^MMif^ri'&A 0 v .-:-»• '«etfS/.: ¦^ .^^ ¦¦¦# mM,... AMERICAN SOCIETY. LONDON : R0B60N AND SONS, PBINTlSBS, PANORAS BOAD, N.W. -^r^ftS^ AMERICAN SOCIETY. BY GEOEGE MAKEPEACE TOWLE, CONSUL OP THE UNITED STATES AT BBADPOED. m TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1870. Eof .syT CONTENTS OF VOLUME H. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Abts in America : Love of music— ^Favourite ballads and negro melodies — The opera — American sculptors and painters — ^Kcture g.alleries 1 CHAPTER n. Ambbican Amusements A:isrD Pastimes : The drama in Ame rica — The theatres — Favourite actors — The Booths, For rest, Charlotte Cnsluman — The comedians^ — Burlesque — Public balls — Masquerades — Fairs — Racing, and yacht ing, skating and sleighing 13 CHAPTER ni. JV Subukban Life : The homes of Longfellow and Lowell — Social and domestic life in the suburban towns— Sub urban pastimes --- Croquet -^^' Coasting"-— Villas on the Hudson 33 CHAPTER IV. NATioi»Ai.ANDSodai,ANNi?v*asAK£Es: Christmas — New Year's day— Thanksgiving —Independence day — Anniversary wSek— The spiritualists— Woman's rights' conventions —Orange celebrations— St. Patrick's day . . .44 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Summer Resorts: The Catskills — The Adirondacks — Sara toga — Niagara — Jaunts westward — Newport in the sea- PAGE 72 CHAPTER VI. Summer Resorts continued : The White Mountains — Among the New Hampshire lakes and hills . , . ,92 CHAPTER VII. Rural Life: An American village — Among the farmers — Everyday farm Ufe — The Irish labourers — Country boys and girls in the city ..,,.-,.. 107 CHAPTER Vni. A Typical Farmhouse : Summer in the country — Sports and pastimes — Excursions — Picnics — Serenading parties — A country ball — Sunday among the farmers — Com- husMng — ^Apple-bees — Quilting — Maple-sugar parties- Agricultural fairs — Sleighing and skating . , . 133 CHAPTER IX. Travelling in America: The steamboats — Racing on the Mississippi — Steamboats on the gulf and lakes . .165 CHAPTER X. Railways : Improvements — TraveUing luxuries and customs — The carriages — Sleeping-cars and restaurants — Car- saloons — The railway stations — The western railways — Newsboys and pedlars — The luggage system — ^The Pacific railroacl . , 169 . CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XI. PAGE The Professions: The medical profession — The sects and clergy — The American episcopal church — Voluntaryism — Church polity — The clerical profession — Provision for the poor — Popular preachers — The Beechers — The re vivals, and revivalists — Negro preachers and meetings — Camp meetings — The Roman Catholics .... 195 CHAPTER Xn. American Literature and Literary People : Historians : Prescott, Bancroft, Motley — Poets: Bryant, LongfeUow, LoweU, Holmes — ^Novelists : Irving, Hawthorne, Cooper, Mrs. Stowe — The transcendentaUsts : Emerson — The humorists — Female writers — Other writers — The inter national copyright ........ 228 CHAPTER Xni. American Newspapers : The enterprise and characteristics of the press — Bennett and the Herald — Greeley and the Tribune — Advertising — Weekly papers — The pro vincial press — The editorial profession — Magazine liter ature — Lyceums and lecturers 255 CHAPTER XIV. Emigration : The foreigner in America — The Germans and Irish — The prosperity of emigrants — The homestead pri vileges — How to get western farms — The new West; its growth and advantages — The new South — The South as it was, and as it is — Emigration to the South — Middle class emigrants 275 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. PAGE The Chinese in America . . . .298 CHAPTER XVI. The Extent and Productions of the United States . . 306 AMERICAN SOCIETY. CHAPTER I. The Arts in America : Love of music — Favourite bal lads and negro melodies — The opera — American sculptors and painters — Picture ^ulleries. The love of the arts of painting, sculpture, and musie~ has always been &¦ trait of cultivated American society, and is constantly growing. The national character is inventive and imaginative. The educated men and women have almost always good taste, as well in dress and in the adornment of their homes, as in their impressions of landscapes, monuments, and operas. Especially fond are the people, high and low, of music. There is scarcely a house, in town or village, without its piano ; the young woman who cannot play is but half-educated ; no young lady, unaccomplished in this art, would venture upon " coming out" in fashionable society. The universal custom of piano-playing and singing, which are the sine qua non of evening parties and " sociables," gives rare opportunities to the hun- VOL. II. E iJ AMERICAN SOCIETY. dreds of German "professors of mugic," and Italian teachers in singing, who are to be found in the Ameri can cities. They come from Europe in large numbers — some having left their own country for political reasons, others in the spirit of adventure, others at tracted by the stories of fortunes gained, which have come from friends who have already emigrated. Many meet with success ; they arrive seedy and shabby — ere long they are the most elegant, sleekest of men. They find giving lessons by the hour, at high prices, a profitable task ; for every American mamma must en gage a foreign professor ; native teachers are at a dis count. "While the misses are toiling at the piano, their brothers, likely enough, are practising the violin, the flute, or the bugle — for almost every young man has his favourite instrument, and is anxious to become a presentable performer. Often a number of young people get together for an amateur concert ; one plays the piano, another a violin, a third a flute, and so on ; and thus many an evening is pleasantly passed. There is singing everywhere. The church choirs, in town and country, are favourite resorts. for young and old ; and many of them are noted for the fine music they give. On Sunday, as you pass through the town, you will hear psalm singing in the houses in every street ; on summer evenings, glees and negro melodies and opera airs greet your ears, coming out through the open windows. In the public schools the children are taught to sing almost as soon as they THE PEACE JUBILEE. 6 can spell. College glee clubs, in vacation, often travel through the country, giving concerts, and thus paying the expenses of their summer excursions. Choral festi vals are frequent ; concerts and operas are encouraged by enthusiastic popular support. Even the Crystal Palace concerts have been outdone — in magnitude at least — by the great Peace Jubilee, which was held not long ago in Boston. That was a culmination of the popular love for music, the most practical illustration of the keenness with which the Americans enjoy it. Imagine an immense wooden edifice, ,with double the capacity of the Roman Coliseum, five hundred feet long, filled to overflowing day after day; a chorus of over ten thousand souls ; a thousand-piped organ ; an orchestra of more than a thousand performers, with two hundred fiddles and twenty-five bass drums ; artillery and church bells outside helping the musical roar within ; sixty thousand listeners — as many as there are souls in Plymouth ; and with all the singers, the or chestra, the cannons and bells, Verdi's "Anvil chorus" rung out with the aid of a hundred anvils ! It is sin gular that, with all this fondness for music, America has produced no great composers. Ballads and melodies have b'een the highest result of musical inventiveness ; for the nobler achievements ofthe art, Ameri-ca, as Eng land, have been forced to resort to the composers of Germany, Italy, and France — to MozartHand Beethoven, to Eossini and Bellini, to Auber and Gounod. The compositions of the great continental masters are as 4 AMERICAN SOCIETY. keenly appreciated in America as in the nations where they were produced. Lucretia Borgia and Faust, The Barber of Seville and Don Giovanni, are everywhere popular ; you may hear their airs in the drawing rooms and concert halls, as well as whistled by the street boys and ground out on the hand organs. I know not that an attempt has ever been made to bring upon the stage any op6ra or oratorio written by an American ; and this is the more strange, as in the other departments of art — in painting and sculpture — there are Americans whose works may worthily compare with those of the most talented European artists. Americans are as fond of domestic and sentimental melodies as are the Eng lish. The old Scotch and Irish ballads appeal as warmly to their hearts as if they were of native in spiration. How often does one hear " Kathleen Ma- vourneen," and " The fine old Irish gentleman," " The low-backed car," and "Eory O'More," " 'Twas within a mile of Edinboro' town," and " Coming thro' the rye," "Annie Lawrie," and "Scots wha hae," in American homes ! And if they have borrowed these from the British Islands, and are never wearied of them, the English recover the debt by quickly catching up the Yankee war songs and the negro melodies. An Ameri can comes across the Atlantic to hear in the streets of London the selfsame tunes which last fell upon his ear in the streets at home.. The Londoners are "wishing they were in Dixie" as lustily as the Southerners were wont to do ; they are all the same singing " the battle- NEGRO MELODIES. 5 cry of freedom ;" " The dark gal dressed in blue," and " Sally come up," have taken possession of the London hand organ ; the English provincial ballad singer is retailing, amid great applause, "Kingdom a-comin'," and " The land o' Canaan." Negro melodies are, perhaps, the most characteristic product of the American propensity for music. They are an amusingly striking illustration of negro life in the South, especially as it waS in. the days of slavery, and many of them are faithful reflections of the quaint wit and overflowing jollity, as well as the more pathetic and religious shades of the negro character. What is more touching, as portraying the feeling of a negro for a kind master, than the words and tune of "Massa's in the cold, cold ground"? Or what could more vividly de scribe the negroe's love of display and fun than " King dom a-comin'"? There is something in the negro melodies which makes them, among Americans, per manently popular. You hear them everywhere ; a new song spreads through the States like wildfire. In many of the cities there are negro minstrel " opera-houses" permanently established and fitted up for the pur pose ; in which companies, imitative ofthe "original Christys," regale their audiences with the latest " hit" of a song, conundrums new and old, negro farces, stump speeches, banjo solos, clog dances, and darkey burlesques on the popular operas. Songs, allusive of some recent event, and containing humorous local allusions, are introduced, and seldom ill received. 6 AMERICAN SOCIETY. The civil war naturally developed many "battle hymns" and patriotic ballads, some of which possessed merits which gave them enduring popularity and value. Perhaps the finest of these war songs was " The battle hymn of the Republic," a grand piece, sung to the tune of " John Brown," which made its authoress, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, famous in a day. Of national airs America has several ; which is the national air possibly no two Americans agree. " Yankee Doodle" is, per haps, the most familiar ; it was a song of the revolu tion, and is the oldest ofthe national airs. "Hail, Columbia," "The star-spangled banner," "The red, white, and blue," and "America, 'tis of thee" — the last an imitation of, and sung to the same tune as, "God save the Queen" — have each its claims to be considered the national air, and are each defended by zealous champions. " Hail to the chief" is played by the bands when any dignitary is feted, passes in pro cession, ascends a platform, or enters a public assembly — as for instance, when the President receives public honours. The opera and oratorio are much appreciated in America, and their popularity may be estimated by the fact that the most famous European artistes find it profitable to cross the Atlantic. Some of the opera houses are magnificent in their proportions and luxury of decoration and comfort. Crosby's opera house in Chi cago, Pike's in Cincinnati, and the Academy of Music in New York, are perhaps not inferior to the famed the opera. temples of histrionic art in London, Paris, and Vienna. Operatic enterprise is confined, however, to two or three energetic impresarios, who, for the most part, resort to Europe for their prime donne, tenors, bassos, and baritones, and who give seasons of opera in the difi'erent cities in turn. America, if not productive of great composers, may yet boast of some excellent singers. Adelina Patti and Carlotta Patti, though not born in America, grew up and received their educa tion there ; and European connoisseurs have listened with praise to two young American prime donne who have not yet, perhaps, reached the zenith of their fame ^Miss Kellogg and Miss Hauck. The opera season in the large cities is looked forward to with eagerness by the fashionable circles. The reserved places are engaged as soon as offiered ; and the dressmakers and milliners receive a new supply of work as the time ap proaches when the ladies will sweep down the aisles of the opera house arrayed in the richest and daintiest costumes. The opera becomes the main resource of those who find it a difficult task to begin a ball-room con versation. People wonder who the new prima donna is, and are "frantic" to hear her; they are delighted that that dear Signore Squeelini is going to appear again as Manrico and Edgar ; they hope the impresario has managed to secure a better chorus. The scene in an American opera house is not less brilliant than at Covent Garden or the Italiens — only that the gaudy uni- ; forms, stars, and ribbons, so often seen in monarchical 8 AMERICAN SOCIETY. coimtries, is wanting. Every one goes in full dress — '- and full dress, with the fashionable ladies, means low- necked robes of silk and satin, plenteous expensive lace, opera cloaks, and jewels without stint. The operas are- well put on the stage, the actors' costumes are elegant,. and the mise en scene elaborate. The Americans have, from time to time, enjoyed the same great artistes who have previously called applause from the crowded houses' of London and Paris. The reception which Jenny Lind received across the Atlantic was enough to turn the head of a less modest warbler. Vast impromptu the atres were erected purposely to accommodate the eager multitudes who longed to hear her. Prices rose to fabulous heights ; men paid twenty and fifty dollars for narrow chairs in the aisles; the sums she received amounted to half-a-dozen fortunes. Her progress was a continual ovation ; it was difficult to escape the hom age of the frantic crowds who followed her. New York and Philadelphia raved in turn over Mario and Grisi', over bright little Piccolomini, over the queenly Mali- bran, over the Pattis, over Harrison with his English opera, over EUsler, Celeste, and Lola Montes. The native singers have been not the less enthusiastically welcomed; and Misses Kellogg, Harris, and Hauck, Signoras Susini, Morensi, Virginia Whiting, and Ade laide Phillips, — all Americans — have won laurels on the native stage, not less worthy than those of their foreign ¦rivals. In sculpture, architecture, and painting, America AMERICAN SCULPTORS. H has good reason to be satisfied with the works of her children. There are to be found in Florence and Rome, little colonies of American painters and sculptors, who, beginning their artistic education at home, have re sorted thither to complete it, and send thence to their- distant land many sculptures and paintings to adorn it. Of the sculptors, perhaps the most eminent are Thomas Ball and Hiram Powers, the latter a native of remote Vermont, whose " Greek Slave" is world-renowned, and who unites with unquestioned artistic genius a genial hospitality to his wandering countrymen. His studio is one of the favourite resorts of Americans who go to Italy; he works assiduously, and the fruits of his labours are scattered through the American cities™ Another American sculptor of note is Mr. Story, the nephew of a former judge of the national Supreme Court, and who is as well a vivid and graceful author., The statue of George Peabody, recently uncovered by the Prince of Wales in the city of London, is from his chisel. .There is in Italy a young American coloured lady, Edmonia Lewis, whose talent in sculpture is already widely admired, and who has produced more than one proof of artistic genius. Sculpture in America is a rapidly growing profession. Art is more and more appreciated and encouraged every year. The rich love- to adorn their houses with its graces. The man of genius no longer starves unknown and despairing. The public buildings and squares are being ornamented by handsome monuments, noble statues, and the pretty 10 AMERICAN SOCIETY. lighter fancies of the artist : history, tradition, and ima gination suggest the subjects. The painters are, however, much more numerous than the sculptors. Painting was very early a flourish ing art in America. John Singleton Copley, father of the late ¦ Lord Lyndhurst, was an artist in Boston be fore the War of Independence. John Trumbull and Benjamin West became famous painters before the close of the last century. The former executed a num ber of large historical paintings illustrative of the revo lutionary war, which are now to be seen in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington ; and at New Haven there is attached to the university a gallery of his hap piest productions. West — a native of Philadelphia — came to England, became a favourite with George III., and was the first and only American who rose to the presidency of the Royal Academy. Some of his best paintings may be seen at Hampton Court. Charles Wilson Peale, Washington Allston, and Thomas Cole were, early in this century, eminent as painters ; Gilbert Stuart was perhaps a greater artist than either, and painted several portraits of Washington, which are pro nounced no less admirable likenesses than beautiful works of art. Rembrandt Peale, son of Charles Peale, and who was within a few years living in vigorous old age at Philadelphia, was also a painter of genius, in his early youth painted Washington's portrait, and was long the Nestor of American art. These may be placed in the same rank with Reynolds, Lawrence, and MODERN ARTISTS. 11 Gainsborough. The later school of American artists shows no falling ofi' from the standard established by the older generation. There is more originality, bold ness, imagination, in the present school. Those who visited the Paris Exposition could not but have re marked the rich Rocky Mountain landscape scenery of Bierstadt, the brilliant representation of Niagara by Church. The landscape painters are perhaps the best, and no wonder ; for what exhaustless resources to the artist does the wild and grand scenery of America — with its lofty Rocky Mountain ranges, its deep- dipping valleys, its rugged ledges, its vast prairie plains, its clear lakes with the brightest of skies and the clearest of atmospheres overhead — present ! Often as you wander through lovely solitudes near some mountain or lake resort, you will observe a little canvas tent, before it an easel, at which sits and paints, in wide-brimmed hat and working frock, some hirsute artist, happy to ply his art amid the bounties of nature, under the clear still sky, and in peace amid the tranquillity of the rural solitude. Many artists own their little cottages in pic turesque regions, and resort there, toiling with enthu siasm the summer long; while now and then they will, to distract them, receive flying visits from groups of pleasure seekers who have wandered from the mile- distant hotel, or take a plunge in the lake, or follow some trout stream far up through the primeval wood. Almost every city and town has its picture gallery ; and traders in pictures often fit up, in the rear of their 12 AMERICAN SOCIETY. shops, a neat apartment where pictures, whether for sale or "on show," are tastefully hung, which are favourite resorts for the ladies, and which are free for all the world to enter. Thus both fashion and genuine national taste foster the arts ; and the true artist need no longer fear in America the garret, or squalid want, or blank starvation. CHAPTER II. American Amusements and Pastimes : The drama in America — The theatres — Favourite actors— ^ The Booths, Forrest, Charlotte Cushman- — -The come dians — Burlesque — Public balls — Masquerades — Fairs — Racing and yachting, skating and sleighing. It is curious how it almost always happens that during and immediately after a war there is a popular rage for theatres. Never were the Parisians and Londoners more fond of flocking in satin and broadcloth to the boxes, and in shabbiness to the pit, than during the great wars early in this century. The Kembles and Edmund Kean, ia England, reaped to the full the benefit of this sensation. The civil war in America was attended by a similar phenomenon. Neverwere the managers so happy and prosperous ; never were the theatres so crowded ; never were good actors and actresses in so much de mand, as in the lugubrious days when the struggle on Southern fields was doubtful, and Victory held her self above the fighters, uncertain where to perch. New theatres were built in many of the cities ; the public seemed to resort to them to dispel the sombre hue of the prevailing thought and suspense. During and 11 AMERICAN SOCIETY. since the war this fondness for the histrionic art has continued to grow ; and now, more than ever, the Ame ricans love to be amused alike by tragedy, fine old comedy, and the "free-and-easy" nonsense ofthe bur lesque. Time was, and not so very long ago, when a very large portion of the New Englanders, descend ants of the starch old Puritans, were wont to look on theatre-going as a sin, a sure sign of depravity, not a whit better than gambling, drinking, or thieving. The horror with which the Puritans regarded theatres almost amounted tc a monomania. They anathema tised them in the pulpits ; they forbade them in their laws ; they transmitted their hatred of them to their children. They were fountains of corruption, temples of the devil, next-doors to the infernal regions. It took their descendants long to overcome this bitter prejudice. Perhaps there still lingers a shade of it. There are many families who will not go or permit their children to go, and thus make a silent protest against the custom. Yet theatres have rapidly in creased, and now flourish bravely in the New England states, and the old horror of the stage seems gradually to be dying nwiff. While theatres were under the ban of the .eonimunity, their moral standard was naturally far froifi high ; they could only pander to the tastes of the vulgar. A marked improvement has ensued from the greater toleration of the respectable. In New York and in the South and West the stage has never been the bugbear among the well-to-do classes which it was THEATRICAL LUXURY. ].5 in New England ; but the theatres are more sought now than ever. The theatrical profession has become a lucrative one ; the suppty of good actors by no means keeps pace with the demand. The smaller towns all have their theatres ; they depend upon provincial tours of the city companies for their best entertainments ; there are few or no stroUing companies ; and, in the interval, the country theatres must put up with the indifferent performances of their stock supply, with occasional concerts and lyceum lectures. The tendency toward greater luxury which is apparent in America betrays itself in the sumptuousness with which the nev/er theatres have been built and fitted up. Each one aims to be an improvement on the others ; in many of those more recently opened you sit as cosily and comfortably as if you were in your own well lighted, warm, soft carpeted drawing room. Proprietors vie with each other in making their houses models of ease and comfort, while the decorations and stage scenes have become much more ambitious than in the older houses. The American theatres are generally more convenient than the English ones. The seats are not so narrow and cramped ; more space is given to the audience, but not so great a variety of places and prices is ofi"ered. The arrangement of the house is somewhat diferent. The body of the hall is occupied by ranges of cushioned seats rising one range a little behind the other, and called the " parquette." There is seldom a pit, at an inferior price, behind; the few front rows, called the "orchestra 16 AMERICAN SOCIETY. seats," are divided off from the rest, and a higher price demanded for them. There are few theatres in wliich tiers of boxes run completely around the 'galleries; there are, perhaps, half-a-dozen boxes on either side of the stage, and this is all; and the greater portion of the galleries comprises open rows of cushioned benches. The Americans are not so exclusive — are not so fond of being apart, by themselves — as the English ; hence the demand for isolated boxes is not so great. There are three rows of galleries: the first is called the "bal cony;" the second, the "family circle;" the third, the " amphitheatre." The latter is sometimes jocosely called — from the fact that negro spectators were for merly limited to this gallery — the " nigger heaven," or, Latinised, " caelum Africanum ;" but in the opera house the democratic connoisseur of music is fain to resort there, despite the cheap price and the ironical name, as being the best place of all to hear the musici The fashionable parts of the theatre are the parquette, or what the English would call the pit, and the balcony, or first gallery. The average prices are a dollar for the orchestra chairs, seventy -five cents for the balcony .and parquette, fifty for the family circle, twenty-five for the amphitheatre. The boxes cost from five to twenty dollars a night. Few people take season tickets ; when, however, the opera or some noted star is an nounced, these are engaged. There is much native dramatic talent in America in every department of the art; and the patronage THE ELDER BOOTH. 17 which the theatres receive enables foreign actors to cross the Atlantic to their own profit and fame. Many of the great English actors of the present century have visited the United States. Edmund Kean and Charles Kemble, Charles Kean and Macready, Charles Mathews and Fanny Kemble, have all won additional laurels on the American stage. Rachel and Ristori, and many other continental stars, have appeared on the stage at New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Junius Brutus Booth came from England to create so great an admira tion for his dramatic genius that he is still remembered with enthusiasm. He became famous, and died, in Ame rica, and left a son to preserve and enhance the dra matic fame of the family. Booth the elder was one of those crazy, dissipated, reckless men of whom the history of the drama presents so many examples. He often became so wrapt in his part on the stage that it was dangerous to act with him. Once, believing him self to be really Richard, he chased a poor Richmond out of the theatre, sword in hand, and rushed howling up the street in hot pursuit of him. His Richard and Othello were marvellous exhibitions of passionate power and continuous illusion; but he ruined himself with dissipation, and died while in the very zenith of his fame. His son, Edwin Booth, is yet a young man, and is unquestionably a great actor; many think him the first on the American stage. His Hamlet is almost faultless. With the hereditary talent, he possesses a remarkably handsome and expressively melancholy face; VOL. II. c 18 AMERICAN SOCIETY. a sweet yet powerful voice, and a native grace of man ner, which greatly enhance the efl'ect of his acting. His swarthy complexion and gloomy beauty betray a Hamlet before he opens his lips. He is polished and artistic — one of those artists in whom art has done its utmost, and in whom impulse is always under control. His favourite plays are the Shakespeare tragedies ; his favourite parts, Hamlet and lago. His versatility is marked ; for, as a high comedian, he has few superiors. In "Don Csesar de Bazan" and the "Honeymoon" he is as rollicking and gay in his fun, as in "Hamlet" and the "Iron Chest" he is lowering and stormy. His brothers, John Wilkes Booth and Junius Brutus Booth, also inherited from the elder Booth some histrionic talent ; both were far inferior to Edwin. The first was a morbid, dissipated man, and culminated a life of de bauchery by enacting the fearful drama of the assassi nation of President Lincoln. The latter is the manager of a Boston theatre, and still acts, though his perform ances call forth none of that enthusiasm with which his brother Edwin is everywhere greeted. As the sun of Edmn Booth's fame was rising, that of another, and to many a far greater actor, was setting. Edwin Forrest, after the elder Booth's death, long held undisputed the championship of the American stage. Endowed with a powerful physique, robust and iron-solid in form and limb, a Titan in muscular force, with a voice and lungs capable of sustaining the heaviest strain ; nature in these gave Foi-rest a great advantage. In those parts ITORREST AND MISS CUSHMAN. 19 wherein endurance and long sustained physical force were required there has been no American actor his ¦equal. Passionate, stormy, loud, often ranting and raging and plunging, Forrest was wonderful in depict ing the more rugged and uncontrollable emotions of humanity. He was full of faults ; he gave opportunity every moment to the cavilling of the critic ; he had not the polish, the care, the self control of the younger Booth ; but he could rise to greater heights of passion ; he could carry you in a very whirlwind of emotion ; he depicted with far greater power the intensity of rage and of the spirit of revenge, of jealousy, and crafty malice. As "Jack Cade," "Metamoras," "Damon," "Timon," "Macbeth," "Othello," and "Lear," Ame rica certainly has not seen his rival. His performances of " Richelieu" and of " Wolsey" were scarcely less notable; here he dealt with a craft which at times could not control the emotions, with the struggle of physical feebleness against mental fire and energy; and here he showed how he could portray the finer and subtler passions as well as the stormy ones. Charlotte Cushman — a noble-hearted lady as well as a great artiste — was at one time the foremost actress on the American stage. Her favourite parts were those from the standard tragedies. She was wonderful as Meg Merriles, and looked and seemed the weird old witch to perfection. As Lady Macbeth, her whisper, in the sleep-walking scene, could be heard, and made the blood run cold in the remotest corner of the galle- 20 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ries. After spending her youth and early middle age on the stage, she retired full of honours and with a for tune, and now lives in Rome, where her benevolence and hospitality have established her in the affections of the community. The English theatre-goer has been able to judge for himself ofthe talents of Miss-Bateman, perhaps the most popular American actress now on the stage. Julia Dean, Miss Henriques, Mrs. Hoey, Maggie Mitchell, and Miss Heron have been or are also popular actresses. With comedians, high and low, the Ameri can stage is well supplied. Has not London laughed over the infectious drolleries of J. S. Clarke, in Major Wellington De Boots — over the quaint simplicity and humour of Jeiferson as Rip Van Winkle — over the idiotic ludicrousness of Sothern in Lord Dundreary? You must go to America to see the real verdant "down east" Yankee faithfully portrayed; the English imita tion is hardly striking. Of the higher comedy charac ters — the Falstaffs and Doctor Ollapods, the Tony Lumpkins and Sir Peter Teazles, the Lucius O'Trig- gers and Dolly Spankers — there are many American representatives. Burton, the elder Wallack, Gilbert, Blake, Hackett, were artistic comedians, having all the polish and vivacity of their English confreres. Fashions in the drama, as in other things, quickly reach America from Europe. The despot Burlesque has invaded New York and Boston, and for the past year or two extravaganzas and parodies have been all the rage. A majority of the New York theatres aban- BURLESQUES AND PANTOMIMES. 