyance for +any point beyond this until ten o'clock next morning, so that you must +wait here twenty-one hours; and the Diligence might far better, so far +as the travelers' convenience and comfort is concerned, have remained in +Florence till an early hour in the morning, making the passage over the +Apennines by day and saving their nights' rest. Three or four travelers +may break over this absurd tyranny by taking post-horses; a single one +has no choice but to submit. And, having reached Bologna, I tried to +gain time, or at least avoid another night-ride, by taking a private +carriage (_vetturino_) this afternoon for Ferrara, thirty miles further +on, sleep there to-night, and catch a Diligence or Mail-Coach to-morrow +morning, so as to reach Padua in the evening: but no--there is no coach +out of Padua Venice-ward till 4 to-morrow afternoon, and I should gain +nothing but extra fatigue and expense by taking a carriage to Ferrara, +so I give it up. I must make most of the journey from Ferrara to Padua +by night, and yet take as much time as though I traveled only by +day,--for I am in Italy. + +The valley of the Arno, especially for some miles on either side of +Florence, is among the most fertile portions of this prolific land, and +is laboriously though not efficiently cultivated. All the Grains grow +luxuriantly throughout Italy, though Indian Corn is so thickly planted +and so viciously cultivated that it has no chance to ear or fill well. +There is enough labor performed on the average to insure sixty bushels +of shelled grain to the acre, but the actual yield will hardly exceed +twenty-five. And I have not had the first morsel of food prepared from +this grain offered me since I reached the shores of Europe. Wheat is the +favorite grain here, and, requiring less depth of soil than Indian corn, +and having been much longer cultivated here, yields very fairly. Barley +and Oats are grown, but to a limited extent; of Rye, still less. The +Potato is planted very sparingly south of Piedmont, and not so commonly +there as in Savoy. The Vine is a universal favorite, and rarely out of +view; while it often seems to cover half the ground in sight. But it is +not grown here in close hills as in France and around Cincinnati, but +usually in rows some twenty or thirty feet apart, and trained on trees +kept down to a hight of eight to twelve feet. Around Rome, a species of +Cane is grown wherewith to support the vines after the manner of +bean-poles, which, after serving a year or two in this capacity, is used +for fuel, and new stalks of cane replace those which have been enfeebled +by exposure and decay. The plan of training the vines on dwarfed trees +(which seems to me by far the most natural) prevails here as well as on +the other side of the Apennines; so that the vine-stalks are large and +may be hundreds of years old, instead of being (apparently) fresh from +the ground every year or two. The space between the vine-rows is usually +sown with Wheat, but sometimes planted with Corn or laid down to Grass, +and a moderate crop realized. + +Crossing the Apennines mainly in the night, they seemed a little higher +than the Green Mountains of Vermont, but lacking the thrifty forests of +which I apprehend the proximity of Railroads is about to despoil that +noble range. But the Apennines, though cultivated wherever they can be, +are far more precipitous and sterile than their American counterpart, +and seem to be in good degree composed of a whitish clay or marl which +every rain is washing away, rendering the Arno after a storm one of the +muddiest streams I ever saw. I presume, therefore, that the Apennines +are, as a whole, less lofty and difficult now than they were in the days +of Romulus, of Hannibal, or even of Constantine. + +We crossed the summit about daylight, and began rapidly to descend, +following down the course of one of the streams which find the Adriatic +together near the mouth of the Po. At 5 A. M. we passed the boundary of +Tuscany and entered the Papal territory, so that our baggage had to be +all taken down and searched, and our Passports re-scrutinized--two +processes to which I am becoming more accustomed than any live eel ever +was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the +pecuniary swindle trifling. But though the hour was early and there were +few habitations in sight, there soon gathered around us a swarm of most +importunate beggars--brown, withered old women spinning on distaffs held +in the hand (a process I fancied the world had outgrown), and stopping +every moment to hold out a dirty claw, with a most disgusting grimace +and whine--"For the love of God, Signor"--with ditto old men, and +children of various sizes, the youngest who could walk seeming as apt at +beggary as their grandames who have followed it, "off and on," for +seventy or eighty years. If the ancient Romans had equaled their living +progeny in begging, they need not have dared and suffered so much to +achieve the mastery of the world--they might have begged it, and saved +an infinity of needless slaughter. These people have no proper pride, no +manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, +owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only +required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York +shilling or eighteen pence per day, and themselves the virtual serfs of +great landholders who live in Rome or Bologna and whom they rarely or +never see--is it a wonder that they stoop to plead and whine for coppers +around every carriage that traverses their country? That they fare +miserably, their scanty rags and pinched faces sufficiently attest; that +they are indolent and improvident I can very well believe: for when were +uneducated, unskilled, hopeless vassals anything else? Italy, beautiful, +bounteous land! is everywhere haggard with want and wretchedness, but +these seem nowhere so general and chronic as in the Papal territories. +Every political division of Italy but this has at least some section of +Railroad in operation; Rome, though in the heart of all and the great +focus of attraction for travelers, has not the first mile and no +prospect of any, though it would seem a good speculation to build one if +it were to be used only in transporting hither the Foreign troops +absolutely essential here to keep the people quiet in their chains. "And +this, too, shall pass away!" + + + + +XXVIII. + +EASTERN ITALY--THE PO. + + + VENICE, Tuesday, July 8. + +I never saw and cannot hope to see hereafter a region more blessed by +Nature than the great plain of Upper Italy, whereof the Po is the +life-blood. It is very fertile and beautiful where I first traversed it +near its head, from the foot of Mount Cenis by Turin to Alessandria and +Novi, on my way down to Genoa; yet it is richer and lovelier still where +I have just recrossed it from the foot of the Apennines by Bologna, +Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua on my way from Florence to Venice. Irrigation, +which might easily be almost universal in Piedmont, seems there but an +occasional expedient, while here it is the breath of life. From Bologna +to Rovigo (and I presume on to Padua, though there night and drowsiness +prevented my observing clearly), the whole country seems completely +intersected by Canals constructed in the palmier days of Italy on +purpose to distribute the fertilizing waters of the Po and the Adige +over the entire face of the country and dispense them to every field and +meadow. The great highway generally runs along the bank of one of these +Canals, which are filled from the rivers when they have just been raised +by rains and are thus surcharged with fertilizing matter, and drawn off +from day to day thereafter to refresh and enrich the remarkably level +plain they traverse. Thus not only the plain and the glades lying nearer +the sources of the rivers, but the sterile, rugged crests of the Alps +and Apennines which enclose this great basin are made to contribute +evermore to the fruitfulness of its soil, so that Despotism, Ignorance, +Stolidity, Indolence and Unthrift of all kinds vainly strive to render +it other than the Garden of Europe. The banks of the Canals and the +sides of the highways are generally lined with trees, rows of which also +traverse many if not most of the fields, so that from certain points the +whole country seems one vast, low forest or "timbered opening" of +Poplar, Willow, Mulberry, Locust, &c. There are a few Oaks, more Elms, +and some species I did not recognize, and the Vine through all this +region is trained on dwarfed or shortened trees, sometimes along the +roadside, but oftener in rows through one-fourth of the fields, while in +a few instances it is allowed thus to obtain an altitude of thirty or +forty feet. Of Fruit, I have seen only the Apricot and the Cherry in +abundance, but there are some Pears, while the Orange and Lemon are very +plentiful in the towns, though I think they are generally brought from +Naples and the Mediterranean coast. But finer crops of Wheat, Grass, +Hemp, &c., can grow nowhere than throughout this country, while the +Indian Corn which is abundantly planted, would yield as amply if the +people knew how to cultivate it. Ohio has no better soil nor climate for +this grain. Of Potatoes or other edible roots I have seen very little. +Hemp is extensively cultivated, and grows most luxuriantly. Man is the +only product of this prolific land which seems stunted and shriveled. +Were Italy once more a Nation, under one wise and liberal government, +with a single tariff, coinage, mail-post, &c., a thorough system of +common school education, a small navy, but no passports, and a public +policy which looked to the fostering and diversifying of her industry, +she might easily sustain and enrich a population of sixty millions. As +it is, one-half of her twenty-five millions are in rags, and are pinched +by hunger, while inhabiting the best wheat country in Europe, from which +food is constantly and largely exported. There are at least one hundred +millions of dollars locked up in useless decorations of churches, and +not one common school-house from Savoy to Sicily. A little education, +after a fashion, is fitfully dispensed by certain religious and +charitable foundations, so that the child lucky enough to be an orphan +or illegitimate has a chance to be taught to read and write; but any +such thing as a practical recognition of the right to education, or as a +public and general provision for imparting it, is utterly unknown here. +Grand and beautiful structures are crowded in every city, and are +crumbling to dust on every side; a single township dotted at proper +intervals with eight or ten school-houses would be worth them all. With +infinite water power, cheaper labor, and cheaper food than almost any +other country in the civilized world, and millions of children at once +naked and idle because no one will employ them at even six-pence a day, +she has not one cotton or woolen factory that I have yet seen, and can +hardly have one at all, though her mountains afford vast and excellent +sheep-walks, and Naples can grow cotton if she will. England and Germany +manufacture nearly all the few fabrics of cotton or wool worn here, +because those who should lead, instruct, and employ this people, are +blind to their duty or recreant to its obligations. Italy, once the +light of the world, is dying of aristocratic torpor and popular +ignorance, whence come indolence, superstition, and wide-spread +demoralization and misery. + +Bologna is a walled city of Seventy Thousand inhabitants, with about as +much trade and business of all kinds as an American village of ten to +twenty thousand people. I doubt that thirty persons per day are carried +into or brought out of it by all public conveyances whatever. It is well +built on narrow streets, like nearly all Italian cities, and manifests +considerable activity in the way of watching gates and _vise_ing +Passports. Though in the Papal territory, it is under Austrian +guardianship; an Austrian sentinel constantly paced the court-yard of +the "Hotel Brun" where I stopped. Though the second town in the Pope's +temporal dominions, strongly walled, it has no Military strength, being +commanded by a hill a short mile south of it--the last hill I remember +having seen till I reached Venice and looked across over the lagoons to +the Euganian hills on the main land to south-west. The most notable +thing I saw in Bologna was an awning of sheeting or calico spread over +the centre of the main street on a level with the roofs of the houses +for a distance of half a mile or so. I should distrust its standing a +strong gust, but if it would, the idea is worth borrowing. + +After a night-ride over the Apennines from Florence, and a detention of +twenty-one hours at Bologna, I did hope that our next start would be +"for good"--that there would be no more halt till we reached Padua. But +I did not yet adequately appreciate Italian management. A Yankee +stage-coach running but once a day between two such cities as Bologna +and Ferrara would start at daylight and so connect at the latter place +as to set down its passengers beside the Railroad in Padua (86 to 90 +miles of the best possible staging from Bologna) in the evening of the +same day. We left Bologna at 10 A. M., drove to Ferrara, arrived +there a little past 2; and then came a halt of _four hours_--till six +P. M. when the stage started for a night-trip to Padua--none +running during the day. But a Yankee stage would have one man for +manager, driver, &c., who would very likely be the owner also of the +horses and a partner in the line; we started from a grand office with +two book-keepers and a platoon of lackeys and baggage-smashers, with a +"guard" on the box, and two "postillions" riding respectively the nigh +horses of the two teams, there being always three horses at the pole and +sometimes three on the lead also, at others only two. We had half a +dozen passengers to Ferrara; for the rest of the way, I had this +extensive traveling establishment to myself. I do not think the average +number of passengers on a corresponding route in our country could be so +few as twenty. Such are some of the points of difference between America +and Italy. + +We crossed the Po an hour after leaving Ferrara, and here passed out of +the Papal into the unequivocally Austrian territory--the Kingdom of +Venice and Lombardy. There were of course soldiers on each side (though +all of a piece), police officers, a Passport scrutiny and a fresh look +into my carpet-bags, mainly (I understand) for Tobacco! When any +tide-waiter finds more of that about me than the chronic ill breeding of +traveling smokers compels me to carry in my clothes, he is welcome to +confiscate all I possess. But they found nothing here to cavil at, and I +passed on. + +There is no town where we crossed the Po, only a small village on either +side, and we followed down the left bank in a north-easterly direction +for several miles without seeing any considerable place. The river has +here, as through nearly its whole course, a strong, rapid current, and +was swollen and rendered turbid by recent rains. I judge that its +surface was decidedly above the level of the adjacent country, which is +protected from inundation (like the region of the Lower Mississippi) by +strong embankments or levees, at first natural doubtless--the product of +the successive overflows of centuries but subsequently strengthened and +perfected by human labor. The force of the current being strongest in +the center of the river, there is either stillness or an eddy near the +banks, so that the sediment with which the current is charged tends +constantly to deposition on or against the banks. When the river rises +so as to overflow those banks, the downward current is entirely unfelt +there and the deposition becomes still more rapid, the proportion of +earthy matter to that of water being much greater then than at other +times. Thus great, rapid rivers running through vast plains like these +gradually form levees in the course of many centuries, their channels +being defined and narrowed by their own deposits until the surface of +their waters, at least in times of flood, is raised above the level of +the surrounding country, often several feet. When the great swamps of +Louisiana shall have been drained and cultivated for ages, they too will +doubtless be fertilized and irrigated by canals, as the great plain +traversed by the Po now is. And here too, though the acres are generally +well cared for, I saw tracts of considerable extent which, from original +defect or unskillful management, stand below the water level of the +country, and so are given over to flags, bogs and miasma, when only a +foot or two of elevation is needed to render them salubrious and most +productive. + +There are many more good dwellings on this plain than in the rural +portion of Lower Italy. These are generally built of brick, covered with +stucco or cement and white-washed, and, being nearly square in form, two +stories high, and without the long, sloping roofs common with us, are +rather symmetrical and graceful, in appearance. Their roofs are tiled +with a long, cylindrical brick, of which a first course is laid with the +hollow upward, and another over the joints of this with the hollow down, +conducting the water into the troughs made by the former and so off the +house. The peasants' cottages are thatched with flags or straw, and +often built of the latter material. Of barns there are relatively few, +most of the wheat being stacked when harvested, and trodden out by oxen +on floors under the open sky. I have not seen a good harness nor a +respectable ox-yoke in Italy, most of the oxen having yokes which a +Berkshire hog of any pretensions to good breeding would disdain to look +through. These yokes merely hold the meek animals together, having no +adaptation to draft, which is obtained by a cobbling filigree of ropes +around the head, bringing the heaviest of the work upon the horns! The +gear is a little better than this--as little as you please--while for +Carts and Waggons there are few school-boys of twelve to fifteen in +America who would not beat the average of all I have seen in Italy. +Their clumsiness and stupidity are so atrocious that the owners do well +in employing asses to draw them: no man of feeling or spirit could +endure the horse-laughs they must extort from any animal of tolerable +sagacity. To see a stout, two-handed man coming home with his +donkey-load of fuel from a distant shrubbery, half a day of the two +having been spent in getting as much as would make one good +kitchen-fire, is enough to try the patience of Job. + +Although the Po must be navigable and has been navigated by steamboats +for many miles above this point, until obstructed by rapids, yet nothing +like a steamboat was visible. The only craft I saw attempting to stem +its current was a rude sort of ark, like a wider canal-boat, drawn by +three horses traveling on a wide, irregular tow-path along the levee or +bank. I presume this path does not extend many miles without meeting +impediments. Quite a number of ruinous old rookeries were anchored in +the river at intervals, usually three to six abreast, which I found to +be grist-mills, propelled by the strong current, and receiving their +grain from the shore and returning the flour by means of small boats. +Our ferry-boat was impelled by what is termed (I think) a "rope +ferry"--a series of ropes and boats made fast to some anchorage in the +stream above, and moving it vigorously and expeditiously from one bank +to the other by the mere force of the current. It is quite evident that +modern Italy did not originate this contrivance, nor even the idea that +a rapid river could be induced to move a large boat obliquely up its +stream as well as down it. I should say the Po is here rather more than +half a mile wide. + +Three hours later, we crossed in like manner at Rovigo the Adige, a much +smaller but still a large river, about the size of the Connecticut at +Hartford. It has its source exclusively in the Tyrolean Alps, but for +the last hundred miles of its course runs parallel with the Po, through +the same plain, at a medium distance of about twenty miles, and has the +same general characteristics. It was quite high and muddy when we +crossed it. + +As midnight drew on, I grew weary of gazing at the same endless +diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, &c., though the +bright moon was now shining, and, shutting out the chill night-air, I +disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a +drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it +into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the +uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a +disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort +shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I +fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch +drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water: then I was in a rude +scuffle and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn; +anon I had lost my hat in a strange place and could not begin to find +it; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders who +were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at +last became unbearable and I awoke.--But where? I was plainly in a +tight, dark box, that needed more air: I soon recollected that it was a +stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I +threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postillions and guard were +all gone: the moon, the fields, the road were gone: I was in a close +court-yard, alone with Night and Silence: but where? A church clock +struck three; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by +four, and I, making the usual discount on such promises, had set down +five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more +deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian +sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before +me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an +Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made +out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian +_Padova_), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three +hours yet. I followed him into a convenient _Cafe_, which was all open +and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate and proceeded +leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all +gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. +The _Cafe_ tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the +sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the +coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared; I hailed +him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to +wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly +a mile distant; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the depot, I +discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with +ample leisure for reflection. At six o'clock I felt once more the +welcome motion of a Railroad car, and at eight was in Venice. + + + + +XXIX. + +VENICE. + + + MILAN, Wednesday, July 9, 1851. + +Venice! Queen of the Adriatic! "City of the Heart!" how can I ever +forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures, +but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations, and my first +day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished +recollections of my life. + +Venice lies so absolutely and wholly on the water's bosom that the +landward approach to her is not imposing and scarcely impressive. The +view from the sea-side may be somewhat better, but not much--not +comparable to that of Genoa from the Mediterranean. No part of the +islets upon and around which Venice was built having been ever ten feet +above the surface of the Adriatic, while the adjacent mainland for +miles is also just above the water level, you do not see the city from +any point of observation outside of it--only the distant outline of a +low mass of buildings perhaps two miles long, but which may not be three +blocks wide, for aught you can see. Formerly two miles of shallow lagoon +separated the city from the land; but this has been overcome by the +heavy piling and filling required for the Railroad which now connects +Venice with Verona, via Vicenza, and is to reach this city via Brescia +whenever the Austrian Government shall be able to complete it. At +present a noble enterprise, through one of the richest, most populous +and most productive Agricultural regions of the earth, and connecting +the Political with the Commercial metropolis of Austrian Italy, is +arrested when half-finished, entailing a heavy annual charge on the +Treasury for the interest of the sum already expended, yet yielding +little or no net revenue in return, because of its imperfect condition. +The wisdom of this would be just equal to that of our ten years' halt +with the Erie Canal Enlargement, except for the fact that the Austrians +would borrow and complete if they could, while New York has had no such +excuse for her slothful blunder. + +The approach to Venice across the Lagoon is like that of Boston across +the Charles River marshes from the West, though of course on a much +grander scale. The embankment or road-bed was commenced by gigantic +piling, and is very broad and substantial. You reach the station just in +the edge of the city, run the Passport gauntlet, and are let out on the +brink of a wide canal, where dozens of gondoliers are soliciting your +custom. I engaged one, and directed him (at a venture) to row me to the +Hotel l'Europe. This proved (like nearly or quite all the other great +Hotels) to be located on the same line or water-front with the Ducal +Palace, Church of St. Mark, and most of the notabilities of modern +Venice, with the inner harbor and shipping just on the left and the +Adriatic in plain sight before us, only two or three little islets +covered with buildings partially intervening. Of course, my first row +was a long one, quite through the city from west to east, including +innumerable turnings and windings. After this, whomsoever may assert +that the streets of Venice are dusty or not well watered, I shall be +able to contradict from personal observation. + +After outward renovation and breakfast, I hired a boat for the day, and +went in search of American friends--a pursuit in which I was ultimately +successful. With these I visited the various council-rooms and galleries +in the Ducal Palace, saw the "Lion's Mouth," descended into the ancient +dungeons, now tenantless, and crossed the "Bridge of Sighs." These last +are not open to the public, but a silver key gives access to them. +Thence we visited the famous picture-gallery of the Manfrini Palace, and +after that the Academy, thus consuming the better part of the day. + +The works of Art in the Grand Palace did not, as a whole, impress me +strongly. Most of the larger ones are historical illustrations of the +glories of Venice; the battle of Lepanto; the taking of Zara; the Pope +and Venice uniting against or triumphing over the Emperor, &c., &c. Some +of the most honorable achievements of Venice, including her long and +memorable defense of Candia (or Crete) against the desperate and finally +successful attacks of the Turks, are not even hinted at. But these +galleries are palpably in a state of dilapidation and decay, which +implies that the Austrian masters of Venice, though they cannot stoop to +the meanness of demolishing or mutilating the memorials of her ancient +glories, will be glad to see them silently and gradually perish. The +whole Palace has a dreary and by-gone aspect, seeming conscious that +either itself or the Austrian soldiers drilling in front of it must be +an anachronism--that both cannot belong to the same place and time. + + "The traitor clock forsakes the hours, + And points to times, O far away!" + +The paintings in the Manfrini Palace seem to me by no means equal to +those in the Orsini, Doria, and some other private collections of Rome; +even of those extravagantly praised by Lord Byron, I failed to perceive +the admirable qualities apparent to his more cultivated taste. The +collection in the Academy I thought much better, but still far enough +behind similar galleries in Rome. The fact is, modern Italy is +poverty-stricken in Art and Genius as well as in Industry, and lives +upon the trophies and the memory of her past greatness. I have not heard +in all this land the name of one living Italian mentioned as likely to +attain eminence in Painting, nor even in Sculpture. + +Toward evening, my friend and I ascended the Campanile or Bell-Tower of +St. Mark's, some 330 feet high, and had thence a glorious view of the +city and its neighborhood. From this tower, the houses might almost be +counted, though of the Canals which separate them only a few of the +largest are discerned. But the port, the shipping outside, the gardens +(naturally few and contracted), the adjacent main-land, the Railroad +embankment across the Lagoon, the blue Euganian hills in the distance, +&c., &c., are all as palpable as Boston Harbor from Bunker Hill +Monument. Immediately beneath is the Place of St. Mark, the Wall-street +of Venice; just beside you is the old Palace and the famous Cathedral +Church of St. Mark; to the north is the Armory, one of the largest and +most interesting in Europe; while the dome of every Church in Venice and +all the windings of the Grand Canal are distinctly visible. An Austrian +steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north +end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the +panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer +day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a +wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to +tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent +of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower. + +In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely +from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true +Rialto--a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in +good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was +industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of