21 doned themselves to the empire of short dresses, gaudy ¦scenery, and slangy nonsense. One was dazzled with light and colour, with gay glees, with lovely faces and graceful limbs — startled at coarse songs, low wit, slang, :and loose manners. The pantomime — that traditional joy of British children, with its invariable slappings of wooden swords, leaping through windows, and hood- winkings of the obstinate papa, has found its way across the Atlantic and is fairly domiciled there. Some of the theatres are noted for the excellence of their local com panies. Wallack's, in New York, Selwyn's and the Museum in Boston, and the Walnut-street Theatre, in Philadelphia, are model houses, where not only every comfort and stage efiect are carefully provided, but the inferior as well as the leading parts are finely acted^ Lester Wallack, the manager of the first, is the best " accomplished rake" and " fine gentleman of society" on the American stage. It is, however, a general fault with American theatres that they are "all head and no tail;" that is, that while the leading actors are good, the inferior rules are miserably done, and spoil the effect even of the best Macbeth or Lear. It is pitiable to see some of the acting in the smaller tpwns — by stolid lumps of flesh, and stutterers, and ruthless assas sins of grammar, and ambitious loud bellowing block- ieads. Even in the cities this defect is marked. I have seen Booth and Forrest heroically struggling through Othello and Hamlet, with idiotic looking lagos, thick 22 - AMERICAN SOCIETY. voiced Horatios, simpering Desdemonas, and lackadai sical Ophelias, confronting them in every scene. . i The Shakesperian dramas are more frequently played and more popular in America than in England ; you see oftener even the plays of Sheridan, Knowles, Lytton, and Morton. There are, in every city, casinos and "Alhambras," "operas comiques," and singing halls, where the less cultivated orders of society and " fast" young men and women are regaled with ballet and comic songs, pantomimes and jigs. The audience sit around little tables, and liquors and cigars are supplied at high prices by the establishment. These are ever and anon descended upon by the police and shut up, but to open again in another place and in quieter times. The numbers of Germans who live in the towns have made it profitable to open lager beer saloons, where the guests are regaled with songs and band music ; in summer they may sit outside in the arbours and under- the trees, where they sip their beverage and listen to the cheap harmonies provided for them. Giving and going to balls are as fashionable in America as giving and going to dinners in England. The Englishman celebrates all special occasions — the anniversary of a society, the arrival of a notability, the completion of a railway line, the political victory of a M.P., by right generous feasts, which expand the heart and produce a general good feeling. The Americans must, on these occasions, have a ball. The Prince of Wales was kept busy dancing in every American city he BALLS AND PARTIES. 23 visited ; and mayor's wives vied with up-town belles for his hand in the cotillons and his arm in the waltzes. The ball which was given in honour of Charles Dickens, when, still a young man, he first visited America, is still remembered in the traditions of Gotham. Kossuth was forced to pause in his plaintive appeals while he tripped the light fantastic toe ; the Russian admirals and the Japanese mandarins, bon gre mal gre, were forced to learn the American version of the saltatory art. The President is ushered into his oflice by a ball ; firemen and militia companies are perpetually giving them; balls celebrate the opening of the Pacific rail road, the success of the Atlantic cable, the election of a governor ; in the country, balls — which I hope to describe more fully in another place, — are frequent and rollicking, the most hearty genuine balls, of true rustic lustiness, imaginable ; balls are held to help the maimed soldiers and disabled sailors — to fete the conven tion of doctors or men of science, who have assembled in the town — to celebrate the tin weddings, the silver weddings, the golden weddings of married couples ad vancing over the hill of life — to honour birthdays and weddings — to welcome anniversaries — to dedicate Free masons' halls, and new court houses, and hotels which for the first time are thrown open to public patronage. Dancing masters are continually giving balls ; schools close their terms by treating the boys and girls to a hearty parting dance. Unless you dance, you are ostra cised to the drawing room corners, and must be content 24 .AMERICAN SOCIETY. ¦to talk stocks with the old gentlemen, or polite scandal -with the matrons ; the damsels -will have none of you. At all the dancing schools, fashionable and ordi nary, an evening in each week is set apart for a general soiree; the pupils go free, but any outsider who likes may participate in the sport by paying a fee of admission. At the schools of the lower mid- 'dle classes, these occasions are "free-and-easy" and rollicking enough. The dressmakers and young me chanics are in their glory ; they dance as working people, who toil hard and yearn for a relief, only can ; and these dancing halls are rendezvous of lovers, and places where young folk "become attached," and make their little plans for life. Lov,'er down in the social strata, dancing halls are equally popular. If you would see life in the more wretched districts of the cities, you must penetrate the squalid streets late at night, escorted by a policeman or two who know the favourite haunts. You dive deep down into the black alleys, descend into damp murky cellars, pass through long rickety corri dors, and emerge into equally rickety rooms, where squalidity and poverty hold their reckless carnival. The sights you see you are apt not to impart in detail to the family circle ; you omit them— unless, indeed, you propose to yourself a sensational " amateur casual" article— from your diary. Drunkenness, debauchery, filth of person, of conversation, and of manners, revolt you on every side. It is a crazy reckless bacchanal ; ¦the shouts of excited pleasure take the form of oaths MASQUERADES,. 25 and blasphemy ; the poor wretches abandon themselves to a momentary forgetfulness of their miseries in antics revolting and outrageous. It is the same everywhere : you will not discover much difference between the orgies of Five Points and those of the Seven Dials or the Fau bourg St. Antoine. Masquerades and " fancy balls" are popular. Dur ing the season the aristocratic folk of Madison Square and Beacon Street give many masked balls, and the display of costumes rivals that of the French opera on its masquerade night. To the traditional "Night" and " Morning," " Cavalier of Charles II." and " Ham let," "Fat Boys" and " Original Yankees," "Joan of Arc," and " Louis XIV.," darkeys and monkeys, skele tons and monks,^ — -Yankee inventiveness, and the lavish- ness of the rich, often add original and unique devices. Sheafs of corn, fishes of wonderful anatomy, arm-chairs and may-poles, pillars and towers of Babel, birds and affectionate bears, .move about through the saloons, and dance and flirt with one another. Many public masque rade balls are given during the winter, an entrance fee being charged ; these are less select than hilarious, but afford many amusing scenes to the looker-on. There are societies which make it an object to parade the streets on (certain nights in the most ludicrous disguises, ,in torchlight procession, to the delectation of the citizens : perhaps the "Antiques and Horribles," of Boston^ are the best .known; and university students find great amusement in similar performances. 26 AlVIERICAN SOCIETY. From the old countries the Americans have bor rowed the custom of having fairs ; and this is the favourite method of raising funds for church or bene volent purposes. If an Episcopal or Methodist society wish to make an addition to their house of worship, or build a parsonage, or provide for their poor, or send their weak-lunged minister to Europe, or procure a library for the Sunday school, they forth-with set to work getting up a fair. The young women begin to dress- dolls, to work slipper patterns, to make fancy watch- fobs ; the matrons employ themselves in the busy baking and frosting of huge cakes, the preparing of boned turkeys, the pickling of oysters, the making of ice-creams. Perhaps the fair is held in the church vestry. The carpenters have been busy erecting long wooden tables ; this done, the young people resort thither on a certain afternoon, and proceed to decorate the room — looping here and there festoons of evergreens, dispos ing fantastical bouquets of flowers, hanging the " stars and stripes," and amid it all, having a right jolly time ¦with those sly sayings and merry antics in which the youth of the sexes, when together, delight. It is a struggle who shall preside at the various tables — the young ladies are all anxious for a place. The fair opened, a lively bartering and selling goes on; there is music at one end of the room ; the young gentlemen are ill able to resist the appeals of the damsels to buy this slipper pattern or that necktie, and are sorely mulcted for their gallantry ; the young ladies invade FAIRS. 27 them on every side with "grab-bags ;" there is at one end ofthe tables a "post office," where anyone may purchase a most thrilling love-letter for six paltry cents ; here a raffie for a lordly cake is going on ; there is a " fortune wheel," which, for five cents, revolves, and tells you your destiny in a f-winlding ; here again is a great family Bible, destined for the parson, and for the purchase of which you may subscribe what you like, and have your name appear on the subscription list for what you give. In some fairs you -will see, perhaps, an elegant sword ; for a certain sum a vote is accorded to you ; and enough votes having been sold to pay for the martial weapon, a ballot is taken, and the general or colonel receiving the most votes receives it. The de vices for forcing fifty cent pieces out of masculine pockets are innumerable and unique : and the fairs are besides lively scenes, where all enjoy themselves in the midst of the amateur commerce. Racing, yachting, and kindred sports grow more popular every year. Especially in New York are horses the rage, and many of the wealthiest men take pride in their turn-outs. The annual scene at the great race-course near the city is only less striking than that at Epsom on Derby day ; and betting, gambling, side shows, and brilliant grand stands are quite as much the order of the day. In the harbours you will see multitudes of pretty yachts of every size and make; every fashionable young man must have one ; and yacht racing has become a popular pastime. Some adventur- 28 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ous yachtsmen have ventured -with their vessels across the Atlantic ; and the American enterprise in this regard has been witnessed by the English, in the famous race from New York to Cowes which took place several years ago. There are annual boat races everywhere ; the uni versities have an exciting contest in July on Quinsiga- mond; on Independence day there are races wherever there is water enough to float the boats ; and a boat race has got to be a sine qua non in all the public cele brations and anniversaries. In the summer the ladies delight to sail out into the harbours and bays, and there are many parties, on pleasant days, tacking about, cod or halibut fishing, and having cozy fish-chowder dinners in the little yacht cabins. But there is one class of amusements, enjoyed every where in the Northern states, the pleasures of which are almost unknown to the English. The snow and ice which remain long on the ground, and which cover the lakes and rivers in the winter season, afi'ord ample skating and sleighing. These pastimes are universal. In town and country alike they are enjoyed to the utmost. Boys — and now, girls — learn to skate almost as soon as they can walk, at an age when the many tumbles ne cessary to success are not serious. He who cannot skate is an odd fish — a black sheep. The pastime has become fashionable; the young ladies are as eager to skate as their brothers and sweethearts. In most of the towns there are "skating rinks" — spaces flooded over purposely for the sport, where the ice freezes two A SKATING RINK. 29- or three feet quite to the earth, and there is no possible danger of breaking through. On the edge of the rink are erected neat little sheds, well warmed, where the skaters may lay aside their cloaks and strap on their- skates. For a trifling fee the privileges of the shed and the rink are accorded; and a merrier scene than this presents on a clear cold biting afternoon, when the blood needs warming and the brisk exercise is grateful, it would be hard to imagine. The girls in their short neatly-tucked dresses and jaunty hats, their ears and necks well wrapped up, their hands warmly gloved, their feet encased in slight prettily-fashioned skates, attended by skilful cavaliers, who love to display their many tricks and accomplishments in the art; the groups of racers whizzing hither and thither; now some famous skater, arms folded, swaying gracefully and shooting swiftly, describing complicated circles within circles, carving letters and names and figures in a twinkling, anon going backward, then on one foot, then leaping- and making sudden curves ; the tyros in the art, prone to linger near the edges, timidly glancing about to see if any one is watching their awkward efforts, making ludicrous zigzags, then abruptly thump ! falling flat on the ice, their legs obstinately flying apart, then as per tinaciously sticking together, their faces wearing a look of despair, finally delighted to find that they can accom plish two successive strides; young men, here and there, fastening the skates to the young ladies' ankles,, and taking an unconscionable time to do it — not much,. 30 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ' liowever, apparently, to the damsels' annoyance; couples of girls and boys shooting along evenly together, grasp ing a cane between them or linked arm in arm. The sight is so charming that the elders are envious, and would fain themselves once more essay their luck on the slippery expanse. Then the sleighing ! On some cold November morn ing you wake up to hear, in every direction, hundreds of liquid tinlding bells. You glance out of your bed room window; the earth is clothed, the houses are mantled with a heavy feathery crust of snow, and hither and thither are jingling the sleighs, the whips are lus tily cracking, the horses themselves feel the infection in the air, and run briskly, jumping and bounding as if they too rejoiced that the snow had come. Sleighs of evei-y sort and size ; shell shaped sleighs, lavishly adorned, brass-rimmed; hea^vy square sleighs, full of bufi"alo robes and wrappers ; sleighs which are but carts ¦on runners, in one of which your milkman dashes up, and from which he brings out his long tin can ; basket sleighs — modest afi'airs — adopted on a sudden, because the snow was not so soon expected ; and great excur- ision sleighs, with gaudy paint and quaint figure-heads; ¦some triumphal cars, after the Roman model, others looking like circus vans, wherein, ere long, you will see troops of children on their way to the suburbs for a glowing ride, and merry youthful parties bound for a hearty frolic. Carriages and cabs are henceforth at a discount ; even the cabs and omnibuses eschew wheels, SLEIGH RIDES. 31 appear mounted on runners and turned into sleighs, be- -cause nobody will go on wheels nowadays. The carts -of the greengrocers and butchers, the drapers and milk men, have followed the universal fashion, and are either stowed away until the spring sun has melted away the snow, and sleighs adopted in their stead, or are -put on runners. On one of the wide roads on the outskirts of the town, any clear winter afternoon, you ¦will see hundreds of sleighs dashing hither and thither, the daintiest and jauntiest of equipages, luxuriously warm and cosy by the aid of skins and blankets, drawn by spirited horses of finest temper, and occupied by the male and female fashionable world. There is racing ¦spite of all that policemen and legislators can do ; the very air tempts to it, and intoxicates and makes hila rious. Sleigh after sleigh — their little bells, attached to horse's head and harness, jingling in a frenzy — whirls by you, filled with excited gentlemen half-rising from their seats, and timid ladies trying to look uncon cerned, and shoot one beyond the other, then fall behind .again ; two broad lines of them, one passing down on the right, the other up on the left. Thus they rush, up hill and down dale, defiant alike of the law and the danger. Now there is a capsize — two sleighs have hurled themselves against each other; over roll both, spiUing, with little ceremony, their human well-dressed load ; there is at first a cry of alarm : " Nobody hurt ?" then roars of laughter, amid which the confused human jumble, presenting a strange spectacle of frilled petti- 32 AMERICAN SOCIETY. coats and silk stockings mixed up with broadcloth coat- tails and patent leather boots, rights itself, the blushing faces remount the sleighs, and the horses are urged furiously forward. Sometimes the overtipping is not so harmless ; there are accidents enough to warn the fast folk; but the pleasure lover seldom takes the warn ing. I have known the reckless occupant of a sleigh — and it is everywhere a reckless pastime — drive plump upon a railway track, hoping to cross before the engine, which is fast approaching, reaches the spot, and be dashed into pieces, sleigh, horse, and poor mortal, by the fire-eyed avenger of his temerity. When you see an American sleighing-course, you will perhaps judge theni a less tristful and sombre people than you had thought. CHAPTER in. Suburban Life : The homes of Longfellow and Loivell ¦ — Social and domestic life in the suburban towns — Suburban pastimes — Croquet — " Coasting"- — Villas on the Hudson. Clustering near the large towns are to be found nu merous suburban villages, picturesquely situated, which principally comprise the residences of those who do business in the neighbouring city. Around Boston and New York there are nearly complete circles of these rural to-wns, where there are no shops excepting those neces sary to every-day convenience, and which consist of de tached viUas, with gardens, orchards, avenues, and lawns. Here and there are churches, -with narrow steeples pointing upward, wooden, and painted a glaring white, or built of brown stone, and imitative of the modern church architecture of England. The residences in these suburban towns are almost always -wood — " frame" as the Americans say ; and in some of the villages you "(viU discover many a century old, with broad heavy beams, ornate window-frames, oaken floors, and spa cious verandahs at the sides. In some places — as in Roxbury and Brookline — nature has afforded fine sites, gentle sloping hills, deep valleys, and thick copses of VOL. n. D 34 AMERICAN SOCIETY. trees. Everywhere you see the high stately American elm ; here and there you discover lawns shaded by stal wart primeval oaks; there are avenues, too, of chest nuts and poplars. The la-wyers, merchants, editors, find it pleasant to seek out some pretty villa in the suburbs, where they install their families, and go every morning to the city, returning in the evening to the fresh air, and to sit reading their papers and smoking their cigars under their own semi-rustic " vine and fig- tree." There is provided, in American to-wns, every facil ity for leading such a life. Frequent railway trains run to and from the suburban settlements ; the men of business cluster, naturally, within easy distance of the station. If, however, you do not care to wait for the train, you have but to jump into one of the numerous horse-cars which pass almost every minute along the tramways in the middle of the road ; or, if you prefer a cheaper conveyance, you have still the alternative of jogging into town on the old-fashioned omnibuses, which have been fain to reduce their prices since horse- cars and railways have become their rivals. The Ameri can omnibuses have, unfortunately, no outside seats on top ; and the devotee of the " vile weed" is thus forced to eschew them. If you take the railway from one of these suburban towns between eight and nine a.m., you will find yourself in the company of many well-dressed business-like-looking men— some with parcels or boxes, others with green baize bags from which parchments and heavy-looking documents peep out, and betray their Longfellow's home. 35 o-wners as la-wyers, others unfolding and eagerly perus ing the damp morning paper. One of the carriages is set apart for smokers — a cozy little compartment, where the passengers sit facing each other and riding sideways. There is much talking of politics, many discussions on stocks and free trade. The financial column is the part of the paper sought first, and read aloud for the general edification. The gentlemen are all cozy and easy to gether, chatty and sociable. Perhaps one of the best examples of the spacious, old-fashioned suburban residences, of which so many are to be found at an easy distance from the cities, is that which is now the home of the poet Long fellow. It possesses the triple interest of being a typical old American mansion, of having rare historic memories, and of being the house from whence have gone out to the world Evangeline, Hiaioatha, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. It is situated on a -wide, prettily winding road, in Cambridge, near Bos ton, about half-way between Harvard University and Mount Auburn, the latter one ofthe most beautiful of American cemeteries. The road is shaded through its whole length by wide - spreading trees, and on either side are handsome residences, mostly detached, and sur rounded by lawns and gardens. Noblest and most attractive of all is Longfellow's home. You come upon it somewhat abruptly, reaching it by a turn in the road. A low wall borders the street; beyond is a wide lawn, with a fountain in the centre, and little 36 AMERICAN SOCIETY, flower-beds here and there ; there are lilac bushes on either side, and a plain gate conducts to a foot-walk, by which you reach the old-fashioned portal of the house. The edifice itself is massive, square, substan tial, built in the prevailing style of a century or more ago ; plain, venerable, unostentatious, having an appear ance of enduring strength ; at one side is a verandah with seats, just by it a group of large shady elms ; behind, a neat garden. The roof is slightly slanting, the -windows are high and old-fashioned ; the wooden front and sides have once been painted yellow — here and there the colour is dim from long wearing; alto gether the old place has a tranquil, homely, cozy look, and seems a fit retreat for the musings of the poet. It is still called the " old Washington house ;" for it was there that the hero of the revolutionary war held his head-quarters when he first took command of the patriot army, and from thence he directed the memorable siege of Boston, then held by the royal troops. The patriot chiefs were wont to assemble there in council, and those venerable walls, could they speak, might tell of many an anxious consultation, when the patriot cause was feeble and well nigh hopeless, and its defenders wavered between dim hope and despair. Within, the rooms are low studded ; the hall cheerful and spacious ; the drawing-room and study cozy and genial. Often may you see the famous poet walking briskly to and from the " square," where the Cambridge post-office and shops are, just by the university buildings ; sometimes ELMWOOD. 37: with companions hardly less distinguished than him self — for Cambridge is the residence of many eminent literati. To its people the faces of Lowell, Agassiz, Sumner, Adams, Holmes, are familiar : the two first reside there. Many nodes ambrosiance must the vener able " Washington house" have witnessed, with " feast of wit and flow of soul," and genial hospitality. More rustic and retired still is the home of James Russell Lowell, where the Bigloiv Papers and the Fable for Critics were doubtless written. A pic turesque shady lane branches off from the main road, further on toward Mount Auburn, where there are but few houses scattered here and there. On the right is a woody domain, with garden and orchard, separated by hedges from the lane itself; presently you reach an old- fashioned high wooden gate ; at the end of a long stone walk is a venerable house, shaded, less substantial than the " Washington house," but quite as cozy and cheer ful-looking; here is the snug home of the genial satirist and poet. There is a dreamy air about the place, in- ¦sdting to reverie and leisurely brown study. Its occu pant has happUy named it " Elmwood ;" for everywhere about it are clustered those noble American elms which grace so well the New England landscape. The mingling of a city with a rural life, with the advantages of both, which these suburban residences afi'ord, is not less charming to the hurried, driving American, than to the comfort -loving Briton. The merchant or lawyer who thus lives in the suburban 38 AMERICAN SOCIETY. towns rises early, has breakfast at seven or half-past ; perhaps, either before or after the meal, does a little amateur gai'dening — props up the beans and peas, grafts or clips the orchard trees, cuts the grass, or weeds the flower plots — is off to the city by half-past eight, and cozily settled in office or counting-room by nine. At one he takes lunch at a restaurant or hotel ; resumes business till four or five ; then takes the rail, the horse -car, or the omnibus for home. A late dinner is already prepared for him, and he sits down amid his family, thankful to return to the charms of a tranquil cozy home. The repast over, he is apt to take a promenade through his garden, or to sit and enjoy his cigar on the verandah ; or, perhaps, a neighbour or two happens in, or he saunters over to the next door, and a chat on the news of the day, or about the garden, or the stocks, takes up the time until daylight has waned and gone. The frame houses, with their coolpiazzas, their broad bow windows, are comfortable in summer, yet not chilly in winter. The people in the suburban to-wES associate easily and without ceremony with each other. It is not the custom, as in England, to offer any refreshments — not even wine or cake — to the chance ¦visitor, the intimate neighbour who happens to " drop in." It is very common for the people, in summer, to sit at the open door, or out on the sidewalks, and en joy the evening whiff of grateful air ; should you pass through the pretty suburban streets on a warm Au gust evening, you would see groups sitting before al- CROQUET IN THE SUBURBS. 39 most every house. Everybody knows everybody else ; acquaintances are easily made, and soon ripen into friendships and. intimacies ; gossip, perhaps, is as much a tyrant as in England — it holds its own in small communities the world over ; but it is less ill- natured in the suburban towns, whose inhabitants are mostly cultivated and good-hearted people. Of the pastimes enjoyed in the suburban towns, perhaps the prevailing one is croquet. In the midst of the little avenues are often neat plots of lawn for the common use of the neighbourhood ; and here the young people may, without the fear of being disturbed, indulge in the exciting game. The sunshine glimmer ing through the branches — the soft velvety grass — ^the cool pure country air — the quiet, broken only by the twittering of birds, and now and then a passing foot step — add vastly to the pleasure of the out-of-door pas time. The city is not so distant but that friends may come out in the afternoon, join the suburban families in their pleasures, and have a brief delicious taste of rusticity. Croquet has been an unmixed blessing to American damsels. It has enticed them into the open air ; it has tempted them to that bodily exercise which, more than anything, they need in order to acquire the health and endurance so conspicuous in English girls. It gives occasion for just enough flirting to lend a zest to the pastime ; acquaintance ripens quickly as " sides" are taken, the balls are thumped hither and thither, and mistakes and accidents momentarily occur ; there 40 AMERICAN SOCIETY. are plenty of whispered asides, of blithe merry-making at blunders, of eager espousals of the partner's cause, of the numberless and nameless little coquetries in which American girls are not a whit behind their sisters in the old countries. Croquet is a wholesome substitute for the feverish life of the summer resorts ; it creates a taste for out-of-door life, for the garden, the long \ hill ramble, the cantering on ponies, the romping and merry-making which gives lustiness to the limbs, buoy ancy to the heart, recreation to the mind. The boys, too, exercise all those sturdy out-of-door games, many of which have followed English civilisation across the Atlantic, and some of which are native to the trans atlantic soil. Base-ball and cricket, marbles, kites, and. tops — jolly rows on the rivers and lakes, a swim before breakfast, a horseback ride after dinner- — are enjoyed in the suburban towns to the utmost. Sometimes a party of boys will ramble off into the neighbouring woods after nuts or berries ; they may go where they like ; there are no placards with " private roads — no trespass ing" — warning off the pleasure seeker : so that they do not tread down the worthy farmer's corn, or race reck less through his tomato patch, they may rummage about his farm at will. Then what a carnival to the boys is the winter-time, with its long enduring snows ! A more picturesque sight is hardly to be imagined than one of these suburban villages on the morning after a heavy snow-storm. The trees along the roads bend down under the thick white burden ; the streets HUDSON VILLAS. 