cucumbers, which +he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile +for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee +cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in +Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full +of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best +construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the +assaults of time, I have never seen. + +We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto--the ancient Exchange of +Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place +prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of +Venice--the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the +"stone of shame"--an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to +take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the +confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and +his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient +focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market +vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next +morning's trade when we visited it. + +Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions +and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an +average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri, +mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one +of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the +dancer Taglioni, it is said, owns four, and so on. Cheap as they are, +they are a poorer speculation than even corner lots in a lithographic +city of Nebraska or Oregon. + +That evening in the gondola, with one old and two newer friends, is +marked with a white stone in my recollection. To bones aching with rough +riding in Diligences by night as well as day, the soft cushions and +gliding motion of the boat were soothing and grateful as "spicy gales +from Araby the blest." The breeze from the Adriatic was strong and +refreshing after the fervid but not excessive heat of the day, and the +clear, mild moon seemed to invest the mossy and crumbling palaces with a +softened radiance and spiritual beauty. Boats were passing on every +side, some with gay parties of three to six, others with but two +passengers, who did not seem to need the presence of more, nor indeed to +be conscious that any others existed. The hum of earnest or glad voices +here contrasted strongly with silence and meditation there. Venice is a +City of the Past, and wears her faded yet queenly robes more gracefully +by night than by day. + +Yes, the Venice of to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were, +but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul; +then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her +independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made +his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient +enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, though it was her +assistance rendered or proffered to Austria in 1798-9 which gave +Napoleon his pretext for crushing her. Her recent struggle for +independence, though fruitless, was respectable, and protracted beyond +the verge of Hope; and not even Royalist mendacity has yet pretended +that _her_ revolt from Austria, or her prolonged defence under +bombardment and severe privation was the work of foreigners. But the +Croat again lords it in her halls; Trieste is stealing away her remnant +of trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are +postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not +until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of +her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original +uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. +Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, +though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally +resist the relentless tooth of Time. Full of interest as is everything +in Venice, I do not remember to have detected there the effectual +working of a single idea of the last century, save in the Railroad, +which barely touches without enlivening her, the solitary steamboat +belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondolas marked +"_Omnibus_" this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of +passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth +of the price which the same journey _solus_ cost me. The Omnibus +typifies ASSOCIATION--the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is +destined to renovate the world of Industry and Production, substituting +Abundance and Comfort for Penury and Misery. For Man, I trust, this +quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too late. It is far +easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead one. Fallen Queen +of the Adriatic! a long and mournful Adieu! + + + + +XXX. + +LOMBARDY. + + + MILAN, Thursday, July 10, 1851. + +Lombardy is of course the richest and most productive portion of Italy. +Piedmont alone vies with her, and is improving far more rapidly, but +Lombardy has great natural capacities peculiarly her own. Her soil, +fertile and easily tilled from the first, was long ago improved by a +system of irrigation which, probably from small and casual beginnings, +gradually overspread the whole table land, embracing, beside that of the +Adige, the broad valley of the Po and the narrower intervals of its many +tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west +and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize +the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence +drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower, +flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can +be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the +square mile than Lombardy. + +American Agriculture has just two arts to learn from Lombardy--IRRIGATION +and TREE-PLANTING. Nearly all our great intervales might be irrigated +immensely to the profit of their cultivators. Even where the vicinity of +mountains or other high grounds did not afford the facility here taken +advantage of, I am confident that many plains as well as valleys might be +profitably irrigated by lifting water to the requisite height and thence +distributing it through little canals or ditches as here. Where a head of +water may be obtained to supply the requisite power, the cost need not be +considerable after the first outlay; but, even though steam-power should +be requisite, in connection with the admirable Pumping machinery of our +day, Irrigation would pay liberally in thousands of cases. Such easily +parched levels as those of New-Jersey and Long Island would yield at least +double their present product if thoroughly irrigated from the turbid +streams and marshy ponds in their vicinity. Water itself is of course +essential to the growth of every plant, but the benefits of Irrigation +reach far beyond this. Of the fertilizing substances so laboriously and +necessarily applied to cultivating lands, at least three times as great +a proportion is carried off in running water as is absorbed and exhausted +by the crops grown by their aid; so that if Irrigation simply returned to +the land as much fertility as the rains carry off, it would, with decent +husbandry, increase in productiveness from year to year. The valley of +the Nile is one example among many of what Irrigation, especially from +rivers at their highest stage, will do for the soil, in defiance of the +most ignorant, improvident and unskillful cultivation. Such streams as the +Raritan, the Passaic and most of the New Jersey rivers, annually squander +upon the ocean an amount of fertilizing matter adequate to the comfortable +subsistence of thousands. By calculation, association, science, labor, +most of this may be saved. One hundred thousand of the poor immigrants +annually arriving on our shores ought to be employed for years, in +New-Jersey alone, in the construction of dams, canals, &c., adequate to +the complete irrigation of all the level or moderately sloping lands in +that State. Farms are cheaper there to-day than in Iowa for purchasers +who can pay for and know how to use them. Long Island can be rendered +eminently fertile and productive by systematic and thorough Irrigation; +otherwise I doubt that it ever will be. + +Much of Lombardy slopes very considerably toward the Po, so that the +water in the larger or distributing canals is often used to run mills +and supply other mechanical power. It might be used also for +Manufacturing if Manufactures existed here, and nearly every farmer +might have a horse-power or so at command for domestic uses if he chose. +We passed yesterday the completely dry beds of what seemed to be small +rivers, their water having been entirely drawn away into the irrigating +canals on either side, while on either hand there were grist-mills +busily at work, and had been for hundreds of years, grinding by +water-power where no stream naturally existed. If I mistake not, there +are many such in this city, and in nearly all the cities and villages of +Lombardy. If our farmers would only investigate this matter of +Irrigation as thoroughly as its importance deserves, they would find +that they have neglected mines of wealth all around them more extensive +and far more reliable than those of California. One man alone may not +always be able to irrigate his farm except at too great a cost; but let +the subject be commended to general attention, and the expense would be +vastly diminished. Ten thousand farms together, embracing a whole +valley, may often be irrigated for less than the cost of supplying a +hundred of them separately. I trust our Agricultural papers will agitate +this improvement. + +As to Tree-Planting, there can be no excuse for neglecting it, for no +man needs his neighbor's cooeperation to render it economical or +effective. We in America have been recklessly destroying trees quite +long enough; it is high time that we began systematically to reproduce +them. There is scarcely a farm of fifty acres or over in any but the +very newest States that might not be increased in value $1,000 by $100 +judiciously expended in Tree-Planting, and a little care to protect the +young trees from premature destruction. All road-sides, steep +hill-sides, ravines and rocky places should be planted with Oak, +Hickory, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, &c., at once, and many a farm would, +after a few years, yield $100 worth of Timber annually, without +subtracting $10 from the crops otherwise depended on. By planting +Locust, or some other fast-growing tree, alternately with Oak, Hickory, +&c., the former would be ready for use or sale by the time the latter +needed the whole ground. Utility, beauty, comfort, profit, all combine +to urge immediate and extensive Tree-Planting; shall it not be +commenced? + +Here in Lombardy there is absolutely no farm, however small, without its +rows of Mulberry, Poplar, Walnut, Cherry, &c., overshadowing its canals, +brooks, roads, &c., and traversing its fields in all directions. The +Vine is very generally trained on a low tree, like one of our Plum or +small Cherry trees, so that, viewed at a distance or a point near the +ground, the country would seem one vast forest, with an undergrowth +mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown, +but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass. +There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides, +which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan, +are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if +permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass; +so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious +crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently +spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted, +will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres +with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is +made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and +the blunder far less vital. + +This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and +their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater +number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at +work; and nearly all work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings +are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading +out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other +signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is +the garden of sunny, delicious Italy! + + +THE ITALIANS. + +I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I +brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the +obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an +insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the +"Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of +Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a +Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a +division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would +consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge +her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population; +Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive +commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I +should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse +decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the +stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs! + +And it is too true that ages of subjugation have demoralized, to a +fearful extent, the Italian People. Those who would rather beg, or +extort, or pander to others' vices, than honestly work for a living, +will never do anything for Freedom; and such are deplorably abundant in +Italy. Then, like most nations debased by ages of Slavery, these people +have little faith in each other. The proverb that "No Italian has two +friends" is of Italian origin. Every one fears that his confederate may +prove a traitor, and if one is heard openly cursing the Government as +oppressive and intolerable in a cafe or other public resort, though the +sentiment is heartily responded to, the utterer is suspected and avoided +as a Police stool-pigeon and spy. Such mutual distrust necessarily +creates or accompanies a lack of moral courage. There are brave and +noble Italians, but the majority are neither brave nor noble. There were +gallant spirits who joyfully poured out their blood for Freedom in +1848-9, but nine-tenths of those who wished well to the Liberal cause +took precious good care to keep their carcases out of the reach of +Austrian or French bullets. Even in Rome, where, next to Venice, the +most creditable resistance was made to Despotism, the greater part of +the actual fighting was done by Italians indeed, but refugees from +Lombardy, Tuscany and other parts of Italy. Had the Romans who heartily +desired the maintenance of the Republic shown their faith by their +works, Naples would have been promptly revolutionized and the French +driven back to their ships. On this point, I have the testimony of +eye-witnesses of diverse sentiments and of unimpeachable character. Rome +is heartily Republican to-day; but I doubt whether three effective +regiments could be raised from her large native population to fight a +single fair battle which was to decide the fate of Italy. So with the +whole country except Piedmont, and perhaps Genoa and Venice. I wish the +fact were otherwise; but there can be no use in disguising or +mis-stating it. Italy is not merely enslaved but debased, and not till +after years of Freedom will the mass of her people evince consistently +the spirit or the bearing of Freemen. She must be freed through the +progress of Liberal ideas in France and Germany--not by her own inherent +energies. Not till her masses have learned to look more coolly down the +throats of loaded and hostile cannon in fair daylight and be a little +less handy with their knives in the dark, can they be relied on to do +anything for the general cause of Freedom. + + +THE AUSTRIANS. + +I have not been able to dislike the Austrians personally. Their simple +presence in Italy is a grievous wrong and mischief, since, so long as +they hold the Italians in subjection, the latter can hardly begin the +education which is to fit them for Freedom. Yet it is none the less true +that the portion of Italy unequivocally Austrian is better governed and +enjoys, not more Liberty, for there is none in either, but a milder form +of Slavery, than that which prevails in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and the +paltrier native despotisms. I can now understand, though I by no means +concur in, the wish of a _quasi_ Liberal friend who prays that Austria +may just take possession of the whole Peninsula, and abolish the dozen +diverse Tariffs, Coinages, Mails, Armies, Courts, &c. &c., which now +scourge this natural Paradise. He thinks that such an absorption only +can prepare Italy for Liberty and true Unity; I, on the contrary, fear +that it would fix her in a more hopeless Slavery. Yet it certainly would +render the country more agreeable to strangers, whether sojourners or +mere travelers. + +The Austrian soldiers, regarded as mere fighting machines, are certainly +well got up. They are palpably the superiors, moral and physical, of the +French who garrison Rome, and they are less heartily detested by the +People whom they are here to hold in subjection. Their discipline is +admirable, but their natural disposition is likewise quiet and +inoffensive. I have not heard of a case of any one being personally +insulted by an Austrian since I have been in Italy.--Knowing themselves +to be intensely disliked in Italy and yet its uncontrolled masters, it +would seem but natural that they should evince something of bravado and +haughtiness, but I have observed or heard of nothing of the kind. In +fact, the bearing of the Austrians, whether officers or soldiers, has +seemed to evince a quiet consciousness of strength, and to say, in the +least offensive manner possible--"We are masters here by virtue of our +good swords--if you dispute the right, look well that you have a sharper +weapon and a vigorous arm to wield it!" To a rule which thus answers all +remonstrances against its existence by a quiet telling off of its ranks +and a faultless marching of its determined columns, what further +argument can be opposed but that of bayonet to bayonet? I really cannot +see how the despot-governed, Press-shackled, uneducated Nations are ever +to be liberated under the guidance of Peace Societies and their World's +Conventions; and, horrible as all War is and ever must be, I deem a few +battles a lesser evil than the perpetuity of such mental and physical +bondage as is now endured by Twenty Millions of Italians. When the Peace +Society shall have persuaded the Emperor Nicholas or Francis-Joseph to +disband his armies and rely for the support of his government on its +intrinsic justice and inherent moral force, I shall be ready to enter +its ranks; but while Despotism, Fraud and Wrong are triumphantly upheld +by Force, I do not see how Freedom, Justice and Progress can safely +disclaim and repudiate the only weapons that tyrants fear--the only +arguments they regard. + + +LEAVING ITALY. + +I have not been long in Italy, yet I have gone over a good share of its +surface, and seen nearly all that I much desired to see, except Naples +and its vicinity, with the Papal territory on the Perugia route from +Rome to Florence. I should have liked more time in Genoa, Rome, Florence +and Venice; but sight-seeing was never a passion with me, and I soon +tire of wandering from ruin to ruin, church to church, and gallery to +gallery. Yet when I stop gazing the next impulse is to move on; for if I +have time to rest anywhere, why not at home? Hotel life among total +strangers was never agreeable to me--(was it to any one?)--and I do not +like that of Italy so well as I at first thought I should. The +attendance is well enough, and as to food, I make a point of never +quarreling with that I have; though meals far simpler than those served +at the regular hotel dinners here would suit me much better. The charges +in general are quite reasonable, though I have paid one or two absurd +bills. It was at first right pleasant to lodge in what was once a +palace, and I still deem a large, high, airy sleeping-room, such as we +seldom have in American hotels, but are common here, a genuine luxury. +But when with such rooms you have doors that don't shut so as to stay, +windows that won't open, locks that won't hold, bolts that won't slide +and fleas that won't--ah! _won't_ they bite!--the case is somewhat +altered. I should not like to end my days in Italy. + +As to the People, if I shall seem to have spoken of them disparagingly, +it has not been unkindly. I cherish an earnest desire for their +well-being. They do not need flattery, and do not, as a body, deserve +praise. Of what are sometimes called the "better classes" (though I +believe they are here _no_ better), I have seen little, and have not +spoken specially. Of the great majority who, here, as everywhere, must +exert themselves to live, whether by working, or begging, or petty +swindling, I have seen something, and of these certain leading +characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems +to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual +commingling of the awful with the paltry--the sacred and the +sensual--Madonna and Circe--Christ on the Cross and Venus in the +Bath--which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an +expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the +perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as +the Crucifixion is calculated first to shock but ultimately to weaken +the religious sentiment? Of the hundreds of pictures of the infant +Jesus I have seen in Italy, there are not five which did not strike me +as utterly unworthy of the subject, allowing that it ought to be +represented at all. "Men of Athens!" said the straight-forward Paul, "I +perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." I think the +Italians, quite apart from what is essential to their creed, have this +very failing, and that it exerts a debilitating influence on their +National character. They need to be cured of it, as well as of the vices +I have already indicated, in order that their magnificent country may +resume its proper place among great and powerful Nations. I trust I am +not warring on the faith of their Church, when I urge that "To do +justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than +sacrifice"--that no man can be truly devout who is not strictly upright +and manly--and that one living purpose of diffusive, practical +well-doing, is more precious in the sight of Heaven, than the bones of +all the dead Saints in Christendom. + +Farewell, trampled, soul-crushed Italy! + + + + +XXXI. + +SWITZERLAND. + + + LUCERNE, July 12, 1851. + +I left Milan at 5 o'clock, on the morning of the 10th, via Railroad to +Como, at the foot of the Lake of like name, which we reached in an hour +and a half, thence taking the Swiss Government Diligence for this place, +via the pass of St. Gothard. Even before reaching Como (only some twenty +miles from Milan), the spurs of the Alps had begun to gather around us, +and the little Lake itself is completely embosomed by them. Barely +skirting its southern border, we crossed the Swiss frontier and bade +adieu to the Passport swindle for a season, crossed a ridge into the +valley of Lake Lugano, which we skirted for two-thirds its length, +crossing it by a fine stone bridge near its center. (All the Swiss lakes +I have seen are very narrow for a good part of their length, of a +greenish blue color, derived from the mountain snows, very irregular in +their form, being shut in, narrowed and distorted by the bold cliffs +which crowd them on one side or on both, often reducing them to a +crooked strait, resembling the passage of the Highlands by the Hudson.) +Threading the narrow streets of the pleasant village of Lugano, we +struck boldly up the hill to the east, and over it into the valley of +the little river Ticino, which we reached at Bellinzona, a smart town of +some five to ten thousand inhabitants, and followed the river thence to +its source in the eternal snows of Mount St. Gothard. All this is, I +believe, in the Canton of Ticino, in which Italian is the common +language, and of which Bellinzona is the chief town. + +Although in Switzerland, shut in by steep mountains, often snow-crowned, +which leave it an average width of less than half a mile, this valley is +Italian in many of its natural characteristics. For two-thirds of its +length, Wheat, Indian Corn and the Vine are the chief objects of +attention, and every little patch of level ground, save the rocky bed of +the impetuous mountain torrent, is laboriously, carefully cultivated. +Such mere scraps of earth do not admit of efficient husbandry, but are +made to produce liberally by dint of patient effort. I should judge that +a peck of corn is about the average product of a day's work through all +this region. There is some pasturage, mainly on the less abrupt +declivities far up the mountains, but not one acre in fifty of the +Canton yields aught but it may be a little fuel for the sustenance of +man. Nature is here a rugged mother, exacting incessant toil of her +children as the price of the most frugal subsistence; but under such +skies, in the presence of so much magnificence, and in a land of +equality and freedom, mere life is _worth_ working for, and the +condition is accepted with a hearty alacrity. Men and women work +together, and almost equally, in the fields; and here, where the +necessity is so palpably of Nature's creation, not Man's, the spectacle +is far less revolting than on the fertile plains of Piedmont or +Lombardy. The little patch of Wheat is so carefully reaped that scarcely +a grain is left, and children bear the sheaves on their backs to the +allotted shelter, while mothers and maidens are digging up the soil with +the spade, and often pulling up the stubble with their hands, +preparatory to another crop. Switzerland could not afford to be a +Kingdom,--the expense of a Court and Royal Family would famish half her +people. Yet everywhere are the signs of frugal thrift and homely +content. I met only two beggars in that long day's ride through sterile +Switzerland, while in a similar ride through the fertile plains of +Italy I should have encountered hundreds, though there each day's labor +produces as much as three days' do here. If the Swiss only _could_ live +at home, by the utmost industry and economy, I think they would very +seldom be found elsewhere; but in truth the land has long been peopled +to the extent of its capacity for subsisting, and the steady increase +which their pure morals and simple habits ensure must drive off +thousands in search of the bread of honest toil. Hence their presence +elsewhere, in spite of their passionate attachment to their free native +hills. + +Most of the dwellings through all this region are built of stone--those +of the poor very rudely, of the roughest boulders, commonly laid up with +little or no mortar. The roofs are often of split stone. The houses of +the more fortunate class are generally of hewn or at least tolerably +square-edged stone, laid up in mortar, often plastered and whitened on +the outside, so as to present a very neat appearance. Barns are few, and +generally of stone also. The Vine is quite extensively cultivated, and +often trained on a rude frame-work of stakes and poles, so as completely +to cover the ground and forbid all other cultivation. Elsewhere it is +trained to stakes--rarely to dwarf trees as in Italy. The Mulberry holds +its ground for two-thirds of the way up the valley, giving out a little +after the Vine and before Indian Corn does so. Wheat gives place to Rye +about the same time, and the Potato, at first comparatively rare, +becomes universal. As the Mulberry gives out the Chestnut comes in, and +flourishes nobly for some ten or twenty miles about midway from +Bellinzona to Airolo. I suspect, from the evident care taken of it, that +its product is considerably relied on for food. Finally, as we gradually +ascend, this also disappears, leaving Rye and the Potato to struggle a +while longer, until at Airolo, at the foot of St. Gothard, where we +stopped at 10 o'clock for the night, though the valley forks and is +consequently of some width, there remain only a few slender +potato-stalks, in shivering expectation of untimely frost, a patch or +two of headless oats, with grass on the slopes, still tender and green +from the lately sheltering snows, and a dwarfish hemlock clinging to the +steep acclivities and hiding from the fierce winds in the deep ravines +which run up the mountains. Snow is in sight on every side, and seems +but a mile or so distant. Yet here are two petty villages and thirty or +forty scattered dwellings, whose inhabitants keep as many small cows and +goats as they can find grass for, and for the rest must live mainly by +serving in the hotels, or as postillions, road-makers, &c. Yet no hand +was held out to me in beggary at or around Airolo. + + +ST. GOTHARD. + +We did not start till after 9 next morning, and meantime some more +Diligences had come up, so that we formed a procession of one large and +heavy, followed by three smaller and more fit carriages, when we moved +out of the little village, and, leaving the larger branch of our creek, +now a scanty mill-stream at best, to bend away to the left, we followed +the smaller and charged boldly up the mountain. The ascent is of course +made by zig-zags, no other mode being practicable for carriages, so +that, when we had traveled three toilsome miles, Airolo still lay in +sight, hardly a mile below us. I judge the whole ascent, which with a +light carriage and three hard-driven horses occupied two hours and a +half, was about eight miles, though a straight line might have taken us +to the summit in three miles. The rise in this distance must have been +near five thousand feet. + +For a time, the Hemlocks held on, but at length they gave up, before we +reached any snow, and only a little weak young Grass,--nourished rather +by the perpetual mists or rains than by the cold, sour earth which +clung to the less precipitous