41 are heaped in irregular snow-white drifts ; from the pretty ornate roofs hang long icicles, taking fantastic shapes ; the fields are vast powdered plains, with little whirlpools of snow ever and anon dancing above them in the air. Then out come the sleds, and off go the boys to the steepest hills ; soon the sleds have worn a flat tened shining path in the snow ; and the " coasting" — as they call it — goes on untiring the livelong day. As you. pass the village school-house, the scholars come tumbling out, eager to reach the road ; quickly snow balls are moulded in the hands, and a pitched battle begins; some are heaping up a snow fortress, with a great uncouth " snow-man" peeping over it ; a hostile party is preparing its ammunition, and will ere long demohsh the " counterfeit presentment" and attack the glistening stronghold. And so the boys, the battle over, go home dripping and red, the mammas in these times being not too critical. Perhaps you may obtain as good an idea of the wealth of the more opulent New Yorkers by sailing up the Hudson, or " North" River, and observing their stately suburban residences, as by a walk through the aristocratic quarters of Fifth Avenue and Madison Square. The high picturesque banks are in some places fairly dotted with beautiful country seats, among which every variety of architecture may be observed. There are imitation Rhine castles, edifices gothic, re naissance, and Saxon, of stone and brick and richly ornamented wood. Umbrageous groves, whence have 42 _ AMERICAN SOCIETY. been cleared the brush and smaller trees, and which -vie with the famed parks of the English aristocracy, extend in places down to the river's edge ; broad lawns sweep down or stop abruptly at the crest of some steep cliff;. gardens and conservatories are grouped near the man sions ; boat-houses stand along the border of the water; pretty yachts, "shells," and barges are moored under sheds or by the river bank. Nature and art combine in making these spots among the loveliest to be seen in America. Money has been lavishly spent to give every adornment to places which were already worthy to be the theme of Irving's ravishing description, of the ro mantic colouring of Cooper. Here, in summer, the New York nabobs delight to entertain their friends; fetes champetrcs are fashionable, and on almost any sum mer afternoon you may see parties dancing to the sound of music on the wide green lawns, and couples promenading in aitd out among the groves and grottoes. In the evening there are illuminations and Chinese lan terns, and the inevitable love-making by . moonlight, when the lover's tender fancy is inspired by the charm ing scene around — the clear sky, the romantic arbours, the glistening river far below; possibly, too, by the wealth of miss's papa, displayed on every side. Water excursions, croquet parties, strawberry festivals, har vest balls, give variety to the pleasures of the suburban colonies. Fashion, from the neighbouring city, invades these retreats, and madame dons as many costumes, is as obedient to etiquette among her guests on the Hud- SUBURBAN FASHION. 43 son, as in her splendid up-town mansion. There are horse racing and boat racing in the neighbourhood, to which the fasionables resort ; the dresses which appear at the privileged stands have been transferred from the city in numberless boxes ; and the equipages which are grouped about the ground are not less gaudy than those which whirl by you on a winter's night in the West-end thoroughfares of the city. CHAPTER IV. National and Social Anni-versaries : Christmas — New Year's day — Thanksgiving — Lidependence day — Anniversary week — The spiritualists — Woman's rights conventions — Orange celebrations — St. Pa trick's day. Commerce with the Americans is a jealous mistress, loth to yield her power even for a day, and detests an niversaries as her natural enemies. It is a trait ofthe man of business that he loves to "keep a-dri-ving." He is happiest in his counting-room, mingling with his brother merchants, surrounded by his ledgers and double entries, and ready at all times "to strike a bar gain." To continue thus, year in and year out, is his delight. Wliile he can pursue his daily routine, he "takes no note of time;" he is scarcely conscious of the advent and departure of the seasons, or the weather changes hinted by the dusty thermometer over his desk. There are, comparatively, few anniversaries and public hohdays. Of those in vogue in England, Easter is made little of; and Whitsuntide, as a holiday season, is unknown ; while there is no great Derby day, when all the world turns out, less to see the race than to see each other. The few holidays which are honoured CHRISTMAS AMONG THE PURITANS. 45 are, however, heartily enjoyed and made the most of. Christmas and New Year's day, the fourth of July (Independence day), Thanksgiving, and the twenty- second of February (Washington's natal day), are the popular American anniversaries. Christmas has only within the past twenty years been generally observed in the New England and most of the Northern states. - That it was not always a season of jollity and merry making was doubtless due to the stiff notions of the Pilgrim Fathers. Their austerity and soberness have given a tone no less to New England society than to that of the states founded by the Germans and Dutch and those which have been largely colonised from New England itself. Christmas, as a day of festivity, was sternly frowned upon by the Pilgrims. They denounced it as an idolatrous Popish custom, and they were eager to give it as marked a snubbing as possible. An amusing story is told of the first Christmas passed by the self-exiled Puritans, after their landing on the bleak shore of Plymouth Bay. One of them — a stern, stiff old gentleman, who afterward became gover nor of the colony — has left an entertaining diary of those famous times, and in it he has given in detail the means which he and his brother Pilgrims took to cast a practical contempt upon Christmas. On the day before the "Romish orgy," he tells us — the Mayflower having shortly before anchored in the bay — the male portion of the colony went ashore, cut and hewed their beams and laths, and prepared to build their future 46 AMERICAN SOCIETY. habitations. Christmas morning came ; they deter mined, with all their iron-willed zeal, to avoid every possible action which might in the least seem like a celebration of the day ; lowering and stern, armed with pickaxe, spade, and hammer, they rowed ashore; they grimly marched up to their pile of logs and beams, and, although the snow was deep and the wind sharp, and the day raw and blustering, they forthwith, says the chronicler, "sett to erecting y'^ firste house!" Thus the very act by which they were resolved to mark their contempt for the festival, was the most memorable celebration of Christmas in history; for they laid the corner stone of an empire of forty millions of people, which was destined to extend from sea to sea! "Erect ing y^ firste house," indeed ! Where were thy wits, grim old Governor-to-be? The prejudice lasted long after the original Pilgrims were dead and gone; and their descendants, while paying due respect to the Puritan festivity of " Thanksgiving," neglected Christ mas down to a time within the memory of living men. The cavalier colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas, and the French and Spanish colonies in Louisiana and Florida, had long before introduced the " merry Christmas" from Europe to the new continent ; and, as time passed, the Puritan and the Cavalier elements gradually mingling, the peculiar festivity of each began to be celebrated by the other, until at last both Christmas and Thanksgiving have come to be national holidays. CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS. 47 Christmas is now, in every part of the republic, what it tias been for many centuries in England. It is a season for the gathering of families at the grand- sire's house — at the ancestral mansion, if there is one — a time of feasting and games, frolicking and merry making. The night before, the children hang up their stockings, and are up at daylight, frantic to see what Santa Claus has brought. Every one goes to church in the morning ; the parson is eloquent on the religion's significance of the day ; the psalms and hymns are pro per to the occasion. The young ladies ofthe church have been busy for weeks hanging the sacred building with evergreen, which is left on the walls until it is faded and old. Returning home, the smoking Christ mas dinner is discussed ; there are lordly turkeys and plum puddings and mince pies enough to satisfy the most exacting appetite; after dinner, the good old tra ditional Christmas games — so familiar to the English as well as the Americans — excepting, indeed, the game of "mistletoe," which I have never seen in America; the country dances and uproarious fun; the Christmas tree and Christmas boxes for everybody, from grandsire and the staid maiden aunts to Tom the waiter, and Bridget the cook, keep both old and young merrily a-going till far into Christmas night. The descendants of the Pil grims smile, not unkindly, at the ancestral anathemas, and indulge in old Christmas customs which, had spirits the power to revisit earth, would raise a host of stiff- backed lowering phantoms. But Christmas in America 48 AMERICAN SOCIETY. would doubtless seem to English eyes like a familiar play, in which the actors and scenery alone were new. It is essentially a home festivity, and serves to unite families long separated, to relieve the hard-pressed man of business and the toiling labourer for a moment from their daily drudgery, and to give the children a right merry romping holiday. But the celebration of New Year's day is an in stitution especially and, as far as I know, exclusively American ; its incidents are very characteristic of the people ; its illustration of society, no less of the lower ten-thousand-dom than of the upper ten-dom, is sug gestive. On New Year's day business, is suspended, the musty down -town temples of commerce are for once shut up, and her votaries are fain to worship the gaudier and hardly less exacting idol of the "upper end." The social accounts ofthe past twelvemonth must be balanced, one must see all the friends he can, and those fashionable amenities which, by a too exclusive absorption in business or by sheer indolence, have been neglected, must be performed "in a lump." While Christmas is the festivity of families, the domestic muster-day. New Year's day is devoted to friendship and society, to etiquette and fashion. On Christmas everybody stays at home ; on New Year's, everybody is abroad. Christmas, in the city, is, in the streets, as tranquil as a Sunday ; sorry is the fate of the lonely street-passenger who on that day, in the midst of innu merable domestic feasts, has but to wander through the NEW year's MORNING. 49 dreary blank of vacant streets, and curse the luck which gives him no seat at a well-filled table. New Year's is full of life out-of-doors ; the streets are full and busy, busy though -with pleasure; there are merry sounds on every side, everybody seems infected with gaiety and hilarious good nature, inspired by the convivial custom of " the day we celebrate," and the excitement of meet ing and chatting with hosts of friends. It is the gala and carnival of society, of men and women of the world. Briggs the banker, and Poplin the stuff mer chant, and Sharpe the lawyer, are fain to lock their counting-rooms and offices — doubtless with a regretful sigh — and inform their clerks that their houses will be "open" for New Year's calls. "Mrs. P. will be glad to see you, gentlemen." Meanwhile there is unwonted activity and preparation in Poplin's gorgeous brown- stone up-town mansion. The spacious suite of apart ments which Mrs. P. is proud to call her salon, is being renovated ; the new silks are fast assuming shape up stairs, under the nimble fingers of the great French dame de la mode and her satellites ; Professor Picquet, the renowned Parisian maitre de cuisine, with a galaxy of lesser culinary stars, is planning a bill of fare full of French mysteries and unpronounceable names, and stately negro waiters have been engaged to serve up his various concoctions. New Year's morning dawns, bright, clear, dry, cold. Likely enough it is one of those brisk American winter mornings, when the air is frosty but kindly, and the vol. n. E 50 AMERICAN SOCIETY. snow lies on the thoroughfares hard and crisp, which the thousands of wheels have failed to grind out of existence — a day imparting keen energy to the spirits, which makes the cheeks and ears redden and tingle, and by its crispy coldness gives the heart buoyancy, and the step briskness and lightness. In every house hold the young folks are early out of bed, for on this morning, of all, it will hardly do to be caught napping. The boys and girls slip on their clothes with zealous haste and rush into their parents' rooms, awakening them with a merry cry of "A happy New Year!" or "New Year's gift — I've caught you, papa!" If they can but utter these cabalistic greetings first, they win a New Year's present for their quickness, or think at least that they deserve it. Even the servants join in this custom of "catching" the members of the family with a suddenly but respectfully uttered " A happy New Year, mum," and having done so, stand hesitating by, hoping to be generously tipped, "just to begin the year with." This catching the New Year's gift goes through the family, and then comes the turn of Tom- mie's little sweetheart or Nellie's little beau, who lives next door. The streets are quiet enough early in the day. Everybody is busy giving and looking at and exclaim ing over the New Year's gifts. The business quarter is as melancholy and dead as Pompeii ; omnibus and horse-cars are few and far bet-ween; the stragglers on the thoroughfares are dressed in their best attire, whe- PUBLIC RECEPTIONS. 61 ther it be the jaunty West-end dandy in broadcloth and yellow gloves, or Biddy from the kitchen in best calico and bonnet. At high noon the carnival of fashion commences ; and now in all directions you hear that merriest, blithest, most inspiring of all winter sounds in the city, the jingle of a thousand sleigh bells. The first thing to do is to wait upon his honour the Mayor, who, whether he will or not, is fain to go through the weary process of recei-ving, shaking hands, and passing the compliments of the day, in his official rooms at the City Hall. At Washington, the President is undergoing the same ordeal at the White House; and the cabinet ministers and the lesser lights ofthe official metropolis at their various residences. The Mayor stands in plain black — the Englishman would miss the heavy mayoral chain — in the centre of his reception room, and the long line of his "fellow citi zens" files by him, dressed plainly, and including re presentatives of every social grade ; a line which must seem to the poor chief magistrate well nigh endless. The while, his worthy spouse has begun to receive her friends at home, all entering who choose, and partaking of the mayoral eggnog and poundcake. If, about half- past twelve, you station yourself at the corner of one of those spacious thoroughfares which grace the up town quarter of New York, you will see the outside of the New Year's carnival in all its glory. The sleighs are whirling by and crowding each other at the doors by the hundred, and you cannot but admire the beauty 62 AMERICAN SOCIETY. of the steeds, the variety and fanciful ornateness of the sleighs, as they whirl rapidly over the smooth snow. The New York swells vie with each other in the superior breed of their horses, and the neatness and oddity of their " snow-flies." Amid all this inter minable maze of chariots — this busy whirlpool of light bounding equipages — you will miss one social element, usually essential to a merry scene. There is no rust ling of silks and satins — none of those brilliant and various colours in which the fair sex delight, and which give a kaleidoscopic variety to ordinary festal occasions. The ladies, be it observed, are every one within doors, performing the functions popularly Imown in the fa shionable world as " receiving." The lords of creation are the undisputed heroes of the streets. Fashionable elderly men, in the finest of coats and with the heaviest of whiskers ; fops in every variety of fashionable cos tume ; blase men of society, who " hate this sort of thing," vote it an unconscionable " bore," and ride over the snow, grumbling with each other — yet who prefer not to lose the chance of the ensuing parties, which they surely will lose if they do not make these "in fernal calls," as in duty bound ; military men and foreign notabilities, fashionable literati and artists, merchants, whose minds, amid all this social glow, will obstinately wander to the deserted little counting- houses so lonely down - town ; also the ever present camp followers of fashion, pretenders to good society, hangers-on at its borders, men about town, with hair THE UP-TO-WN NEW YBAr's. 63 too glossy, and smiles too bland and insincere, and jewelry too obtrusively disposed about them. Many of the occupants of the sleighs, disdainful of coachmen or footmen, drive their spans with their own gloved hands. On every side you see gentlemen driving up to the high portals of Fifth Avenue mansions, throwing the reins over the horses' backs, leaping out briskly, and running up the steps, as if they had a matter of business to transact, and would fain have it quickly over. If we enter one of these gorgeous residences with the rest, we may observe in what style Madame "receives" her mas culine troop of guests. At one o'clock, Mrs. Poplin's salon is fairly thronged — Poplin is a moneyed man, and has more than one marriageable as well as pretty daughter ; and Mrs. P. is a sort of autocrat in the fashionable world, whose fiat is almost law, and whose mindfulness of her young gentlemen proteges, in the coming season of parties and masked balls, is well worth a New Year's visit and a compliment or two. We edge in at the door, and find ourselves in the presence of the lady of the house and her blooming daughters. The saloon is lavishly fitted up — on the mantles, tables, " whatnots," over the mirrors and in the embrasures of the deep bow-windows, flowers of every hue are fanci fully disposed. Through the heavy folding doors, in the rear saloon, one espies a wide table, whereon are discovered a variety of viands and liquors. Eggnog, the peculiar beverage of New Year's day, is plenteous in huge punch bowls — and the contents of other dishes 54 AMERICAN SOCIETY. (of real Sevres or Dresden you observe) vindicate the Americans as the most scientific mixers of beverages in the world. Here, at your choice, are apple toddy, mUk punch, brandy smash, Tom - and - Jerry, as perplexing and (if, curious, you persist in tasting them in turn) intoxicating variety of potables. The lady of the house and her daughters, as they stand near the door of the drawing-room, are, if ever modern mortals are, arrayed like Solomon in all his glory. One can hardly avoid sighing that all their splendour should not be seen and envied by critics of their own sex — that it should be half- wasted on these unappreciative males, who are bowing and uttering commonplaces, mostly unconscious of the taste of the toilets so painfully gotten up, and so rarely costly. It may be, however, that here and there will be one, who, obser-ving, will spread the fame of these marvels of dress among their lady rivals in the fashion able world. We advance and make an obeisance ; ob serve how lovely the weather is — " never saw such a New Year's" — and wish the hostess many happy re turns of it. The ladies repay the compliment with complacent smiles. We ask after Paterfamilias, who is, it seems, undergoing the martyrdom of a series of friendly New Year's calls in the neighbourhood. We are invited by Madame to draw near the refreshment- table, and mingle with the group around it. As we take our places there, we find ourselves elbowed by somewhat eager and impatient neighbours, each of whom is aiming at that particular punch bowl which A FESTIVE SCENE. 55 ¦contains his favourite beverage. Hilarity, in a sub dued, aristocratic way, reigns in that self-satisfied circle; some have, doubtless, made several previous calls — for they titter somewhat abruptly, at sudden intervals, for no discernible cause. Under such cir cumstances, it is not a hard task to obtain their most intimate friendship at a moment's notice ; indeed, it is sometimes no easy one to avoid having that boon thrust upon you. But, after all, there is nothing to shock or displease in that cozy parlour ; the worst you see is an occasional genial and not thick-tongued tipsiness — not wholly inexcusable, perhaps, on New Year's day. Being especial friends of Mrs. P., or at least of one of her blooming daughters, we are honoured by their taking our arms, and accompanying us to the table ; the pre sence of the hostess acts as a talisman to open the con- "vivial circle ; we fill a glass and drink " many happy returns" to our fair companion. It is, perhaps, a slight drawback in the New Year's festi-vity, to have too many lady friends ; for if one drinks a glass of strong, though -subtly deceptive apple toddy with each — ? Many a man of fashion begins his calls at high noon, keeping it up persistently till full midnight, boasting to his friends next day that he made his hundredth New Year's visit ; but he more rarely boasts that he sought his couch quite sober. New Year's is not always a day of unalloyed pleasure and triumph to the fair hostess. If she be of the highly fashionable sort, and looks down 56 AMERICAN SOCIETY. upon "common people," she is not apt to receive her husband's body guard of clerks too kindly. At the very moment that the Honourable Augustus Splurge, Member of Congxess, is addressing his choicest compli ment, in fiowing rhetoric, to Mrs. P., in tides at the door a shoal of unknown unfashionable youths, with cravats too vari-coloured, and movements desperately awkward. Mrs. P. is the more horrified as she espies, over the craniums of these unwelcome callers, the sleek foreign countenance of Count Boshberg, just now the lion of the fashionable world. The group shuffles up to Mrs. P., and one, evidently chosen by pre - concert as spokesman, has the audacity to address her. " Good morning, ma'am ! Happy New Year from us all, ma'am ! We are the house, ma'am !" Mrs. P. is speechless -with chagrin ; the obnoxious guests are con fused, and look blankly at each other. They pass on, and aim honestly, boldly, and in solid phalanx for the refreshment room. They jostle the men of fashion, and take their places ; looks of aristocratic fire greet them ; they stay, as the hostess thinks, intolerably long, laugh intolerably loud, and create a sensation which galls her to the veriest depths of her aristocratic pride. While New Year's is celebrated above in the saloons, festivities are going on below stairs. John the coach man, Pierre the valet, Bridget the cook, Molly the chambermaid, are, as servants are the world over, imi tative of their masters and mistresses. Wliile "missus" and the young ladies are complimenting and bowing in THANKSGIVING. 57 the drawing room, a burlesque of the scene is going on in the subterranean abode of the servants. Have they not, too, their friends, not to say beaux, sweethearts, and putative " cousins," and shall they not, too, wish one another good luck for the coming year? So the servants of the fashionable guests are entertained -with infinite jollity bythe servants ofthe fashionable hostess. There, too, are punch-bowls and eggnog, best dresses, and bowing and scraping, the graceful exchange of pro per compliments and good wishes, amusing imitations and parodies of aristocratic manners and propriety. It is rather a pretty bit of irony, this plebeian caricature of the scene upstairs, though not intended. The social duties of New Year's over, society has done its duty and settled its accounts,- and the devotee of commerce is once more free to barter and trade, and remain happy in his counting-room. " Thanksgiving" is a pious festival, founded by the Pilgrim Fathers as an occasion to give thanks for the manifold blessings of the year. Formerly confined to New England, it has gradually spread through the states, and is now a general holiday. The day on which Thanksgiving is to be celebrated is appointed by the Governor of each state by proclamation ; it usually oc curs on the last Thursday in November. The Gover nor's proclamation is read from all the pulpits on a Sunday previous to the appointed day ; it enumerates the causes for public thanksgiving, and calls on the people to celebrate them in the time-honoured way. 58 AMERICAN SOCIETY. During the civil war it became the custom for the Pre sident also to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation, thus making the festivity a national as well as a state one ; the Union victories, the prosperous crops, the general progress of the country, were causes of thankfulness. On the morning of Thanksgiving, the people go to church, where the preacher delivers a discourse ap propriate to the occasion. He is, on this day, con sidered rather more at liberty to touch on pohtical matters than in the ordinary routine of his sermons ; and during the war, especially, the Thanksgiving dis courses were often filled with patriotic appeals, en couragements to the people in the darker days of the struggle, and earnest prayers for the safety of the Re public. The more social celebration of Thanksgiving — the family dinner and games in the afternoon — are not unlike those of Christmas : the latter part of the day is given up to sports and merry making ; it is a time for the boys to come home from college, and the girls from boarding school ; to invite intimate friends, who are ' alone in town, to the domestic table ; and to call the grandparents for a day from their country home, to indulge in festivities with their children and their children's children. But perhaps the most universally, and, by the masses of the people in town and country, most keenly enjoyed American holiday, is that familiarly known as " the glorious Fourth." The superficial reader of history need hardly be told that the Declaration of Independ- INDEPENDENCE DAY. 59 -ence — announcing the severing by the colonies of the old ties with Britain — was signed by the patriot de puties of Congress on the Fourth of July 1776. It was the American Magna Charta ; rather, their Declaration of Rights. The anniversary of the event, as it comes round each year, is looked forward to, especially by the boys, with impatience and high expectation. It is the great national jubilee — more so than the Derby or Guy Fawkes' day in England, as much so as the Quinze Aout among the French. Public characters live in the hope of being chosen to deliver "the oration of the day;" the shopkeepers to whose special line the sale of Chinese crackers, of Roman candles and torpedoes, of mimic bombs and blue -lights, is pertinent, are busily laying in their stock, anticipatory of a rich iarvest ; city corporations vote generous sums for the pubhc entertainment ; the balloonists are clean ing and experimentally puffing their aeronautic ma chines ; and the gentlemen of the militia and of the fire companies burnish their arms, have dainty patches sewn where their uniforms are too well worn, and scour their engines, that their appearance in the parade which is to come shaU be imposing and worthy. The peda gogue looks forward to the day as a momentary respite from his d,aily trial of patience and self-restraint ; for the boys are to have holiday, and he may depart to the country fields in peace, visit his native village, or delve deep into the library, far out of the reach of the patriotic clamour. The country folk — always curious 60 -AMERICAN SOCIETY. to see the show — are, those at least who live within a practicable distance of the city, getting ready their " best bibs and tuckers," and are making studious cal culations of the probable cost of a trip to town. Very likely the English stranger, who retires quietly to bed in his hotel on the eve of the Fourth, is startled from his second nap, at break of day, by the bang ! boom ! pop ! fizz ! with which the celebration opens. It may occur to him that there is an insurrection, or that the town is being bombarded by some sudden foe ; and he instinctively clutches the brace of revolvers which he has brought wherewith to defend himself from the aboriginal natives of the continent. Thus is the "glorious Fourth" ushered in, as the first faint streaks of its morning appear on the horizon ; by the booming of cannon from fortress and ship, the burst ing of rockets over city and bay, the sharp snap of crackers in every street, the firing of pistols and mimic bombs from roof and window. Flags are hoisted in every direction — on the national vessels and buildings, the city edifices, down-town stores, up-town mansions ; the bells of all the churches and chapels are lustily rung ; and the flrst shock of the daybreak salute rouses every boy from his slumber, and summons him into the street. They have laid in their stock of pyrotechnics over night; and are soon adding, through all the thoroughfares, their little thunders to the booming cannons and the clanging bells. At an early hour the trains and boats are not only pouring gaily -dressed PATRIOTIC FESTIVITIES. 61 rustics into the city, but also many hundreds of towns people out of it. To escape the noise and bustle, the smoke and smell, is as grateful to the latter, as to be in the midst of it all is happiness to the former. Multi tudes are hurrying in crowded trains to the green fields ; other multitudes are steaming in equally crowded boats out upon the bays, or up the rivers, to spend a long quiet day on the breezy ocean beaches, or to wander in the groves on the river banks. Picnics are going off in every direction — quiet little church picnics, Sunday- school picnics, social picnics of half a dozen young men and women, workpeople's picnics, Fenian picnics, picnics ofthe hundred societies and associations. Pick pockets are on the alert, and ply, among the eager crowds, a thri-ring trade. Mountebanks and small show men, marvellous bearded women and Norwegian giants, daring acrobats and perambulating negro minstrels, reap from rustic credulity or curiosity a plentiful har vest. The museums, ice-cream saloons, oyster cellars, bar rooms are open, and are so eagerly patronised that the good folk have to wait their turns, and seize a table or procure a ticket when and how they can. Early in the day band music is heard here and there, and now emerges upon the main thoroughfare. A long line of military companies and firemen appears, in bright lioliday costumes, and with glittering arms, stared at with mouths agape by the rustic visitors, and followed by huddling bevies of admiring street boys. On one of the larger public squares a platform has been erected, 62 AMERICAN SOCIETY. and at high noon the crowds of people begin to gather thick about it. A brass band marches up, blowing lustily on horns and bugles, and hot with the exertion : follow ing them is a group of gentlemen, who mount the plat form, and take seats thereon. One takes the chair, and when the band has stopped its blowing — having played, to the popular delight, " Yankee Doodle," or "Hail, Columbia," — one ofthe gentlemen is called on by the chairman to read the Declaration of Independ ence. He comes forward with a long scroll, and at the highest pitch of his voice, proceeds to entertain the as sembled multitude with the " glorious principles" laid down in that immortal paper. Sometimes, in villages, or in cities where public opinion is " advanced," a young lady is called on to perform this task. Next follows the oration of the day. The orator has been chosen by the corporation committee charged with the arrange ments of the celebration ; he is, perhaps, an eminent politician or editor, or a favourite clergyman. The ora tion affords an opportunity for spread-eagleism with out limit. The people are treated to glowing pictures of their glorious past history, with eloquent prophecies of the millennium which is in store for " this great Republic." The Pilgrim Fathers, and not less the Patriot Fathers, are duly eulogised ; and the orator not seldom, after discoursing on the significance of the day, reverts to subjects of present popular interest, gives his idea of female suffrage, or negro equality, or a prohibi tory liquor law. The oration concluded, there is an- PASTIMES OF THE FOURTH, 63 other performance by the band, after which the good folk separate to the many pastimes afforded in various parts of the town. On some public park a concert is going on — a noted orchestra, with its hundred instru ments ; in public halls there are children's concerts. In Boston, where the pubhc children are, as has been said, very early drilled in singing, the infantile concerts are among the most imposing features of the "Fourth." Imagine twenty thousand merry bright- eyed Httle creatures, in every condition of life, — here and there a little black sheep, -with white eyeballs, vroolly pate, and pearly teeth — -dressed in neat and many -coloured summer costumes, gathered in that vast Coliseum where the Peace Jubilee was held, and singing out with their liquid infantile treble the old familiar school-day songs and hymns! Then, the singing over, witness this infantile army of twenty thousand descending in happy pell-mell from the broad platform to the broader body of the edifice, and there forming numberless cotillons, a great beehive of them, whirling here and there, dashing into waltzes, and look ing as rosy, as joyous, as children only can. For in America holidays are especially and peculiarly the pro perty of the children ; and public provision is above all made for their amusement. Down by the river in the afternoon a great multitude have gathered ; bridge, pier, and the contiguous street are packed by men, women, and children, close as herrings ;, boat races are the attraction. Gingerbread and mead, wretched cigars 64 AMERICAN SOCIETY. and faded nosegays are thrust in your face by ambulat ory men and women who make the day a day of trade ; out on the water is anchored a barge, whereon there are two or three important-looking men in consultation — these the umpires of the race; presently tte fragile, pike-shaped shells, with red-faced fellows stripped to their flannels, shoot off and out of sight ; amid the cries of the multitude, here they are, hotter-faced than ever, shooting back again; cheers long and loud greet the victors. On some wide bare expanse, perhaps in the suburbs, there are proceeding other pastimes. Base ball matches, in which the city " eleven" and the Cran- bury "eleven" are pitted against each other; spider like velocipedes, shooting on the course, and, mayhap, toppling suddenly groundward; lusty " walkists" and runners, walking and running for a prize ; quoits thrown, here at one side ; there an extempore open-air shooting gallery, where heroic militiamen mingle con descendingly with simple civilians in popping at the eye, a group of curious boys and men standing near. Balloons begin to rise, veritable ones, and imitation monsters — and the bqjloonists hang on, clinging to their ropes, and wave their hats and handkerchiefs as they mount ether-ward. In the evening the people of the towns and their rustic guests are treated to pyro technics on one of the larger parks or squares. Im mense crowds gather to witness the display ; and loud is the cheering when the fire runs rapidly up and over the light and hitherto invisible frames, displaying THE CINCINNATI. 65 " General Washington on horseback," or " The Temple of Liberty," or " The Genius of Columbia, attended by Justice and Freedom," or " The Patriot's Monument -with a halo of glory." The Fourth of July is the occasion for the meeting of many societies and associations, political, military, and philanthropic. On that day assembles, in each city, the famous society of the "Cincinnati," which is, per haps, the nearest approach to a hereditary aristocracy to be found in America. The Cincinnati is composed of descendants of officers who fought in the Revolu tionary war. It was founded soon after the close of the Eight Years' struggle, by the officers of the patriot army, and Washington was chosen its first president ; and the society has been handed down from father to son in the succeeding generations. Its branches as semble on Independence Day in the various cities, transact whatever business may come before them, and after electing officers for the ensuing year, adjourn to a sumptuous banquet, where subjects pertinent to the day are discussed with the viands and wines. The famous Tammany Society of New York — a poli tical coterie which long controlled the destinies of the metropolis — has its annual meeting on the Fourth, when democratic speeches are made by the more promi nent members, party toasts and odes are delivered, and the meeting closes with an elaborate collation. Labour Reform Leagues and temperance conventions are held in the open air, in groves and parks at a little distance VOL. II. F 66 AMERICAN SOCIETY. from the cities, where strong-minded ladies and zealous friends of progress assemble to comfort each other, re port the progress of the year, and preach their dogmas to the country folk attracted by their presence. It is seldom that the " glorious Fourth" closes in the large towns without some accidents and fires. The next morning's papers usually contain, with long de scriptions of the festivities of the day, a column of " casualties." There are explosions of too ambitious steamers and tugs ; careless boys, dealing with crackers, get burned, sometimes killed; the universal pyrotech nics are too apt, somewhere or other, to set fire to frame houses. It has often been attempted to prohibit by law the promiscuous setting off of fireworks in the streets, with little success. On the whole, the day is one on which the masses of the people best enjoy them selves, each after his own taste ; perhaps there is no English holiday so universally participated in by every one, high and low, throughout the land. Late in the spring occurs what is called the An niversary Week. The Americans, as I have said, are very fond of getting together in all sorts of conven tions and meetings. Anniversary Week is the oc casion for the assembling of the religious associations, political societies, and the advocates of radical ideas ; conferences of Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Uni tarians, Universalists, and other sects, are held, and lively discussions take place on the progress of the church, and not seldom on the affairs of the country. ANNIVERSARY MEETINGS. 67 The " go-ahead" character of the sects in America is fuUy illustrated on these occasions. But perhaps the most interesting of the anniversary meetings are those held by the isms and idiosyncrasies of the day. You will then see the Spiritualists assembling in force, and relating to each other strange experiences, not failing to argue yet stranger doctrines. The " strong-minded women'' gather together, rejoice over the progress of their cause, and draw up peremptory petitions to Con gress. The Anti-Slavery society — which, notwithstand ing the extinction of its bete noire, still survives — musters its champions, and with the fearless frondeur spirit which of old defied mobs broadcloth and plebeian proclaims what further reforms are needed to realise the Utopian commonwealth of which they have dreamed. The religionists of the advanced schools — Resurrec tionists, Free Lovers, Mormons, isms without end — also hold their jubilee, and startle ordinary souls by the singularity of their addresses, and the progress they have made in the solution of the great questions of life and death. The two most attractive conventions, to the impar tial and curious outsider, are those ofthe Spiritualists and of the Woman's Rights people. The former meet under the presidency of one of the great prophets of their sect; often the long-bearded, long-haired, spec tacled Andrew Jackson Davis, once the Spiritualist candidate for President, may be seen administering patriarchal teachings from the platform chair. The pro- 68 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ceedings usually have that spicy character which arises from a great variance of opinion held by inspired folk of both sexes and all colours. Interesting young women with short hair and bright eyes contest the fo rensic palm with elderly ladies with a wild frenzied look, and negro Spiritualists boldly plant themselves against the dicta of long-haired "mediums" of twenty years' experience. The presiding officer, male or female, having somewhat less knowledge of parliamentary law than " subtle influences" and " spirit spheres," confu sion of debate not seldpm follows, ending in a general bitterness of language and confusion. The Woman's Rights conventions are not less amusing as character istic debating assemblies. I would say nothing dis respectful of the cause which they have at heart, for there is a leaven of justice in it -n'hich it is difficult not to admit. The women who lead the movement in America are mostly women of decided talents, of great zeal, and of courageous persistency — women who are masculine, at least in their intellectual traits. Their meetings in Anniversary Week are not the less interest ing from the fact, that with all the male energy and logic of the leaders, womanly characteristics are conti nually betrajdng themselves. I shall not soon forget attending one of these conventions a few years ago in Boston, the centre of intellectual radicalism and of many of the other isms which appear from time to time. The meeting was held in Tremont Temple, one of the largest halls in the city. Its announcement A woman's rights convention. 69 drew a crowd of curious outsiders, who, however, did not attempt in any way to disturb the proceedings. Upon the stage appeared a prim elderly lady, -with a long triangular face, large eyes hid behind a pair of gold- rimmed spectacles, and long lank hair brushed flat over the ears. Around her sat the dignitaries of the conven tion : several mild-looking old gentlemen ; half-a-dozen precocious young -women, some in straight waistless dresses, others in all the glories ofthe prevailing fashion ; and one or two positive appearing coloured gentlemen and ladies, who seemed to take a deep interest in the occasion. The prim dame in the chair in a loud clear voice called the convention to order, and a pretty little lady forthwith read some reports and called over lists of the members. Then commenced the proposing of the resolutions, and the discussing them as they were pro posed. The ladies, as was quite natural and right, led the debate, and occupied the larger share of it. A western young lady, who seemed to be yet in her teens, but having the self-confidence and forensic ease of a twenty years' Senator, mounted the platform, and pro nounced in a clear ringing voice, with plenteous ges tures, a discourse on the inalienable right of the sex to vote and hold office. That, she said, was the first great question to be decided. She having finished, a mild- looking gray-woolled negro parson proceeded to argue against her. He claimed that that was not the first question to be decided; "fust," said he, with a burst of warmth, "fust let us free de slave." Whereat he 70 AMERICAN SOCIETY. was sternly called to order by the lady president, who said that to denounce a lady's speech was ungallant, and could not be permitted here ; it was, she declared, only one more proof of the attempted tyranny of the oppress ing sex. The coloured gentleman desired to explain; he only wished — The president indignantly asked if he thought they were to be browbeaten by the men. His meek disclaimer was drowned in a treble chorus of " Shame !" and he was fain to hold his peace. Then came a fierce passage-at-arms between two middle-aged ladies on the matter — one declaring that there ought to be "free speech," and that the women ought not to begin by putting down the men in this meeting; the other engaging in a sarcastic running fire on the last speaker's submission to masculine despotism, and charging her with bringing here, into this meeting of oppressed womanhood, the pernicious maxims of a tyrannised domestic hearth. There are in America, as in England and Ireland, Orange associations, which celebrate the " glorious and pious memory" of WiUiam the Third; and "Sons of Erin," who celebrate with equal zest "St. Patrick's day in the mornin'." On the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne the Orange lodges have meetings and pro cessions, often steamboat excursions and picnics. The familiar tunes of " The Protestant Boys," " The Boyne Water," and " Croppies, lie down," are discoursed, and the north of Ireland immigrants indulge in fulsome ST. Patrick's day. 71 orations in praise of their glorious Dutch protector ; not seldom, however, they find themselves the objects of brickbat-throwing and clubrhurling by their compa triots of the other faith. The Irish Catholics everywhere have a great proces sion on St. Patrick's day, the Irish regiments and fire companies turning out in force, with the suggestive accompaniments of green rosettes and harp-adorned banners, and "Erin go bragh" sounding blithely from the band in their van. There are, of course, banquets and Irish balls ; and the Irish children, following the American custom, have entertainments provided espe cially for them in the afternoon. CHAPTER V. Summer Resorts : The Catskills — The Adirondacks — Saratoga- — Niagara — Jaunts ivestward — Newport in the season. The Americans have a wide choice in summer resorts. Nature has endowed their continent with all those va rious beauties and advantages which attract the fashion able and the feeble in health — those whose tastes incline them to seek out rural scenes in which to spend their summer holiday, and those who desire to transfer to a fashionable watering-place the social dissipation ofthe winter. All along the coast there are lovely bays with long semicircular coves, whose shores are the finest sand ; there are bold jutting promontories and rugged rocks extending along the water's edge, and picturesque ocean islands bordered by extensive beaches, and sup plied with spacious hotels. The mountains afford a no less charming variety to him who prefers "the forest primeval — the murmuring pines and the hemlocks," to the "perpetual laughter of the dimpling sea waves." Not many hours' ride on the Hudson, above New York, will bring you to the foot of the Catskill group of moun tains, celebrated by the legends of Irving and the In- the adirondacks. 73 dian romances of Fenimore Cooper — the pride of the old Dutch settlers no less than of the modern New Yorker. It is a delightful ride along the noble river, through the broad rolling highlands and the palisades on either side. A stage coach brings you in two or three hours to a large hotel on the side of a thickly wooded mountain, standing at its very edge. Here the view ranges over a vast and lovely landscape ; the Hud son glides winding below, and stretches off and disap pears in the dim distance. From hence you may make numberless excursions to picturesque waterfalls and deep mountain gorges, and wonderful caves with ro mantic and traditional memories; and here, too, you may enjoy, if you -wiU, the feverish pleasures of fashion, for here the fashionables flock, and go to and fro the summer long. If you prefer mountains of a wilder, grander sort, sport of a lustier kind, you must go far to the northward of the Catskills ; you must leave civilisation far behind you, and penetrate into the vast forests of the Adirondacks. Here indeed is the "forest primeval." Here you reach the boldest and rudest type of American scenery — the as yet unsubdued hunting grounds of the Indians, with inexhaustible quantities of fish and game, and unlimited opportunities for silvan sports of the most robust and romantic kind. In the midst of these savage forests, with huge trees intermingled with thick brush and wild flowers, you will come upon many a roaring stream, startling the solitude with its liquid rush ; now and then upon a 74 AMERICAN SOCIETY. long wild lake, where the trout and pike are plenteous, as yet undisturbed by the cruel depredations of the angler. You may wander thus for days, subsisting upon the -victims of your gun and hook, camping out in a rude open space at night, and finding as you go on many a glorious landscape roughly grand as Nature formed it. A coterie of the Cambridge literati used to own — perhaps they still own — a house on the borders of one of the Adirondack lakes, whither they resorted, supplied -with every appHance for sport, in the early summer. They had ample provisions carried to their nook, and doubtless many books ; and their life in the vast solitude must have had a peculiar charm for the famous poets, geologists, and philosophers among their number. There are, too, plenty of springs in America, which give an excuse for the summer gatherings of the fashionable world. Saratoga is, perhaps, the most popular and the best known, and has long been the favourite resort of the rich New Yorkers, not less than of the fortune hunters and ehgible daughters. It is pleasantly situated, reno-wned as the place where a great revolutionary battle was fought, which resulted in Burgoyne's surrender; it has not, however, any very obtrusive^ natural attractions : it is the Harrogate or Bath of America. The to-svn is an airy handsome one, •with broad streets, long rows of stately American elms many elegant houses, and having some of the finest and most imposing hotels in the country. SARATOGA SPRINGS. 75 The springs of " congress water" — which is bottled up and sent to all parts of America — are numerous, and situated in a sort of open park. One may have a glass of the bubbling and snapping mineral liquor drawn up, and, if he can bear it, drink it ad libitum. It being the fashion to quaff at the springs, everybody who wishes to be aufait learns to like the water, or at least to keep a composed countenance while partaking of it. It is at least harmless, and to very many is unquestion ably in-vigorating. It is the custom for the guests to resort to the wells before breakfast, and have a morning drink. The ladies are, so early, in elaborate toilets, and that flirtation which, for the younger people at least, is the main attraction of Saratoga, begins already before they sit down at table. Life at Saratoga is rather indolent and monotonous. There is a lake not far off, whither it is fashionable to canter in the morning ; there is a racecourse, where there are frequent matches, and then there is, for once, a real hearty excitement. The hotels are supplied with billiard rooms, reading rooms, smoking rooms, ball rooms; and in the latter, nearly every night there are held splendid fashionable routs, as brilliant and gorgeous — as much great matri monial fairs, where the marriageable wares are shown off attiieir best — as the up-town winter balls. Niagara is another fashionable resort, both for Yan kees and Canadians. It is not worth while to describe it, for it has been depicted again and again by tourist and artist. There is here the same round of fashion- 76 AMERICAN SOCIETY. able gaiety, of rich toilets, of elaborate dinners, of for tune hunting and match making. The hotels are, if any thing, flner than those of Saratoga ; the natural scenery and variety of excursions are of course very much more attractive. It has recently become the fashion to make summer excursions to the far West, and to spend the sunny months among the prairie wilds and in the solitudes of Nebraska and Colorado. The Pacific Rail road conveys one thither in a few days ; and to the adventurous spirit nothing can be more enticing than the wild beast hunts which may be enjoyed there to perfection, not to speak of possible encounters with Indians — either having a struggle with them, or, if they are friendly, a curious visit to their camps, and the enjoyment of their quaint hospitality. Here parties camp out for days and weeks, living in the wild back woods style, putting up with rude fare and many priva tions, but enjoying a kind of sport hardly possible in any part of Europe. There are two American summer resorts which it will perhaps be interesting to describe more in detail ; two, to my mind, far more enjoyable than the head quar ters of fashion already referred to. These are Newport and the White Mountains : the one, perhaps, the best example of a seaside resort ; the other, to the mass of not too adventurous mountain lovers, presenting the greatest variety of pleasures, scenes, and comforts. Numerous .are the preparations made in the city household for leaving town and spending the summer OFF TO NEWPORT. 77 at Ne-wport. The father of the family, who is, not un likely, somewhat loth to leave his counting room, even for "the season," has little rest until the time of de parture has arrived. His figures and calculations are inextricably mixed up in his brain with the errands which are enjoined upon him at the breakfast table. He gets to thinking about the rise and fall of patent locks, imagines himself to be speculating in waterproof travelling cloaks, and although a wholesale sugar mer chant, sets down portmanteaus and spyglasses in his daily balance of profit and loss. Returning up town in the evening, he finds his dinner in a lukewarm state, and his house the scene of disheartening confusion ; he stumbles over piles of trunks and bags in the hall ; he finds the papers in his library, on which he has been with great care figuring out the results of an important "operation," thro-wn in a heap into a corner; the car pets are up, and articles of female dress are hanging upon his armchair and piled in irregular mounds over his desk. All things are topsy-tur-yy; even his woman kind, who have been working hard, they tell him, " get ting ready," present to him red faces and fiying hair. Dressmakers and milliners flit meekly by him and glide out at the front door — a small army of them ; they have been immured in the bedchambers above from early morning, sewing and fitting with all their might. At last the morning so much longed for by the ladies arrives. The "portable villas" rise in a lofty pile in the__hall; the ladies sweep down in the jauntiest of 78 AMERICAN SOCIETY. travelling costumes, their dresses making a rustle as they descend, like the shower of gold in the fairy play. Paterfamilias too has been constrained to don a tourist suit; he stands with the air of a social martyr at the top of the staircase, till the hills of dress have rolled to the bottom ; then cautiously descends, and super intends the porters as they struggle to the carriage, Y bent double beneath the weight of the " portable villas." The ladies load down the husband and father ' with the "little parcels," and he finally emerges into the street with two bags in each hand, three shawls thrown over his shoulder, an opera-glass swung across his back, and his fingers nervously grasping the family supply of umbrellas and parasols. When everything — including the ladies — has been stowed away without accident in the carriage, and they begin to rattle over the rough stony thoroughfare of Broadway, he leans back with a sigh of relief, and they quickly pass the long line of tall buildings, escape by a marvel colli sions with omnibuses and cabs, and rapidly descend one of the side streets, now catching a glimpse of that unprepossessing, dirty-looking sheet of water which the New Yorkers call "East River." Here, at the wharf, v/edged in amongst a bewildering crowd and variety of craft, lies the steamboat which is to take the party to Newport. The ladies sweep over the plank, and repair at once to the cabin ; the father remains behind to see after the baggage, which the porters seriously complain of, and for transferring which to the boat they demand NEWPORT SCENERY. 79 double fees — an imposition which, as a business man, he resents, but to which he finally yields. Steaming out of the New York dock at four in the afternoon, they reach Newport in some thirteen hours, and may gaze upon the island realm of fashion — the summer paradise of American "upper ten-dom" — in the sparkling light of the early summer morning. A more lovely situation for a summer resort than Ne-wport occu pies could hardly be imagined. It is a fertile island, bearing a rich and variegated foliage, prolific in fiowers, and with pretty undulating hills; situated at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, which, as the reader who is up in his geography remembers, runs northward, splitting the little state of Rhode Island in half. On either side, east and west, lie the land borders ofthe bay, dotted thickly with summer villas and parks, the country houses buUt in every style of architecture, from imita tion Rhine castles in granite to the latest French cot- - tage plan. To the south-west is dimly seen the long narrow outline of Long Island, which lies parallel to the main land of Connecticut and Rhode Island, from New York to Newport ; while looking toward the south-east the eye stretches over the boundless expanse of the Atlantic, and reaching the horizon, stops where the waters apparently meet the sky. And here, too, you have every variety of beach and crag and water nook, and may bathe in a broad curve of sandy coast, or angle in among the rocks, where the waters are dark and still, 80 AMERICAN SOCIETY. and the fish are plenty and not too shy. Undoubtedly the first thing which would strike an Englishman at Ne-wport would be the almost glaring look of that part of the town where the fashionable residences are situ ated. The seaside cottages and the hotels are mostly of recent construction ; but in the business part the buildings are old and musty, for Newport is really one of the oldest of American towns, and has a certain political importance as one of the capitals of the state of Rhode Island, which is indicated by a prim but not very imposing edifice, where the Legislature meets, and which is called the " State House." The hotels are on a scale of spaciousness and luxury which it would be hard to find even in New York ; and among them the "Ocean House," doubtless familiar to many a reader who has crossed the Atlantic, is famous. It contains ball rooms, and billiard rooms, and smoking rooms, boudoirs that would ravish a French marquise of the last century, dining halls which are almost op pressive in their vastness and decorations. The drives, too, along the wide extended beaches and over the lovely island are peculiarly fine; and it is not too much to say that more attention is paid to horse- racing and "breeds," to dashy turn-outs and artistic riders, at Newport, than to its legitimate pastimes of sea bathing and angling. Our fashionable family hastens, with the rest, up the long spacious pier. A trifling crisis occurs in the shape of a family misunderstanding ; owing to the fact the ocean HOUSE. 81 that Paterfamilias, among other commissions confided to him in the last few days of getting ready, was in structed to write, engaging rooms at the Ocean House, and forgot it. That annoying fact transpires as the coach -s^ith its ponderous freight starts away from the pier. The husband and father has reason to resume his longings for the counting room, which have been in abeyance during the voyage ; he becomes the target for a trinity of female tongues ; and as he gloomily thinks of all he has suffered for the past week or more is fain to mutter to himself how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child — and wife. When the party arrives in the lofty vestibule of the Ocean House, and the clerk in white neck-tie, with a quill adorning each ear, politely informs them that the only vacant rooms are on the fifth floor — " in fact, under — hem ! — under the roof" — when, with infinite dropping of bundles, and tarryings at the head of stair cases to take breath, and waiting for keys, they at last reach what the clerk was pleased to call their " apart ments" — their disappointment and indignation have reached their height. For this — three small hot attic rooms, with windows looking stable-ward instead of ocean-ward, so that when you glanced out of them you would never guess you -n'ere near the sea — for this the ladies had left their airy brown stone house on Fifth Avenue, and the man of commerce his beloved arm chair at the counting house 1 Their experience, they find, is not a solitary one. The first floor, the dashy VOL. II. G 82 AMERICAN SOCIETY. side whiskered landlord tells them, was engaged last year ; the second was spoken for in the winter ; the third had been booked for three months ; the fourth was reserved for those who bespoke apartments by letter ; and to the fifth all suddenly arriving mortals were inevitably doomed. So, on this sweltering night in June, this fashionable family, are fain to grumblingly retire into beds which are too short, and in rooms hardly large enough to accommodate their baggage. How it is that the ladies have brought order out of the chaos which their rooms assumed when they unpacked in the morning passes masculine conjecture ; still it is clear they have achieved it, for they descend to the breakfast table at the fashionable hour of half-past eleven in the freshest and most correct of morning toilets ; and the father alone of the party bears unmistakable indica tions of not being entirely at home in the great hotel. Possibly the fashionable day at Newport is not so very unlike that at Scarborough or Brighton. Loung ing, fiirting, and driving are its not strikingly novel pas times. To the fashionable ladies it is a most laborious, wearying, wearing existence. They rise, it is hinted, be tween seven and eight, and find it difficult to complete their toilet in time to respond to the ten o'clock break fast gong. Breakfast occupies, what with chatting, un expectedly finding old friends at the table, and satisfying the appetite, something like an hour. That meal over, the ladies adjourn either to the sumptuous saloons, in whose alcoves they may continue the delicious little SEA-SIDE PLEASURES. 