rocks,--remained to keep us company. Soon +the snow began to appear beside us, at first timidly, on the north side +of cliffs, and in deep chasms, where it was doubtless drifted to the +depth of thirty feet during the Winter, and has been gradually thawing +out since May. At length it stood forth unabashed beside our road, often +a solid mass six or seven feet thick, on either side of the narrow pass +which had been cut and worn through it for and by the passage of +travelers. Meantime, the drizzling rain, which had commenced soon after +we started, had changed to a spitting, watery sleet, and at length to +snow, a little before we reached the summit of the pass, where we found +a young Nova Zembla. An extensive cloud-manufactory was in full blast +all around us, shutting out from view even the nearest cliffs, while the +snow and wind--I being on the outside and somewhat wet already--made our +short halt there anything but comfortable. The ground was covered with +snow to an average depth of two or three feet; the brooks ran over beds +of ice and under large heaps of drifted and frozen snow, and all was +sullen and cheerless. Here were the sources (in part) of the Po and of +the Rhine, but I was rather in haste to bid the former good-bye. + +We reduced our three-horse establishment to two, and began to descend +the Rhineward zig-zags at a rattling pace, our driver (and all the +drivers) hurrying all the way. We reached the first village (where there +was considerable Grass again, and some Hemlock, but scarcely any +attempts at cultivation), in fifty minutes, and I think the distance was +nearly five miles. "Jehu, the son of Nimshi," could not have done the +distance in five minutes less. + +We changed horses and drivers at this village, but proceeded at a +similar pace down through the most hideous chasm for the next two or +three miles that I ever saw. I doubt whether a night-mare ever beat it. +The descent of the stream must have been fully 1,500 feet to the mile +for a good part of this distance, while the mountains rose naked and +almost perpendicular on each side from its very bed to hights of one to +two thousand feet, without a shrub, and hardly a resting-place even for +snow. Down this chasm our road wound, first on one side of the rivulet, +then on the other, crossing by narrow stone bridges, often at the +sharpest angle with the road, making zig-zags wherever space could be +found or made for them, now passing through a tunnel cut through the +solid rock, and then under a long archway built over it to protect it +from avalanches at the crossing of a raving cataract down the mountain +side. And still the staving pace at which we started was kept up by +those on the lead, and imitated by the boy driving our carriage, which +was hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should +know his own business best, yet if _I_ were to drive down a steep +mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I +deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a +stiff trot, our carriage tilted, and over she went in a twinkling. + +Our horses behaved admirably, which in an upset is always half the +battle. Had they started, the Diligence managers could only have +rendered a Flemish account of _that_ load. As it was, they stopped, and +the driver, barely scratched, had them in hand in a minute. + +I was on the box-seat with him, and fell under him, catching a bad +sprain of the left wrist, on which I came down, which disables that hand +for a few days--nothing broken and no great harm done--only a few +liberal rents and trifling bruises. But I should judge that our heads +lay about three feet from the side of the road, which was a precipice of +not more than twenty feet, but the rocks below looked particularly +jagged and uninviting. + +Our four inside passengers had been a good deal mixed up, in the +concussion, but soon began to emerge _seriatim_ from the side door +which in the fall came uppermost--only one of them much hurt, and he by +a bruise or gash on the head nowise dangerous. Each, as his or her head +protruded through the aperture, began to "let in" on the driver, whose +real fault was that of following bad examples. I was a little riled at +first myself, but the second and last lady who came out put me in +excellent humor. She was not hurt, but had her new silk umbrella broken +square in two, and she flashed the pieces before the delinquent's eyes +and reeled off the High Dutch to him with vehement volubility. I wished +I could have understood her more precisely. Though not more than +eighteen, she developed a tongue that would have done credit to forty. + +The drivers ahead stopped and came back, helped right the stage, and +each took a shy at the unlucky charioteer, though in fact they were as +much in fault as he, only more fortunate. I suspected before that this +trotting down zig-zags was not the thing, and now I know it, and shall +remember it, at least for one week. And I have given this tedious detail +to urge and embolden others to remonstrate against it. The vice is +universal--at least it was just as bad at Mount Cenis as here, and here +were four carriages all going at the same reckless pace. The truth is, +it is not safe to trot down such mountains and hardly to ride down them +at all. We passed scores of places where any such unavoidable accident +as the breaking of a reach or a hold-back must have sent the whole +concern over a precipice where all that reached the bottom would hardly +be worth picking up. Who has a right to risk his life in this fool-hardy +manner? + +The next time I cross the Alps, I will take my seat for the +stopping-place at the nearer foot, and thence walk leisurely over, with +a long staff and a water-proof coat, sending on my baggage by the coach +to the hotel on the other side. If I can get an hour's start, I can (by +straightening the zig-zags) nearly double it going up; if not, I will +wait on the other side for the next stage. If it were not for the +cowardly fear of being thought timid, there would be more care used in +such matters. Hitherto, I have not given the subject much consideration, +but I turn over a new leaf from the date of this adventure. + +We came down the rest of the mountain more carefully, though still a +great deal too fast. A girl of twelve or thirteen breaking stone by the +road-side in a lonely place was among the note-worthy features of the +wilder upper region. Trees, Potato-patches, Grain-fields were welcome +sights as we neared them successively, though the Vine and the Chestnut +did not and Indian Corn barely did reaeppear on this side, which is much +colder than the other and grows little but Grass. At the foot of the +pass, the valley widened a little, though still with steep, snow-capped +cliffs crowding it on either side. Five hours from the summit and less +than two from the base, we reached the pretty town of Altorf, having +perhaps five thousand inhabitants, with a mile width of valley and +grassy slopes on the surrounding mountains. A few minutes more brought +us to the petty port of Fluellen on Lake Lucerne, where a little +steamboat was waiting to bring us to this city. I would not just then +have traded off that steamboat for several square miles of snow-capped +sublimity. + +Lake Lucerne is a mere cleft in the mountains, narrow and most irregular +in form, with square cliffs like our Palisades, only many times higher, +rising sheer out of its depths and hardly a stone's throw apart. Mount +Pilatte and The Rhigi are the most celebrated of those seen from its +breast. After making two or three short turns among the hights, it +finally opens to a width of some miles on a softer scene, with green +pastures and pleasant woods sweeping down the hills nearly or quite to +its verge. Lucerne City lies at or near its outlet, and seems a pleasant +place, though I have had no time to spend upon it, as I arrived at 8 1/2 P. +M. too weary even to write if I had been able to sleep. I leave for +Basle by Diligence at eight this morning. + + + + +XXXII. + +LUCERNE TO BASLE. + + + BASLE, July 13, 1851. + +Very striking is the contrast between all of Switzerland I had +traversed, before reaching Lucerne, and the route thence to this place. +From Como to the middle of Lake Lucerne is something over a hundred +miles, and in all that distance there was never so much as one-tenth of +the land in sight that could, by any possibility, be cultivated. The +narrow valleys, when not _too_ narrow, were arable and generally +fertile; but they were shut in on every side by dizzy precipices, by +lofty mountains, often snow-crowned, and either wholly barren or with +only a few shrubs and stunted trees clinging to their clefts and +inequalities, because nothing else could cling there. A fortieth part of +these mountain sides may have been so moderately steep that soil could +gather and lie on them, in which case they yielded fair pasturage for +cattle, or at least for goats: but nine-tenths of their superficies were +utterly unproductive and inhospitable. On the mountain-tops, indeed, +there is sometimes a level space, but the snow generally monopolizes +that. Such is Switzerland from the Italian frontier, where I crossed it, +to the immediate vicinity of Lucerne. + +Here all is changed. A small but beautiful river debouches from the lake +at its west end, and the town is grouped around this outlet. But +mountains here there are none--nothing but rich glades and gently +swelling hills, covered with the most bounteous harvest, through which +the high road runs north-easterly some sixty miles to Basle on the +Rhine in the north-east corner of Switzerland, with Germany (Baden) on +the east and France on the north. A single ridge, indeed, on this route +presents a ragged cliff or two and some heights dignified with the title +of mountains, which seem a joke to one who has just spent two days among +the Alps. + +Grass is the chief staple of this fertile region, but Wheat is +abundantly grown and is just beginning to ripen, promising a noble +yield. Potatoes also are extensively planted, and I never saw a more +vigorous growth. Rye, Oats and Barley do well, but are little +cultivated. Of Indian Corn there is none, and the Vine, which had given +out on the Italian side some twenty miles below the foot of St. Gothard, +does not come in again till we are close to the Rhine. But in its stead +they have the Apple in profusion--I think more Apple trees between +Lucerne and the Rhine, than I had seen in all Europe before--and they +seem very thrifty, though this year's yield of fruit will be light. +There are some other trees planted, and many small, thrifty forests, +such as I had hardly seen before on the Continent. These increase as we +approach the Rhine. There is hardly a fence throughout, and generous +crops of Wheat, Potatoes, Rye, Grass, Oats, &c., are growing close up to +the beaten road on either side. I don't exactly see how Cattle are +driven through such a country, having passed no drove since crossing +Mount St. Gothard. + +The dwellings are generally large, low structures, with sloping, +overhanging roofs, indicating thrift and comfort. Sometimes the first +story, or at least the basement, is of hewn-stone, but the greater part +of the structure is nearly always of wood. The barns are spacious, and +built much like the houses. I have passed through no other part of +Europe evincing such general thrift and comfort as this quarter of +Switzerland, and Basle, already a well built city, is rapidly improving. +When the Railroad line from Paris to Strasburg is completed, the French +capital will be but little more than twenty-four hours from Basle, while +the Baden line, down the German side of the Rhine, already connects this +city easily with all Germany, and is certain of rapid and indefinite +extension. Basle, though quite a town in Caesar's day, is renewing her +youth. + + +THE SWISS. + +I am leaving Switzerland, after four days only of observation therein; +but during those days I have traversed the country from its southern to +its north-eastern extremity, passing through six of the Cantons and +along the skirts of another, resting respectively at Airolo, Lucerne, +and Basle, and meeting many hundreds of the people on the way, beside +seeing thousands in the towns and at work in their fields. This is +naturally a very poor country, with for the most part a sterile soil--or +rather, naked, precipitous rocks, irreclaimably devoid of soil--where, +if anywhere, the poor peasantry would be justified in asking charity of +the strangers who come to gaze at and enjoy their stupendous but most +inhospitable mountains--and yet I have not seen one beggar to a hundred +hearty workers, while in fertile, bounteous, sunny Italy, the +preponderance was clearly the other way. And, though very palpably a +stranger, and specially exposed by my ignorance of the languages spoken +here to imposition, no one has attempted to cheat me from the moment of +my entering the Republic till this, while in Italy every day and almost +every hour was marked by its peculiar extortions. Every where I have +found kindness and truth written on the faces and evinced in the acts of +this people, while in Italy rapacity and knavery are the order of the +day. How does a monarchist explain this broad discrepancy? Mountains +alone will not do, for the Italians of the Apennines and the Abruzzi are +notoriously very much like those of the Campagna and of the Val d'Arno; +nor will the zealot's ready suggestion of diverse Faiths suffice, for my +route has lain almost exclusively through the _Catholic_ portion of this +country. Ticino, Uri, Lucerne, etc., are intensely, unanimously +Catholic; the very roadsides are dotted with little shrines, enriched +with the rudest possible pictures of the Virgin and Child, the +Crucifixion, &c., and I think I did not pass a Protestant church or +village till I was within thirty miles of this place. Nearly all the +Swiss I have seen are Catholics, and a more upright, kindly, truly +religious people I have rarely or never met. What, then, can have +rendered them so palpably and greatly superior to their Italian +neighbors, whose ancestors were the masters of theirs, but the +prevalence here of Republican Freedom and there of Imperial Despotism? + +Switzerland, shut out from equal competition with other nations by her +inland, elevated, scarcely accessible position, has naturalized +Manufactures on her soil, and they are steadily extending. She sends +Millions' worth of Watches, Silks, &c., annually even to distant +America; while Italy, with nearly all her population within a day's ride +of the Adriatic or the Mediterranean, with the rich, barbaric East at +her doors for a market, does not fabricate even the rags which partially +cover her beggars, but depends on England and France for most of the +little clothing she has. Italy is naturally a land of abundance and +luxury, with a soil and climate scarcely equalled on earth; yet a large +share of her population actually lack the necessaries, not to speak of +the comforts, of life, and those who sow and reap her bountiful harvests +are often without bread: Switzerland has, for the most part, an Arctic +climate and scarcely any soil at all; and yet her people are all +decently clad and adequately though frugally fed, and I have not seen +one person who seemed to have been demoralized by want or to suffer from +hunger since I crossed her border. Her hotels are far superior to their +more frequented namesakes of Italy; even at the isolated hamlet of +Airolo, where no grain will grow, I found everything essential to +cleanliness and comfort, while the "Switzer Hoff" at Lucerne and "Les +Trois Rois" at Basle are two of the very best houses I have found in +Europe. What Royalist can satisfactorily explain these contrasts? + +Switzerland, though a small country, and not half of this habitable, +speaks three different languages. I found at Airolo regular files of +Swiss journals printed respectively in French, Italian, and German: the +last entirely baffled me; the two former I read after a fashion, making +out some of their contents' purport and drift. Those in French, printed +at Geneva, Lausanne, &c., were executed far more neatly than the others. +All were of small size, and in good part devoted to spirited political +discussion. Switzerland, though profoundly Republican, is almost equally +divided into parties known respectively as "Radical" and "Conservative:" +the Protestant Cantons being preponderantly Radical, the Catholic +generally Conservative. Of the precise questions in dispute I know +little and shall say nothing; but I do trust that the controversy will +not enfeeble nor paralyze the Republic, now seriously menaced by the +Allied Despots, who seem to have almost forgotten that there ever was +such a man as WILLIAM TELL. Let us drink, in the crystal current leaping +brightly down from the eternal glaciers, to his glorious, inspiring +memory, and to Switzerland a loving and hopeful Adieu! + + + + +XXXIII. + +GERMANY. + + + COLOGNE, Tuesday, July 15, 1851. + +After spending Sunday very agreeably at Basle (where American +Protestants traveling may like to know that Divine worship is regularly +conducted each Sabbath by an English clergyman, at the excellent Hotel +of the Three Kings), I set my face again northward at 7 1/2 A. M. +on Monday, crossing the Rhine (which is here about the size of the +Hudson at Albany) directly into Baden, and so leaving the soil of +glorious Switzerland, the mountain home of Liberty amid surrounding +despotisms. The nine first miles from Basle (to Efringen) are traversed +by Omnibus, and thence a very good Railroad runs nearly parallel with +the Rhine by Freiburg, Kehl (opposite Strasburg), Baden (at some +distance), Rastatt, Carlsruhe, and Heidelberg, to Mannheim, distant from +Basle 167 1/2 miles by Railroad, and I presume considerably further by +River, as the Rhine (unlike the Railroad as far as Heidelberg) is not +very direct in its course. There is a French Railroad completed on the +other (west) side of the river from Basle to Strasburg, and nearly +completed from Strasburg to Paris, which affords a far more direct and +expeditious route than that I have chosen, as I wished to see something +of Germany. It is also cheaper, I believe, to take the French Railroad +to Strasburg, and the river thence by steamboats which ply regularly as +high as Strasburg, and might keep on to Basle, I presume, if not impeded +by bridges, as the river is amply large enough. + +The Baden Railroad runs through a country descending, indeed, toward the +Rhine and with the Rhine, but as nearly level as a country well can be, +and affording the fewest possible obstacles to its construction. It is +faithfully built, but instead of the numerous common roads which cross +it being carried over or under its track, as the English Railroads are, +they are closed on each side by a swing-bar, at which a guard is +stationed--a plan which saves expense at the outset, but involves a +heavy permanent charge. I should deem the English plan preferable to +this, though men are had much cheaper for such service in Germany than +in America, or even Great Britain. The pace is slower than with us. We +were about nine hours of fair daylight traversing 160 miles of level or +descending grade, with a light passenger train. The management, however, +was careful and unexceptionable. + +This Railroad runs for most of the distance much nearer to the range of +gentle hills which bound the broad and fertile Rhine valley on the east +than to the river itself. The valley is nearly bare of trees for the +most part, and has scarcely any fences save the very slight board fence +on either side of the Railroad. In some places, natural woods of +considerable extent are permitted, but not many fruit nor shade-trees, +whether in rows or scattered. The hills in sight, however, are very +considerably wooded, and wood is apparently the common fuel. The valley +is generally but not entirely irrigated, though all of it easily might +be, the arrangements for irrigation appearing much more modern and +unsystematic here than in Lombardy. The land is cultivated in strips as +in France--first Wheat (the great staple), then Rye, then Potatoes, then +Clover, then Beets, or Hemp, or Flax, and so on. For a small part of the +way, Grass seems to preponderate, but generally Wheat and Rye cover more +than half the ground, while Potatoes have a very large breadth of it. +Rye is now being harvested, and is quite heavy: in fact, all the crops +promise abundant harvests. The Vine appears at intervals, but is not +general through this region: Indian Corn is also rare, and appears in +small patches. In some places many acres of Wheat are seen in one piece, +but usually a breadth of four to twenty rods is given to one crop, and +then another succeeds and so on. I presume this implies a diversity of +owners, or at least of tenants. + +The cultivation, though not always judicious, is generally thorough, +there being no lack of hands nor of good will. The day being fine and +the season a hurrying one, the vast plain was everywhere dotted with +laborers, of whom fully half were Women, reaping Rye, binding it, raking +and pitching Hay, hoeing Potatoes, transplanting Cabbages, Beets, &c. +They seemed to work quite as heartily and efficiently as the men. But +the most characteristically European spectacle I saw was a woman +unloading a great hay-wagon of huge cordwood at a Railroad station, and +pitching over the heavy sticks with decided resolution and efficiency. +It may interest the American pioneers in the Great Pantalette (or is it +Pantaloon?) Movement to know that she was attired in appropriate +costume--short frock, biped continuations and a mannish oil-skin +hat.--And this reminds me that, coming away from Rome, I met, at the +half-way house to Civita Vecchia, a French marching regiment on its way +from Corsica to the Eternal City, to which regiment two women were +attached as sutlers, &c., who also wore the same costume, except that +their hats were of wool instead of oil-skin. Thus attired, they had +marched twenty-five miles that hot day, and were to march as many the +next, as they had doubtless done on many former days. It certainly +cannot be pretended that these women adopted that dress from a love of +novelty, or a desire to lead a new fashion, or from any other reason +than a sense of its convenience, founded on experience. I trust, +therefore, that their unconscious testimony in behalf of the Great +Movement may not be deemed irrelevant nor unentitled to consideration. +Their social rank is certainly not the highest, but I consider them more +likely to render a correct judgment on the merit of the Bloomer +controversy than the Lady Patronesses of Almack's. + + +THE RHINE. + +After spending the night at Mannheim, I took a steamboat at 5 1/2 this +morning for this place, 165 miles down the Rhine, embracing all the +navigable part of the river of which the scenery is esteemed attractive. +As far down as Mayence or Mentz (55 miles), the low banks and broad +intervale continue, and there is little worthy of notice. From Mentz to +Coblentz (54 miles), there is some magnificent scenery, though I think +its natural beauties do not surpass those of the Hudson from New-York to +Newburgh. Certainly there are no five miles equal in rugged grandeur to +those beginning just below and ending above West Point. But the Rhine is +here somewhat larger than the Hudson; the hills on either side, though +seldom absolutely precipitous, are from one to five hundred feet high, +and are often crowned with the ruins of ancient castles, which have a +very picturesque appearance; while the little villages at their foot and +the cultivation (mainly of the Vine) which is laboriously prosecuted up +their rocky and almost naked sides, contribute to heighten the general +effect. These sterile rocks impart a warmth to the soil and a sweetness +to the grape which are otherwise found only under a more southerly sun, +and, combined with the cheapness of labor, appear to justify the +toilsome process of terracing up the steep hill-sides, and even carrying +up earth in baskets to little southward-looking nooks and crevices where +it may be retained and planted on. Yet I liked better than the vine-clad +heights those less abrupt declivities where a more varied culture is +attempted, and where the Vine is intermingled with strips of now +ripened Rye, ripening Wheat, blossoming Potatoes, &c., &c., together +imparting a variegated richness and beauty to the landscape which are +rarely equaled. But the Rhine has been nearly written out, and I will +pass it lightly over. Its towers are not very imposing in appearance, +though Coblentz makes a fair show. Opposite is Ehrenbreitstein, no +longer the ruin described (if I rightly remember) in Childe Harold, but +a magnificent fortress, apparently in the best condition, and said to +have cost Five Millions of dollars. The "blue Moselle" enters the Rhine +from the west just below Coblentz. This city (Cologne) is the largest, I +believe, in Rhenish Prussia, and, next to Rotterdam at its mouth, the +largest on the Rhine, having a flourishing trade and 90,000 inhabitants. +(Coblentz has 26,000, Mayence 36,000, Mannheim 23,000 and Strasburg +60,000.) + +There are some bold hights dignified as mountains below Coblentz, but +the finest of the scenery is above. The hills disappear some miles above +this city, and henceforward to the sea all is flat and tame as a marsh. +On the whole, the Rhine has hardly fulfilled my expectations. Had I +visited it on my way _to_ the Alps, instead of just _from_ them, it +would doubtless have impressed me more profoundly; but I am sure the St. +Mary's of Lake Superior is better worth seeing; so I think, is the +Delaware section of the Erie Railroad. It is possible the weather may +have unfitted me for appreciating this famous river, for a more cloudy, +misty, chilly, rainy, execrable, English day I have seldom encountered. +To travelers blessed with golden sunshine, the Rhine may wear a grander, +nobler aspect, and to such I leave it. + + +THE GERMANS. + +I have been but two days wholly among the Germans, but I had previously +met many of them in England, Italy and Switzerland. They are seen to +the best advantage at home. Their uniform courtesy (save in the +detestable habit of smoking where others cannot help being annoyed by +their fumes), indicates not merely good nature but genuine kindness of +heart. I have not seen a German quarreling or scolding anywhere in +Europe. The deference of members of the same family to each other's +happiness in cars, hotels and steamboats has that quiet, unconscious +manner which distinguishes a habit from a holiday ornament. The entire +absence of pretense, of stateliness, of a desire to be thought a +personage and not a mere person, is scarcely more universal in +Switzerland than here. But in fact I have found Aristocracy a chronic +disease nowhere but in Great Britain. In France, there is absolutely +nothing of it; there are monarchists in that country--monarchists from +tradition, from conviction, from policy, or from class interest--but of +Aristocracy scarcely a trace is left. Your Paris boot-black will make +you a low bow in acknowledgment of a franc, but he has not a trace of +the abjectness of a London waiter, and would evidently decline the honor +of being kicked by a Duke. In Italy, there is little manhood but no +class-worship; her millions of beggars will not abase themselves one +whit lower before a Prince than before anyone else from whom they hope +to worm a copper. The Swiss are freemen, and wear the fact unconsciously +but palpably on their brows and beaming from their eyes. The Germans +submit passively to arbitrary power which they see not how successfully +to resist, but they render to rank or dignity no more homage than is +necessary--their souls are still free, and their manners evince a +simplicity and frankness which might shame or at least instruct America. +On the Rhine, the steamboats are so small and shabby, without +state-rooms, berth-rooms, or even an upper deck--that the passengers are +necessarily at all times under each other's observation, and, as the +fare is high, and twice as much in the main as in the forward cabin, it +may be fairly presumed that among those who pay the higher charge are +none of the poorest class--no mere laborers for wages. Yet in this main +cabin well-dressed young ladies would take out their home-prepared +dinner and eat it at their own good time without seeking the company and +countenance of others, or troubling themselves to see who was observing. +A Lowell factory-girl would consider this entirely out of character, and +a New-York milliner would be shocked at the idea of it. + +The Germans are a patient, long-suffering race. Of their Forty Millions +outside of Austria, probably less than an eighth at all approve or even +acquiesce in the despotic policy in which their rulers are leagued, and +which has rendered Germany for the present a mere outpost of Russia--an +unfinished Poland. These people are intelligent as well as brave--they +see and feel, yet endure and forbear. Perhaps their course is wiser than +that which hot impatience would prompt--nay, I believe it is. If they +can patiently suffer on without losing heart until France shall have +extricated herself from the toils of her treacherous misrulers, they may +then resume their rights almost without a blow. And whenever a new 1848 +shall dawn upon them, they will have learned to improve its +opportunities and avoid its weaknesses and blunders. Heaven speed its +auspicious coming! + + + + +XXXIV. + +BELGIUM. + + + PARIS, Saturday, July 19, 1851. + +From Cologne westward by Railroad to the Western frontier (near +Verviers) of Rhenish Prussia, and thus of Germany, is 65 miles. For most +of the way the country is flat and fertile, and in good part devoted to +Grazing, though considerable Wheat is grown. The farming is not +remarkably good, and the general aspect befits a region which for two +thousand years has been too often the arena of fierce and bloody +conflict between the armies of great nations. Cologne itself, though a +place of no natural strength, has been fortified to an extent and at an +evident cost beyond all American conception. All over this part