83 gossip (begun at table, and too good to be lost) over last night's ball ; or to the fine broad piazza which runs around three sides of the hotel, from whence they may gaze upon the sea, and where they may indulge in tete- a-tetes with their partners of the last fashionable ball. American ladies, and especially fashionable American ladies, are less energetic than the English. They take far less exercise, are far less fond of robust pleasures. When they reach the watering-places, they seem, many of them, to be victimised by inertia ; they are loth to stir during the day. The persevering, and the few who go to the sea-shore for the sober object of health, or out of real love for marine nature, hasten off, after break fast, to the beach, some to bathe, others to walk on the sands, or sketch from a favourable standpoint among the rocks. Parties of croquet are formed ; and as you stand on the piazza you -will see many a huge wagoii rattling by, with long seats on either side overflowing with merry girls in wide flabby straw hats, and quite as many ladies of doubtful age, and "nobby" youths in the jauntiest of seaside costumes, playing the agreeable with all their might — a picnic party bound for some grove in the centre of the island, escaping for a little from the monotous wash and roll of the waves. The gentlemen — those, at least, who are too indolent or too little gallant to seek companionship with the gentler sex — are smoking in groups here and there, discussing politics, or anxiously asking each other about the stock market in the city. Some are prone to wander in the 84 AMERICAN SOCIETY. direction of the stables ; others while away the weary morning over the billiard table, or at a game of " High- low Jack." It is both melancholy and amusing to watch the poor man of commerce as the " long, long, weary day" drags slowly on. He can, for the life of him, find nothing to do. He gets desperately hungry in the morning for his breakfast, which, at home, he is wont to have at sharp seven ; and the first day he was at Newport he afforded a fund for a day's amusement among the waiters by incessantly asking if he couldn't have his breakfast as early as nine. He vranders about the vast hotel and through the streets, hands in pockets ; his disconsolate face now and then looms for a moment at the door of the billiard room ; he is seen haunting the reading room for hours before the arrival of the mail ; and the only morsel of comfort which he en joys the live-long day is when his Herald comes by the evening boat, and he may sit crouched up at one corner of the piazza, and gloat over the " Money Market" and " Trade Report." The poor man finally becomes desperate with so indolent an existence, and frantically tries in succession the round of seaside amusements ; is in everybody's way at the stables ; gets sea - sick on a short yacht excursion ; is wofully beaten at billiards ; and makes the ladies of his family heartily ashamed of him by his incorrigible awkward ness at the picnics and in the ball room. The latter seems to be, after all, the most attractive spot to the majority of the Newport ladies. Several HOTEL BALLS. 85 nights in every week, even when the summer heat is at its height, the landlord throws open his superb saloons to his guests, pro-vddes a band of music and a sumptuous supper, and the light fantastic toe is tripped in those hot and crowded rooms until far into the next morning. Very many of the lady guests occupy themselves -with nothing else than the prepara tion for, the enjoyment of, and resting after, these fes tive occasions. Many rise late, spend the time between their breakfast and dark -with the coiffeur and the dressing-maid, dance and flirt and eat ice creams and lobster salad till four or flve the next morning, and so go on day after day and week after week. Mothers and daughters wrinkle and fade visibly under this endless round of fashionable vanities. A more suggestive spec tacle than the Ocean House breakfast table on a morning after one of these balls could hardly be described. The languid, tired countenances, yellow and dull, the fatigued walk and listless conversation, the meagre ap petite and sleepy posture at table, attest the miserable effects of constant dissipation. The fashionable world has come to the seaside, not to recruit its wasted energies from the ravages of the winter just gone by, nor to brace itself up for those of the -winter to come, but because it craves still its fever ish life, and knows that here it may be pursued. And besides, there is with many an ambitious mamma an object in so pertinaciously keeping in the tide of fa shion. Despite all the mother's hopes and stratagems. 86 AMERICAN SOCIETY. neither Juliana nor Lucinda have " formed an engage ment" during the winter campaign ; and the truth is that they are getting on in years. I believe her to be a really loving and unselfish mother. You cannot per suade me that that intelligent, quietly-disposed old lady would suffer, as she does, from lateness of hours and utter bodily exhaustion, to indulge her own personal vanity. No ; she is sincerely anxious to do the best possible thing she can for her daughters. Society tells her that the one way to accomplish it is to follow the fashionable stream as the gadfly dogged lo ; and she, like many a thousand good women on both sides of the Atlantic, believes it, and sacrifices herself accordingly — and not only sacrifices herself, but the partner of her joys and sorrows also. I know no more melancholy sight than that of parents, whose gray hairs tell us that they are fast descending the hill of life, dragged into this maelstrom of fashion by vain, selfish, and shallow-hearted children, and who are unmurmuringly wearing deeper furrows in their cheeks, in the hope that they may thus secure to those children a brilliant or a luxurious future. Juliana and Lucinda are pass ing the climacteric of the marriageable period, and must stand in the best stalls of the great mart. And so Newport and the other American watering places have got to be — quite as much as Scarborough and Baden and Wiesbaden— ^mari'iagejbourses, with their specula tors and their victims. But there is another and brighter side of this sea- SEA-SIDE RECREATION. 87 side picture. At Ne-wport you will find two distinct kinds of society. Although recreation — real, hearty, enjoyable recreation — is not cultivated by Americans ¦with that almost universal zest which is seen in the English, still its importance as a leaven to the toilsome year of the working world is becoming more and more appreciated every year beyond the Atlantic. Within a few years, horseback riding and croquet, sea bathing and long jaunts afoot, have become fashionable at New port. Everybody knows what Carlyle says about the oak; how that it stands and grows a thousand years silently ; it is passed by unnoticed, till, with a crash, it comes tumbling to the earth. So it is with society everywhere ; we are apt to judge that portion which makes the most noise as the typical society of a people. The visitor to Ne-wport, or the reader of newspaper letters describing it, is apt to imagine that the balls and routs, the flirting and lounging and dissipation, constitute all its life in the season. The other class, which goes quietly about the commonplace and not ex citing pastimes of recreation, is not noted and is for gotten. WhUe Newport is sought by the fashionable and the marriage - seekers merely because it is one of the summer centres of the monde — while, for them, the fact that there are beaches there, and good fishing, and pretty landscapes, is a minor consideration, and any other place would do as well if only the tyrant Fashion chose to have it so — what a glorious place it is for those who really seek and love seaside recreation ! For oo AMERICAN SOCIETY. instance, there is the fresh -faced, fun -loving, early - rising, excursion-planning Yankee girl, whose papa is rich, and has a French " cottage by the sea," who has just left school behind for ever, and has come down to have, as she says, " a summer-long frolic." Like the sensible girl that she is, she laughs at the snobbish notion which prevails at the Ocean House, that it is vulgar to be enthusiastic, and rude to exert oneself in healthy out-of-door pastimes. You will see her at seven in the morning tripping down to her father's boathouse. Soon a little craft, as neat and jaunty and brisk as herself, shoots out upon the water, rowed by its gay-hearted mistress, who bends to her oar splen didly, and lends to the motion of her boat something of her own airy grace. Of course she returns with the heartiest and most unsentimental of appetites, at which Miss Juliana, who has really managed to fulfil a pro mise to breakfast with her friend at ten, is inexpressibly shocked, and debates within herself whether she should not drop the acquaintance of such a monster in crino line. Her neiwes are to be tried yet further ; for, according to her account to her mamma when she re turns, fairly exhausted, to the Ocean House, her energetic friend actually " kept her playing croquet for two mortal hours without once resting !" The latter eschews the balls at the hotel, and vastly prefers a little evening "tea drinking," or an impromptu strawberry feast on the lawn. She finds a little time to visit a favourite ledge of rocks, and sketch; to exercise her SOCIETY AT NEWPORT. 89 s-wimming powers t-wice a day in briny ocean itself ; to continue her course of history and botany, which, how ever, to tell the truth, is a little irksome down here, amongst all this profusion of varied and lovely nature ; joins as many picnics and " clambakes" as she can, and is always ready to assist in planning one ; rides, towards dusk, on her beautiful new gray pony ; and manages, what ¦with these and similar occupations, to get weary enough to be ready to retire at about the same hour that her fashionable friend's curls are re ceiving the coiffeur's last particular touch just before she sweeps majestically do^wn to the saloon. Is it diffi cult to conjecture which of these young ladies will lose her youth and spirits first ? I do not know that the Newport world is so very different from that at Scarborough or Brighton. Of course I have described but two examples among a host. You will find at Ne^wport the same inextricable mixture of pretence and genuineness, of vulgar pomposity and quiet good breeding, of upstarts and gentlemen, of dreary Mrs. Skewtons and charming Lily Dales. You are sure to see there the best and the lowest types of American character, and, I may add, the best and the lowest types of exotic Europeans, who, for a thousand reasons, creditable and otherwise, have preferred a home in the western to one in their native hemisphere. Spu rious Italian counts, and German music teachers with a spirltuel air, if they strike the right social stratum — which they are sure to do — live in clover ; for what I 90 AMERICAN SOCIETY. \ may call the American snobocracy-r-by which I mean vulgar people suddenly become rich, and with it arro gant, who swarm to Ne^wport and Saratoga, and try to lord it there over decent folk — the snobocracy adore nothing so much as a title, or a " foring" genius, and are only too glad to shower their money on such of this sort as they find willing to receive it. Since the recent civil war, too, it has been fashionable to pet its heroes. Newport fairly revels in these gallant gentlemen, in blue broadcloth and brass buttons, with their " shoul der-straps" of bars, stars, and eagles, their jaunty, slouchy caps, their magnificent moustaches, and their complexions tanned by Virginian and Georgian suns. And among these, too, there is a curious mingling of the spurious and the genuine — of real heroes who say little of their exploits, and soi-disant heroes boasting much thereof. There are the polished New Englander, and the rude, jovial, too familiar Westerner ; the loud- talking statesman from the national metropolis, and the retiring man of letters, who is continually annoyed in his secluded cottage by autograph hunters and news paper reporters; sportsmen and society men, editors and bankers, clergymen and city legislators — the whole range of American occupation and character. To spend a season at Newport and mingle in its pleasures, fashionable or recreative, requires money, and money only. The superficial heir of "Petrolia" enters as easily into its society as the old-family Philadelphian. It is a social democracy, restricted only by one's ability NEWPORT. 91 to pay his bills — and this is a restriction by no means trifling. Yet, with all the shams and intrigue and affecta tions of its fashionable side, to those who prefer its quieter, more healthful, and more genuinely pleasurable features, Ne^wport is a glorious sojourning place; for its charm is the charm which the contrasts of Nature, beautifully various, inspire; and in its wealth of scenery and bounteous provision for every sort of holiday recre ation, he would indeed be hard to please who could not spend the summer quickly there. CHAPTER VI. Summer Resorts continued: The WJtlte Mountains — Among the Neiv Hampshire lakes and hills. A SIX hours' ride by rail from Boston, Massachusetts, brings you to the borders of one of those lovely lakes which are so frequent in that rich and wild scenery ¦vi'hich prevails in America. Lake Winnepiseogee — such is its Indian name — lies almost at the foot of the range of mountains which, from the colour of their sides and summits, are called the White Mountains. The journey, indeed, from the city to the lake is not devoid of interest; the curious English sojourner among his Yankee cousins finds, both on the road and at the trip's end, scenes and things worth noting in that inevitable note-book which marks the true tourist spirit. Northern Massachusetts has not a little to boast of in rich and variegated landscape : fine farm lands, broad sweeping meadows, v/ide slow-flowing rivers, great whistling for ests, and hill and dale merging gently into each other, and bearing on their bosom the fruit ofthe husband man's thrift and the Yankee's energy. Anon you whirl through great manufacturing towns, with their palatial L.iKE WINNEPISEOGEE. 93 mills and huge whizzing wheels and buzzing bee-like population, passing abruptly from the spectacle of the conquest of earth to that of mechanical elements. If you are so happy as to make the trip on one of those "perfect days of June," when the blue above is boundless and the green below is darkest, freshest, newest to outer earth, the manufacturing towns are apt to be rather in the way — too destructive of the seducing illusion of the country, its air, sounds, and sights. You leave Lo-sveU, and -with it the last of those painfully vivid reminders that you live in a world of toil and hard practical cares and thoughts. The sloping hills and minute culture change into loftier ranges and rude declivities ; finally, gradually, the lower spurs of the White Mountains come into sight. Of Lake Winne piseogee, one who has been there cannot speak without enthusiasm. If you see it first under the canopy of great dark rolling clouds, darkening, in places, alike mountain landscape and lake surface, it is grand and beautiful : not the less so that the crests of the majestic hills are encircled by swaying and uncertain vapours. Perhaps there is no time when a lake landscape is so picturesque as when a long and hea-yy storm has just exhausted itself, and the rolling clouds, now lighter and wreathing themselves gracefully, wind into fantastic shapes and momentary festoons about the slopes and over the valleys — the valleys and hill-sides meanwhile catching a gleam of sunlight, illumining here and there a farmhouse or a wheat field, while all about is dimmed. 94 AMERICAN SOCIETY. And such an effect you may often see on this gem of a mountain lake. Old Winnepiseogee is some twenty-eight miles long, and irregular in width; tradition of the farmers apprises us that it contains just three hundred and sixty-five islands — one for each day in the year ; and it has been said that in leap year an additional fairy island makes its appearance in the midst of the waters, visible, how ever, only by moonlight. Ranges of mountains are on almost every side; to the northward rises the stately range of the White Mountains proper, their white tops easily distinguished from the gray and green hue of their lesser brothers. The islands in the lake are mostly beautiful, thick with the wild carelessly graceful foliage characteristic of American scenery, abounding in rich uncultured fruits, containing lovely little coves and picturesque jutting promontories, and natural alcoves and grottoes inimitable by the art of man. The middle of June sees the swarms of tourists flocking to the lake, across it, and beyond to the mountain resorts. Procul a negotiis, your prosperous man of business, vAo, though Yankee-sharp at a trade, no doubt, can really be a jolly fellow when free from the perplexities of his counting room, retires to lake and mountain, and spends the long summer months in the countless pursuits of pleasure, which have only one drawback — ¦ that he finds it so hard which of them to choose. Bet ter still, far from the heat and weariness of fashionable slavery, the young New England damsels escape to these THE PEOPLE ON THE STEAMEOAT. 95 retreats, where they may live and grow rosy once more over the hearty country fare, with its honey and fresh mUk, its homely bread and fruits, its local culinary triumphs and harmless beverages. Here is health for them, the poor jaded creatures, become languid from the exhausting winter campaign of fashion ; from these hills and lakes they may drink in new life and derive merry spirits once more. Who is not there on the neat little steamboat, as it carries you over the placid waters of Lake Winnepiseogee? If you are a student of human nature, you may indulge that pet occupation to your heart's content, at the same time that you refresh your self -with the mountain breezes, and your eyes with the countless little islands and the sloping lake shore. Everybody — at least the representatives and types of everybody are there before us. The father of the family — in a constant state of anxiety about the luggage, which he has to keep a " sharp look-out on," while he has at the same time to carry shawls and stools and what not from one end of the deck to the other and back again, and acts as waiter general to his exacting party of daughters and nieces — is there, many times repeated. Sporting young gentlemen, all leggings and bob-coats, all straps and fishing tackle, are there. Fashionable fops, in faultless attire, dividing their time between resisting the propensity of stray particles of dust to fasten on them, and lisping platitudes to the bevy of girls by the flag-pole — they are there too, plenty and various. Of course the man who "can tell you all about 96 AMERICAN SOCIETY. this region" is there, a walking guide-book, who can narrate wonderful things about evei-y^little nook and corner throughout the trip, who has travelled over the route a marvellous number of times, and, before the journey is over, has established himself on intimate terms with everybody on the boat. There are shoals of artists, savagely hirsute, discussing points of view, and backgrounds, and colour effects, and making sudden discoveries of " eligible" landscapes, which they all tip over their heads and squint at. There are dryasdust laTN^ers, and sleek parsons with oily voices and weak lungs, and prosperous doctors telling horrible stories, and paternal schoolmasters with groups of boys whom they are taking to the mountains on botanical or geolo gical expeditions. There is flirting and reading, and eating and smoking and sketching, and shrill "Ohs!" at the scenery, natty travelling suits and little flat sun- hats, niuch like those you see on the Rhine or the Alps. The luggage is piled up on the lower deck, and every modern travelling appliance is discoverable in the neighbourhood of the tourists. One reason why such an excursion is peculiarly pleasant is, that everybody is sociable, and quite ready to get acquainted with every body else. Every Englishman who has travelled in America will tell you how readily acquaintance is to be made on lines of public travel; indeed, more than one has complained that hand - shaking and sudden friendships are rather too prevalent in the States ; but it is erring, at least, on the genial side. So it is that ISLAND RESORTS. 97 our group of passengers on board the pretty Lady of the Lake are, before the two hours' journey across the lake is over, on the easiest and pleasantest terms pos sible ; laughing and talking with each other -with as little ceremony as if they were each and all a family party. It will be strange if elaborate plans have not been matured to meet each other in the mountains, and to make picnic or berrying excursions among the forests and along the river-sides, which abound there, and are so well adapted to these pastimes. At the upper end of the lake the hills have become more lofty, and the cool dry mountain air has become more per ceptible and refreshing. We land at the little pier at Centre Harbour, and walk up a knoll to the old-fashioned inn, the " Senter House" — there are such even in new America — with its long verandah running along its front, and affording a charming view of the lake. Some, however, do not go as far as the end of the steamboat's journey. Many of the islands of the lake are large enough to be inhabitable ; some are a mile or two long and half a mile wide, and are the residences of hardy New England farmers. Nearly all of these farmers are quite willing to receive boarders ; and to him who has come off purposely to get away from society, and longs for rustic tranquillity and aquatic sports, nothing can be more charming than to take up an abode at one of these island farmhouses. They all have boats in plenty, and fishing-tackle, which, if less complicated and ornate than that which is city-bought, VOL. II. H 98. AMERICAN SOCIETY. is found to be quite as effectual for practical purposes. Some of the farmers, anticipatory of guests, have built ninepin alleys at the water-side, and have cleared plea sant little umbrageous copses for miniature picnics ; and often, during the summer, parties of villagers from the opposite shore come over by boatsful to dance, row, sing, and feast beneath the shady expanse and on the water. It must be remembered that there is everywhere so much ivom in America that there is no restriction whatever either in fishing or hunting, or wandering whithersoever one lists over the forests and through the fields. So you are careful not to tread down the wheat or crush the -vines, you are perfectly free to go and come, with no permission to ask, and no bailiffs or house-dogs to fear. A more delightful life than this in the island farmhouse it is hard to imagine. One feels a sense of freedom nowhere else experienced. You may take your gun, and wander from one end ofthe island to the other unmolested, and only hearing the country sounds which are so grateful to the city denizen. You may fish, or row, or swim, or lounge and read, when and where you will. You may take a boat, and make Crusoe-like voyages of discovery to the many little islands scattered near, or have an impromptu lunch of fried fish and roast potatoes on the smooth sand of the many coves. You may either philosophise, study, or refuse to think altogether. The accommodations of the farmhouse are not elegant, but they abound in homely comforts; the good folk are rough and plain, but THE MOUNTAIN STAGE-COACH. 99 kindly; the food is fresh and pure, well cooked, and plenty of it. In such a life the summer but too rapidly slides away. In the fresh, crisp, early morning air, the dew yet glistening on petal and blade, the old-fashioned stage coach (there are these too, 0 conservative reader, in re publican America !) whirls up in front of the hotel, and those who are going forward to penetrate to the midst of the mountain region bustle about to get their luggage aboard and to secure seats. It is so early that our fops are drowsy, and our damsels have reddish eyes and hair not too minutely combed ; but soon the scene becomes lively, and cheery laughter rings out, and there is a good-natured struggle for the tiptop seats. The boys are apt to contend for the seats next the driver — that ine^vitable oracle, philosopher, friend, and wonder of boys everywhere. The young ladies are by no means too squeamish to take places on the trunks and boxes on the roof of the coach ; the more neglige and informal ever3rthing is, the better. The journey is to be a long one — some six or eight hours — and so there are innu merable baskets and hampers of provisions, bottles of currant and gooseberry wine ; while the young men have ample supplies of cigars, meerschaum pipes, and pouches of "fine-cut cavendish." The scenery through which our great stage-coach rumbles, to the sound of the cracking whip and the merry harness-bells, is really peculiar to America ; and one who has not been there can hardly form an idea of its contrast with any scenery 100 AMERICAN SOCIETY. discoverable in Europe. The brilliant effect of a storm just passed, already spoken of as enhancing the beauty of the lake landscape, is also discovered in the moun tain landscape. Wlien all is clear, and the storm has just left a glistening green tinge upon the whole scene, and the peaks of the mountains, now bare, cluster around you, bounding the horizon, the view is one cer tainly not to be surpassed in loveliness- although Alps and Pyrenees may excel it in vastness and grandeur. Then there is infinite variety in this landscape through which you pass between the lake and the high moun tains. Sometimes you whirl through a thin forest, its trees uniform and wide apart, and the ground fairly covered with the short flat bush of the blueberry — the peculiar and delicious fruit of the region, now just get ting ripe — a fruit most like, perhaps, tbe whortleberry, but far nicer, and having no counterpart in any Euro pean production. This berry, let me say in passing, is as large as a large pea, and is of a beautiful light blue colour ; its pulp is white and sweet, and it is a great favourite throughout New England. It is made into pies, puddings, and cakes, and enriches whatever dish it forms a part of. Anon you emerge into a wide, square, flat meadow plain, ending abruptly on either side at the foot of the mountains, not gradually sloping up to them. In its midst a broad winding river slowly flo^R's; here and there are beautiful fields of wheat or maize. Above are often ledges of great height. These ledges, in America, are the castles built by nature to CONWAY. 101 supply, in the landscape, the place of the feudal castles of Europe. On one of them, in this journey, is to be seen a distinct resemblance to a white horse, formed by the strata of the rock. This is a curious object to the tourist, and is named the " White Horse Ledge." There are also, in the same vicinity, several pretty little lakes, nestling near the ledges, which produce remark able echoes. The ledges and rock of this region are mostly com posed of granite ; and New Hampshire, the state which boasts the White Mountains, is therefore named the " Granite State." The stage coach, after a jaunt of some eight hours, brings us to a charming village, lying in the midst of the broad valley of the Saco, midway between the moun tain ranges on either side, which bears the old English name of Conway. Here it is relieved of many of its passengers ; for Conway is one of the best and most fashionable White Mountain resorts. Along the wide and shaded road you will espy some half a dozen spa cious and most comfortable-looking hotels ; about them is the prosperous appearance of a brisk season, for every where you see the pleasure-seekers going to and fro, standing in groups, or playing outdoor games. On either side rustic roads branch off, studded here and there with neat farmhouses, with porches and lawns, and shaded by noble chestnuts and elms. You may take your choice; either to make your abode at the hotel, surrounded by a city colony, which still keeps up ] 102 AMERICAN SOCIETY. here all the fashionable customs, or to secure board at one of the farmhouses, which have been made ready for visitors, and where you may enjoy tranquillity with the advantage of going down to the hotels, and plunging into " society" whenever you happen to feel so inclined. The life in the hotel is, despite the toilets and fashion able exigencies, a merry one. Somehow or other the ladies manage to unite the two in a skilful manner. As I said before, every one is soon acquainted with every one else, and this makes the contrast between this American mountain resort and those of Germany and Switzerland very strildng. It soon gets to be like a counti-y house full of a large and various family I gathering. The young ladies and young gentlemen have got together, have found their "affinities," and love making, either in a light or a desperate fashion, becomes the main occupation of the young portion of the guests. The elders have also become easy with each other, and talk politics or stocks, play chess or whist, compare fashions, or gossip about the nev/ arri vals quite as persistently as if they were at home. How shall I describe the infinite amusements, old and newly invented, which serve to steal time from the pleasure seekers, and to draw the summer away from under their feet without their knowing it? In the unrestricted freedom of the country there are, of course, manj^ wanderings- over the vast and velvety meadows, and among the taU yellow wheat-ears. The mountains must be climbed, and views taken of the valleys ; then BLUEBERRY PARTIES. 103 crinoline must be discarded, and broad flappy sun-hats donned; and there is infinite fun in creeping up the rocky paths, mesdemoiselles having plentiful assistance from the arms and hands of their gallants. Often these mountain excursions have another object — the fasci nating one of picking the blueberries. These grow in luxuriance on the craggy mountain sides; and it is really great fun to be of a party, supplied with baskets and pails, who spend the day gathering them, stopping now and then to talk and laugh and joke, and to sit under some wide-spreading tree to devour the luncli which has been brought, and for which the berry-picking and mountain-climbing has given a rare zest. Sometimes the fun is interrupted by an unwelcome guest — unwel come, at least, to the excursionists of the gentler sex. " Those horrid snakes" are truly the abomination of your young lady who seeks her pleasure among the mountains. When one ofthe reptiles, which are not uncommon there, thrusts his ugly face among the com pany, there is much screaming and ado, tendencies to faint away which necessitate masculine support, while the gallant youths rejoice to display their valour, and zealously engage in following up the intruder, and lay ing his lifeless form a trophy before their admiring but frightened companions. And what an Elysium is this mountain region to your practised sportsman ! As far as his legs can carry him he may roam, day after day, gun on shoulder, fearing no proprietor of the soil, and with limitless game on every hand. 104 , AMERICAN SOCIETY. Here too, among these vast forests and along these broad rivers which are among the "White Hills," is a rich field for the ardent disciple of old Izaak Wal ton. The woods are replete with little narrow gurgling brooks, and these brooks abound in trout, fat and shiny in their prosperous solitude. You may take your pole, basket, and fly, and stroll up through the brush and through the shady dells all day long, with plenty of game and no interruption. Prefer you river fishing for perch or roach, lake fishing for pike and lake trout? Here it is unlimited, at your hand ; and if you are an expert angler, you may each day return to j^our farm house or hotel laden with treasures unstinted for break fast or dinner delectation. There is in the White Mountains occasionally rarer and fiercer sport than this. Even in this long-settled part of America — for New Hampshire was colonised early in the seventeenth century — there is occasionally a black bear discovered, some solitary descendant of the ancient hairy lords of the domain. When such an event occurs, there is ex citement of hunting indeed ! Parties scour the moun tains and dells for old Bruin, and he is perhaps brought down after a hearty struggle, not without its dangers. Partridges, pigeons, and quails are seemingly inexhaus tible in their season. Often parties of adventurous fellows will take gun and hamper, start out, and be gone several days among the solitary wilds of the moun tains. They provide themselves with canvas; and when , HOTEL PASTIMES. 105 they have reached a favourable spot, many miles from any habitation — likely enough some little open space in the midst of the thick forest, or on the bank of some tumbling and splashing mountain stream — they pitch their tents, set up their tripods, lay their blankets, and after enjoying a rare sport by day, cook their dinner at dusk from its proceeds, and smoke, drink, sing, and play cards, by the light of the blazing fire which they have built before their tents. Meanwhile, at the hotels, the young ladies and the stay-at-home young gentlemen indulge in more quiet and more fashionable amusements. If you pass along the ¦village street at night — and what gloriously clear and limpid nights they are ! — from almost every house there comes out a sound of music and revelry. Dancing whiles away the short summer evenings, and bands have been imported from the city for the purpose. Some times it is varied by those household games which New England has inherited from Old ; something is certain to be done to make the evening fly fast away. Croquet and velocipedes are the order of the day, every hotel being provided with the implements of the former game. Picnics are frequent; and, amidst this grand scenery, and under this welcome shade, and beside these roar ing streams, picnics are in their perfection. How plea sant to dance under the lofty oaks, fanned by soft, cool mountain breezes ! How refreshing is the luncheon of currant wine, cold chicken, sandwiches, and cake, dealt 106 AMERICAN SOCIETY. out by delicate hands, amid merry laughter and infl- nite joking! Then there is the wandering in couples among the trees, the cosy talk in the quiet nook, the berry-picking, the poetry-reading, the sketch-drawing, and the " silent meditation fancy free." CHAPTER VII. Rural Life : An American village — Among the farmers — Everyday farm life — The Irish labourers — Coun try hoys and girls in the city. In nothing is the difference between England and America more striking than in the villages and rural districts. In both countries agriculture is a most im portant branch of industry ; in each, the farming system betrays distinctive national characteristics. England is a country of vast domains, of great landlords, where the soil is possessed by the few, is cultivated by the many. America is, on the contrary, a land of many independent proprietors, each of whom owns and cul tivates his own farm. Feudal proprietorship, which survives in England, perhaps, to a greater extent than in any highly-civilised country, is unknown, has never been known, in America. The states, ori ginally British colonies — settled, many of them, by British emigrants, governed by the British common law, receiving many British customs, transplanting and making permanent the English language — were yet, most of them, never subjected to the dominion of great 108 AMERICAN SOCIETY. landlords. In 'the South, indeed — in Virginia, for ex ample, which was settled by English cavaliers — there were, before the war, very many extensive proprietors, holding vast properties, and occupying a position not dissimilar to that of the English landlords. Instead of tenants they had slaves ; instead of governing by a control over the voters, they monopolised the political power. But in Ne^vv England and the West — through out all those states which were formerly called the " free states" (happily there is no occasion now for the distinction) — land has been, from the earliest times, in the possession of the practical farmers, whose domains were large enough to support themselves, and not large enough to maintain a tenantry. Resulting from this early state of the country, the laws have never been based upon the existence of great proprietorships. There has been no law of primogeniture ; tying up •estates by entail has been in most parts impossible." Thus land circulates freely; it falls into independent hands, which are ready themselves to work it. The farms are not often larger than two hundred acres ; perhaps the average northern farm may be stated to comprise about one hundred acres. The government .grants of public lands in the West comprise one hundred and sixty acres. Within a domain so limited each farmer may take personal charge of its culture, and from it he may earn a good living, and sometimes a substantial competence. Riding along by rail between the farms and through AX AMERICAN VILLAGE. 109. the ¦villages, the English visitor must be struck with the newness and fresh look of everything. Certainly nothing is more curious to an American in England than the appearance of musty age — ^the century-old look both of town and country. The low, thatched, irregular stone cottages ofthe English villages ; the up-and-down streets and paths ; the ancient square-towered church, with its age-browned stones, its clinging ivies, its weather-worn graves, with inscriptions which are well nigh illegible; the little antique bridges spanning the streamlets; the lanes lined with thick hedges, shaded by old trees, whose very vegetation seems somehow (you can hardly tell why) venerable ; the close-settled population, and snugness of the fields and hamlets ; the huddled-together aspect of all things — ^these seem strange to the tourist from beyond the Atlantic. Ima gine everything the opposite of these, and you may picture to yourself rural America. You have been used all your life to ancient buildings and long-cultivated lands, to vast aristocratic parks, and the influences of remote traditions and customs. You find in America a newness which surprises you — mayhap, at first, shocks you; everything is too glaring and fresh; the people are too " smart," the houses are too bright and fragile, the fields are too open, the woods are too wild, the tempering dust of ages, which makes things venerable, is utterly wanting. The country through which you pass is far from being, as in many parts of England, a continuous park and garden; it is nature but half 110 AMERICAN SOCIETY. subdued. Yet with all this, to the European eye over- brightness, you ¦will not fail to observe of the villages, that they are more wide-awake, seemingly prosperous, more intelligent-looking — if such an .expression may be used concerning a village. The American village does not consist of an irregular clump of moss-grown, low, stone or mud cottages; it is composed of neat, separate, wooden, usually white - painted habitations. It is seldom that the houses stand close together ; the ¦villages oftener consist of detached properties — neat houses, ¦with little lawns before them, trees in front, gardens or orchards at the sides and back. There is one long principal street; the others are rather lanes than streets, branching up over the hills •or do^wn through the valleys, well shaded with chest nuts, or elms, or poplars — even oaks. Two -storey white-painted houses, with very bright green outer blinds, an ell extending from the rear — sometimes in front a pretty porch with trellis work, and grapes, honeysuckles, morning-glories clustering up the sides ; oftener, perhaps, a neat little verandah, roofing the iront or side windows, and affording an excellent rest ing-place for the master and the boys when they have finished work. The villagers seem clearly more well to do than the English villagers ; and it is not sur prising; they are each and all independent on their "own ground," the equals of everybody, having "a stake in the country," readers and talkers of politics to a man ; the women, housewives, with a plentiful garden THE VILLAGE CHURCH. Ill near by ; the boys, half students, half toilers ; the girls, -embryo housewives, readers of poetry, singers and play ers of music. Free, universal education has made the northern villages and villagers what they are. Then, you look about you in vain for the old i^vy- grown, half-crumbling village church, with its adjacent rectory, endowed in the obscure eras. In its place is a substantial, rather plain wooden edifice, with high Gothic windows, white painted, and with a wooden spire, which points without doubtful meaning heavenward. Perhaps the ¦village church stands at the head of the street, looking do^wn it, as ^- to^^watbli its children, and at hand to approve the .good'-and'^wam-.-Ihe? bad; perhaps it is perched, a little distancfe off, on'"' the crest of a gently-rising hill, ol^-ooMng the ¦whole cbuntry round about. At the sides of it are.plaiit.wooden sheds open in front, supplied with troughs and hooks — accom modations these for the worthy farmers' horses and wagons, where, on a Sunday morning, you will see homely rustic vehicles and sturdy farm nags hitched, while their owners are within, sitting " under the droppings" of the -village parson. In the graveyard near the church you -will find few tombs of older date than the present century; one dated in the last is a village curiosity. "Church" and "meeting house," let me say, are in Ainerica indifferently used, to mean the same thing; "chapel" is only used to mean a small church, or a suburban branch of a church. " Church" is used no less for dissenting and Catholic 112 AMERICAN SOCIETY. houses of -vvorship than for the Episcopalian. I 'ob serve that in England it is used exclusively to desig nate the sanctuaries of the Establishment. The city people in America usually say, " going to church ;" the rustic folk, "going to meeting;" the latter call their best apparel their " Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes." It is rarely that in the villages you see churches built of any other material than wood, or painted any other colour than white. In some villages nearer the towns, however, the churches are of stone, and look not un like the modern-built churches one sees in England. In remote New England districts, too, one sometimes. comes upon an ancient wooden church, used long ago, painted red — a singular notion of the forefathers. Most of the village churches have the high conical spires; some none at all, being plain square edifices; others have square wooden towers. The Episcopalians adorn their churches, inside and out, the most, both in to-wn and country ; they doubtless derive their fond ness for ornamentation from the mother church in England. There are in most villages two, and often three, churches ; the principal one, in New England at least, being the "orthodox," or Congregational. It is very rarely that one finds a Catholic church in a village; the mass ofthe rustic folk are stout Protest ants; it is only in manufacturing villages, where there are many Irish operatives, that the Popish priest finds. it profitable to establish himself. If the village be of goodly size, there in its midst RUSTIC SHOPS. 113 is the academy, with its lusty scholars buzzing about it ; if but a modest village, which counts only its few hundred, a little way off you discover the rural school, ¦with student or girl pedagogue, as already described. In the centre of the village — at the " corner," as some of them are wont to call it — are grouped the various shops and houses of the vUlage trade. The street, wide everywhere, here swells out at its widest ; perhaps there is a pretty common in the centre, around which the road ¦winds on either side — a cosy lawn, playing ground of the little villagers. The shop, or " store" — -in the smaller settlements there is often but one — is a snug frame building two storeys high, approached by one or two broad wooden steps, supplied with an open portico. You cannot pass at any time of the day with out seeing some of the village or farmer folk lounging about the door ; the village drones and idlers, especially, are visible all the day long, lazily lingering near the store. Ever and anon a village matron or maiden comes, with jug or basket, to make her purchases. She enters, passing a cheerful word with the loungers on the porch. The keeper of the store is behind the counter, and quickly serves his customer, meanwhile chatting familiarly; for he is quite the social equal of the richest squire's ¦wife or daughter. The village store is a perfect curiosity shop ; all the village necessities are there, ranged on the shelves. There are woollens and cottons, confectionery and tobacco, suspenders and VOL. II. I 114 AMERICAN SOCIETY. india-rubber coats, needles and thread, toys and playing cards, preserves and pickles, groceries of every sort, medi cines and perfumery, soaps and hair pomade, bread and cheese and butter, hats, boots, and stockings., ¦ ploughs, rakes, and spades, crockery and cutlery,, books, stationeiy, newspapers, cider, whisky and gin, sponges — whatever, in short, you may choose to call for. Very likely, too, the storekeeper is also postmaster — either he or the village landlord are apt to be — and in one corner of his store is a square partition on the counter, where you see the letter boxes and the little aperture where the village correspondence is delivered. If, in the evening, just after the big lumbering stage coach has arrived from the neighbouring town, you approach the store, you ¦will see a little eager group of the villagers gathered about it. Some are pressing about the post office; the aperture is for the moment closed, for the postmaster is opening and sorting the mail. This task does not take long, for soon he emerges from behind the boxes with a long slip of paper, which he fastens to the partition, that all may read. You read, " Let ters to-day, June 12th;" then following, a list ofthe names of those for whom letters are waiting. Several turn away disappointed, and go gossiping out ; others crowd about the post office, and demand their letters. Then the papers are distributed ; you observe that nearly every villager receives one. Some stand read ing the news on the store portico, and make remarks to each other; some hurry homeward; some go to THE VILLAGE TAVERN. ll5 the ¦village tavern, there to hold conclave over the events announced from the outer world. The village tavern, albeit not at all externally like those ancient traditional inns so often celebrated by Enghsh novel ists and poets — by no means resembling those sojourn ing places which so captivated Dr. Johnson and his Bos-well — is still usually cosy and prim, hospitable to all the world ; it is, like all the rest, a wooden, or frame building, two storeys high, generally with a covered porchway in front, smooth, uncarpeted, sanded floors, a plain bar room, with deal tables and chairs, entered from the passage, low walled, smoke begrimed, and fly spotted, -with old fashioned woodcuts representing , some local point of interest — perhaps a rude portrait of General Washington or General Jackson — placards an nouncing coming horse shows, exceedingly ancient rail way or stage-coach time tables, and an advertisement in gaudy colours of "Ayer's Patent Anti-Consumptive Pills, Patented." What mighty questions have been agitated and adjudged in that little bar room ! how gravely and slowly have the village oracles there pro nounced their fiats, sitting surrounded by their atten tive little village court ! what a calendar of crops, good, bad, indifferent ; what a chronicle of chronologies could those bedimmed, yellowish, once vAitewashed walls, eould they turn articulate authors, divulge! Behind the bar is the landlord's chatty dame, or his bright- eyed lass ; against the wall, on shelves, interspersed with deftly cut coloured tissue paper snares for flies, 116 AMERICAN SOCIETY, are bottles fanciful and plain, from whose contents in-^ numerable mixtures, unknown to Europeans, are con cocted. There are lemons on the tops of glasses, straws bunched together in tumblers, tempting to the beverages of which they hint. There are tobacco and poor cigars and clay pipes ; a few old newspapers lie in a pile on one of the tables, got haphazard by the landlord, or .left by passing travellers. Then, across the entry, you reach the tavern parlour — every Ame rican hotel, large and small, has its public parlour — which is simple, and homely, and tidy enough. It seems a private room ; it is a sort of landlord's domes tic curiosity shop. Here too, depending from the wall, are vari-coloured, quaintly-cut tissue papers ; the sides of the room are, perhaps, hung with faded daguerreo types of the landlord's family, in the stiffest and awk- wardest of postures, staring half scared out upon you. The carpet is fading; the centre table offers limited reading in such works as Baxter's Saint's Rest, Hymns for the People, Proverbial Philosophy, The Ladies' An nual, The Poetical Gift Book. Upstairs you are ushered into neat, low-roofed chambers, with a rustic smell ; the linen is not of the finest, but is scrupulously clean ; the furniture is plain, but well kept. One thing which would doubtless strike the Euro pean visitor, is the openness of the village habitations. There are no high inhospitable walls, shutting out from the passer-by the view of the garden plots and shaded paths. In many French and English villages — through RURAL HABITATIONS. 117 many lanes — I have walked between lofty blank walls, conscious that beyond them were expanses which it would be grateful for the eye to rest upon. There are rustic sights all about one — scenes of beauty in nature and out — but the sombre gray walls frown on you, as if to tell yon to get on your way as fast as possible. I have hinted how different were the Americans from the Europeans in the matter of privacy. The European likes to shut himself out from the world — to enclose his gardens and lawns -\vithin high walls, that the street passenger may not gaze upon his domain ; he likes to eat alone, to travel alone. The Americans, on the other hand, are fond of doing everything in company. They travel fifty or sixty in a railway carriage ; they eat eighty or a hundred at a single table ; they erect no high walls about their premises. The American village is, then, wholly open and cheerful to the view. The wealthier squire, as the poorest blacksmith or cobbler, lets the eyes of all the world rest on his domain, and enjoy it to the utmost. I have never, so far as I remember, seen one of those high walls around an American village house. The habitations are separated from the road and from neighbouring estates by neat low wooden fences of open work, painted white, yellow, or green, over which one could easily leap. Sometimes there is no partition whatever; the house stands a little back from the road, with no fence or walk to divide the lawn or garden from it. There being no exclusive feeling, no aristocratic sensitiveness, no thought of being shut out 118 AMERICAN SOCIETY. from the commune vulgus, there is no necessity for such defences. People run in and out of each other's houses without ceremony ; and although there is plenty of gossip in these Yankee villages, not all the best natured either, the communities are, as a whole, peace ful, sociable, and happy. Almost every village has its little professional aristocracy — its lawyer, doctor, and parson. Here, in a neat frame house, shaded by trees, standing a little back from the street, lives the phy sician and his family, his name on the door; there, in a house much like it, resides the lawyer, with a little detached building for his office ; the parson, likely enough, lives in a modest cottage hard by his church. These, perhaps, unite with their professional duties — which are not onerous — a little practical farming, to eke out a respectable living. Sometimes one must run for the doctor in a hayfield — where he is found in his shirt sleeves, pitching the hay to one of his boys on the haycart ; or you will seek for the man of law in his garden, where he is weeding his peas, or in his cow house, where he is feeding his heifers. The parson leads a not unhappy life among his honest flock. If he is likeable, he receives many a present from the farmers and villagers — is surprised bythe advent of a hay-load for his horse, or a barrel of prime rosy apples for winte^' consumption. He too, likely enough, does not confine himself to his parochial tasks, but in leisure hours aids his poorer parishioners to gather their crops, teaches the boys who have got beyond the rural school and are THE VILLAGE SQUIRE. 119 going to college ; perhaps employs some of his time in writing polemical articles for religious papers, or pre pares a book which he hopes may make him famous. He is the patron of the amusements as well as the serious duties of his flock; looks smiling on at the picnic scenes ; is not averse to concerts ; and examines the children and distributes the prizes at the close of the school term. Many a village has its squire par excellence ,- probably he is a native of the place, and his fathers have cultivated the ancestral farm for many generations before him. He is, of course, a justice of the peace, and adds to this the office of drawing up deeds and making out mortgages. He is, as well as the official dispenser of the law, the trusted arbiter of his neighbours in disputed questions ; if he is treated with respect, it is rather for his own subs.tantial quali ties and because he has been so long known, than for his wealth or the position of his ancestors. He has been sent to the Legislature until he has refused to go any more ; he has been Selectman, and has been chosen Moderator of the town-meeting numberless times. The squire is, indeed, a sort of aristocrat, but one ofthe most democratic kind. You wiU see him in his shirt sleeves on a hot summer's day, busily digging potatoes in the midst of his labourers ; you will find him chatting as familiarly -with the blacksmith or the carpenter as with the doctor and the parson. Most of the village danies and damsels do their own household work. There is seldom a servant even in the 120 AMERICAN SOCIETY. well-to-do families. The daughters assist their mother in the kitchen and at house cleaning in the morning ; and in the evening, when the work is done, you may- hear many a simple old-time ditty through the open windows. If there are guests, the daughters are not at all ashamed to wait at table, rising and getting what is wanted, and resuming their seats again. The troubles of the city housekeeper, ¦who is in a perpetual turmoil with her servants, are unknown to the rustic dame. She has her own dairy, her own cows, her own neat little table-garden, her ovfn fruit-bushes and orchards ; she churns her own butter, makes her own cheese, puts up her own preserves and pickles, often milks her own cows. Emerging from the village into the open country — going out among the farming lands — the Englishman would notice the same open appearance, the same ab sence of snugness and privacy, the same lack of cen turies-long cultivation, ¦which he has observed in the suburb and the village. It is very rarely that he will anywhere discover a hedge. Hedges do much to give rustic England its appearance of cosiness and snug compactness. Very few American farms are divided by these ; and when they are so divided, the hedges are ¦wild straggling shrubs and bushes, of natural gro-wth, which have happened to be on the farm limits, and which are quite untiimmed. In the suburban towns the residences of the well-to-do are often en closed by beautiful well-trimmed hedges of box or FARMS AND FARMERS. 121 ¦what not ; in the rural districts this special art is ne glected. The farms and fields are mostly divided by low stone walls indifferently thrown together by the unmasonic hands ofthe farmers; or by long low rail- fences, of sections some eight or ten feet long, the rails being not too evenly split, and sustained by their ends being inserted into holes in the posts which stand at intervals. It was doubtless the making of these fence-rails in early life which won for President Lin coln the nickname ofthe "Rail-splitter." The stone walls which have long been thrown up are covered with creeping parasites — blackberry bushes, thorns, and ivies; these relieve the rudeness ofthe irregular stones. The forests and copses of wood which are often seen on the farms have a wilder, more rugged look than those in England ; the foliage is not perhaps so thick and rich deep green as one sees in the old country, probably because of the longer care bestowed upon the English forests. While the American farmers in the summer till their lands and tend their herds and flocks, in winter they go into the forests and cut, trim, and draw their timber. The American farm pre sents a great variety of uses. There are fine pastures extending over the hills, where the cows, sheep, and horses may be seen grazing ; there are broad level meadows ; there are rolling lands where you see wheat, rye, Indian corn, potatoes, beans, cabbages, tomatoes, melons growing ; there are vast orchards full of apple, pear, plum, peach, and cherry-trees of every variety 122 AMERICAN SOCIETY. and excellence ; the fields sometimes not separated at all, at others divided by stone walls or rail-fences ; and wide expanses of woodland left mostly to themselves, where the rustic boys and girls may hunt for chest nuts and " checkerberries," and the city sportsman spend long days with gun on shoulder or following the little rapid trout streams to their inner depths. The farmhouses are homely, neat, and cheerful ; larger, usually newer and more attractive-looking than those of the old countries. Sometimes you reach them by passing up a long, winding, irregular lane, bordered by walls and trees, grassgrown ; you emerge upon a smooth lawn ; there are clumps of elms or chestnuts or maples here and there ; while before you stands a neat, white-painted, two-storey house, shingle-roofed, and having all about it an appearance of cosy comfort. At other times the farmhouses stand just aside from the road — a green plot, perhaps a neat flower-garden inter vening ; then again, you will note them perched on the crest of gently-rising hills, approached by narrow roads winding to the door. The older farmhouses are larger, and more substantially built : you ¦will now and then come upon one which not a little resembles an English country mansion of the olden time. Often the farmhouse itself is the smallest of the farm-build ings. The American farmers take great pride in their barns. They will spend more money on their barns than on their houses. When they have built a new barn, the THE FARM BARNS. 123 neighbours from the contiguous farms will gather about it, and admire its every detail. The barn is the largest of the farm-buildings — usually a great plain, square, wooden edifice, with a very high open door at one side. It is divided into partitions ; and the farmers, instead of putting their hay under open sheds, or in great stacks, and slicing it off as they wish to use it — as I observe it is the custom to do in many parts of England — they bring their high heaped loads to the barn, run the hay wagon in through the great barn door upon the barn floor, pitch the hay with their forks upon the broad partitions, while one of the boys or "hired men" stands on the partition, places the bunches of hay as they are thrown up, and treads it dov/n compactly to make room for the rest. The broad floor of the barn is used for threshing the wheat or rye ; and often, as you pass along the country roads, you will see the lusty farmers, in their shirt-sleeves, thumping away stoutly with their swinging flails, now and then stopping to take a " swig" ofthe home-made hop or ginger-beer, or to separate the chaff from the yellow heap of little kernels. At one end of the barn there is a place parti tioned off for the horse and cow, stalls ; here the beasts are kept over night, to be turned out into the pastures again in the morning. Outside the building, at one side of it, and extending under it, is the cow yard, fenced in, where, toward sunset, the cattle are penned in ; presently emerges from the house the good farm dame, with a long tin pail and a little three-legged 124 AMERICAN SOCIETY. stool, closely foUoAved by her bright-eyed lass, similarly provided; they swing open the little gate, plant their stools beside the cows and their pails under them ; and now you hear the long-drawn liquid strain which betrays that they are milking. Not seldom the farm house is connected with the barn by a row of buildings or sheds, extending from one to the other ; these are used for woodhouses, washhouses, dairies, chickenhouses, and pig pens. An old fashioned well, the buckets sent down and drawn up by cranks and chains, or even by more primitive ropes, is discovered on the greensward near the house. There is hardly a farmhouse whose interior is not scrupulously neat, and which has not the air of com fort and homelike cheer which is so grateful to the lover of the country who escapes for a time from the dust and bustle of city life. There is always a clean wooden floor, sometimes modestly carpeted, sometimes bare ; never a farmhouse so poor as to be content with a stone floor, or to sit flat upon the naked ground. On one side of the door is the parlour or drawing room, often a mysterious sombre apartment, with the air of being rarely used — only opened when some guest from a distance, or mayhap the parson or doctor, has arrived. It is furnished to the best of the farmer's ability : there are gaudily gilt unused books on the centre table ; the walls are hung with rather rude portraits of notable men, interspersed with funereal engravings representing tombstones with cypresses or weeping willows, and on RURAL HOUSEHOLDS. 