of +Europe, and to a less degree throughout Italy, the amount of expenditure +on walls and forts, bastions, ditches, batteries, &c. is incalculably +great. I cannot doubt that any nation, by wisely expending half so much +in systematic efforts to educate, employ steadily and reward amply its +poorer classes, would have been strengthened and ensured against +invasion far more than it could be by walls like precipices and a belt +of fortresses as impregnable as Gibraltar. But this wisdom is slowly +learned by rulers, and is not yet very widely appreciated. Whenever it +shall be, "Othello's occupation" will be gone, not for Othello only, but +for all who would live by the sword. + +For some miles before it reaches the frontier, and for a much larger +distance after entering Belgium, the Railroad passes through a +decidedly broken, hilly, up-and-down country, most unlike the popular +conception of Flanders or Belgium. Precipices of naked rock are not +unfrequent and the region is wisely given up mainly to Wood and Grass, +the former engrossing most of the hill-sides and the latter flourishing +in the valleys. This Railroad has more tunnels in the course of fifty +miles than I ever before met with--I think not less than a dozen--while +the grading and bridging must have been very expensive. Such a country +is of course prolific in running streams, on which many small and some +larger manufacturing towns and villages are located. At length, it +ascends a considerable inclined plane at Liege, once a very popular, +powerful and still a handsome and important manufacturing town with +60,000 inhabitants; and here the beautiful and magnificently fertile +table lands of Belgium spread out like a vast prairie before the +traveler. In fact, the peasant cultivators are so commonly located in +villages, leaving long stretches of the rarely fenced though well +cultivated plain without a habitation, that the resemblance to level +prairies which have been planted and sown is more striking than would be +imagined. But the growing crops are too cleanly and carefully weeded and +too uniformly good to protract the illusion. Sometimes hundreds of acres +are unbrokenly covered with Wheat, which has the largest area of any one +staple; but more commonly a breadth of this is succeeded by one of Rye, +that by one of Potatoes, then Wheat again, then Clover, then Rye, then +Wheat, then Potatoes, then Clover or other grass, and so on. I never +before saw so extensive and uniformly thrifty a growth of Potatoes, +while acres upon acres of Beets, also in regular rows and kept carefully +free from weeds, present at this season a beautiful appearance. I +apprehend that not half so much attention has been given in our country +to the growth of this and the kindred roots as would have been richly +rewarded. Of course, it is idle to sow Beets on any but rich land, with +a generous depth of soil and the most thorough cultivation, but with +such cultivation the red lands of New-Jersey and the intervales of our +rivers might be profitably and extensively devoted to the Beet culture +and to that of the larger Turnips. I have seen nothing in Europe that +made a better appearance or promised a more bountiful return than the +large tracts of Belgium and the neighboring district of France sown to +Beets. + +Indian Corn and the Vine are scarcely, or not at all seen in Belgium. +Beggars are not abundant; but women are required to labor quite +extensively in the fields. The habitations of the poor are less wretched +than those of Italy, but not equal to those of the fertile portion of +Switzerland. Irrigation is quite extensively practised, but is far from +universal. The few cattle kept in the wholly arable and thoroughly +cultivated portion of the country are seldom allowed to range, because +of the lack of fences, but are kept up and fed throughout the year. +Women cutting grass in all by-places, and carrying it home by back-loads +to feed their stock, is a common spectacle throughout central Europe. +Trees sometimes line the roads and streams, or irrigating canals, and +sometimes have a piece of ground allotted them whereon to grow at +random, but are rather scarce throughout this region, and I think I saw +square miles entirely devoid of them. Fruit-trees are clearly too +scarce, though Cherries in abundance were offered for sale as we passed. +On the whole, Belgium is not only a fertile but a prosperous country. + +At Liege, the Railroad we traversed leaves its westerly for a north-west +course, running past Tirlemont to Malines (Mechlin) and thence to +Antwerp; but we took a sharp turn to the south-west of Malines in order +to reach Brussels, which, though the capital and the largest city of +Belgium, is barely a point or stopping-place on a right line, while +Liege, Namur, Ghent and Bruges are each the point of junction of two or +more completed roads. Brussels has slept while this network has been +woven over the country, and will awake to discover herself shorn of her +trade and sinking into insignificance if she does not immediately bestir +herself. Her location is a fine one, on a ground which rises very +gradually from the great plain to a modest hill southward, and she is +among the best built of modern cities. But already she is off the direct +line from either London or Paris to Germany; I would have saved many +miles by avoiding her and taking the road due west from Liege to Namur, +Charleroi and Mons, where it intersects the Brussels line; and soon the +great bulk of the travel will do so if it does not already. Railroads +are reckless Radicals and are destined by turns to make and to mar the +fortunes of many great emporiums. + + +NORTH-EASTERN FRANCE. + +Tournay in the coal region, fifty miles from Brussels, is the last town +of Belgium; eight miles further is Valenciennes, one of the strong +frontier fortresses of France, with over 20,000 inhabitants, an active +trade and the worth of a dukedom wasted on its fortifications. Here our +baggage underwent a new custom-house scrutiny, which was expeditiously +and rationally made, and I kept on twenty-three miles farther to Douai, +where our Railroad falls into one from Calais, which had already +absorbed those from Dunkirk and Ghent, and where, it being after 10 +o'clock, I halted for the night, so as to take a Calais morning train at +4 1/2 and see by fair daylight the country thence to Paris, which I had +already traversed in the dark. + +This country presents no novel features. It is not quite so level nor so +perfectly cultivated as central Belgium, but is generally fertile and +promises fairly. The Rye harvest is in progress through all this +country, and is very good, but the breadth of Wheat is much greater, and +it also promises well, though not yet ripened. Westward from Brussels +in Belgium is an extensive Grazing region, bountifully irrigated, and +covered with large herds of fine cattle. Something of this is seen after +crossing into France, but Wheat regains its predominance, while large +tracts are devoted to the Beet, probably for the manufacture of Sugar. +There are few American gardens that can show the Beet in greater +perfection than it exhibits here, in areas of twenty to forty acres. +Wood also becomes far more abundant in the Grazing region, and continues +so nearly up to the walls of Paris, Poplars and other trees of slender +foliage being planted in rows across the fields as well as by the +streams and road-sides. The Vine, which had vanished with the bolder +scenery of the Rhine, reappears only within sight of Paris, where many +of the cultivated fields attest a faultiness or meagerness of +cultivation unworthy of the neighborhood of a great metropolis. I +presume there will be more middling and half middling yields within +twenty miles of Paris than in all Belgium. + +I find Paris, and measurably France, in a state of salutary ferment, +connected with the debate in the Assembly on the proposed Revision of +the Constitution. The best speeches are yet to be made, but already the +attention of the People is fixed on the discussion, and it will be +followed to the end with daily increased interest. That end, as is well +known, will be a defeat of the proposed Revision, and of all schemes +looking to the legal and peaceful reestablishment of Monarchy, or the +reelection of Louis Napoleon. And this discussion, this result, will +have immensely strengthened the Republic in the hearts of the French +Millions, as well as in the general conviction of its stability. And if, +with the Suffrage crippled as it is, and probably must continue to be, a +heartily Republican President can be elected here next May, an impulse +will be given to the movement throughout Europe which can scarcely be +withstood. Live the Republic! + + + + +XXXV. + +PARIS TO LONDON. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, July 22, 1851. + +The quickest and most usual route from Paris to London is that by way of +Calais and Dover; but as I had traversed that once, and part of it +twice, I resolved to try another for my return, and chose the cheapest +and most direct of all--that by way of Rouen, Dieppe, New-Haven and the +Brighton Railroad--which is 32 miles shorter than the Calais route, but +involves four times as long a water passage, and so is spun out to more +than twice the length of the other. We left Paris at 8 yesterday +morning; halted at the fine old town of Rouen before noon; were in +Dieppe at 2 1/2 P. M.; but there we waited for a boat till after +6; then were eight hours crossing the Channel; had to wait at New-Haven +till after 6 this morning before the Custom-House scrutiny of our +baggage was begun; so that only a few were enabled to take the first +train thence for London at a quarter to 7. I was not among the lucky +ones, but had to hold on for the second train at a quarter past 8, and +so did not reach this city till after 10, or twenty-six hours from +Paris, though, with a little enterprise and a decent boat on the +Channel, the trip could easily be made in 14 hours--four for the French +side, six for the Channel, two for the English side and two for +Custom-House delay and leeway of all kinds. If Commodore Vanderbilt or +Mr. Newton would only take compassion on the ignorance and barbarism +prevailing throughout Europe in the matter of steamboat-building, and +establish a branch of his business on this side of the Atlantic, he +would do the cause of Human Progress a service, and signally contribute +to the diminution of the sum of mortal misery. + +The night was mild and fair; the wind light; the sea consequently +smooth; and I suffered less, and repented my choice of a route less, +than I had expected to; but consider the facts: Here was the most direct +route by Railroad and Steamboat between the two great Capitals of +Europe--a route constantly traveled by multitudes from all parts of +world--yet the only boats provided for the liquid portion of the way are +two little black, cobbling concerns, each perhaps seventy feet long by +fifteen wide, with no deck above the water line, and not a single berth +for even a lady passenger, though making one passage each night. Who +could suppose that two tolerably civilized nations would endure this in +the middle of 1851? + +We were nearly two hundred passengers, and the boat just about decently +held us, but had not sitting-room for all, above and under the deck. But +as about half, being "second class," had no right to enter the main +cabin, those who had that right were enabled to sit and yawn, and try to +cheat themselves into the notion that they would coax sleep to their aid +after a while. Occasionally, one or two having left for a turn on deck, +some drowsy mortal would stretch himself on a setter at full length, but +the remonstrances of others needing seats would soon compel him to +resume a half-upright posture. And so the passage wore away, and between +2 and 3 this morning we reached New-Haven (a petty sea-port at the mouth +of the little river Ouse), where we were permitted promptly to land, +minus our baggage, and repair to a convenient inn. Here I, with several +others, invested two British shillings in a chance to sleep, but the +venture (at least in my case) proved a losing one. It was daylight when +we went to bed, and the incessant tramping, ringing of bells, &c., kept +us for the most part awake and called us up at a very early hour, to +fidget uselessly for the recovery of our baggage, and lose the early +train at last. + +The country stretching north-westward from Paris to Dieppe (125 miles) +is less thoroughly cultivated than any other I have seen in Europe out +of Italy. I saw more weedy and thin Rye and ragged Wheat than I had +noted elsewhere. Grass is the chief staple, after leaving the +garden-covered vicinity of Paris, though Wheat, Rye and Oats are +extensively cultivated. The Root crops promise poorly. Indian Corn is +hardly seen, though the Vine is considerably grown. This region is +generally well wooded, but in a straggling, accidental way, which has +the effect neither of Lombard nicety of plantation, nor of the natural +luxuriance of genuine forests. Fruit is not abundant. Irrigation is +considerably practiced. The dwellings of the majority have an +antiquated, ruinous, tumble-down aspect, such as I have observed nowhere +else this side of Lower Italy. On the whole, I doubt whether this +portion of France has improved much within the last fifty years. + +Rouen, the capital of ancient Normandy, is the fifth city of France, +only Paris, Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux having more inhabitants. Here +the Railroad for Havre diverges from that to Dieppe, which we adhered +to. Rouen is interesting for its antiquities, including several +venerable and richly adorned Churches which I had no time to visit. +Dieppe, on the Channel, has a small harbor, completely landlocked, and +17,000 inhabitants. It is considerably resorted to for sea-bathing, but +seems to have very little trade. I judge that the Railroads now being +extended through France, are likely to arrest the growth or hasten the +decline of most of the smaller cities and towns by facilitating and +cheapening access to the capital, where nearly every Frenchman would +live if he could, and where the genius of people and government (no +matter under what constitution) conspires to concentrate all the +intellectual and artistic life of the Nation. + +The Railroad from New-Haven to London passes through no considerable +town, though not far from Brighton and Tunbridge. The country is +undulating and beautiful, mainly devoted to Grass, Wheat and Wood, and +in the very highest condition. It is now toward the end of Haying, and +the Wheat is just beginning to ripen, though that of Central Italy was +mainly harvested a full month ago. But the English Wheat covers the +ground thickly and evenly, and promises a large average crop, especially +if the present fine weather should continue through the next two weeks. + +Noble herds of Cattle and flocks of Sheep overspread the spacious +grounds devoted to Pasturage, especially near the Channel, where most of +the land is in Grass. English Agriculture has a thorough and cleanly +aspect which I have rarely observed elsewhere. Belgium is as careful and +as productive, but its alternations of tillage or grass with woodland +are by no means so frequent nor so picturesque as I see here. The +sturdy, hospitable trees of an English park or lawn are not rivaled, so +far as I have seen, on the Continent. I have rarely seen a reach of +country better disposed for effect than that from a point ten miles this +side of New-Haven to within some ten miles of this city, where Market +Gardening supplants regular Farming. Women work in the fields at this +season in England, but not more than one woman to five men were visible +in the hay-fields we passed this morning--it may have been otherwise in +the afternoon. As to beggars, none were visible, begging being +disallowed. + +Crossing the Channel shifts the boot very decidedly with respect to +language. Those who were groping in the dark a few hours ago are now in +the brightest sunshine, while the oracles of yesterday are the meekest +disciples to-day. I rode from New-Haven to London in the same car with +three Frenchmen and two Frenchwomen, coming up to the Exhibition, with a +scant half-allowance of English among them; and their efforts to +understand the signs, &c., were interesting. "_London Stout_," displayed +in three-foot letters across the front of a drinking-house, arrested +their attention: "_Stoot? Stoot?_" queried one of them; but the rest +were as much in the dark as he, and I was as deficient in French as they +in English. The befogged one pulled out his dictionary and read over and +over all the French synonyms of "Stout," but this only increased his +perplexity. "Stout" signified "robust," "hearty," "vigorous," +"resolute," &c., but what then could "_London_ Stout" be? He closed his +book at length in despair and resumed his observations. + + +LONDON AT MIDNIGHT. + +London is given to late hours. At 6 A. M. though the sun has +long been up, there are few stirring in the principal streets; +occasionally you meet a cab hurrying with some passenger to take an +early train; but few shutters are down at 7, and scarcely an omnibus is +to be seen till after 8. The aristocratic dinner hour is 8 P. +M. though I trust few are so unmerciful to themselves as to +postpone their chief meal to that late hour when they have no company. +The morning to sleep, the afternoon to business and the evening to +enjoyment, seems the usual routine with the favored classes. + +Walking home from a soiree at the West-end through Regent-street, +Haymarket and the Strand once at midnight, I was struck, though +accustomed to all manner of late hours in New-York, with the relative +activity and wide-awake aspect of London at that hour. It seemed the +High Change of revelry and pleasure-seeking. The taverns, the clubs and +drinking-shops betrayed no symptoms of drowsiness; the theatres were +barely beginning to emit their jaded multitudes; the cabs and private +carriages were more plentiful than by day, and were briskly wheeling +hundreds from party to party; even the omnibuses rattled down the wide +streets as freshly and almost as numerously as at midday. The policemen +were alert on nearly every corner; sharpers and suspicious characters +stepped nimbly about the cross-streets in quest of prey, and innumerable +wrecks of Womanhood, God pity them! shed a deeper darkness over the +shaded and dusky lanes and byways whence they momently emerged to salute +the passer-by. Beneath the shelter of night, Misery stole forth from its +squalid lair, no longer awed by the Police, to beseech the compassion of +the stranger and pour its tale of woe and suffering into the rarely +willing ear. Serene and silvery in the clear night-air rose the nearly +full moon over Southwark, shedding a soft and mellow light on pillar and +edifice, column and spire, and enduing the placid bosom of the Thames +with a tranquil and spiritual beauty. Such was one glimpse of London at +midnight; I have not seen it so impressive by day. + + + + +XXXVI. + +UNIVERSAL PEACE CONGRESS. + + + LONDON, July 25, 1851. + +The fourth Annual Congress of the friends and champions of Peace, +universal and perpetual, was closed last evening, after a harmonious and +enthusiastic session of three full days. The number of Delegates in +attendance was between eight and nine hundred, while the spacious area +of Exeter Hall, which is said to hold comfortably thirty-five hundred +persons, was well filled throughout, and densely crowded for hours +together. Having been held at a most favorable time and at the point +most accessible to the great body of the active friends of Peace, I +presume the attendance was larger than ever before. + +Two thoughts were suggested to me by the character and proceedings of +this assemblage--first, that of the eminently popular and plebeian +origin and impulse of all the great Reform Movements of our age. Every +great public assemblage in Europe for any other purpose will be sure to +number Lords, Dukes, Generals, Princes, among its dignitaries; but none +such came near the Peace Congress; very few of them take part in any +movement of the kind. In the list of Delegates to this Congress, under +the head of "Profession or Trade," you find "Merchant," "Miller," +"Teacher," "Tanner," "Editor," "Author," "Bookseller," "Jeweller," &c., +very rarely "Gentleman," or "Baronet," and never a higher title, I +rejoice to say that "Minister" or "Clergyman" appears pretty often, but +never such a word as "Bishop" or "Archbishop," though the most liberal +of the Established Hierarchy, Archbishop Whateley of Dublin, sent a +brief note expressing sympathy with the objects of the meeting. And I +think among the clergymen present there was hardly one belonging to +either of the two Churches which in these realms claim a special and +exclusive patent from Heaven for the dispensation of Religious Truth. + +The other thought suggested by this mighty gathering concerns the +character and efficacy of the organizations and sects in which +Christianity is presumed to be embodied. Let a Convention be called of +the Friends of Peace, of Temperance, of Personal Liberty, of the +Sacredness of Human Life, or any other tangible and positive idea, and +many hundreds will come together from distant nations, speaking diverse +languages, and holding antagonist opinions on other important subjects, +and will for days discuss and deliberate in perfect harmony, unite in +appropriate and forcible declarations of their common sentiments and in +the adoption of measures calculated to ensure their triumph. But let a +general Convention of the followers of Jesus Christ be called, with a +view to the speedy Christianization of the world, and either +three-fourths would keep away or the whole time of the meeting be wasted +in an acrimonious quarrel as to the meaning of Christianity or the +wording of the Shibboleth whereby those who were should be distinguished +from those who were not entitled to bear the Christian name. + +This contrast implies a great wrong _somewhere_, and for which +_somebody_ must be responsible. I merely suggest it for general +consideration, and pass on. + +Not fully sympathising with the Peace Movement in the actual condition +of Europe, I was not a Delegate, and did not attend the first two days' +deliberations. I see not how any one who does not hope to live and +thrive by injustice, oppression and murder, can be otherwise than +ardently favorable to Universal Peace. But, suppose there is a portion +of the human family who _won't have Peace_, nor let others have it, what +then? If you say, "Let us have it as soon as we can," I respond with all +my heart. I would tolerate War, even against pirates or murderers, no +longer than is absolutely necessary to inspire them with a love of +Peace, or put them where they can no longer invade the peace of others. +But so long as Tyrannies and Aristocracies shall say--as they now +practically _do say_ all over Europe, "Yes, we too are for Peace, but it +must be Peace with absolute submission to our good pleasure--Peace with +two-thirds of the fruits of Human Labor devoted to the pampering of our +luxurious appetites, the maintenance of our pomp, the indulgence of our +unbounded desires--it must be a Peace which leaves the Millions in +darkness, in hopeless degradation, the slaves of superstition and the +helpless victims of our lusts." I answer, "No, Sirs! on your conditions +no Peace is possible, but everlasting War rather, until your unjust +pretensions are abandoned or until your power of enforcing them is +destroyed." I have felt a painful apprehension that the prevalence of +the Peace Movement, confined as it is to the Liberal party, and acting +on a state of things which secures almost unbounded power to the +Despots, is calculated to break the spirit of down-trodden nations, and, +by thus postponing the inevitable struggle, protract to an indefinite +period the advent of that Reign of Universal Justice which alone can +usher in the glorious era of Universal Peace. And, had I been a Delegate +to this Universal Peace Congress, I should perhaps have marred its +harmony and its happiness by asking it to consider and vote upon some +such proposition as this: + + "_Resolved_, That in commending to all men everywhere the duty + of seeking and preserving Peace, we bear in mind the Apostle's + injunction, '_First_ pure, _then_ peaceable,' and do not deny + but affirm the right of a Nation wantonly invaded by a foreign + army, or intolerably oppressed by its own rulers, to resist + force by force." + +I rejoice in being able to say that the general tendency of the speeches +was towards universal Emancipation, mental and physical. I doubt whether +an English audience composed in so large proportion of the +conventionally "respectable classes" ever listened to so much downright +Democracy before. The French speakers, the French writers, were full of +it, and the great event, at least of the last day's session, was the +entrance of a body of fifteen French workmen, delegates to the World's +Exhibition of the "Working Associations" of Paris, who came in a body to +pledge their hearts and hands to the cause of Universal Peace, and to +assure the Congress that the Laborers, the Republicans, of France, were +eminently pacific in their ideas and purposes, and that the preservation +of the Republic, which is the immediate object of their exertions, is +valued not more in its relation to their personal rights and aspirations +than as a step toward the formation of a European confederacy of +emancipated Nations, and thus as the corner-stone of the temple of +Universal Peace. The Speeches of these Workmen just from their benches +in the work-shops of Paris were every way admirable, and were received +with the heartiest enthusiasm. They breathed the true spirit not of +Peace only but of hearty cooeperation in every work calculated to promote +the moral and social well-being of mankind. The wretched cant which +implies _natural enmity_ between France and England, or any other two +nations, was emphatically repudiated by them, and every variety of +forcible expression given to the earnest desire of the Laboring Classes +of France that Peace, Freedom and Brotherhood shall prevail, not in +their own country merely, but throughout the world. + +Mr. COBDEN had made his great speech on the preceding day, wherein the +grievous expensiveness and hideous immorality of Standing Armies were +vividly portrayed. He did not hesitate to speak straight out on the +subject of the demoralizing influence of Armies on the People among +whom they were quartered or posted, and the broad track of moral +desolation which an armed force everywhere leaves behind it. If the +facts in this connection were but generally known, I think there would +soon be a loud call from Christians, Moralists and Philanthropists for +the entire disbandment and dispersion of every Standing Army.--EMILE +GIRARDIN, Editor of "_La Presse_," spoke more especially of the +enormous expense of Armies and the ruinous taxation they render +necessary.--Mr. COBDEN spoke again yesterday, in more immediate +denunciation of the enormous Standing Army maintained by Austria, not +merely throughout its own but in other countries also, the Loans which +its Government is constantly contracting, and the gulf of bankruptcy to +which it is rapidly hurrying. He said there were intimations that +another Austrian Loan would be attempted in London, and if it should be +he should urge the call of a public meeting to expose the past knaveries +of Austria in dealing with her creditors, and to hold up to public +reprobation whoever should touch the Loan.--Mr. SAMUEL GURNEY, the Quaker +banker, also spoke in reprehension of Loans for War purposes and all who +subscribe to or encourage them.--EDWARD MIALL (Editor of _The +Non-Conformist_), also spoke forcibly against War Loans. + +M. CORMENIN, an eminent French Statesman and writer, read a witty, piquant +essay in reprehension of War and all other contrivances for shortening +human life, which, being given first in French and then substantially in +English, elicited very hearty plaudits. + +There were many more speakers, including Mr. HINDLEY, British M. P., M. +BOURET, French Chamber of Deputies, ELIHU BURRITT, M. AVIGNON, an Italian +banker, J. S. BUCKINGHAM, Dr. SCHERTZER of Vienna, and JOSEPH STURGE, who +moved that a similar convention be held next year, at a time and place to +be afterward agreed on, which was unanimously carried. It was announced +that Mr. Geo. Hatfield of Manchester had suggested and agreed to bear the +expense of fifteen Silver Medals to be presented, in behalf of the +Congress, to the representatives of the French Workmen's Association for +their attendance and sympathy.--Sir DAVID BREWSTER, being warmly thanked +for his services as Chairman, responded in a few excellent remarks, urging +each person present to instill the principles of Peace into the hearts of +the children who are or may be committed to his or her guidance. He +remarked that he had not once been called upon to exercise authority or +repress commotion during the whole period of the Congress,--a fact proving +that the principles of Peace had already taken root in the breasts of the +Members; and there was not, I believe, a single proposition submitted to +the Congress on which its vote was not substantially unanimous. The +following are the Resolutions adopted: + + The Congress of the friends of Universal Peace, assembled in + London July 22, 23 and 24, 1851, considering that recourse to + arms for the settlement of international disputes, is a custom + condemned alike by Religion, Morality, Reason, and Humanity, + and believing that it is useful and necessary frequently to + direct the attention both of Governments and Peoples to the + evils of the War system, and the desirableness and + practicability of maintaining Permanent International Peace, + resolves: + + 1. That it is the special and solemn duty of all Ministers of + Religion, Instructors of Youth, and Conductors of the Public + Press, to employ their great influence in the diffusion of + pacific principles and sentiments, and in eradicating from the + minds of men those hereditary animosities, and political and + commercial jealousies, which have been so often the cause of + disastrous Wars. + + 2. That as an appeal to the sword can settle no question, on + any principle of equity and right, it is the duty of + Governments to refer to the decision of competent and + impartial Arbitrators such differences arising between them as + cannot be otherwise amicably adjusted. + + 3. That the Standing Armaments, with which the Governments of + Europe menace each other, amid professions of mutual + friendship and confidence, being a prolific source of social + immorality, financial embarrassment, and national suffering, + while they excite constant disquietude and irritation among + the nations, this Congress would earnestly urge upon the + Governments the imperative necessity of entering upon a system + of International Disarmament. + + 4. This Congress, regarding the system of negotiating Loans + for the prosecution of War, or the maintenance of warlike + armaments, as immoral in principle and disastrous in + operation, renews its emphatic condemnation of all such + Loans. + + 5. This Congress, believing that the intervention, by + threatened or actual violence, of one country in the + international politics of another, is a frequent cause of + bitter and desolating wars, maintains that the right of every + State to regulate its own affairs should be held absolute and + inviolate. + + 6. This Congress recommends all the friends of Peace to + prepare public opinion, in their respective countries, with a + view to the formation of an authoritative Code of + International Law. + + 7. This Congress expresses its strong abhorrence of the system + of aggression and violence practiced by so-called civilized + nations upon aboriginal and feeble tribes, as leading to + incessant and exterminating wars, eminently unfavorable to the + true progress of religion, civilization and commerce. + + 8. This Congress, convinced that whatever brings the nations + of the earth together in intimate and friendly intercourse + must tend to the establishment of Peace, by removing + misapprehensions and prejudices, and inspiring mutual respect, + hails, with unqualified satisfaction, the Exhibition of the + Industry of all Nations, as eminently calculated to promote + that end. + + 9. That the members of Peace Societies, in all Constitutional + Countries, be recommended to use their influence to return to + their respective Parliaments, representatives who are friends + of Peace, and who will be prepared to support, by their votes, + measures for the diminution of the number of men employed in, + and the amount of money expended for, War purposes. + + + _American Members of the Congress._--Nathaniel Adams, + Cornwall, Conn., Rev. Robert Baird, New-York; Geo. M. Borrows, + Friburg, Maine; M. B. Bateman, Columbus, Ohio; Rev. George + Beckwith, Boston, Mass.; W. Wells Brown, do; Elihu Burritt, + Worcester, Mass.; William A. Burt, Washington, D. C.; Dr. + Thomas Chadbourne, Portsmouth, N. H.; Rev. J. W. Chickering, + Portland, Me.; Wm. Darlington, Westchester, Pa.; Rev. P. B. + Day, New-Haven; Rev. Amos Dresser, Oberlin, Ohio; Rev. D. C. + Eddy, Lowell, Mass.; Rev. Romeo Elton, Providence, R. I.; A. + R. Forsyth, Indiana; Rev. Aaron Foster, Massachusetts; William + B. Fox, do; Rev. H. H. Garnett, Geneva, N. Y.; David Gould, + Sharon, Conn.; Rev. Josiah Henson, Canada West; E. Jackson, + Jr., Boston, Mass.; Wm. Jackson, Newton, do; Rev. P. M. + McDowell, New-Brunswick; Rev. Geo. Maxwell, Ohio; Rev. H. A. + Mills, Lowell, Mass.; Rev. A. A. Miner, Boston, Mass.; Dr. + Henry S. Patterson, Frank B. Palmer, Dr. William Pettit, + Philadelphia, Pa.; Thomas Pierce, Illinois; Moses Pond, + Boston, Mass.; J. T. Sheoffe, Whitesboro', N. Y.; Isaac + Skervan, Buffalo, N. Y.; Rev. Zadock Thompson, Burlington, + Vt.; Rev. John E. Tyler, Windham, Conn.; Ichabod Washbourne, + Worcester, Mass.; Rev. James C. White, Ohio; Chas. H. De + Wolfe, Oldtown, Me. + + + + +XXXVII. + +AMERICA AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. + + + LONDON, Tuesday, July 26, 1851. + +If I return this once more and for the last time to the subject of +American contributions to the great Exposition, it shall not be said +with truth that my impulse is a feeling of soreness and chagrin. Within +the last few days, a very decided and gratifying change has taken place +in the current of opinion here with regard to American invention and its +results. One cause of this was the late formal trial of American (with +other foreign) Plows, in the presence of the Agricultural Jury; which +trial, though partial and hurried, was followed by immediate orders for +an American Plow then tested (Starbuck's) from Englishmen, Belgians and +Frenchmen, including several Agricultural Societies. If a hundred of +those Plows were here, they might be sold at once; in their absence, the +full price has been paid down for some twenty or thirty, to be shipped +at New-York, and be thenceforth at the risk and cost of the buyers. And +these orders have just commenced. The London journals which had +reporters present (some of which journals ridiculed our Farming +Implements expressly a few weeks ago), now grudgingly admit that the +American Plows did their work with less draft than was required by their +European rivals, but add that they did not do it so well. Such was not +the judgment of other witnesses of the trial, as the purchases, among +other things, attest. + +A still more signal triumph to American ingenuity was accorded on +Thursday. Mr. Mechi, formerly a London merchant, having acquired a +competence by trade, retired some years since to a farm in Essex, about +forty miles off, where he is vigorously prosecuting a system of High +Farming, employing the most effective implements and agencies of all +kinds. He annually has a gathering of distinguished farmers and others +to inspect his estate and see how his "book farming" gets on. This +festival occurred day before yesterday--a sour, dark, drenching +day--notwithstanding which, nearly two hundred persons were present. +Among others, several machines for cutting Grain were exhibited and +tested, including two (Hussey's and McCormick's) from America, and an +English one which was declared on all hands a mere imitation of +Hussey's. Neither the original nor the copy, however, appear to have +operated to the satisfaction of the assembly, perhaps owing to the +badness of the weather and its effects on the draggled, unripe grain. +With McCormick's a very different result was obtained. This machine is +so well known in our Wheat-growing districts that I need only remark +that it is the same lately ridiculed by one of the great London journals +as "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a treadmill and a flying +machine," and its uncouth appearance has been a standing butt for the +London reporters at the Exhibition. It was the ready exemplar of +American distortion and absurdity in the domain of Art. It came into the +field at Mechi's, therefore, to confront a tribunal (not the official +but the popular) already prepared for its condemnation. Before it stood +John Bull, burly, dogged and determined not to be humbugged--his +judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. Nothing +disconcerted, the brown, rough, homespun Yankee in charge jumped on the +box, starting the team at a smart walk, setting the blades of the +machine in lively operation, and commenced raking off the grain in +sheaf-piles ready for binding,--cutting a breadth of nine or ten feet +cleanly and carefully as fast as a span of horses could comfortably +step. There was a moment, and but a moment of suspense; human prejudice +could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers +from the whole crowd proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee "treadmill." +That triumph has since been the leading topic in all agricultural +circles. _The Times'_ report speaks of it as beyond doubt, as placing +the harvest absolutely under the farmer's control, and as ensuring a +complete and most auspicious revolution in the harvesting operations of +this country. I would gladly give the whole account, which, grudgingly +towards the inventor, but unqualifiedly as to the machine, speaks of the +latter as "securing to English farming protection against climate and an +economy of labor which must prove of _incalculable_ advantage." Pretty +well for "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a flying machine and a +treadmill." + +Mr. McCormick, I hear, is probably now on his way hither from the United +States, and will be rather astonished on landing to find himself a lion. +Half a dozen makers and sellers of Agricultural implements, are already +on the watch for him, and if he makes his bargain wisely, he is morally +sure of a fortune from England alone. His machine and its operator were +the center of an eager circle to-day, and if five hundred of the former +were to be had here, they would all be bought within a month. There is +to be another public trial, merely to place beyond doubt its capacity to +cut dry and ripe grain as well as green and wet; but those who have seen +it work in the States will not care much for that.[C] + +Mr. Hobbs, of the American Bank Lock Company, has had a recent trial of +the Chubb Lock, so long deemed invincible here, and consumed twenty-four +minutes and a half in picking it, under the supervision of judges of +unquestionable ability and impartiality. He then re-locked it without +disturbing the "Detector," and left it as when it was set before him. He +has now to try his skill on the "Bramah" lock under the challenge for +L200; and, should he be able to open it, he says he shall there rest the +case.[D] He has been sent for by the Governor of the Bank of England, +and will respond to the invitation. His operations have of course +excited some feeling among those whose interests were affected by them; +yet it is manifestly proper and important, if the locks relied on by +banks and other depositories of treasure here are not secure against +burglary, that the fact should be known. Unless I err as to his success +at the forthcoming trial with the Bramah lock, British locksmiths must +commence at once to learn their business over again under Yankee +tuition. + +I might give other facts in support of my judgment that our Country has +not been and will not be _disgraced_ by her share in this Exhibition, +but I forbear. Had we declined altogether the invitation to participate +in this show, we certainly would have been discredited in the world's +opinion, however unjustly; had we attempted to rival the costly tissues, +dainty carvings, rich mosaics, and innumerable gewgaws of Europe, we +should have shown equal bad taste and unsound judgment, and would have +deservedly been laughed at. Our real error consists, not in neglecting +to send articles to rival the rich fabrics and wares of this Continent, +but in sending too few of those homely but most important products in +which we unquestionably lead the world. We have a good many such here +now, but we should have had many more. One such plain, odd-looking +concern as McCormick's Reaper, though it makes no figure in the eyes of +mere sight-seers in comparison with an inlaid Table or a case of Paris +Bonnets, is of more practical account than a Crystal Palace full of +those, and so will ultimately be regarded. Looking to-day at Mitchell's +admirable new Map of the United States and their Territories, as now +existing, which worthily fills an honorable place in the Exhibition, +with several but too few others of the same class, I could not but +regret that a set of Harpers' Common School Libraries, with a brief +account of the origin and progress of our School Library system, had not +been contributed; and I wish I had myself spent fifty dollars if +necessary to place in the Exhibition a good collection of American +School Books. If there shall ever be another World's Exhibition, I +bespeak a conspicuous place in it for a model American country +School-House, with its Library, Globes, Maps, Black-Board, Class Books, +&c., and a succinct account of our Common School system, printed in the +five or six principal languages of Europe for gratuitous distribution to +all who may apply for it. With this got up as it should be, I would not +mind admitting that in Porcelain and Laces, Ormolu and Trinkets, Europe +is yet several years ahead of us. + +Mr. J. S. Gwynne of our State, whose "Balanced Centrifugal Pump" made a +sensation and obtained a Gold Medal at our Institute Fair last October, +is here with it, and proposes a public trial of its qualities in +competition with the rival English pumps of Appold and Bessimer for +$1,000, to be paid by the loser to the Mechanics' Society. Mr. Gwynne +claims that these English Pumps (which have been among the chief +attractions of the department of British Machinery) are palpable +plagiarisms from his invention, and not well done at that. He, of +course, does not claim the idea of a Centrifugal Pump as his own, for it +is much older than any of them, but he does claim that adaptation of the +idea which has rendered it effective and valuable. I am reliably +informed that he has just sold his Scotch patent only for the +comfortable sum of L10,000 sterling, or nearly $50,000; and this is but +one of several inventions for which he has found a ready market here at +liberal prices. I cite his case (for he is one of several Americans who +have recently sold their European patents here at high figures) as a +final answer to those who croak that our country is disgraced, and +regret that any American ever came near the Exhibition. Had these +discerning and patriotic gentlemen been interested in these patents, +they might have taken a different view of the matter. Even my New-York +friend, whose toadyism in exhibiting a capital pair of Oars inscribed "A +present for the Prince of Wales," I have already characterized as it +deserves, yesterday informed me that he had sold $15,000 worth of Oars +here since the Fair opened. I am sure I rejoice in his good fortune, and +hope it may insure the improvement of his taste also. + +There are many articles in the American department of which I would +gladly speak, that have attracted no public notice. Since I left for the +Continent, Mrs. A. Nicholson, formerly of our city, has sent in a +Table-Cover worked in Berlin Wool from the centre outward so as to form +a perfect circle, or succession of circles, from centre to +circumference, with a great variety of brilliant colors imperceptibly +shading into each other. This having been made entirely by hand, with no +implement but a common cut nail, the process is of course too slow to be +valuable; but the result attained may very probably afford useful hints +and suggestions to inventors of weaving machinery.--I think the display +of Flint Glass by the Brooklyn Company is equal in purity and fineness +to any other plain Glass in the Exhibition, and only regret that the +quantity sent had not been larger. I regret far more that the +"Hillotype," for giving sun-pictures with the colors of life, has not +yet made its appearance here, while the "Caloric Engine" (using +compressed and heated air instead of water for the generation of power), +was not ready in season to justify a decision on its merits by the Jury +of its Class; and so with other recent American inventions of which +high hopes are entertained. We ought to have had here a show merely of +Inventions, Machines and Implements exceeding the entire contents of the +American Department--ought to have had, apart from any question of +National credit, if only because the inventors' interests would have +been subserved thereby--and we should have had much more than we +actually have, had the state of the British Patent-Laws been less +outrageous than it is. A patent here costs ten times as much as in the +United States, and is worth little when you have it--that is, it is not +even an opinion that the patentee has really invented anything, but +merely an evidence that he claimed to have done so at such a date, and a +permission to prove that he actually did, if he can. In other words; a +patent gives a permission and an opportunity to contend legally for your +rights; and if the holder is known to have money enough, it generally +suffices; if not, he can and will be not only plundered with impunity, +but defied and laughed at. A bill radically revising the British +Patent-Laws is now on its way through Parliament, but in its absence +many American inventors refused to expose themselves to a loss of their +inventions by exhibiting them at the Fair; and who can blame them? + +The succession of _fetes_ to be given by the Municipality of Paris to +the Royal Commissioners, Jurors, &c., in honor of the World's +Exhibition, opens this week, and will be brilliant and gratifying as no +other city but Paris could make it. The number invited is over One +Thousand, and all are taken from the British shore in French National +Vessels, and thenceforth will be the guests of their inviters until they +shall again be landed at an English port, paying nothing themselves for +travel, entertainment, balls, &c., &c. This is certainly handsome, and I +acknowledge the courtesy, though I shall not accept the invitation. I +leave for Scotland and Ireland on Monday. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[C] This trial took place at Mechi's some three weeks later, and +resulted in a complete triumph for the reaper, which thereupon received +an award (already accorded it by the Council of Chairmen, subject to +revision upon the result of this trial), of a first-class or +Great-Medal. + +[D] He has since done so, to the perfect satisfaction of the judges. + + + + +XXXVIII. + +ENGLAND, CENTRAL AND NORTHERN. + + + NEWCASTLE, Eng., Tuesday, July 29, 1851. + +I came up through the heart of England by railroad yesterday from London +by Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, near Sheffield and Leeds, +through York, near Durham, to this place, where Coal is found in +proverbial abundance, as its black canopy of smoke might testify. +Newcastle lies at the head of navigation on the Tyne, about thirty miles +inland from the E. N. E. coast of England, three hundred miles from +London, and is an ancient town, mainly built of brick, exhibiting +considerable manufacturing and commercial activity. + +The British Railroads are better built, more substantial and costly than +ours, but their management does not equal my anticipations. They make no +such time as is currently reported on our side, and are by no means +reliable for punctuality. The single Express Train daily from London to +Edinburgh professes to make the distance (428 miles) in about twelve +hours, which is less than 36 miles per hour, with the best of double +tracks, through a remarkably level country, everything put out of its +way, and no more stops than its own necessities of wood and water +require. We should easily beat this in America with anything like equal +facilities, and without charging the British price--L4 7s. (or over $21) +for a distance not equal to the length of the Erie Railroad, almost +wholly through a populous and busy region, where Coal is most abundant +and very cheap. + +Our train (the Mail) started from London at 10 1/2 A. M. and should have +been here at 11 P. M. or in a little less than 25 miles per hour. But +the running throughout the country is now bewitched with Excursion +Trains and throngs of passengers flocking on low-priced Excursion return +tickets to see the Great Exhibition, which is quite as it should be, but +the consequent delay and derangement of the regular trains is as it +should _not_ be. The Companies have no moral right to fish up a quantity +of irregular and temporary business to the violation of their promises +and the serious disappointment of their regular customers. As things are +managed, we left London with a train of twenty-five cars, half of them +filled with Excursion passengers for whom a separate engine should have +been, but was not, provided; so that we were behind time from the first +and arrived here at 1 this morning instead of 11 last night. + +The spirit of accommodation is not strikingly evinced on British +Railroads. The train halts at a place to which you are a stranger, and +you perhaps hear its name called out for the benefit of the passengers +who are to stop there; but whether the halt is to last half a minute, +five minutes, or ten, you must find out as you can. The French Railroads +are better in this respect, and the American cannot be worse, though the +fault is not unknown there. A penny programme for each train, to be sold +at the chief stations on each important route, stating not merely at +what place but exactly how long each halt of that particular train would +be made, is one of the yet unsatisfied wants of Railroad travelers. Our +"Path-finders" and "Railway Guides" undertake to tell so much that plain +people are confused and often misled by them, and are unable to pick out +the little information they actually need from the wilderness of figures +and facts set before them. Let us have Guides so simple that no guide is +needed to explain them. + +There is much sameness in English rural scenery. I have now traveled +nearly a thousand miles in this country without seeing anything like a +mountain and hardly a precipice except the chalky cliffs of the sea +shore. Nearly every acre I have seen is susceptible of cultivation, and +of course either cultivated, built upon, or devoted to wood. A few steep +banks of streams or ravines, almost uniformly wooded, and some small +marshes, mainly on the sea-coast, are all the exceptions I remember to +the general capacity for cultivation. Usually, the aspect of the country +is pleasant--beautiful, if you choose--but nowise calculated to excite +wonder or evoke enthusiasm. The abundance of evergreen hedges is its +most striking characteristic. I judge that two-thirds of England is in +Grass (meadow or pasture), very green and thrifty, and dotted with noble +herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. They are anxious to finish +Hay-making throughout the region we traversed yesterday; but as there +has been scarcely an hour of very bashful sunshine during the last six +days, more than half of which have been rainy, the operation is one +rather trying to human patience. Some of the cut grass looks as if it +were Flax spread out to rot, and all of it evinces a want of shelter. +This morning is almost fair, though hazy, so that the necessity of +taking in and drying the hay by a fire may be obviated, but a great deal +of it must be seriously damaged. (_P. S. 10 o'clock._--It is cloudy and +raining again.) + +Wheat covers perhaps an eighth of all Central England, is now ripening +and generally heavy, but much of it is beaten down by the wind and rain, +and looks as if a herd of buffaloes had been chased through it by a +tribe of mounted Indians. If the weather should be mainly fair +henceforth, the crop may be saved, but it must already have received +material damage, and the process of harvesting it must be tedious. +Barley is considerably grown, and has also been a good deal prostrated. +Oats have suffered less, being more backward.--Potatoes look vigorous, +though not yet out of danger from blight or rot. Not a patch of Indian +Corn is to be seen throughout. Considerable grass-land has been plowed +up for Wheat next season, and some Turnips are just visible; but it is +evident that Grass and Stock, under the influence of the low prices of +Grain produced by the repeal of the Corn-laws, are steadily gaining upon +Tillage, of course throwing tens of thousands of Agricultural laborers +out of employment, and driving them to emigration, to manufactures, or +the poor-house. Thus the rural population of England is steadily and +constantly decreasing. + +The best feature of English landscape is formed by its Trees. Though +rarely relied on for fuel, there is scarcely an area of forty acres +without them, while single trees, copses, more rarely rows, and often +petty forests, are visible in all quarters. The trees are not the +straight, tall, trim, short-limbed, shadeless Poplars, &c., of France +and Italy, but wide-spreading, hospitable Oaks, Yews and other sturdy +battlers with wind and storm, which have a far more genial and +satisfactory appearance. And the trees of England have a commercial as +well as a less measurable value; for timber of all sorts is in demand in +the collieries, manufactories and mines, and bears a high price, the +consumption far exceeding the domestic supply. But for the trees, these +sullen skies and level grounds would render England dreary enough. + +Newcastle is the location of one of those immense structures which +illustrate the Industrial greatness and pecuniary strength of Britain, +and illustrate also the meagerness of her Railroad dividends. The Tyne +is here a furlong wide or more, running through a narrow valley or wide +ravine perhaps 150 feet below the average level of the great plain which +encloses it, and hardly more than half a mile wide at the top. Across +this river and gorge is thrown a bridge of iron, with abutments and +piers of hewn stone, the arches of said bridge having a total length of +1,375 feet, with 512 feet water-way, while the railway is 112 1/2 feet +above high-water mark, with a fine carriage and footway underneath it +at a hight of 86 feet, and a total hight from river-bed to parapet of +132 1/2 feet. The gigantic arches have a span of over 124 feet each, and +the total cost of the work was L304,500, or about $1,500,000. Near this +is a Central Railway Station (there are two others in the place), built +entirely, including the roof, of cut stone, save a splendid row of glass +windows on either side--said depot being over 592 feet long, the +passengers' department being 537 by 183 feet, and the whole costing over +$500,000. Here, then, are about $2,000,000 expended on a single mile of +railroad, in a city of by no means primary importance. If any one can +see how fair dividends could be paid on railroads constructed at such +expense, the British shareholders generally would be glad to avail +themselves of his sagacity. And it is stated that the Law Expenses of +several of the British roads, including procurement of charter and right +of way, have exceeded $2,500,000. Add to this rival lines running near +each other, and often three where one should suffice, and you have the +explanation of a vast, enormous and ruinous waste of property. Let the +moral be heeded. + + +THE BORDER--SCOTLAND. + + EDINBURGH, July 29--_Evening_. + +From Newcastle to the Tweed (70 miles) the country continues level and +mainly fertile, but the Grain is far more backward than in the vicinity +of London, and very little of it has been blown down. More Wheat and far +less Grass are grown here than below York, while Barley, Oats and +Potatoes cover a good share of the ground, and the Turnip is often seen. +All look well, but the Potato, though late, is especially hearty and +thrifty. Shade-trees in the cultivated fields are rare; in fact, wood is +altogether rarer than at the south, though small forests are generally +within sight. I should judge from what I see and feel that shade is +seldom wanting here, except as a shield from the rain. Desperate +attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many +men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and +a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, +drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the +half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to +bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as +to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for +fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen; they were scarce from London to +York, but now have disappeared. Our road runs nearer and nearer the +North Sea, which at length is close beside us on the right, but no town +of any importance is visible until we cross the Tweed on a long, high, +costly stone bridge just above Berwick of historic fame, and are in + + +SCOTLAND. + +Here the growing crops are much the same as throughout the North of +England--Wheat, Potatoes, Barley, Oats, and Grass--save that the Turnip +has become an article of primary importance. From some points, hundreds +of acres of the Swedish and French may be seen, and they are rarely or +never out of view. They are sown in rows or drills, some eighteen inches +or two feet apart, so as to admit of cultivation by the plow, which is +now in progress. The most forward of the plants now display a small +yellow blossom. All are healthy and promising, and are kept thoroughly +clear of weeds. I infer that they are mainly grown for feeding cattle, +and this seems a good idea, since they can be harvested in defiance of +rain and mist, which is rather more difficult with Hay. They become more +and more abundant as we approach this city, and are grown up to its very +doors. Heavy stone walls laid in mortar and copses or little forests of +Oak are among the characteristics of the rural district around +Edinburgh, whereof the culture is widely famed for its excellence. The +only Scottish town of any note we pass is Dunbar, by the sea-side, +though Dunse, Haddington and Dalkeith lie but a few miles inland from +our road, with which they are connected by branches. We reached this +city about 3 P. M. or in five hours from Newcastle, 130 miles. + + +EDINBURGH. + +I knew this was a city of noble and beautiful structures, but the +reality surpasses my expectation. The old town was mainly built in a +deep valley running northward into the Firth of Forth, with the Royal +Palace of Holyrood in its midst, the port of Leith on the Firth a few +miles northward, and the Castle on a commanding crag overlooking the old +town from the west. The Canongate and High-street lead up to the +esplanade of the Castle from the east, but its other sides are +precipitous and inaccessible, a deep valley skirting it on the north, +while the south end of the old town fills the other side. The former or +more northern valley has for the most part been kept clear of buildings, +the spacious Prince's-street Gardens and the grounds of several +charitable institutions having had possession of