125 the tombstones, -written by rustic loving hands, the names of the children who have gone to their eternal rest. Then, on the " what-not," you will discover, if I am not mistaken, the inevitable pile of daguerreotype cases, containing the portraits of numberless country uncles and cousins ; of the farmer and his wife when they were spruce young sweethearts ; of brother John, who is now a doctor in "York;" and of cousin Jim, the hero of the family, who went to the war as private in the 23d, and was killed at the Battle of Seven Oaks. The mantel is not unlikely graced by vases too brightly painted, to city eyes too palpably cheap : here you will see speci mens of the daughters' handiwork — ¦paper or wax or -hair flowers fantastically twined ; or mayhap, on the wall above, an antique piece of embroidery done by the dame in her " courtin' " days, and displaying all sorts of wonderful birds and quaint animals and names curi ously woven with each other. There is in one corner a harmonium or a small piano : on Sunday evenings, and then only, the family invades the sombre silence of the parlour ; the psalm books — well worn — are passed about, and the voices mingle in the sacred melodies, A brighter and more attractive room is that on the other side of the little entry, the general sitting room and dining room, often too the kitchen as well. A cheer ful place it is — the farm dame's sanctum sanctorum. In the remote parts of the older states you may find farmhouse rooms supplied with great open fireplaces, and benches beside them, with long hooks and appli- 126 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ances hanging down over the fire for cooking purposes. There is no need of coal : the fire is made of great burly logs taken from the farm itself; and there is no more cheerful sight than one of these loud-roaring fires of a bitter cold winter evening, the rustic household gathered about it : the grandsire, with his clay pipe, puffing thoughtfully; the farmer conning, by the aid on a home-made tallow candle, the last arrived " semi- weekly;" the dame and the daughters busily preparing a savoury supper ; the boys gossiping in a corner about the day's work or the last woodchuck hunt; and the " hired men," forming part of the circle, perhaps stumbling over the words of a spelling book, or at tentively listening to the master, who reads aloud for their benefit the news of the day. In one corner of the room you will perhaps espy a spindle, with its broad, light, whirling wheel; of late, sewing-machines too have made their way to the rural districts. Every thing is neat and in strictest order ; the air is per vaded by a clean rustic smell. The dairy is full of attractions to the lover of rustic things : it is a little room, with shelves ranged along the walls, and tables at the sides ; on them are broad tin pans filled to the edge with milk, some fresh and yellow, some crusted with thick luscious cream, some left blue-white after a recent skimming. Here are great nev/-made cheeses, churns, butter pats and moulds — every appliance for the business of the place. The everyday life on the farms is full of healthful- A DAY ON THE FARM. 127 ness and vigorous cheerful toil. The family is up by sunrise, and breakfast is over shortly after. The mas ter has no indulgence for the slothful, and early teaches his boys and girls to go to bed betimes and rise with the lark. If you chance to be spending your summer as a boarder on the farm, you must comply with the same stern rule. If you are late to breakfast, and at tempt • to import city hours into the rustic household, you must take the consequences, and be content with a cold crust and a glass of milk. Their breakfast over, the farmer, his boys, and the hired men proceed to the fields and begin their daily toil. That acre of hay must fall by the scythe ; this field of potatoes must be hoed ; these bags of wheat must be taken to mill and. ground ; this meadow wall must be pieced up ; the cows must be driven to a distant pasture. They return to dinner at noon, and then work until sundown, when they have a substantial supper. In New England there is a stern, puritanical sort of energy among the farmers, which enables them to achieve remarkable things on a soil in many places not friendly to their vocation. Rocky and sandy fields are made to produce good crops; hard persistent work and untiring perseverance could alone succeed there. The farmers' sons are brought up to rude and con tinuous toil, while, at the same time, they attend school at intervals, and thus become educated men as well as sturdy yeomen. The farm work is in most cases done by the farmer and his sons. Sometimes, 128 AMERICAN SOCIETY. when it is necessary to hurry in getting in a crop, or in putting up a fence — when something is to be done which requires a number of hands — the farmer's neigh bour gives him a day's work, that is, helps him in his task. No charge is thought of being made for this service. When, however, the neighbour in turn is pressed, he calls upon the farmer already indebted to him to "lend a hand." This kindly reciprocity is an almost universal custom; the farmers, perhaps, more than any other class, have learned how both pleasant and profitable it is to help one another. In the far West, where a newly arrived emigrant finds himself, to be sure, " on his own ground" — that ground consisting, however, of rude forests, and presenting , great obstacles to the new comer — it is the custom for the neighbour ing settlers, though they may never have seen him, to " set to" and help him clear a space for his habita tion. What would be impossible for one man to do in a month, half a dozen achieve in a few days. A lot being cleared of its trees and rubbish, the rough kindly souls proceed to cut and drag logs to the spot, and soon an uncouth, but by no means comfortless, log cabin stands upon it. Its owner is afterwards called on to perform the same service for a later comer, or to help those who have helped him on some pressing occasion. Many of the Irishmen, who emigrate in such num bers every week from Queenstown; prefer, on reaching America, to penetrate to the rural districts, and engage IRISH LABOURERS. 129 in farm work, to making roads, cleaning streets, and performing the hard drudgery of the city. If he be a sensible fellow, he will find his position on the farm a iucky one. He is treated almost as if he were a mem ber of the farmer's family. He is provided with a bedroom not inferior to that occupied by the farmer's boys ; sometimes he has a bed in the same apartment which they use. The farmer works with him in the fields ; talks freely -with him ; he has a place at the table with the family, and partakes of the same hearty substantial dishes. He smokes his pipe on the green in front of the farmhouse at dusk, after supper, the master and the boys freely admitting him to their little group. He is always at liberty to sit by the fire with the family in the evening, reading the papers, if read he can — perhaps being taught to read and spell by one of the boys who is fresh from the public school. The contact with an educated, intelligent family cannot fail to improve him, if he is at all capable of improve ment; it is an excellent substitute for the "public house;" his amusements, as well as his associations, are innocent and civilised; he becomes ambitious to rise ; he learns to respect himself, seeing that others respect and treat him as an equal ; and it is not seldom that such a life on a Yankee farm results in making the immigrant Irishman an intelligent and useful citizen, and leads the way to his winning an inde pendence and a good social position. Even in the VOL. II. K 130 AMERICAN SOCIETY. more thickly-settled parts of America labour is scarcely- equal to the demand for it ; and the Irish labourers, who are restless and love to change their residence often, may find plenty to do in almost any part of the country. The farms usually descend quietly from father to son — that son having the most aptitude for the occu pation succeeding to the property. The farms are sometimes, though seldom, divided among several sons. The farm boys often go to town when they have finished their schooling, and learn a trade or a profession. Some are content to engage service in the livery stables, and pass their life in combing down horses and burn ishing carriages ; others, more ambitious, become doc tors' and lawyers' assistants, and finally take their place in the professions; others enter counting houses, and become merchants ; others become guards on railway trains, drivers of omnibuses, bar keepers, hotel pro prietors, shoemakers, carpenters, masons. More than one eminent American were the sons of farmers, and grew up in the remote rural districts. Daniel Web ster, Horace Greeley, Stephen A. Douglas, Lewis Cass, Lincoln, were farmers' sons. Many of the richest mer chants, and most prominent lawyers and doctors, had the same^ obscure origin. The city population is ever being recruited by " fresh blood," both male and female, from the country. The rustic lad or lass in America looks on the city much as Whittington did on London COUNTRY BOYS IN THE CITY. 131 — as a place paved with gold, where fortunes and splendid mansions are attainable by everybody, to be had for the seeldng. And the cities derive a large part of their enterprise from this infusion of country blood. Its dangers are not the less real to them. Many a country boy goes to New York or Philadelphia to fall into vicious companionship, to be driven -by ill luck, or a want of the savoir faire, into misery and crime. Many a .country lass goes thither to relieve her parents of her support, and then becomes the prey of want, or worse, of the bad men and women ever on the alert to corrupt innocence and to debase the pure. Still, there is in the city an even chance for all; the best brain and muscle wins; and better brain and muscle than that of the Yankee farmer's boy, -with his energetic and self-denying habits, his robust frame, and his persevering spirit, the country does not produce. If he will but struggle on, yielding to no temptation, keeping up a good heart under occasional discourage ment, he is sure of success. As has already been said, many farmers' sons "work their way" through the preparatory academy and the university ; there are con stantly being organised colleges where an opportunity is given to exchange labour for learning, and which have it as an object to give their graduates, as well as a degree, a fair start in practical life. Thus it is mostly the country boy's own fault if he does not suc ceed in his career. At home, he may lead the peaceful 132 AMERICAN SOCIETY. farm life which his ancestors have led for generations before him ; abroad, in the great world, a wide and fair arena, and the highest prizes of life at its' goal, await his honest and persistent effort. CHAPTER VIII. A Typical Farmhouse : Summer in the country — Sports and pastimes ¦ — Excursions — Picnics — Serenading parties — A country ball — Sunday among the farmers — Corn-husking — Apple - bees — Quilting — Maple- sugar parties — Agricultural fairs — Sleighing and skating. "Special illustrations are always better than general descriptions. Perhaps the reader will revert with me in fancy to a certain farmhouse, where many delightful summers have been spent, and life at which was an at tractive example of the customs and pastimes of the rural population. The house was a handsome one, on the summit of a sloping hiU, in front of which two pleasant rustic roads branched off. There was a garden between the house and the road, in which were flower plots, one or two peach trees, and two famous cherry trees. The garden was surrounded by a low lattice fence painted white; the house was two storeys high, white, -with green blinds ; a small gate led to a narrow walk, which conducted you to some steps, and a cosy porch supported by wooden pillars. Between the garden and the road was a natural open lawn, on which stood a group of 134 AMERICAN SOCIETY. elms, among the tallest and most graceful I have ever seen. At the side of this lawn, at right angles with the house, was the carriage-shed, and next it the great handsome barn ; nearly in front of the barn was the pigsty, noisy -with a colony of new-born grunters ; while just below the barn was the cider -mill, open at the sides, with its great wooden press, and its fiat nether plank scooped with little gutters. The barn and car riage-shed were perfectly open to the road ; there was no fence or wall whatever between. Connected with the house itself was the wood-house, where the fuel was kept, and which was also used for little odd pur poses : here, for example, the boys blacked their boots, and the farm dame scoured her dishes. At the foot of the hill whereon the house stood, about a quarter of a mile distant, flowed one of the loveliest rivers of Con necticut^ — a state noted for its beautiful river scenery — the waters of which were clear and rapid, its banks overhung vrith thick trees whose branches swept down often and touched the waves, and spanned by a neat wooden bridge at its nearest point from the farmhouse. Here, at a little landing place, were moored some boats — a sort of common property of the neighbouring folk, at the service of all who wished to use them. All ard#ad the house were fertile fields and picturesque copses of woodland ; behind it and opposite, across one of the roads, were orchards of apples, pears, plums, and apricots ; close to the low wall was the kitchen garden, v/ith its wealth of asparagus, peas, beans, strawberries. PLEASANT QUARTERS. 135 raspberries, currants, and melons. On a little knoll at the junction of the roads, and under some trees, was the farmhouse well, with a dipper hung there, hospitably inviting the passer-by to draw up the fresh cool water and drink. On the other side was a barred gate, which was, however, prohibitive of cattle, not of people ; for any one might open it, and pass through to the lane beyond, which led past a little farm-pond, full of croak ing frogs and skittish minnows, to a lovely piece of forest, and along the edge of that, through orchards and pastures, which conducted to the village a mile and a half away. Here, you -will say, was a lovely spot where to rusti cate and recruit one's health for another winter of city life; and so truly was it. The good farmer — as in telligent and well-mannered a gentleman as lived, though you might have seen him any time working lustily with his hired men — was not averse from receiving to board, in summer, a party of city folk : it was a pleasant change from the monotony of farm life, and there was plenty of room in the house. What neat, airy, comfortable bed rooms he gave us ! His sons and daughters, who were not less well bred and well educated than his guests, were charming company — so fresh and roystering, ready to enter into any project for having a good time, day or night; always proposing excursions and picnics, sere nades and " sociables." August and early September were the best months to be there : it was the time of the harvest, and the rural scenery was in its rich ma- 136 AMERICAN SOCIETY. turity. As for the fruits, we, the boarders, had our choice without stint. We could at any time lounge over into the orchard and garden, and munch the rich yellow pears on the green grass under the trees, or squat among the bushes, filling ourselves with grapea or melons. We could wander off to the river, jump into one of the boats, launch out for an hour's row, disem bark at a little shaded nook, where the water was deep and still, and have a plunge and a swim from bank to- bank ; or anchor our craft in mid-river, and catch perch and trout at our leisure for next morning's breakfast. We could take our guns, and rummage the forests, no matter who the owners, for miles round ; we could play croquet on the open sward before the barn ; we could lie under the great elms in front of the house, and read Tennyson or Thackeray, or write in our note books, or- muse listless the livelong day ; we could hunt after- woodchucks in the open pastures ; we could go down to the cider-mill, and watch the brownish juice trickle from. the big apple-cheese through the gutters into the tubs, and if we chose, drink the cider "through a straw." There was new milk, inexhaustible cream, fresh yellow butter, and cheese of every age : there was no limit set. to our enjoyment of them. Not far from the house was a large field of tobacco : this is grown extensively, and of good quality, in the Connecticut valleys. The farmer grew his tobacco, then dried it by hanging it from long beams in a high shed ; then had it manufactured into cigars in a neighbouring building, where a number of VILLAGE SIGHTS. 137 buxom country girls were employed in pressing, rolling, and making up the "vile weed" for general consump tion. It was curious to watch this cigar-making ; per haps pleasanter still to have one's cigars at trifling prices, and of a flavour scarcely inferior to those of the Ha vana themselves. Liberty the most perfect had we everywhere on the farm. If we got tired of our isola tion from the world, the -village, one of the prettiest imaginable, was but a mile and a half distant : we could -walk or ride over there — we had the farmer's horse and carriage whenever we chose — and gossip in the tavern bar-rooms, or make -visits to the village folk, as we pleased. Then Hartford, the nearest city, was but twelve miles away; and we could take the great old- fashioned stage-coach, rumble through a series of lovely rural landscapes for two hours, and have, at the end of the jaunt, a day's taste of town life, returning thence late in the afternoon. Of excursions to neighbouring- spots of interest there was no limit : where is there a village which does not boast its " sights" ? There was the "ledge" — emphatically the ledge — rising in a rugged mass perpendicularly from the loud- roaring river, at whose summit was a wooded plateau, a noble spot for picnics ; from whence you overlooked a. deep and winding valley, and saw, at one side, the strag- ghng village street, and the churchspires and the tav erns. If we preferred something grander and gloomier, there was " Satan's Kingdom," which might have sug gested hints to Dore in illustrating Dante — a black 138 AMERICAN SOCIETY. deep gorge, sombre as Erebus, where the river stag gered -with difficulty among dark rocks and between abrupt, wooded, craggy banks; a place where demons might haunt and make afraid. Perhaps more interest ing still was a place called "Newgate," situated some five or six miles away. Long ago it was a copper-mine ; but in the revolution days the black damp hole dug by the miners was used for the imprisonment of the " tories," by which epithet those Americans were known who continued loyal to King George after the revolu tion had broken out. Over it had been erected another prison, long the gaol ofthe state ; now falling into decay, and used for private ends. It was a frightful dark place, this hole : you reached it by a narrow ladder, and groped through it, bent over so as not to hit your pate against the rugged rock above, and guided by the light of torches. Farther on was the " Tower," a famous place for excursionists, whence you looked off upon a charming landscape which stretched on all sides for miles away. Quaint nooks and grottoes in mid-woods there were without number ; chestnut groves, where one could gather as many chestnuts — the American fruit is far more sweet and delicate than the European — as one could carry ; blueberry, blackberry, and huckleberry pastures, to which gay little parties, provided with quart tin pads, would resort and fill them, meanwhile indulg ing in many a coquettish and merry antic. What jollity there was, too, in those happy, free-and- easy, primitive picnics ! They could be got up at a mo- .COUNTRY PICNICS. 139 ment's notice : everybody was ready to join in, and bring hampers of pies, cakes, and fruit to make up the homely banquet. There was an open spot in the wood near by, -where a rude table and some benches had been fixed, which remained there year in and year out. There were, too, plenty of young folk at the neighbouring farmhouses and village, intelligent, bright, full of frolic ¦ — the girls pretty and sprightly, the boys gallant and skilful, as well in sport as in toil. On a sunny afternoon the party would penetrate the wood, and, the hampers duly piled together at the foot of a tree, it would not be long before some lusty country game was in full career. While the more matronly young women — those of un certain age, and beyond the days of rollicking sport — set out the table, and disposed the dishes and flowers with a native tastefulness, the others gathered in a ring, and " Copenhagen," with its slapping and racing, its screaming and kissing, soon made the woods reecho with happy shouts, and the leaves rustle with the rush ing and sKpping of many feet. Then there would be a dance, a quadrille or a rustic " walk-around ;" and the country youth, not half so proper, but far more wise than the city folk, hopped, shook, and jigged through the dance instead of stiffly walking through it. The rustic beaux and sweethearts indulged in frank love- making, not more than half ashamed of their mutual likings; and amid the general jollity there were con fidential whisperings and sly hand-pressures which told ¦the tale which is as old as the world, yet to the young 140 AMERICAN SOCIETY. is always new. The scene about the homely table was a right merry one, and after the sturdy games the young folks' appetites were all the heartier. Bottles of goose berry and currant wine, of cider and lemonade, disap peared in a twinkling ; and the cakes, pies, and fruits quickly vanished from the board. A favourite pastime was to get up a serenading party-— for the good folk of that region, among other virtues, are musical ; there is a piano or a melodioit in almost every house. One of the farm-wagons — the hay-cart, perhaps ; no matter what — was hauled out of its corner in the carriage-shed, and the horses har nessed to it ; two of the boys proceeded to shoulder the little melodion, carry it out of the parlour, and set it in the wagon. There was a mustering of all the musical geniuses for miles around : Tom Brown brought his fiddle. Bill Judkins his trombone, Sally Thompson her guitar. Will Billings his flute, Jack Smith his clarionette, and half-a-dozen lads and lasses their clear strong bassos, baritones, and sopranos. Be fore setting out everybody sat down in the farmhouse dining-room to a substantial supper ; then, in the par lour, began the tuning of the instruments and the trials of duets ; at ten o'clock or so, the moon having risen, the party mounted the wagon, each sitting where he or she could, the preferences as to neighbours being duly consulted, and the tendency being to huddle rather snugly up together : one of the boys took charge of the horses, and with a crack and a whoop away we went. SERENADING PARTIES. 141 As we cantered over the silent country road, in under the arching tree branches, down into darksome valleys, up over gently-rising hills, the music swelled out, and the voices mingled in real harmony, the songs being, though not ofthe newest, at least full of melody and sentiment. Then, dra-wing up under a farmhouse -win dow, the self-appointed chorister of the party would rise and sway his arms, and " The Red, White, and Blue ;" or, " The firm old Rock;" or, " My own gipsy maid;" or, "Come, come, Love, come," would be sung •with genuine zest, the notes of the melodion mingling not inharmoniously with the fiddles, guitars, and flutes. Perhaps the good people of the house would have gone to bed, and would fail to awake to a consciousness of the honour done them ; perhaps a dame in her nightdress would appear at the open window, and Ksten admiringly; perhaps the honest master would come, hastily dressed, out the door, and, after waiting for the song to be done, would advance to the wagon and in vite the serenaders -within to a glass of home-brewed ale and "a trifle o' beef." I fear, too, that sometimes when the farmers counted their watermelons next morning — especially the farmers who had been so in hospitable as to take no notice ofthe serenade — they found some of the large green pumpkin-shape fruit missing. But if watermelon theft there was, it was a venial sin, not seriously frowned on in those regions even by the robbed farmer himself. Then, penetrating to the village, we made the quiet street ring -with mel- 142 AMERICAN SOCIETY. odies and ditties ; and the tavern-keeper, at least, was sure to acknowledge the compliment in a substantial way. Perhaps, when we got home to our farmhouse again, the morning would have dawned, and the party, tired but still hilarious — for even cider often taken is exhilarating — would get to bed as the sun rose and gilded the surrounding hills. It was great sport when there was a country ball. It was a momentous occasion, announced and pre pared for long beforehand. It was held in one of the larger taverns, and was the occasion of an extensive gathering of all the folk, young and old, for miles around. On the evening of the ball you might have seen and heard, on the many roads leading to the ap pointed place, vehicles of every sort and size, filled with merry singers and talkers, in their very best suits, hastening impatiently to the scene of the night's frolic. At our farm there was a party large enough to fill three or four carriages and wagons; our contribution to the personnel of the ball was by no means a slight one. Each of the farmer's sons had command of one of the vehicles ; Ben drove the chaise. Jack the market wagon, Joe the great family " go-to-meetin' " carriage. It was not a little difficult to apportion the party among them ; but at last, the sweethearts and beaux being comfort ably matched together, we started off in procession for the village where the ball was to be. It was charming to ramble along through the country roads; to meet other parties from neighbouring houses, and have our A COUNTRY BALL. 143 joke and hearty word of welcome with them ; to run through the villages, and call out to dilatory groups to "hurry up," and engage dancing partners "on the wing ;" finally to arrive at the tavern, and, while one of the boys put up the chaises and wagons at the contiguous stables, to enter the brightly lighted rooms, amply supplied to-night -with " real city candles," and already astir -with the merrymakers constantly arriving. The bar-room was, for the male portion of the party, the first resort ; the evening was somewhat warm, and a cool claret punch or mint julep was grateful. Mean while the girls assembled to the upper regions of the tavern, where they found the bedrooms daintily pre pared, in which to doff their bonnets and cloaks and give their hair a final captivating brush and curl. In the bar-room stood the managers of the ball, taking the admission fees. " Have you a lady ? Two dollars, if you please, which admits two to the ball and the sup per." It is not, perhaps, presumptuous to say, that the " city folks" were looked upon with a kind of awe by the country youths, and were, possibly, the heroes and heroines of the occasion. Everybody, however, seemed prim and bright and happy; and when the ladies of the party at last descended, their long con templation of the little bedroom mirrors completed, we entered a long low-roofed room, well lighted, already quaking with the heavy tramp of rustic boots, and re sounding with the sharp quick notes of the rustic band at the upper end. Benches along the sides supplied 144 AMERICAN SOCIETY. seats for the new comers or the "wall-flowers" — the non-dancers are so called ; a slightly-raised dais at the further corner accommodated the fiddlers, who were working with hot faces and foot-stampings. The danc ing was hearty, unique ; the country folk were here on familiar ground, and the town snobs found it difficult to keep apace with them. Down rushed the couples through the long line of dancers, and up again ; the not too graceful waltzers bounded up and down, fast ¦over the sanded floor ; now a muscular middle-aged farmer appeared in the dance, and performed old- fashioned antics amid roars of laughter. You asked whomsoever you pleased to be your partner ; and an acquaintance — even often a friendship — grew up within the duration of a single quadrille. Those who knew each other best formed sets together ; and etiquette failed to find any place in the primitive assemblage. The announcement of supper was the signal for a general rush; one had to hunt in the crowd for the lady he had brought to the ball, and hasten quickly with her to the dining-room below, lest he should find the seats all taken. A homely repast enough ; only an everyday farm supper elaborated ; it was, however, eagerly disposed of, amid many spillings of dishes, much laughter, and loud rustic joking. Then the couples strolled out upon the village street, and there was singing, promenading, flirting for a while; after which, more dancing and music; finally, the hurried donning of shawls and hats, the huddling into the ' SUNDAY AMONG THE FARMERS. 