it, until they were +recently required to surrender a part for the Railroads running south to +Berwick, &c., and west to Glasgow for a General Depot. Across this deep +valley or chasm, northward, rises the eminence on which the new town of +Edinburgh is constructed, with the deep chasm in which runs the rapid +mill-stream known as the "Water of Leith," separating it from a like, +though lower, hill still further north and west, on which a few fine +buildings and very pleasant gardens are located. The new town is thus +perhaps 150 feet above the old town, a mile and a half long by half a +mile wide, commanding magnificent views of the old town, the port of +Leith, the broad, ocean-like Firth of Forth, and the finely cultivated +country stretching southward; and, as if these were not enough to secure +its salubrity, it has more gardens and public squares than any other +city of its size in the world. Its streets are broad and handsome; its +houses built almost wholly of stone, and I never saw so many good ones +with so few indifferent. If I were to choose from all the world a city +wherein to make an effort for longevity, I would select the new town of +Edinburgh; but I should prefer to live fewer years where there is more +sunshine. + +Public Monuments would seem to be the grand passion of the Edinburghers. +The most conspicuous are those of Lord Nelson on Calton Hill (next to +the Castle, if not before it, the most commanding location in the city) +and of Walter Scott on Prince's-street, nearly opposite the Castle, +across the glen, in full sight of all who arrive in Edinburgh by +Railroad, as also from the Castle and its vicinity, as well as from the +broad and thronged street beside which it is located. But there are +Monuments also to Pitt, to Lord Melville, and some twenty or thirty +other deceased notables. These are generally located in the higher +squares or gardens which wisely occupy a large portion of the +ground-plot of the new town. Public Hospitals and Infirmaries are also a +prominent feature of the Scottish capital, there being several spacious +and fine edifices devoted to the healing of the sick, most if not all of +them founded and endowed by private munificence. There are several +Bridges across the two principal and more on the secondary or cross +valleys, ravines or gorges which may well attract attention. These +Bridges are often several hundred feet long, and from thirty to eighty +feet high, and you look down from their roadway upon the red-tiled roofs +of large eight or nine-story houses beside and below them. Nearly or +quite every house in Edinburgh is built of stone, which is rather +abundant in Scotland, and often of a fair, free, easily worked quality. +Many even of the larger houses, especially in the old town, are built +of coarse, rough, undressed stone, often of round, irregular boulders, +made to retain the places assigned them by dint of abundant and +excellent mortar. In the better buildings, however, the stone is of a +finer quality, and handsomely cut, though almost entirely of a brown or +dark gray color. The winding drive to the summit of Calton Hill, looking +down upon large, tall, castle-like houses of varied material and +workmanship, with the prospect from the summit, are among the most +impressive I have seen in Europe. + +I was interested this afternoon in looking around from one to another of +the edifices with which History or the pen of the Wizard of the North +has rendered us all familiar--the Tolbooth, the Parliament House, the +Castle, the house of John Knox, the principal Churches, &c., &c. I spent +most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, which, though unwisely +located, never gorgeously furnished, and long since abandoned of Royalty +to dilapidation and decay, still wears the stamp of majesty and will be +regal even when crumbled into ruins. Its tapestries are faded and +rotten; its paintings, never brilliant specimens of the art, have also +felt the tooth of Time; its furniture, never sumptuous, would but poorly +answer at this day the needs of an ordinary family; its ball-room is now +a lumber-room; its royal beds excite premonitions of rheumatism: its +boudoir says nought of Beauty but that it passeth away. Yet the +carefully preserved ivory miniature of the hapless Queen of Scots is +still radiant with that superlative loveliness which seems unearthly and +prophetic of coming sorrows; and it were difficult to view without +emotion the tapestry she worked, the furniture she brought over from +France, some mementoes of her unwise marriage, the little room in which +she sat at supper with Rizzio and three or four friends when the +assassins rushed in through a secret door, stabbed her ill-starred +favorite, and dragged him bleeding through her bed-room into an outer +audience chamber, and there left him to die, his life-blood oozing out +from fifty-six wounds. The partition still stands which the Queen caused +to be erected to shut off the scene of this horrible tragedy from that +larger portion of the reception-room which she was obliged still to +occupy, therein to greet daily those whom public cares and duties +constrained her to confer with and listen to, though Murder had stained +ineffaceably the floor of that regal hall. Alas! unhappy Queen!--and yet +not all unhappy. Other sovereigns have their little day of pomp and +adulation, then shrivel to dust and are forgotten; but she still lives +and reigns wherever Beauty finds admirers or Suffering commands +sympathy. Other Queens innumerable have lived and died, and their +scepters crumbled to dust even sooner than their clay; but Mary is still +Queen of Scots, and so will remain forever. + + + + +XXXIX. + +SCOTLAND. + + + THE CLYDE, Wednesday, July 30, 1851. + +I am leaving Scotland without having seen half enough of it. My chief +reasons are a determination to run over a good part of Ireland and an +engagement to leave Europe in my favorite ship Baltic next week; but, +besides these, this continual prevalence of fog, mist, cloud, drizzle +and rain diminish my regret that I am unable to visit the Highlands. My +friends who, having a day's start of me, went up the Forth from +Edinburgh to Stirling, thence visiting Lochs Lomond and Katrine, thence +proceeding by boat to Glasgow, were unable to see aught of the mountains +but their bases, their heads being shrouded in vapor; and, being landed +from a steamboat at the head of Lake navigation on Loch Lomond, found +five miles of land-carriage between them and a comfortable shelter, and +only vehicles enough to take the women and part of the men; the rest +being obliged to make the distance on foot in a drenching rain, with +night just at hand. Such adventures as this,--and they are common in +this region,--console me for my disappointment in not having been able +to see the Heather in its mountain home. The Gorse, the Broom, the +Whins, not to speak of the Scottish Thistle, have been often visible by +the roadside, and the prevalence of evergreens attests the influence of +a colder clime than that of England; indeed, the backwardness of all the +crops argues a difference of at least a fortnight in climate between +Edinburgh and London. Wheat has hardly filled yet in the Scottish +Lowlands; Oats are barely headed; and the Grass is little more than half +cut and not half dried into Hay; on the contrary, it now looks as if it +must winter on the ground or be taken in thoroughly water-soaked. Being +so much later, the crops are far less blown down here than they are in +England; but neither Grass nor Grain is generally heavy, while Potatoes +and Turnips, though backward, looked remarkably vigorous and promising. +Beautifully farmed is all this Lowland country, well fenced, clear of +weeds, and evidently in the hands of intelligent, industrious, +scientific cultivators. Wood is quite plentiful, Oak especially, though +shade-trees are not so frequent in cultivated fields as in England; but +rough, rocky, precipitous spots are quite common here, though in the +Lowlands, and these are wisely devoted to growing timber. Belgium is +more genial and more fertile, but I have rarely seen a tract of country +better farmed than that stretching westward from Edinburgh to Glasgow +(48 miles) and thence down the Clyde to Greenock, some 22 miles further. +The farmers in our Mohawk Valley ought to pass through this gloomy, +chilly, misty country, and be shamed into a better improvement of their +rare but misused advantages. + +Traveling is useful in that it gives us a more vivid idea of the immense +amount of knowledge we yet lack. I supposed till to-day that, by virtue +of a Scotch-Irish ancestry (in part) and a fair acquaintance with the +works of Walter Scott, Burns, Hogg, &c., I knew the Lowland Scotch +dialect pretty thoroughly; and yet a notice plainly posted up, "This Lot +To _Feu_," completely bothered me. On inquiry, I learned that _to feu_ a +lot means to let or lease it for building purposes--in other words, to +be built upon on a ground-rent. I suppose I learned this years ago, but +had entirely forgotten it. + +The Clyde, though a fair stream at Glasgow, is quite narrow for twelve +to fifteen miles below that city, seeming hardly equal to the +Connecticut at Hartford, or the Hudson at Waterford; but then it has a +good tide, which helps the matter materially, and has at great expense +been dredged out so as to be navigable for vessels of several hundred +tuns. We passed a fine American packet-ship with a very wholesome +looking body of Scotch emigrants, hard aground some ten miles below +Glasgow, and I was informed that a large vessel, even though towed by a +steamboat, is seldom able to get down into deep water upon a single +tide, but is stopped half way to wait for another. This river fairly +swarms with small steamboats, of which there are regular lines +connecting Glasgow with Londonderry, Belfast, Dublin, Fleetwood +(north-west of England), Liverpool, London, &c. We met four or five +boats returning from Excursion parties crowded with the better paid +artisans and laborers of Glasgow, their wives and children. + +The banks of the Clyde for some miles below Glasgow are low and marshy, +much of the intervale being devoted to pasturage, while a rude +embankment has been interposed on either side, consisting of stones of +five to fifty pounds each, intended to prevent the washing away of the +banks by the ripple raised by the often-passing steamboats. The end is +fairly though not cheaply subserved. As we descend, the shores become +bolder; the rugged hills, at first barely visible on the right, come +near and nearer the water: low rocks begin to lift their heads above the +surface of the stream, while others have their innate modesty +overpowered by wooden fixtures lifting their heads above the highest +tides to warn the mariner of his danger. At length a gigantic cone of +rock rises out of the water on the right of the channel to a height of +fifty or sixty feet, resembling some vast old cathedral: this is +Dumbarton Castle, with the anciently famous but now decaying town of +Dumbarton lying at the head of a small bay behind it. A little lower on +the left is Port Glasgow, the head of navigation for very large +vessels; and three miles lower still is Greenock, quite a stirring +seaport, somewhat addicted to ship-building. Here our boat, which had +left Glasgow (22 miles above) at 4 P. M. held on till 8 for the train +which left the same port at 7 with the mail and additional passengers; +and then laid her course directly across the channel to Belfast, 138 +miles from Glasgow, where she is due at 5 to-morrow morning. + + +GLASGOW. + +Looks more American than any other city I have seen in Europe. Half of +Pittsburgh spliced on to half of Philadelphia would make a city very +like Glasgow. Iron is said to be made cheaper here than elsewhere in the +world, the ore being alloyed with a carbonaceous substance which +facilitates the process and reduces the cost of melting. Tall chimneys +and black columns of smoke are abundant in the vicinity. The city is +about twice the size of Edinburgh, with more than double the trade of +that capital, and has risen rapidly from relative insignificance. New +rows of stately houses have recently been built, and the "court end" of +the city is extending rapidly toward the West. A brown or dark gray +stone, as in Edinburgh, is the principal material used, and gives the +city a very substantial appearance. Most of the town, being new, has +wide and straight streets; in the older part, they are perverse and +irrational, as old concerns are apt obstinately to be. They have an old +Cathedral here (now Presbyterian) of which the citizens seem quite +proud, I can't perceive why. Architecturally, it seems to me a sad waste +of stone and labor. The other churches are also mainly Presbyterian, +and, while making less pretensions, are far more creditable to the taste +of their designers. The town is built on both sides of the Clyde, which +is crossed by fine stone bridges, but seven-eighths of it lie on the +north. Ancient Glasgow, embracing the narrow and crooked streets, lies +nearly in the center, and is crowded with a squalid and miserable +population, at least half the women and children, including mothers with +children in their arms, and grandmothers, or those who might well be +such, being without shoes or stockings in the cold and muddy streets. +Intemperance has many votaries here, as indeed, throughout Scotland; +"Dealers in Spirits," or words to that effect, being a fearfully common +sign. I am afraid the good cause of Total Abstinence is making no +headway here--Glasgow has a daily paper (the first in Scotland) and many +weeklies, one of the best of them being a new one, "The Sentinel," which +has a way of going straight to the core of public questions, and +standing always on the side of thorough Reform. Success to it, and a +warm good-bye to the rugged land of Song and Story--the loved home of +Scott and Burns. + + + + +XL. + + +IRELAND--ULSTER. + + + DUBLIN, Thursday, July 31, 1851. + +Though the night was thick, the wind was light, and we had a very good +passage across the North Channel, though our boat was very middling, and +I was nearly poisoned by some of my fellow-sleepers in the gentlemen's +cabin insisting that every window should be closed. O to be Pope for one +little week, just long enough to set half a million pulpits throughout +the world to ringing the changes on the importance, the vital necessity, +of pure, fresh air! The darkness, or rather the general misapprehension, +which prevails on this subject, is a frightful source of disease and +misery. Nine-tenths of mankind have such a dread of "a draught" or +current of air that they will shut themselves up, forty together, in a +close room, car or cabin, and there poison each other with the +exhalations of their mutual lungs, until disease and often death are the +consequences. Why won't they study and learn that a "draught" of pure +air will injure only those who by draughts of Alcoholic poison or some +other evil habit or glaring violation of the laws of life, have rendered +themselves morbidly susceptible, and that even a cold is better than the +noxiousness of air, already exhausted of its oxygen by inhalation? +Nothing physical is so sorely needed by the great majority as a +realizing sense of the blessedness, the indispensable necessity of pure, +fresh air. + +We landed at Belfast at 5 this morning under a pouring rain, which +slacked off two hours later, but the skies are still clouded, as they +have been since Tuesday of last week, and there has been some sprinkling +through the day. + +Of course the Crops are suffering badly. Flax is a great staple of the +North of Ireland, and three fourths of it is beaten flat to the earth. +Wheat is injured and poor, though not so generally prostrate; Oats look +feeble, and as if half drowned; some of these are, and considerable +Barley is thrown down; Grass is light, much of it uncut, and much that +is cut has lain under the stormy or cloudy skies through the last week +and looks badly; only the Potatoes look strong and thrifty, and promise +an ample yield. I shall be agreeably disappointed if Ireland realizes a +fair average harvest this year. + +Belfast is a busy, growing town, the emporium of the Linen Manufacture, +and the capital of the Province of Ulster, the Northern quarter of +Ireland. It seems prosperous, though no wise remarkably so; and I have +been painfully disappointed in the apparent condition of the rural +peasantry on the line of travel from Belfast to Dublin, which I had +understood formed an exception to the general misery of Ireland. Out of +the towns not one habitation in ten is fit for human beings to live in, +but mere low, cramped hovels of rock, mud and straw; not one-half the +families on the way seem to have so much as an acre of land to each +household; not half the men to be seen have coats to their backs; and +not one in four of the women and children have each a pair of shoes or +stockings. And those feet!--if the owners would only wash them once a +week, the general aspect of affairs in this section would be materially +brightened. Wretchedness, rags and despair salute me on every side; and +if this be the best part of Ireland, what must the state of the worst +be? + +From Belfast we had railroad to Armagh, 35 miles; then 13 miles by +omnibus to Castle Blayney. We came over this latter route with ten or +twelve passengers, and a tun or so of luggage on the outside of the +Railroad Company's omnibus, with thirteen of us stowed inside, beside a +youngster in arms, who illustrated the doctrine of Innate Depravity by a +perpetual fight with his mother. Yet, thus overloaded we were driven the +thirteen miles of muddy road in about two hours, taking at Castle +Blayney another railroad train, which brought us almost to Drogheda, +some 25 miles, where we had to take another omnibus for a mile or two, +for want of a railroad bridge over the Boyne, thus reaching another +train which brought us into Dublin, 32 miles. The North of Ireland is +yet destitute of any other railroads than such patches and fragments as +these, whereby I am precluded from seeing Londonderry, and its vicinity, +which I much desired. At length we were brought into Dublin at half-past +three o'clock, or in eight hours from Belfast, about one hundred and +thirty miles. + +The face of the country through this part of Ireland is moderately +rolling, though some fair hills appear in the distance. The land is +generally good, though there are considerable tracts of hard, thin soil. +Small bogs are frequently seen, but no one exceeding a dozen acres; the +large ones lying farther inland. Taking so little room and supplying the +poor with a handy and cheap fuel, I doubt that these little bogs are any +detriment to the country. Some of them have been made to take on a soil +(by draining, cutting, drying and burning the upper strata of peat, and +spreading the ashes over the entire surface), and are now quite +productive.--Drainage and ridging are almost universally resorted to, +showing the extraordinary humidity of the atmosphere. The Potato is now +generally in blossom, and, having a large breadth of the land, and being +in fine condition, gives an appearance of thrift and beauty to the +landscape. But, in spite of this, the general yield of Ireland in 1851 +is destined to be meager. There is more misery in store for this unhappy +people. + +We cross two small lakes some ten to fifteen miles north of this city, +and run for some distance close to the shore of the Channel. At length, +a vision of dwellings, edifices and spires bounds the horizon of the +level plain to the south-west, and in a few minutes we are in Dublin. + + + + +XLI. + +WEST OF IRELAND--ATLANTIC MAILS. + + + GALWAY, Ireland, Aug. 2, 1851. + +I came down here yesterday from Dublin (126 1/2 miles) by the first +Railroad train ever run through for the traveling public, hoping not +only to acquire some personal knowledge of the West of Ireland, but also +to gain some idea of the advantages and difficulties attending the +proposed establishment of a direct communication by Mail Steamers +between this port and our own country. And although my trip is +necessarily a hurried one, yet, having been rowed down and nearly across +the Bay, so as to gain some knowledge of its conformation and its +entrance, and having traversed the town in every direction, and made the +acquaintance of some of its most intelligent citizens, I shall at all +events return with a clearer idea of the whole subject than ever so much +distant study of maps, charts and books could have given me. + +The Midland Railroad from Dublin passes by Maynooth, Mullingar, Athlone +(where it crosses the Shannon by a noble iron bridge), and Ballinasloe +to this place, at the head of Galway Bay, some twenty-five miles inland +from the broad Atlantic. The country is remarkably level throughout, and +very little rock-cutting and but a moderate amount of excavation have +been required in making the Railroad, of which a part (from Dublin to +Mullingar) has been for some time in operation, while the residue has +just been opened. (The old stage-road from Dublin to Galway measures +133 miles, or nearly seven more than the Railroad.) I presume there is +nowhere an elevation of forty feet to the mile, and with a good double +track (now nearly completed), there can be no difficulty in running +express trains through in three hours. From Dublin to Holyhead will +require four hours, and from Holyhead to London six more, making fifteen +hours in all (including two for coming into Galway) for the +transportation of the Mails from the broad Atlantic off this port to +London. Allow three more for leeway, and still the entire Mails may be +distributed in London about the time that the steamship can now be +telegraphed as off Holyhead, and at least twelve (I hope fifteen) hours +earlier than the Mails can now be received in London, to say nothing of +the saving of thirty or forty hours on the Mails to and from Ireland, +and twenty or so for those of Scotland. Is there any good reason why +those hours should not be saved? I can perceive none, even though the +steamships should still proceed to Liverpool as heretofore. + +Galway Bay is abundantly large enough and safe enough for steamships, +even as it is, though its security is susceptible of easy improvement. +It has abundant depth inside, but hardly twenty feet at low water on a +bar in the harbor, so that large steamships coming in would be obliged +to anchor a mile or so from the dock for high water if they did not +arrive so as to hit it, as they must now wait off the bar at Liverpool, +only much further from the dock. But what I contemplate as a beginning +is not the bringing in of the Steamships but of their Mails. Let a small +steamboat be waiting outside when a Mail Steamer is expected (as now off +the bar at Liverpool), and let the Mails and such passengers as would +like to feel the firm earth under their feet once more, be swiftly +transferred to the little boat, run up to Galway, put on an express +train, started for Dublin, and thence sent over to Holyhead, and +dispatched to London and Liverpool forthwith. Let Irish Mails for +Galway, Dublin, &c., and Scotch Mails for Glasgow be made up on our +side, and let us see, by three or four fair trials, what saving of time +could be effected by landing the Mails at Galway, and then we shall be +in a position to determine the extent and character of the permanent +changes which are required. That a saving of fully twelve hours for +England and thirty for Ireland may be secured by making Galway the +European terminus of the Atlantic Mail Route, I am very confident, while +in the calculations of those who feel a local and personal interest in +the change the saving is far greater. But this is quite enough to +justify the inconsiderable expense which the experiment I urge would +involve. + +Galway was formerly a place of far greater commerce and consequence than +it now is. It long enjoyed an extensive and profitable direct trade with +Spain, which, since the Union of Ireland with England, is entirely +transferred to London, so that not a shadow of it remains. At a later +day, it exported considerable Grain, Bacon, &c., to England, but the +general decline of Irish Industry, and the low prices of food since Free +Trade, have nearly destroyed this trade also, and there are now, except +fishing-boats, scarcely half a dozen vessels in the harbor, and of these +the two principal are a Russian from the Black Sea _selling_ Corn, to a +district whose resources are Agricultural or nothing, and a +smart-looking Yankee clipper taking in a load of emigrants and luggage +for New-York--the export of her population being about the only branch +of Ireland's commerce which yet survives the general ruin. Galway had +once 60,000 inhabitants; she may now have at most 30,000; but there is +no American seaport with 5,000 which does not far surpass her annual +aggregate of trade and industry. What should we think in America of a +seaport of at least 35,000 inhabitants, the capital of a large, populous +county, located at the head of a noble, spacious bay, looking off on the +broad Atlantic some twenty miles distant, with cities of twenty, fifty, +and a hundred thousand inhabitants within a few hours' reach on either +side of her, yet not owning a single steamboat of any shape or nature, +and not even visited by one daily, weekly, monthly, or at any stated +period? Truly, the desolation of Ireland must be witnessed or it cannot +be realized. + +I judge that of nearly thirty thousand people who live here not ten +thousand have any regular employment or means of livelihood. The +majority pick up a job when they can, but are inevitably idle and +suffering two-thirds of the time. Of course, the Million learn nothing, +have nothing, and come to nothing. They are scarcely in fault, but those +who ought to teach them, counsel them, employ them, until they shall be +qualified to employ themselves, are deplorably culpable. Here are +gentlemen and ladies of education and wealth (dozens where there were +formerly hundreds) who year after year and generation after generation +have lived in luxury on the income wrung from these poor creatures in +the shape of Rent, without ever giving them a helping hand or a kind +word in return--without even suspecting that they were under moral +obligation to do so. Here is a Priesthood, the conscience-keepers and +religious instructors of this fortunate class, who also have fared +sumptuously and amassed wealth out of the tithes wrenched by +law-sanctioned robbery from the products of this same wretched +peasantry, yet never proffered them anything in return but conversion to +the faith of their plunderers--certainly not a tempting proffer under +the circumstances. And here also is a Priesthood beloved, reverenced, +confided in by this peasantry, and loving them in return, who I think +have done far less than they might and should have done to raise them +out of the slough in which generation after generation are sinking +deeper and deeper. I speak plainly on this point, for I feel strongly. +The Catholic Priesthood of Ireland resist the education of the Peasantry +under Protestant auspices and influences, for which we will presume they +have good reason; but, in thus cutting them off from one chance of +improving their social and intellectual condition, they double their own +moral responsibility to secure the Education of the Poor in some manner +not inconsistent with the preservation of their faith. And, seeing what +I have seen and do see of the unequaled power of this Priesthood--a +power immensely greater in Ireland than in Italy, for there the Priests +are generally regarded as the allies of the tyrant and plundering class, +while here they are doubly beloved as its enemies and its victims--I +feel an undoubting conviction that simply an earnest determination of +the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland that every Catholic child in the +country shall receive a good education would secure its own fulfilment +within five years, and thenceforth for ever. Let but one generation be +well educated, and there can be no rational apprehension that their +children or grandchildren will be allowed to grow up in ignorance and +helplessness. Knowledge is self-perpetuating, self-extending. And, +dreadfully destitute as this country is, the Priesthood of the People +can command the means of educating that People, which nobody without +their cooeperation can accomplish. Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an +earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thousands +and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents, +from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign +lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without +earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which +the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every +parish would gladly proffer them. There is really no serious obstacle in +the way of this first great step toward Ireland's regeneration if the +Priesthood will zealously attempt it. + +But closely allied to this subject, and not inferior to it in +importance, stands that of Industrial Training. The Irish Peasantry are +idle, the English say truly enough; but who inquires whether there is +any work within their reach? Suppose there was always _something_ to do, +what avails that to millions who know not how to do that precise +something? Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of +Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years +old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend +roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that +labor. She answered, "Six-pence a car-load." "How long will it take you +to break a car-load?" "_About a fortnight._" Further questions +respecting her family, &c., were answered with equal directness and +propriety, and with manifest truth. Here was a mere child, who should +have been sent to school, delving from morning till night at an +employment utterly unsuited to her sex and her strength, and which I +should consider dangerous to her eyesight, to earn for her poor parents +a half-penny per day. Think of this, ye who talk, not always without +reason, of "factory slaves" and the meagre rewards of labor in America. +In any community where labor is even decently rewarded, that child +should have been enabled to earn every day at least as much as her +fortnight's work on the stone-heap would command. And even in Galway, a +concerted and systematic Industrial Education for the Poor would enable +her to earn at some light and suitable employment six times what she now +does. + +In every street of the town you constantly meet girls of fourteen to +twenty, as well as old women and children, utterly barefoot and in +ragged clothing. I should judge from the streets that not more than +one-fourth of the females of Galway belong to the shoe-wearing +aristocracy. Now no one acquainted with Human Nature will pretend that +girls of fourteen to twenty will walk the streets barefoot if the means +of buying shoes and stockings by honest labor are fairly within their +reach. But here there are none such for thousands. Born in wretched huts +of rough stone and rotten straw, compared with which the poorest +log-cabin is a palace, with a turf fire, no window, and a mass of filth +heaped up before the door, untaught even to read, and growing up in a +region where no manufactures nor arts are prosecuted, the Irish +peasant-girl arrives at womanhood less qualified by experience, +observation or training for industrial efficiency and usefulness than +the daughter of any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, not _all_ the +Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but +a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and +utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and +ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and +undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness," +which means only inability to do what one has never even _seen_ done, is +not confined to any class or nation, and should be regarded with every +allowance. + +An Industrial School, especially for girls, in every town, village and +parish of Ireland, is one of the crying needs of the time. I am +confident there are in Galway alone five thousand women and girls who +would hail with gratitude and thoroughly improve an opportunity to earn +six-pence per day. If they could be taught needle-work, plain +dressmaking, straw-braiding, and a few of the simplest branches of +manufactures, such as are carried on in households, they might and would +at once emerge from the destitution and social degradation which now +enshroud them into independence, comfort and consideration. Knowing how +to work and to earn a decent subsistence, they would very soon seek and +acquire a knowledge of letters if previously ignorant of them. In short, +the Industrial Education of the Irish Peasantry is the noblest and the +most hopeful idea yet broached for their intellectual and social +elevation, and I have great hope of its speedy triumph. It is now being +agitated in Dublin and many other localities, a central and many +auxiliary schools having already been established. But I will speak +further on this point in another letter. + +Galway has an immense and steady water-power within half a mile of its +harbor, on the outlet of Lakes Corrib and Mash, by means of which it +enjoys an admirable internal navigation extending some sixty miles +northward. Here Manufactures might be established with a certainty of +commanding the cheapest power, cheapest labor and cheapest fuel to be +had in the world. I never saw a spot where so much water power yet +unused could be obtained at so trifling a cost as here directly on the +west line of the town and within half a mile of its center. A beautiful +Marble is found on the line of the Railroad only a few miles from the +town, and all along the line to Dublin the abundance and excellence of +the building-stone are remarkable. Timber and Brick come down the Lake +outlet as fast as they are wanted, while Provisions are here cheap as in +any part of the British Isles. Nature has plainly designed Galway for a +great and prosperous city, the site of extensive manufactures, the +emporium of an important trade, and the gateway of Europe toward +America; but whether all this is or is not to be dashed by the fatality +which has hitherto attended Irish prospects, remains to be seen. I trust +that it is not, but that a new Liverpool is destined soon to arise here; +and that, should I ever again visit Europe, I shall first land on the +quay of Galway. + + + + +XLII. + +IRELAND--SOUTH. + + + DUBLIN, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 1851. + +I had hoped to see all of Ireland that is accessible by Railroad from +this city, but Time will not permit. Having remained here over Sunday, I +had only Monday left for a trip Southward, and that would just suffice +for reaching Limerick and returning without attempting Cork. So at 7 +yesterday morning I took the "Great Southern and Western Railroad," and +was set down in Limerick (130 miles) at a quarter before 1, passing +Kildare, with its "Curragh" or spacious race-ground, Maryborough and +Thurles on the way. Portarlington, Mount Melick, Mountrath and +Templemore--all considerable towns--lie a few miles from the Railroad, +on the right or west, as Naas, Cashel and Tipperary are not far from it +on the left; while another Railroad, the "Irish South-Eastern," diverges +at Kildare to Carlow, Bagnalstown and Kilkenny (146 miles from Dublin) +on the South; while from Kilkenny the "Kilkenny and Waterford" has +already been constructed to Thomastown (some 20 miles), and is to reach +Waterford, at the head of ship navigation on the common estuary at the +mouth of the Suir and Barrow, when completed. + +I left the Great Southern and Western at Limerick Junction, 107 miles S. +S. W. of Dublin, and took the crossroad from Tipperary to Limerick (30 +miles), but the main road proceeds south-westerly to Charleville, 22 1/2 +miles further, and thence leads due south to Mallow, on the Blackwater, +and then south by east to Cork, 164 1/2 miles from Dublin, while another +railroad has just been opened from Cork to Bandon, 18 3/4 miles still +further south-west, making a completed line from Dublin to Bandon, 183 1/2 +miles, with branches to Limerick, Tipperary and Kilkenny, the latter to +be continued to Waterford. In a country so easily traversed by +Railroads, and so swarming with population as Ireland, these roads +should be not only most useful but most productive to their +stockholders, but they are very far from it. Few of the peasantry can +afford to travel by them, except when leaving the country for ever, and +their scanty patches of ground produce little surplus food for +exportation, while they can afford to buy little that the Railroads +bring in. Were the population of Ireland as well fed and as enterprising +as that of New-England, with an industry as well diversified, her +Railroads would pay ten per cent, on their cost; as things now are, they +do not pay two per cent. Thus the rapacity of Capital defeats itself, +and actually impoverishes its owners when it deprives Labor of a fair +reward. If all the property-holders of Ireland would to-day combine in a +firm resolve to pay at least half a dollar per day for men's labor, and +to employ all that should present themselves, introducing new arts and +manufactures and improving their estates in order to furnish such +employment, they would not only speedily banish destitution and +ignorance from the land but they would double the value of their own +possessions. This is one of the truths which sloth, rapacity and +extravagance are slow to learn, yet which they cannot safely ignore. The +decay and ruin of nearly all the "old families" in Ireland are among the +penalties of disregarding it. + +To talk of an excess of labor, or an inability to employ it, in such a +country as Ireland, is to insult the general understanding. In the first +place, there is an immediate and urgent demand for at least Half a +Million comfortable rain-proof dwellings. The inconceivable wretched +hovels in which nine-tenths of the peasantry endure existence +inevitably engender indolence, filthiness and disease. Generation after +generation grows up ignorant and squalid from never having had a +fireside by which they could sit down to read or study, nor an example +of home comfort and cleanliness in their own class to profit by. In +those narrow, unlighted, earth-floored, straw-thatched cabins, there is +no room for the father and his sons to sit down and enjoy an evening, so +they straggle off to the nearest groggery or other den in search of the +comfort their home denies them. Of course, men who have grown up in this +way have no idea of anything better and are slow to mend; but the +personal influence of their superiors in wealth and station is very +great, and might be ten times greater if the more fortunate class would +make themselves familiar with the wants and woes, the feelings and +aspirations of the poor, and act toward them as friends and wiser +brethren, instead of seeming to regard them only as strange dogs to be +repelled or as sheep to be sheared. But the first practical point to be +struggled for is that of steady employment and just reward for labor. So +long as men's wages (without board) range from fourpence to one and +six-pence per day, and women's from a penny to six-pence (which, so far +as I can learn, are the current rates at present, and nothing to do for +half the year at any price), no radical improvement can be hoped for. A +family with nothing to do, very little to eat and only a hog-pen to live +in, will neither acquire mental expansion, moral integrity, nor habits +of neatness and industry. On the contrary, however deficient they may +originally be in these respects, they are morally certain to grow worse +so long as their circumstances remain unchanged. But draw them out of +their wretched hovel into a neat, dry, glass-lighted, comfortable +dwelling, offer them work at all seasons, and a fair recompense for +doing it, and you will have at least rendered improvement possible. The +feasibility of cleanliness will instill the love of it, at least in the +younger members; the opportunity of earning will awaken the instinct of +saving as well as the desire to maintain a comely appearance in the eyes +of friends and neighbors. The laborer, well paid, will naturally be +adequately fed, and both able and willing to perform thrice the work per +day he now does or can; seeing the more efficient often step above them +to posts better paid and more respected, the dullest workers will aspire +to greater knowledge and skill in order that they too may attain more +eligible positions. "It is the first step that costs"--the others follow +almost of course. If the Aristocracy of Ireland would unitedly resolve +that every individual in the land should henceforth have constant work +and just recompense, the outlay involved need not be great and the +return would be abundant and certain. They have ample water-power for a +thousand factories, machine-shops, foundries, &c., which has run to +waste since creation, and can never bring them a dollar while Irish +Industry remains as rude, ill-paid and inefficient as it now is. Every +dollar wisely spent in improving this power will add two to the value of +their estates. So they have stone-quarries of immense value all over the +island which never produced anything and never will while the millions +live in hovels and confine their attention to growing oats and potatoes +for a subsistence. Agriculture alone and especially such Agriculture, +can never adequately employ the people; when the Oats and Potatoes have +been harvested, the peasant has very little to do but eat them until the +season for planting them returns. But introduce a hundred new arts and +processes--let each village have its mechanics, each county its +manufacturers of the various wares and fabrics really needed in the +country, and the excess of work done over the present aggregate would +speedily transform general poverty into general competence. The Six +Millions of People in Ireland are doing far less work this year than the +Three Millions of New-England, although the Irish in New-England are at +least as industrious and efficient as the natives. They work well +everywhere but at home, because they everywhere else find the more +powerful class ready to employ them, instruct them, pay them. In Ireland +alone are they required to work for six pence to eighteen pence per day, +and even at these rates stand idle half the year for want of anything to +do; so that the rent which they would readily double (for better +tenements) if they were fully employed and fairly paid, now benumbs and +crushes them, and their little patches of land, which ought to be in the +highest degree productive, are often the worst cultivated of any this +side of the Alps. Ignorance, want, and hopelessness have paralysed their +energies, and the consequent decay of the Peasantry has involved most of +the Aristocracy in the general ruin. The Encumbered Estates Commission +is now rapidly passing the soil of Ireland out of the hands of its +bankrupt landlords into those of a new generation. May these be wise +enough to profit by the warning before them, and by uniting to elevate +the condition of the Laboring Millions place their own prosperity on a +solid and lasting foundation! + + +GENERAL ASPECTS. + +The South of Ireland is decidedly more fertile and inviting than the +North or West. There is a deeper, richer soil, with far less stone on +the level low lands. The railroad from Dublin to Limerick runs +throughout over a level plain, and though it passes from the valley of +the Liffey across those of the Barrow, the Durrow and the Suir to that +of the Shannon, no perceptible ridge is crossed, no tunnel traversed, +and very little rock-cutting or embankment required. Although the +highways are often carried over the track at an absurd expense, while +the principal depots are made to cost thrice what they should, I still +cannot account for the great outlay on Irish railroads. They would have +been built at one-half the cost in the States, where the wages of labor +are thrice as much as here: who pockets the difference? Of course, there +is stealing in the assessment of land damages; but so there is +everywhere. When I was in Galway, a case was tried in which a +proprietor, whose bog was crossed by the Midland Railroad, sued the +company for more than the Appraisers had awarded him, and it was proved +on the trial that his bog, utterly worthless before, had been partially +drained and considerably increased in value by the railroad. There seems +to be no conscience in exacting damages of those who invest their money, +often most reluctantly, in railroads, of which the main benefits are +universal. In Ireland they have palpably and greatly benefited every +class but the stockholders, and these they have well nigh ruined. + +There are fewer remains of dwellings recently "cleared" and thrown down +in the South than in the West of Ireland; though they are not unknown +here; but I saw no new ones going up, save in immediate connection with +the Railroads, in either section. If Government, Society and Ideas are +to remain as they have been, the country may be considered absolutely +finished, with nothing more to do but decay. I trust, however, that a +new leaf is about to be turned over; still, it is mournful to pass +through so fine a country and see how the hand of death has transfixed +it. Even Limerick, at the head of ship navigation on the glorious +estuary of the Shannon, with steamboat navigation through the heart of +this populous kingdom for sixty or eighty miles above it, shows scarcely a +recent building except the Railroad Depot and the Union Poor-House, while +its general aspect is that of stagnation, decline and decay. The smaller +towns between it and Dublin have a like gloomy appearance--Kildare, with +with its deserted "Curragh" and its towering ruins, looking most dreary +of all. Happy is the Irishman who, in a new land and amid the activities +and hopes which it inspires, is spared the daily contemplation of his +country's ruin. + +And yet there are brighter shades to the picture. Nature, ever buoyant +and imperative, does her best to remedy the ills created by "Man's +inhumanity to Man." The South of Ireland seems far better wooded than +either the North or West, and thrifty young forests and tree plantations +soften the gloom which unroofed and ruinous cabins would naturally +suggest. Though the Railroad runs wholly through a tame, dull level +sweeping ranges of hills appear at intervals on either side, exhibiting +a lovely alternation of cultivation, grass and forest, to the delighted +traveler. The Hay crop is badly saved so far, and some that has been cut +several days is still under the weather, while a good deal, though long +ripe, remains uncut; the Wheat looks to me thin and uneven; Oats (the +principal grain here) are short and generally poor; but I never saw the +Potato more luxuriant or promising, and the area covered with this noble +root is most extensive. The poor have a fashion of planting in _beds_ +three to six feet wide, with narrow alleys between; which, though +involving extra labor, must insure a large yield, and presents a most +luxuriant appearance. Little Rye was sown, but that little is very good; +Barley is suffering from the stormy weather, but is quite thrifty. Yet +there is much arable land either wholly neglected or only yielding a +little grass, while I perceive even less bog undergoing reclamation than +in the West. I did not anticipate a tour of pleasure through Ireland, +but the reality is more painful than I anticipated. Of all I have seen +at work in the fields to-day, cutting and carrying turf, hoeing +potatoes, shaking out Hay, &c., at least one-third were women. If I +could believe that their fathers and husbands were in America, clearing +lands and erecting cabins for their future homes, I should not regret +this. But the probability is that only a few of them are there or +hopefully employed anywhere, while hundreds of neglected, weedy, +unpromising patches of cultivation show that, narrow as the holdings +mainly are, they are yet often unskillfully cultivated. The end of this +is of course ejectment, whence the next stage is the Union Work-House. +Alas! unhappy Ireland! + + + + +XLIII. + +PROSPECTS OF IRELAND. + + + DUBLIN, Tuesday, August 5, 1851. + +Of Irish stagnation, Irish unthrift, Irish destitution, Irish misery, +the world has heard enough. I could not wholly avoid them without giving +an essentially false and deceptive account of what must be painfully +obvious to every traveler in Ireland; yet I have chosen to pass them +over lightly and hurriedly, and shall not recur to them. They are in the +main sufficiently well known to the civilized world, and, apart from +suggestions of amendment, their contemplation can neither be pleasant +nor profitable. I will only add here that though, in spite of Poor Laws +and Union Poor-Houses, there are still much actual want, suffering and +beggary in Ireland, yet the beggars here are by no means so numerous nor +so importunate as in Italy, though the excuses for mendicity are far +greater. What I propose now to bring under hasty review are the +principal plans for the removal of Ireland's woes and the conversion of +her myriads of paupers into independent and comfortable laborers. I +shall speak of these in succession, beginning with the oldest and +closing with the newest that has come under my observation. And first, +then, of + + +REPEAL. + +The hope of obtaining from the British Crown and Parliament the +concession of a separate Legislature of their own seems nearly to have +died out of the hearts of the Irish millions. The death of O'Connell +deprived the measure of its mightiest advocate; Famine and other +disasters followed; and fresher projects of amelioration have since to a +great extent supplanted it in the popular mind. Yet it is to-day most +palpable that such a Legislature is of the highest moment to the +National well-being, and that its concession would work the greatest +good to Ireland without injury to England. Nay; I see fresh reasons for +my hope that such concession is far nearer than is generally imagined. + +On all hands it is perceived and conceded that the amount of legislation +required by the vast, widely scattered and diversely constituted +portions of the British Empire is too great to be properly affected by +any deliberative body. Parliament is just closing a long session, yet +leaving very much of its proper business untouched for want of time, and +that pertaining to Ireland is especially neglected. Then it has just +passed a most unwise and irritating act with regard to the titles of the +Catholic Prelates, which, because every act of Parliament must extend to +Ireland unless that country is expressly excluded, is allowed to operate +there, though the bad reasons given for its enactment at all have no +application to that country, while the mischiefs it will do there are +ten times greater than all it can effect in Great Britain. Had Ireland a +separate Parliament, no British Minister would have been mad enough to +propose the extension of this act over that country, where it is certain +to excite disaffection and disloyalty, arouse slumbering hatreds, and +impede the march of National and Social improvement. An Irish +Parliament, with specified powers and duties akin to those of an +American State Legislature, would be a great relief to a British +Parliament and Ministry, a great support to Irish loyalty and Irish +improvement, and no harm to anybody. These truths seem to me so palpable +that I think they cannot long be disregarded, but that some one of the +Political changes frequently occurring in Great Britain will secure to +Ireland a restoration of her domestic Legislature. Neither Canada, +Jamaica nor any other British colony can show half so good reasons for a +domestic Legislature. + + +TENANT-RIGHT. + +The agitation for Tenant-Right in Ireland is destined to fail--in fact, +has virtually failed already. The Imperial Parliament will never concede +that right, nor will any Legislature similarly constituted. And yet the +demand has the clearest and strongest basis of natural and eternal +justice, as any fair mind must confess. What is that demand? Simply that +the creator of a new value shall be legally entitled to that value, or, +in case he is required to surrender it to another, shall be paid a fair +and just equivalent therefor. Here is a farm, for instance, whereof one +man is recognised by law as the owner, and he lets it for three lives or +a specific term of years to a tenant-cultivator for ten, fifteen or +twenty shillings per acre. The tenant occupies it, cultivates it, pays +the rent and improves it. At the close of his term, he is found to have +built a good house on it instead of the old rookery he found there, +while by fencing, draining, manuring and subsoiling he has doubled its +productive capacity, and consequently its annual value. He wishes to +cultivate it still, and offers to renew the lease for any number of +years, and pay the rent punctually. "But no," says the landlord, "you +must pay twice as much rent as hitherto." "Why so?" "Because the land is +more valuable than it was when you took it." "Certainly it is; but that +value is wholly the fruit of my labor--it has cost you nothing." "Can't +help that, Sir; you improved for your own benefit, and with a full +knowledge that the additional value would revert to me on the +expiration of your lease; so pay my price or clear out!"--Is this right? +The law says Yes; but Justice says No; Public Good says even more +imperatively No. The laws of the land should encourage every occupier to +improve the land he holds, to expend capital and employ labor upon it, +so as to increase its value and productive capacity from year to year; +but the law of the British Empire discourages improvement and impedes +the employment of labor by taking the product from the producer and +giving it arbitrarily to the landlord. Yet the landlord influence in +Parliament is so predominant, so overwhelming, that no repeal, no +mitigation even, of this great wrong is probable; and every demand for +it is overborne by a senseless outcry against Agrarianism. Still, the +agitation for Tenant-Right does good by imbuing the popular mind with +some idea of the monster evil and wrong of the Monopoly of Land--an idea +which will not always remain unfruitful. + + +EMIGRATION. + +Emigration is now proceeding with gigantic strides, and is destined for +some time to continue. I think a full third of the present population of +Ireland are anxious to leave their native land, and will do so if they +shall ever have the means before better prospects are opened to them. +Packet-ships are constantly loading with emigrants at all the principal +ports, while thousands are flocking monthly to Liverpool to find ready +and cheap conveyance to America. But this emigration, however advisable +for the departing, does little for those left behind, and is in the main +detrimental to the country. The energetic, the daring, the high-spirited +go, leaving the residue more abject and nerveless than ever. If Two +Millions more were to leave the country next year, the condition of the +remainder would not be essentially improved. Over population is not a +leading cause of Ireland's present miseries. + + +EDUCATION. + +Rudimental knowledge is being slowly diffused in Ireland, in spite of +the serious impediments interposed by Religious jealousy and bigotry. +But this remedy, as now applied, does not reach the seat of the disease. +They are mainly the better class of poor children who are educated in +the National and other elementary schools; the most depraved, benighted, +degraded, are still below their reach. The destitute, hungry, +unemployed, unclad, despairing, cannot or do not send their children to +school; the wife and mother who must work daily in the turf-bog or +potato-field for a few pence per day must keep her older child at home +to mind the younger ones in her absence. Education, in its larger, truer +meaning, is the great remedy for Ireland's woes; but until the parents +have steadier employment and a juster recompense the general education +of the children is impracticable. + + +ENCUMBERED ESTATES. + +The act authorizing and requiring the sale of irredeemably Encumbered +Estates in Ireland is one of the best which a British Parliament has +passed in many years. Under its operation, a large portion of the soil +is rapidly passing from the nominal ownership of bankrupts wholly unable +and unqualified to improve it into those of new proprietors who, it may +fairly be hoped, will generally be able to improve it, giving employment +to more labor and increasing the annual product. The benefits of this +change, however, can be but slowly realized, and are for the present +hardly perceptible. + + +IRISH MANUFACTURES. + +Within the past few months, a very decided interest has been awakened in +the minds of enlightened and patriotic Irishmen in Dublin and other +places, with regard to the importance and possibility of establishing +various branches of Household Manufactures throughout the country. It is +manifest that the general cheapness of Labor and Food, the facilities +now enjoyed for communication, not only with Great Britain, but with all +Europe and America also, and the extraordinary amount of unemployed and +undeveloped capacity in Ireland, render the introduction of Manufactures +at once eminently desirable and palpably feasible. Even though nothing +could be immediately earned thereby, the simple diffusion of industrial +skill and efficiency which must ensue from such introduction would be an +inestimable gain to the peasantry of Ireland. But allow that all the +idle poor of this island could in six months be taught how to earn six +pence each per day, the aggregate benefit to the Irish and to mankind +would be greater than that of all the gold mines yet discovered. The +Poorhouse Unions could be nearly emptied in a year, and this whole +population comfortably fed, clad and housed within the next three years. +A beginning must be made with the simplest or household manufactures, +for want of means to establish the more complex, costly and efficient +branches, which require extensive Machinery and aggregation of Laborers; +but if the first step be successfully taken, others are certain to +follow. With abundant water-power and inexhaustible beds of fuel yet +untouched, it is demonstrable that Manufactures of Cotton and Woolen, as +well as Linen, might be prosecuted in Ireland even cheaper than in +England, though the average recompense of Labor should thereby be +doubled. + +The first impulse to the Manufacture movement appears to have been given +by Mr. Thomas Mooney, a gentleman well known to his countrymen +throughout the United States, whence he returned some eighteen months +ago. Primarily at his suggestion, a "Parent Board of Irish Manufacture" +was organized in Dublin several months since, funds collected by +voluntary subscription, an office opened, and a central school +established, with a view to the qualification of teachers for the +superintendence of auxiliary schools throughout the country. The +enterprise was proceeding vigorously and with daily increasing momentum +when Dissension, the evil genius of Ireland, broke out among its leading +supporters, which has resulted in the division of the original Society +into two, one of them sustaining Mr. Mooney and the other claiming to +have taken the movement entirely out of his hands. Thus the case stands +at present, but thus I trust it will not long remain. The enterprise is +one of the most feasible and hopeful of the many that have been +undertaken for the benefit of Ireland, and affords ample scope and +occupation for all who may see fit to labor for its success. I trust +that all differences will speedily be harmonized, and that the friends +of the movement, once more united, may urge it forward to a most +complete and beneficent triumph. + + +PEAT MANUFACTURE. + +The Peat Bogs of Ireland cover some Three Millions of Acres of its +surface, mainly in the heart of the country, though extending into every +part of it. Perhaps One Hundred Thousand Acres, chiefly in the +north-east, have been brought into cultivation; of the residue, some +yields a little sour pasturage, but the greater portion is of no use +whatever, save as it supplies a very poor but cheap fuel to the +peasantry. These bogs are of all depths from a few inches to thirty or +forty feet, though the very shallow have generally been reclaimed. This +is effected in some cases by removing the Peat or Turf altogether; but +sometimes, where it is quite deep, by ditching and draining it, and then +cutting and heaping up some six to twelve inches at the top, so that it +can be thoroughly burned, and the ashes spread over the entire surface +for a soil. This is not so deep as could be desired, but the climate is +so uniformly moist and the skies so rarely unclouded that it suffices to +insure very tolerable crops thereafter. + +I do not know how the origin of these Bogs is accounted for by the +learned, but I presume the land they cover was originally a dense +forest, and that the Peat commenced growing as a sort of moss or fungus, +carpeting the ground and preventing the germination of any more trees. +In the course of ten or fifteen centuries, the forest trees (mainly of +Oak or Fir) decayed and fell into the Peat, which, dying at the top, +continued to grow at the bottom, while the perpetual moisture of the +climate prevented its destruction by fire. Thus the forest gradually +disappeared, and the Peat alone remained, gaining a foot in depth in the +course of two or three centuries until it slowly reached its present +condition. + +Many efforts have been made to render this Peat available as a basis of +Manufacture and Commerce, but hitherto with little success. The +magnificent chemical discoveries heralded some two years ago, whereby +each bog was to be transformed into a mimic California, have not endured +the rough test of practical experience. There is no doubt that Peat +contains all the valuable elements therein set forth--Carbon, Ammonia, +Stearine, Tar, &c., but unfortunately it has hitherto cost more to +extract them than they will sell for in market; so the high-raised +expectations of 1849 have been temporarily blasted, like a great many +predecessors. + +But further chemical investigations have resulted in new discoveries, +which, it is confidently asserted, render the future success of the Peat +Charcoal manufacture a matter of demonstrable certainty. A company has +just been organized in London, under commanding auspices, which proposes +to embark L500,000 directly and L1,000,000 ultimately in Peat-Works, +having secured the exclusive right of using the newly patented +processes of Messrs. J. S. Gwynne and J. J. Hays, which are pronounced +exceedingly important and valuable. By a combination of these patented +processes, it is calculated that the company will be able to manufacture +from the inexhaustible Bogs of Ireland, 1. Peat Coal, or solidified +Peat, of intense calorific power, exceedingly cheap, almost as dense as +Bituminous Coal, while absolutely free from Gases injurious to metals as +well as from "clinker," and therefore especially valuable for +Locomotives and for innumerable applications in the arts; 2. Peat +Charcoal, thoroughly carbonized, of compact and heavy substance, free +from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for +fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply +as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible +into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of +Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of +abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have +six working stations in different parts of the country, professing its +ability to manufacture for 14s. per tun, Peat Charcoal readily selling +in London for 45s., while they expect to realize 5s. worth of Tar, +Ammonia, &c., with every tun of Charcoal, while on Solidified Peat they +anticipate still larger profits. These may be very greatly reduced by +practical experience without affecting the vital point, that sagacious +and scrutinizing capitalists have been found willing to invest their +money in an enterprise which, if it succeeds at all, must secure +illimitable employment to Labor in Ireland and strongly tend to increase +its average reward. + + +BEET SUGAR. + +A similar Company, with a like capital, has also been formed to +prosecute extensively in Ireland the manufacture of Beet Sugar, and +this can hardly be deemed an experiment. That the Sugar Beet grows +luxuriously here I can personally bear witness; indeed, I doubt whether +there is a soil or climate better adapted to it in the world. That the +Beet grown in Ireland yields a very large proportion of Sugar is +attested by able chemists; that the manufacture of Beet Sugar is +profitable, its firm establishment and rapid extension in France, +Belgium, &c., abundantly prove. The Irish Company have secured the +exclusive use of two recently patented inventions, whereby they claim to +be able to produce a third more sugar than has hitherto been obtained, +and of a quality absolutely undistinguishable from the best Cane Sugar. +They say they can make it at a profit of fully twenty-five per cent. +after paying an excise of L10 per tun to the Government, working their +mills all the year (drying their roots for use in months when they +cannot otherwise be fit for manufacture). Mr. Wm. K. Sullivan, Chemist +to the Museum of Irish Industry, states that the Beet Sugar manufactured +in France has increased from 51,000 tuns in 1840 to more than 100,000 +tuns in 1850, in defiance of a large increase in the excise levied +thereon--that the average production of Sugar Beet is in Ireland 15 tuns +per acre, against less than 11 tuns in France and Germany--that each +acre of Beets will yield 4 1/2 tuns (green) of tops or leaves, worth 7s. +6d. per tun for feeding cattle, making the clear profit on the +cultivation of the Beet, at 15s. per tun, over L5 per acre--that there +is no shadow of difference between the Sugar of the Beet and that of the +Cane, all the difference popularly supposed to exist being caused by the +existence of foreign substances in one or both--that Irish roots +generally, and Beet roots especially, contain considerably _more_ Sugar +than those grown on the Continent--and that Beet Sugar may be made in +Ireland (without reference to the newly patented processes from which +the Company expect such great advantages) at a very handsome profit. As +the soil and climate of Ireland are at least equal to, and the Labor +decidedly cheaper than, that employed in the same pursuit on the +Continent, while Ireland herself, wretched as she is, consumes over two +thousand tuns of Sugar per annum, and Great Britain, some twenty-five +thousand tuns--every pound of it imported--I can perceive no reasonable +basis for a doubt that the Beet Culture and Sugar Manufacture will +speedily be naturalized in Ireland, and that they will give employment +and better wages at all seasons to many thousands of her sons. + +Such are some of the grounds of my hope that the deepest wretchedness of +this unhappy country has been endured--that her depopulation will +speedily be arrested, and that better days are in store for her +long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and +Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages +of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to +eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and +Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are +beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said +less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's +calamities, it is because I would rather draw attention to practical +though slow remedies than invoke fruitless indignation against the +wrongs which have rendered them necessary. Peace and Concord are the +great primary needs of Ireland--Peace between her warring +Churches--Concord between her rulers and landlords on one side and her +destitute and desperate Millions on the other. I wish the latter had +sufficient courage and self-trust to demand and enforce emancipation +from the Political and Social vassalage in which they are held; to +demand not merely Tenant-Right but a restitution of the broad lands +wrested from their ancestors by fire and sword--not merely equal rights +with Englishmen in Church and State, but equal right also to judge +whether the existing Union of the two islands is advantageous to +themselves, and if not, to insist that it be made so or cease +altogether. But Ireland has suffered too long and too deeply for this; +her emancipation is now possible only through the education and social +elevation of her People. This is a slow process, but earnest hearts and +united minds will render it a sure one. If the Irish but will and work +for it, the close of this century will find them a Nation of Ten +Millions, with their Industry as diversified, their Labor, as efficient, +its Recompense as liberal, and their general condition as thrifty and +comfortable as those of any other Nation. Thus circumstanced, they could +no longer be treated as the appendage of an Empire, the heritage of a +Crown, the conquest of a selfish and domineering Race, but must be +accounted equals with the inhabitants of the Sister Isle in Civil and +Religious Rights or break the connection without internal discord and +almost without a struggle. There shall yet be an Ireland to which her +sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with +sadness; but alas! who can say how soon! + + + + +XLIV. + +THE ENGLISH. + + + LIVERPOOL, Wednesday, August 6, 1851. + +I do not wholly like these cold and stately English, yet I think I am +not blind to their many sterling qualities. The greatness of England, it +is quite confidently asserted, is based upon her conquests and +plunderings--on her immense Commerce and unlimited Foreign Possessions. +I think otherwise. The English have qualities which would have rendered +them wealthy and powerful though they had been located in the center of +Asia instead of on the western coast of Europe. I do not say that these +qualities could have been developed in Central Asia, but if they _had_ +been, they would have insured to their possessors a commanding position. +Personally, the English do not attract nor shine; but collectively they +are a race to make their mark on the destinies of mankind. + +In the first place, they are eminently _industrious_. I have seen no +country in which the proportion of idlers is smaller. I think American +labor is more efficient, day to day or hour to hour, than British; but +we have the larger proportion of non-producers--petty clerks in the +small towns, men who live by their wits, loungers about barrooms, &c. +There is here a small class of wealthy idlers (not embracing nearly +_all_ the wealthy, nor of the Aristocracy, by any means), and a more +numerous class of idle paupers or criminals; but Work is the general +rule, and the idlers constitute but a small proportion of the whole +population. Great Britain is full of wealth, not entirely but mainly +because her people are constantly producing. All that she has plundered +in a century does not equal the new wealth produced by her people every +year. + +The English are eminently devotees of _Method_ and _Economy_. I never +saw the rule, "A place for everything, and everything in its place," so +well observed as here. The reckless and the prodigal are found here as +every where else, but they are marked exceptions. Nine-tenths of those +who have a competence know what income they have, and are careful not to +spend more. A Duchess will say to a mere acquaintance, "I cannot afford" +a proposed outlay--an avowal rarely and reluctantly made by an American, +even in moderate circumstances. She means simply that other demands upon +her income are such as to forbid the contemplated expenditure, though +she could of course afford this if she did not deem those of prior +consequence. No Englishman is ashamed to be economical, nor to have it +known that he is so. Whether his annual expenditure be fifty pounds or +fifty thousand, he tries to get his money's worth. I have been +admonished and instructed by the systematic economy which is practiced +even in great houses. You never see a lighted candle set down carelessly +and left to burn an hour or two to no purpose, as is so common with us; +if you leave one burning, some one speedily comes and quietly +extinguishes the flame. Said a friend: "You never see any paper in the +streets here as you do in New-York [swept out of the stores, &c.] the +English throw nothing away." We speak of the vast parks and lawns of the +Aristocracy as so much land taken out of use and devoted to mere +ostentation; but all that land is growing timber or furnishing +pasturage--often both. The owner gratifies his taste or his pride by +reserving it from cultivation, but he does not forget the main chance. +So of his Fisheries and even Game-Preserves. Of course, there _are_ +noblemen who would scorn to sell their Venison or Partridges; but Game +is abundant in the hotels and refectories--too much so for half of it to +have been obtained by poaching. Few whose estates might yield them ten +thousand a year are content with nine thousand. + +The English are eminently a _practical_ people. They have a living faith +in the potency of the Horse-Guards, and in the maxim that "Safe bind is +sure find." They have a sincere affection for roast beef. They are quite +sure "the mob" will do no harm if it is vigilantly watched and +thoroughly overawed. Their obstreperous loyalty might seem inconsistent +with this unideal character, but it is only seeming. When the portly and +well-to-do Briton vociferates "God save the Queen!" with intense +enthusiasm, he means "God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my +consols, my expectations." The fervor of an Englishman's loyalty is +usually in a direct ratio with the extent of his material possessions. +The poor like the Queen personally, and like to gaze at royal pageantry; +but they are not fanatically loyal. One who has seen Gen. Jackson or +Harry Clay publicly enter New-York or any other city finds it hard to +realize that the acclamations accorded on like occasions to Queen +Victoria can really be deemed enthusiastic. + +_Gravity_ is a prominent feature of the English character. A hundred +Englishmen of any class, forgathered for any purpose of conference or +recreation, will have less merriment in the course of their sitting than +a score of Frenchmen or Americans would have in a similar time. Hence it +is generally remarked that the English of almost any class show to least +advantage when attempting to enjoy themselves. They are as awkward at a +frolic as a bear at a dance. Their manner of expressing themselves is +literal and prosaic; the American tendency to hyperbole and exaggeration +grates harshly on their ears. They can only account for it by a +presumption of ill breeding on the part of the utterer. Forward lads +and "fast" people are scarce and uncurrent here. A Western "screamer," +eager to fight or drink, to run horses or shoot for a wager, and +boasting that he had "the prettiest sister, the likeliest wife and the +ugliest dog in all Kentuck," would be no where else so out of place and +incomprehensible as in this country, no matter in what circle of +society. + +The _Women_ of England, of whatever rank, studiously avoid peculiarities +of dress or manner and repress idiosyncrasies of character. No where +else that I have ever been could so keen an observer as Pope have +written: + + "Nothing so true as what you once let fall; + Most women have no character at all." + +Each essays to think, appear and speak as nearly according to the +orthodox standard of Womanhood as possible. Hardly one who has any +reputation to save could tolerate the idea of attending a Woman's Rights +Convention or appearing in a Bloomer any more than that of standing on +her head in the Haymarket or walking a tight-rope across the pit of +Drury Lane. So far as I can judge, the ideas which underlie the Woman's +Rights movement are not merely repugnant but utterly inconceivable to +the great mass of English women, the last Westminster Review to the +contrary notwithstanding. + +I do not judge whether they are better or worse for this. Their +conversation is certainly tamer and less piquant than that of the +American or the French ladies. I think it evinces a less profound and +varied culture than that of their German sisters; but none will deny +them the possession of sterling and amiable qualities. Their physical +development is unsurpassed, and for good reasons--their climate is mild +and they take more exercise than our women do. Their fullness of bust is +a topic of general admiration among the foreigners now so plentiful in +England, and their complexions are marvelously fair and delicate. +Except by a very few in Ireland, I have not seen them equaled. And, on +the whole, I do not know that there are better mothers than the English, +especially of the middle classes. + +I did not find the Aristocracy so remarkable for physical perfection and +beauty as I had been taught to expect. Some of them are large, well +formed and vigorous; but I think the caste is not noticeably so. Among +the ladies of "gentle blood," however, there is more of the asserted +aristocratic symmetry and beauty than among the men. + +The general stiffness of English manners has often been noted. Not that +a gentleman is aught but a gentleman anywhere, but courtesy is certainly +not the Englishman's best point. No where else will a perplexed stranger +inquiring his way receive more surly answers or oftener be refused any +answer at all than in London. Even the policeman who is paid to direct +you, replies to your inquiry with the shortest and gruffest monosyllable +that will do. + +Awkwardness of manner pervades all classes; the most thoroughly natural, +modest and easy mannered man I met was a Duke, whose ancestors had been +dukes for many generations; but some of the most elaborately ill bred +men I met also inherited titles of nobility. And, while I have been +thrown into the company of Englishmen of all ranks who were cordial, +kind, and every way models of good breeding, I have also met here more +constitutionally arrogant and, unbearable persons than had crossed my +path in all my previous experience. These, too, are found in all ranks; +I think the Military service exhibits some of the worst specimens. But +Bull in authority anywhere is apt to exhibit his horns to those whom he +suspects of being nobodies. Elevation is unpropitious to the display of +his more amiable qualities. + +I have elsewhere spoken of the indifferent figure made by most +Englishmen at public speaking. Many of them say good things; hardly one +delivers them aptly or gracefully. Any Frenchman having Lord Granville's +brains would make a great deal more out of them in a speech. I attribute +this National defect to two causes; first, the habitually prosaic level +of British thought and conversation; next, the intense pride which is +also a National characteristic. John is called out at a festive +gathering, and springs to his feet really intending to be clever. But +the next moment the thought strikes him--"This is beneath my dignity, +after all. Why should I subject myself to miscellaneous criticism? Why +put myself on the verdict of this crowd? Does it become a gentleman of +my standing to fish for their plaudits? What will success amount to, if +attained?" Or else he criticises his own thoughts and meditated forms of +expression, pronounces them tame, trite or feeble, and recoils from +their enunciation as unworthy of his abilities, position and reputation. +The result is the same in either case--he hesitates, blunders, chokes, +and finally stammers out a few sentences and subsides into his seat, +sweating at every pore, red-faced with chagrin, vexed with himself and +every body else on account of his failure, which might not have +occurred, and certainly would not have been so palpable, had his +self-consciousness been less diseased and extravagant. + +I have said that the British are not in manner a winning people. Their +self-conceit is the principal reason. They have solid and excellent +qualities, but their self-complacency is exorbitant and unparalleled. +The majority are not content with esteeming Marlborough and Wellington +the greatest Generals and Nelson the first Admiral the world ever saw, +but claim alike supremacy for their countrymen in every field of human +effort. They deem Machinery and Manufactures, Railroads and Steamboats, +essentially British products. They regard Morality and Philanthropy as +in effect peculiar to "the fast anchored isle," and Liberty as an idea +uncomprehended, certainly unrealized, any where else. They are +horror-stricken at the toleration of Slavery in the United States, in +seeming ignorance that our Congress has no power to abolish it and that +their Parliament, which _had_ ample power, refused to exercise it +through generations down to the last quarter of a century. They cannot +even consent to go to Heaven on a road common to other nations, but must +seek admission through a private gate of their own, stoutly maintaining +that their local Church is the very one founded by the Apostles, and +that all others are more or less apostate and schismatic. Other Nations +have their weak points--the French, Glory; the Spaniards, Orthodoxy; the +Yankees, Rapacity; but Bull plunders India and murders Ireland, yet +deems himself the mirror of Beneficence and feeds his self-righteousness +by resolving not to fellowship slaveholders of a different fashion from +himself; he is perpetually fighting and extending his possessions all +over the globe, yet wondering that French and Russian ambition _will_ +keep the world always in hot water. Our Yankee self-conceit and +self-laudation are immoderate; but nobody else is so perfect on all +points--himself being the judge--as Bull. + +There is one other aspect of the British character which impressed me +unfavorably. Everything is conducted here with a sharp eye to business. +For example, the manufacturing and trafficking classes are just now +enamored of Free Trade--that is, freedom to buy raw staples and sell +their fabrics all over the world--from which they expect all manner of +National and individual benefits. In consequence, these classes seize +every opportunity, however unsuitable, to commend that policy to the +strangers now among them as dictated by wisdom, philanthropy and +beneficence, and to stigmatize its opposite as impelled by narrow-minded +selfishness and only upheld by prejudice and ignorance. The French widow +who appended to the high-wrought eulogium engraved on her husband's +tombstone that "His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop No 16 Rue +St. Denis," had not a keener eye to business than these apostles of the +Economic faith. No consideration of time or place is regarded; in +festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where +men of various lands and views are notoriously congregated, and where no +reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the +attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to +interlard their harangues with advice to foreigners substantially +thus--"N. B. Protection is a great humbug and great waste. Better +abolish your tariffs, stop your factories and buy at our shops. We're +the boys to give you thirteen pence for every shilling." I cannot say +how this affected others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered +than impolitic. + +Yet the better qualities in the English character decidedly +preponderate. Naturally, this people love justice, manly dealing, fair +play; and though I think the shop-keeping attitude is unfavorable to +this tendency, it has not effaced it. The English have too much pride to +be tricky or shabby, even in the essentially corrupting relation of +buyer and seller. And the Englishman who may be repulsive in his +out-of-door intercourse or spirally inclined in his dealings, is +generally tender and truthful in his home. There only is he seen to the +best advantage. When the day's work is over and the welcome shelter of +his domestic roof is attained, he husks off his formality with his +great-coat and appears to his family and his friends in a character +unknown to the outer world. The quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of +an English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. These Britons, like +our own people, are by nature not demonstrative; they do not greet their +wives before strangers with a kiss, on returning from the day's +business, as a Frenchman may do; and if very glad to see you on +meeting, they are not likely to say so in words; but they cherish warm +emotions under a hard crust of reserve and shyness, and lavish all their +wealth of affection on the little band collected within the magic circle +of Home. Said an American who had spent two years as a public lecturer +throughout Great Britain: "Circumstances have introduced me favorably to +the intimacy and regard of many English families, and I can scarcely +recollect one which was not in its own sphere, a model household." My +own opportunities have been very limited, yet so far as they go they +tend to maintain the justice of this remark. There are of course +exceptions, but they would be more abundant elsewhere. And I regard the +almost insuperable obstacles here interposed to the granting of +Divorces, no matter on what grounds, as one cause of the general harmony +and happiness of English homes. + +But I must not linger. The order to embark is given; our good ship +Baltic is ready; another hour and I shall have left England and this +Continent, probably for ever. With a fervent good-bye to the friends I +leave on this side of the Atlantic, I turn my steps gladly and proudly +toward my own loved Western home--toward the land wherein Man enjoys +larger opportunities than elsewhere to develop the better and the worse +aspects of his nature, and where Evil and Good have a freer course, a +wider arena for their inevitable struggles, than is allowed them among +the heavy fetters and cast-iron forms of this rigid and wrinkled Old +World. Doubtless, those struggles will long be arduous and trying: +doubtless, the dictates of Duty will there often bear sternly away from +the halcyon bowers of Popularity; doubtless, he who would be singly and +wholly right must there encounter ordeals as severe as those which here +try the souls of the would-be champions of Progress and Liberty. But +Political Freedom, such as white men enjoy in the United States, and +the mass do not enjoy in Europe, not even in Britain, is a basis for +confident and well-grounded hope; the running stream, though turbid, +tends ever to self-purification; the obstructed, stagnant pool grows +daily more dank and loathsome. Believing most firmly in the ultimate and +perfect triumph of Good over Evil, I rejoice in the existence and +diffusion of that Liberty which, while it intensifies the contest, +accelerates the consummation. Neither blind to her errors nor a pander +to her vices, I rejoice to feel that every hour henceforth till I see +her shores must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, +whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has taught me +to appreciate more clearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a +glow of unwonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward +the setting sun, and strive to realize that only some ten days separate +me from those I know and love best on earth. Hark! the last gun +announces that the mail-boat has left us, and that we are fairly afloat +on our ocean journey: the shores of Europe recede from our vision; the +watery waste is all around us; and now, with God above and Death below, +our gallant bark and her clustered company together brave the dangers of +the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy watch over our onward path and bring +us safely to our several homes; for to die away from home and kindred +seems one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. This mortal +tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean shroud; this spirit reluctantly +resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine; these eyes close +regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospitality of the sullen +and stormy main. No! let me see once more the scenes so well remembered +and beloved; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of Friendship and +hear the thrilling accents of proved Affection, and when sooner or later +the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes +that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that +congenial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or hated, is still + + "My own green land forever!" + + +THE END. + + + + + +-------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation, punctuation and | + | spelling in the original document have been | + | preserved. | + | | + | Periods have been added to dollar amounts. | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page 16 merchandize changed to merchandise | + | Page 26 Sythes changed to Scythes | + | Page 31 Ignots changed to ingots | + | Page 57 skilful changed to skillful | + | Page 60 Coeoperative changed to Cooeperative | + | Page 63 then changed to than | + | Page 151 Germains changed to Germain | + | Page 161 armfull changed to armful | + | Page 166 extraneous double quote removed | + | Page 181 warming changed to warning | + | Page 195 Belvidere changed to Belvedere | + | Page 207 Belvidere changed to Belvedere | + | Page 212 Reactionist changed to Reaectionist | + | Page 213 Hew-Haven changed to New-Haven | + | Page 277 bofogged changed to befogged | + | Page 310 detrimen changed to detriment | + | Page 349 Believng changed to Believing | + | | + +-------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Glances at Europe, by Horace Greeley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLANCES AT EUROPE *** + +***** This file should be named 24930.txt or 24930.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/3/24930/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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