145 wagons and chaises, the parting " swig" of the male portion at the bar, the sharp crack ofthe whips, the con fused chorus of " good-byes" and the waving of hands ; then the dashing, rolHcking, song-singing, shouting, canter home. It is worth while to spend one Sunday in the rural districts. The everyday quiet of the country seems yet more intense. In the farmhouses, instead of the morning bustle of the men and boys preparing to go fieldward, there is the careful making ready of the " Sunday go to meetin' " clothes : the boots are receiv ing an " extra shine" in the woodshed ; the best car riage is being dusted and polished ; the family appears — "hired men" and all — in neat attire, and every one seems to have a subdued and restful air. No one astir outside in field or road. As the time of service ap proaches, the carriages and wagons begin to pass, with their loads of nicely dressed people ; it is hardly thought proper to stay away from church. The dame perhaps remains at home to get ready the cold Sunday dinner ; often the whole family rides to church, the dinner being carried in the carriage with them, and eaten in the church itself between the morning and afternoon service. At the pretty village church you see the wagons hitched to posts, and drawn up under the sheds ; there are groups of neatly, rather stiffly, dressed farmers, young and old, standing just outside the church door, talking quietly with each other, and watching and greet ing each family party as it comes up ; they remain VOL. II. L 146 AMERICAN SOCIETY. without the door till the last minute, and only enter when the final stroke of the bell has ceased to sound. Inside, the edifice is light, airy, the windows shaded by trees, through whose branches the rays of the sun fit fully strike on the panes. Opposite the pulpit is the small square gallery, with its modest organ and its choir. I have sometimes seen violins, violoncellos, and flutes take the place of the organ in remote village churches. The pews are plain, well cushioned ; in the older " meeting houses" high and stiff. The quiet all around adds an effect to the simple service ; the con gregation is attentive; the old men are prone to fall asleep ; the choir sings well, and is joined in the psalm and hymn by the people below. The service over, some draw up their chaises and wagons and drive off home ; others proceed to take out their baskets in the church, produce their cold dinners of sandwiches and pies, and gather together in little groups, talking while they dine. Sunday afternoon and evening is a peculiarly happy season for the young men and women; then "courtin"' -visits are made, and " sparkin' " goes on in every farmhouse where there is a pretty lass. The farmer permits his boys to use the horses and carriages, and they drive off to their sweethearts, whom they invite to take long rides along the country roads by moonlight, or to wander arm in arm through the groves and fields. Many are the time-honoured pastimes of the rural districts, peculiar to American farmer life, which have HUSKINGS AND APPLE BEES. 147 been handed down from generation to generation among the rustic folk. In the autumn, at harvest time, there are numerous merry gatherings, in which use ful tasks are joined with hearty amusement. When the Indian corn is gathered, it is the custom to have, at many ofthe farmhouses, what is called a "husking." The object is, to get the corn husked : the neighbours are invited to assemble on a certain afternoon at the barn of the farmer whose corn is to be husked. Here are great piles of the just gathered ears. The guests sit about on the barn floor and the haymows, and proceed to strip the husks and silk from the corn, and deposit it clean and bare at one side. Meanwhile there is plenty of talking and laughing; the farmer's home-brewed cider and ale are passed frequently about, and doughnuts, pies, and cakes of all sorts are plenti fully provided. After a while the husking is suspended, the barn floor cleared of the rubbish, one of the boys mounts the haymow and strikes up a lively tune on his fiddle, and the barn fairly shakes with the rollick ing dance or the lusty game which ensues. Whatever young man finds in his pile a red ear of corn, is en titled to kiss any girl he chooses ; if a lass finds one, she must submit to be kissed, and must choose the lad whom she prefers to perform the operation. An other autumn custom is called an " apple bee." Several barrels of apples are collected in the farmhouse, the neighbours are invited in, and all set to work paring them. After the outer skin is taken off, the apples are 148 AMERICAN SOCIETY. divided into small sections, the core taken out, and the pieces are hung on a string. These are afterwards put in the sun to dry, and are then laid away with which to make "apple sauce" or dried apple pies in the en suing -winter. The people reciprocate with each other in doing these tasks, and they are as well occasions of merry making, of dancing, game-playing, rustic flirting, and singing, as of work. 'When a farm dame needs an additional quilt for one of her beds, she calls in her neighbom-s and they set to work making one, patching it together with odd pieces of cloth ; this is a party at first confined to the women ; tea-drinking and gossip comprise the pleasures which relieve the task ; in the evening the " men folks" drop in, and there is a general frolic. A famous time in some of the northern states is that when the maple trees are tapped, and the delicious maple sugar made. The sugar maple trees are yery profitable, and often add materially to the income of the farmer. Early in the spring these are tapped ; the sweet juice is collected in tubs ; great fires are built ; huge iron kettles are hung over them ; the maple sap poured in and boiled down to a thick syrup. It is of a rich brown colour, and nothing can be nicer, espe cially if eaten on hot cakes or waffles. In the evening, when the syrup has grown quite thick and ready for the " sugaring off," the lasses and lads gather at the " camps," in the wood, to partake of it. A favourite AGRICULTURAL FAIRS. 149 ¦method is to dip snowballs into the yet warm syrup, and, thus coated, to eat them ; these are very delicious. The froth, or "wat" ofthe syrup is also very palatable. The festivities end with dances, games, and ditties. In the fall, almost every town has its " Agricultural Fair," which is, to the rustic population, one of the great events of the year. It is held not seldom in the spacious airy townhall; the farmers for miles round have been preparing for it the summer long ; the farmer who takes a prize for the heaviest pig or the biggest pears is hke the politician who has won an election, like an author whose book is a " success," like a lawyer who has gained a famous case, like a parson made a bishop. These Agricultural Fairs are truly interesting and curious shows. Within the hall long tables have been set against the walls and in the middle of the floor ; the walls have been decorated by the young women with all varieties of evergreen festoons, fantastic flower designs, pictures, and deftly - fashioned embroidery or worsted work. The tables display every kind of fruit and vege table, all of the largest, ripest, and most luscious, with little cards on the plates, informing the uninitiated of the particular species, and the name of its contributor. Pyramids of pears, peaches, and apples are followed by monster pumpkins and cabbages, mammoth beets, melons, and turnips, great tempting clusters of grapes, wonderful potatoes, beans, and tomatoes. Further on you will see specimens of the women's handiwork — wax flowers, pictures made of hair, embroidery, crochet 150 AMERICAN SOCIETY. -work, odd examples of aptitude with the needle, pen, or penknife. On other tables appear specimens of domes tic cookery — specimen loaves of bread and cake, pre serves, pickles, hams, and pies. Outside the building are rows of pens where are kept the oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, goats — the bestial competitors for the prizes ; placards announcing the various kinds are tacked to the pens, and groups of farmers are gathered about them, discussing the merits of this hog or that big-headed bull. On the open spaces round about are all sorts of small shows and pedlars' wagons drawn up in eligible places. Tents, covered with large gaudy pictures of giantesses and bearded women, wonderful dwarfs and living skeletons, are thickly set on the sward ; and the showmen at the tent openings are talking themselves hoarse, jingling their money boxes the while, and de scribing with oratorical flourishes the miracles to be seen for a penny within. The pedlars are driving brisk bargains with their astonishingly cheap penknives, their patent knife-sharpeners and axe-grinders, their little bottled balms for every human ill, their marvellous -waiting apparatus making half a dozen simultaneous copies, their soaps, confectionery, and imposing silver Avare. A perambulating photographer has drawn up his portable saloon in a convenient corner ; and offers to produce perfect likenesses of loving couples and rough old farmers for trifling prices. There are, here and there, little cake and beer stands, around which CLOSING THE FAIR. 161 the smaller boys and girls .crowd eagerly, and indulge in their penny treat on the spot. The country people are there in multitudes, dressed primly, and deeply interested in all that is going on ; the city people, too, have driven out, and mingle in the concourse which is grouped about the tables and on the green. The fair usually lasts two days; the second day is the best attended. In one of the upper rooms a bountiful col lation is spread ; on the platform at the further end is a table, at which sit the dignitaries — the president of the agricultural society, the orator of the day, and any notable visitors who are present. Just below them is a table for the reporters, who have come out from the city to take notes for the " evening edition." A fee of fifty cents or a dollar is demanded of those who -wish to partake of the collation ; it consists of cold meats, vegetables, pies, and fruits. The repast over, the ora tor of the day is introduced, and, rising behind the platform table, he proceeds to deliver an address on some agricultural subject. Other speeches are made; the prizes are announced by a committee appointed for the purpose ; and then the productions on exhibition are taken away by their various owners. Sometimes, in the evening, a dance at the town hotel concludes the affair. Every one competes for the prizes who so chooses, these being offered by the agricultural societies. The country people practise many robust out-door games. There are shooting matches and quoit matches, base-ball contests, and foot races. Nearly every boy 152 AMERICAN SOCIETY. has his gun, and early becomes an adept in shooting at targets and hunting in the free forests. Every boy, too, learns to swim and to row ; for everywhere in rural America there are, near by the farms, lakes and rivers, where aquatic sports may be enjoyed without fear of molestation. Of course the country boy sits on his horse, without a saddle, as easily as if he had grown there; and when he is very young, is sent to miU with a load of corn or wheat, sometimes several miles distant from home, returning -with the flour after it has been ground. In the -winter time, the farmers, having little to do — their fields being thickly covered with layer after layer of crusted snow — they stay much at home, attending to the cattle in the sheds, reading, and lei surely lounging about. Then it is that the sleighs — long processions of them — may be seen gliding over the roads, full of hilarious parties. The young men of the neighbourhood get together, and arrange to give their sweethearts en onasse the treat of a sleigh ride. The village tavern is doubtless supplied with a bounc ing great sleigh, a bargelike vehicle on runners, which the landlord is readily induced, for a modest sum, to lend ; and there is besides a general muster of all the farm sleighs for miles around. The horses are decked with bells, and after the accidental slippings and fall ings down, screaming and joking, the party starts off, echoing some famihar song. The broad landscape is everywhere white and shining; the fences and walls WINTER PASTIMES. 153 are half concealed beneath the high drifts, the rails and stones peeping out here and there at intervals ; the farmhouses seem imbedded in the flaky mounds; the narrow beaten paths from the doors lead through snow walls often five or six feet high; the road is crusted with a coat of snow frozen into ice; the tree -boughs bend low beneath their accumulated burden ; everywhere the snow-particles glisten and glitter ; as far as eye can reach, hilltop and valley, house and tree, are shrouded in the monotonous and long enduring robe of white. The procession of sleighs glides rapidly over the frozen road; the joyous jingling of hundreds of little bells mingles with the shouts and laughter of the happy- hearted party. They are wrapt and bundled almost out of sight by capacious blankets, quilts, and shawls ; are fain to hold their noses lest they freeze : stamp their feet to urge the circulation ; drive faster and faster to make the excitement more intense. A ten or fifteen miles' run brings them to their destination — a distant ¦village, where a tavern famous through the contiguous country offers them a right genial hospitality. Here they bound out of their sleighs, which are speedily dis posed of in the tavern barn ; they rush in, huddle up to the great red-hot stove ; " flip," punch, what not, is speedily ordered, quickly brought, as quickly disappears. Now the party has got warm, and the steaming hot beverage stirs them to yet more hilarious spirits. They repair to the dancing hall, where they join in free-and- easy dances and lusty games. Then they whirl home 154 AMERICAN SOCIETY. again, under the midnight moon, which is now high in the heavens, and is reflected dazzlingly on the broad smooth fields of snow. To relieve the desolate monotony of winter, "so ciables" are often formed. Once a fortnight gather ings take place at the houses in turn, which are all the jollier because the people have so few chances to see each other. In many of the villages concerts are given by choral societies, and lectures, either by the parson or schoolmaster, or some neighbouring notability. The boys and girls have as much skating as they please. The lakes and rivers remain frozen for several months, and moonlight skating parties are among the pleasant est of the winter season. It is customary, too, to bore holes through the ice, and fish; and while some are whirling on their skates rapidly across the lake, you ¦will see, here and there, others squatted about the fish ing holes, now and then hastily pulling up, and finding a bouncing trout or pike at the end of their lines. These sports are, however, often interrupted by a hea-vj' fall of snow; and the skaters and anglers must Avait until this in turn melts a little, and then freezes and forms an upper surface of ice. CHAPTER IX. Travelling in America : The steamboats — Racing on the Mississippi — Steamboats on the gulf and lakes. Between that memorable day, the 17th of August 1807, when the first rude steamboat of Fulton made its first anxious trip from New York to Albany — a day whose very date gave the croakers a chance to liken the boat to the beast of the Apocalypse — and that other day, in the spring of 1869, when " prayer was offered" over the laying down of the last rail of the Pacific Rail road, the time has been brief, the progress of human science strange and momentous. When we think what a retarding force there is in human timidity, deep-rooted prejudice, aversion to change, and shrinking from expe riment, it is remarkable how so many and so vast im provements have been generally adopted within these sixty years. The facilities for travelling in America with speed and comfort have been steadily increasing ever since Fulton and Stevenson developed to the most obtuse vision the practicability of steam locomotion. Now it would seem that the manifest tendency is toward luxury. It is a matter of regret that rival railway and steam boat companies in America sometimes aim to outbid 166 AMERICAN SOCIETY. each other rather by satisfying their passengers' love of luxury, than by making their lines more secure and their system more perfect. The national temerity — which, in the West, becomes absolute recklessness — renders travelling, either by land or by water, less safe than it should be. Still, there are advantages as well as disadvantages in the American railways and steam boats. In some respects they are not so good, in others much better than the European lines. Each continent might learn from the other how to discard some incon veniences, and how to adopt some improvements. Steam locomotion was invented at a time when just such an agent was needed to develop those sections of America which lay in the interior of the continent, beyond the limits of the thickly settled Atlantic border. It became at once a rapid civiliser of sparsely settled districts. It peopled wildernesses, which straightway became great and prosperous states. It subdued the wilds of the West by a process which accelerated tenfold what be fore seemed destined to be the law of increase in the Western settlements. The material progress of the republic has been hastened by railways and steamboats to a degree hard to be estimated ; and now at last we have the greater and final link which binds the Atlantic coast with the Pacific, the precursor, only, of numerous similar links, which, to the north and the south of it, wiU ere long double and treble bind the distant states of the republic together. These will, too, be main arteries, from which at brief intervals will shoot off PROGRESS IN LOCOMOTION. 167 lesser arteries straight and zigzag ; they, in their turn, gi-ving out capillaries, which will carry the civilising^ and life-giving element to the remotest nooks of the Western wilds. In the forests, where the Black-Foot still hunts buffaloes and worships the Man-in-the-Sun, whither only meagre bands of white adventurers have hitherto timidly penetrated in search of gold, holding their lives on their palms, gold-hungry, with a possible death at every step ; — in these wild places there must soon be rails laid down, and trains whirling over them. Sixty years ago St. Louis was a petty border village, which traded ¦with the Red- Skins ; now it is central, ¦vrith a quarter of a million of inhabitants, and is am bitious to be the capital of the nation ! Of the Pacific Railroad I shall speak more in detail in a future chap ter. The locomotion which is more familiar must first be described. In river and lake na^vigation America may properly claim — at least in comfort and speed — to be in advance of the older countries. Probably the first objects which strike the foreign passenger on the Liverpool and New York steamer, as it steams rapidly along the banks of Long Island, and approaches the American metropolis, passing now the picturesque islands, with their cheerful country residences, which lie just outside New York harbour — are the steamboats. They are, perhaps, the first objects which he sees that are quite foreign to his European experience. , He has been used to the ugly little boats which ply up and down the Thames, with 158 AMERICAN SOCIETY. their narrow crowded decks, their black movable fun nels, their little dark holes called cabins ; or to the hardly more attractive steamers which carry one conti nent-ward from Dover or Newhaven, which seem built purposely to encourage — even compel — sea sickness, and provide poor comfort on their low wave -washed decks, with their ine^vitable obstructive coils of rope, and those coffin-like boxes to which the steward con ducts you when you ask for your berth. The Rhine steamers, and those on the Swiss and Italian lakes, are a thought more convenient and more cheerful ; they are lesser imitations — with many essentials left out — of the American steamboats, which the Cunard passenger sees gliding rapidly hither and thither, among the harbour islands, and to and from the city, near New York. Albeit very large, they^have somehow a light, airy, pic turesque look. Some of them are two or three hundred feet long. They are indeed floating palaces, movable water hotels, in themselves luxurious sojourning places, where you may enjoy every possible comfort, and where, if you like — as many do — you may spend a week on board, steaming backward and forward^ with real enjoy ment. I have heard of gentlemen who, when summer came, took up their residence on one of the Long Island Sound steamboats, which ply between New York and the southerly New England states, remaining on board for a fortnight at a time, enjoying the motion, and a scenery which, however famihar, never wearies, break fasting, dining, sleeping on the boat; finding aboard STEAJIBOATS. 159 chance acquaintances, and having at hand plenty of amusements to distract them. Passing down along the crowded piers which cluster thickly around the edge of the city by the North and East rivers, you will see at fre quent intervals these great steamboats quietly moored, awaiting their hour of departure. Crossing the plank which is stretched from the pier to the boat, you will perhaps be surprised to observe how commodious, luxu rious, even gaudy, are its furniture and decorations. The American steamboats are long, some broad, some- narrow, and are supplied with an upper and lower deck. Immediately on leaving the plank you find your self in a large space, covered overhead by the upper deck, and open at either side. Here are situated the captain's and other offices of the boat, and the baggage and freight compartments. A handsomely-gilded and carved door leads to the ladies' cabin, which is richly carpeted, and plentifully supplied with sofas, armchairs, marble-top tables, mhrors, pictures, and books. A sleek mulatto stewardess receives the ladies, shows them their berths (which are as snug and comfortable as possible), and, -with the pomposity of her dusky lineage, ministers to their various wants. Below deck is the gentlemen's cabin, which is more spacious, and, if less luxuriously decorated than the ladies' cabin, is quite as comfortable. Along the sides ofthe boat, on the lower deck, are little rooms, offices, and clouts, for the convenience of the officers and passengers. There are wash rooms, 160 AMERICAN SOCIETY. smoking rooms, engineers' apartments — at one end, a snug little bar, where you may obtain any American concoction, simple or complicated. Outside the row of little rooms is a narrow corridor, protected by a fence or rail, where you may stand and smoke, and gaze out upon the water ; at the rear is a small aft deck, roofed by the flooring of the upper deck, and provided with benches, arm-chairs, and awnings. On the upper deck, closed in' on all sides, is a long and really magnificent general saloon, or drawing room. You ascend to it by a winding staircase, the steps of which are mounted ¦with brass plates ; you enter an apartment replete -with every luxury which money can procure, and where you might imagine yourself in the drawing room of some Fifth Avenue mansion. It is richly carpeted, often with velvet carpet, or the most expensive Brussels; there are the softest and most yielding sofas and fauteuils, ottomans, circular cushioned seats around the pillars, ornate mirrors, marble tables supplied with fanciful clocks and elegant vases full of flowers, painted panell ings, heavy chandeliers supplied with gas, a variety of illustrated books dispersed on the tables, and often a bookcase with a library for the convenience of the passengers, or a piano, on which any one may play. On either side, throughout the length of the saloon, you observe neatly painted doors, numbered or lettered, with a small ventilating window above. At intervals are short narrow corridors, leading from the main saloon, ¦with similar doors at either hand. These cor- STATE ROOMS. 161 riders conduct you to elegant washrooms and closets, marble furnished, ¦with every appliance for comfort. The doors open into the cosiest possible " state rooms." They are just large enough to accommodate two persons. On one side are two berths, one above the other, having curtains drawn across, and supplied with newly washed and ironed linen sheets, blankets, and quilts. In the further corner is a marble washstand, with a mirror over it. The state room is carpeted, has hooks for one's clothing, and a narrow window looking out upon the water. Most of the steamboats have a "bridal" state room, for the use of newly married couples just started on their honeymoon trip. These are sumptuous apart ments, much larger than the ordinary state rooms, more lavishly furnished and adorned. At either end of the saloon are little open decks, surrounded by slight railings, covered with a wooden roofing or an awning, and sup plied with comfortable seats, benches, or arm-chairs. The gentlemen's cabin, situated below decks, is a long apartment, with three rows of berths, ganged one above the other, on either side. These are for the use of those gentlemen who do not choose to pay extra for a state room. The price of the passage includes the right to one of these berths ; a state room, whether occupied by one or two persons, usually costs an extra dollar. The passage and state rooms are either engaged at the office of the company in town, or secured when one goes on board. On going upon one of the steamboats, you will usually see a string of people moving gradu-< VOL. II. M 162 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ally up to the little window behind which the clerk is standing, where he is apportioning berths and state rooms, and receiving the fares. When the journeys are short, it is customary for the passengers to pay en route ; and, half-way to your destination, as you sit on deck, you will often see a sleek negro steward walking up and down, ringing a bell, and shouting, " Passen gers, please step up to de cap'en's office and settul !" Whereon you are expected to descend and pay your fare. Sometimes the captain goes about among the passengers in person and collects the passage money. As many of the steamboats are intended for jour neys of more than twelve hours, meals are supplied on board. A table is set in the gentlemen's cabin, to which all the passengers, ladies and gentlemen, are invited, and upon which is spread a most elaborate and really capital supper. The suppers on board the " Sound" line, plying between New York and New England, are famous, indeed, throughout America for their excellence; and the price not being exorbitant, the tables are always fully occupied. The breakfast gong sounds at eight o'clock, and you descend to par take of any or all the favourite American dishes — oysters, hot rolls, buckwheat cakes, corncakes, beef steak, cutlets, trout, mackerel, shad — choosing what you will, and paying a set price whether you have more or less. Many of the steamboats have prim neo^ro waiters, who bustle pompously about, carve the meats, and, viith a remarkable faculty of memory, brinw you STEAMBOAT TOURISTS. 163 without an omission, the half a dozen dishes you have ordered. The airy, open upper deck is naturally the favourite lounging place; the passengers assemble there, seated about in groups, and at their ease chat together, ob serve the passing panorama, smoke their post-prandian cigars, or read the evening paper which they have bought, damp from the press, as they came on board. The conveniences of the steamboats are quite equal to those of a first-class hotel. Every boat is furnished ¦with a library, cards, dice, dominoes, chess and back gammon boards ; you may always get a capital havana cigar at city prices ; and you may write, sketch, flirt, lounge, doze, or indulge in almost any indolent pastime you prefer. Especially interesting is a trip on the Ameri can steamboat in the " season." Everybody is going to the seaside or the summer watering-place; everybody soon manages to get acquainted with everybody else ; you have society in epitome, and can learn what New York fashion is, on that upper deck, as well as if you should make a winter's business of society-hunting in the city. There are married men of business, who have been dragged from their counting-rooms, and are serving, very much malgre their wills, as escorts to their society-mad wives and daughters ; there are the freshest possible specimens of the " Shoddy" aristocracy, who have become wealthy in a day, use bad grammar and are proud of it, and are released, in their own opinion, by having become a money power, from the rules of 164 AMERICAN SOCIETY. civilised society; there are young snobs by the dozen, with tufts on their chins, a glass in their right eyes, bobby coats, and lisping platitudes ; there are ladies of every age, on their way to the great annual matrimonial market ; and there, too, are loud politicians from Wash ington, prosperous doctors from the West End, clergy men with fancy salaries and lungs needing the sea air ; as well as an innumerable crowd of the Do-nothings of this world, who are off to the beach or the springs because they are sick, for the while, of town. You will not fail, also, to flnd many excellent folk among the passengers ; people who are not pretenders, but whom you can enjoy, whom you are glad to have met, and whom you make up your mind to cultivate when you and they reach the journey's end. Perhaps, as you skim lightly and smoothly over the waters of Long Island Sound in the soft twilight of the mid- June night, the effect of the time and scene will be height ened by a sudden burst of song, which comes from a group of passengers at the aft end of the boat, pro posed by one of those ubiquitous persons who are never wanting on such occasions, and who have a genius for getting up devices to pass the time. It will, likely enough, be some refrain familiar to every one — some national air, or war song, or negro melody ; and then the company will join in on the chorus, and send it ringing out over the water. Perhaps one sees American steamboat life at its best and at its worst — its dangers, its excitements, its luxu- ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 165 lies, its pleasures — to most advantage on the Missis sippi. The long journeys which the Mississippi steam boats are obliged to make, both on that river itself and lip and down its largest tributaries — from Cincinnati on the Ohio, St. Paul on the upper Mississippi, Omaha on the upper Missouri, St. Louis on the lower, down by Cairo, Memphis, Vicksburg, and Baton Rouge to New Orleans, render it necessary to afford every pro vision and elaborate comfort for their passengers. Their system is, as far as comfort goes, excellent ; everything is in perfect order. The meals are replete with variety and capital cookery ; the state rooms are spacious, the saloons splendid; the service is all that could be de sired, and there are no little annoyances as to the paying of fees. One lives on board as in a hotel, provided -with every facility for amusement, and for satisfying every want. There is music and dancing, and card-playing and feasting, from one end of the trip to the other. Some of the western society one meets on board is, if anything, too familiar and easy — there are many burly, swaggering fellows, for ever spitting tobacco -juice, and invading your privacy, and worse still, gambling and drinking in the saloons. The few are thus able effectually to mar the pleasure of the many; but it may be said that the nuisance is not always so obtrusive as described. The natural dangers of the Mississippi are too often supplemented by dan gers for which human recklessness is responsible. The ¦races which take place between the steamboats are al- 166 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ways attended with peril, and not seldom result in terrible disasters. Still, there is a -wild, fierce excite ment about these races — especially when they take place at night — which it is difficult to resist, and with which one can hardly avoid being infected. The great steam boats, running side by side; plunging and plough ing and dashing high the frothy waters ; now grating against the insidious snags which lie unperceived just below the surface; the lurid fires flashing out upon the water with fitful gleams, and lending their colour to the waves ; the smoking and spark- vomiting funnels, rising black from the deck, the shower of sparks flying high in ah, then descending zigzag and losing them selves in the river ; the shouts of the officers and pas sengers, as one or the other boat shoots a-head; the intenser excitement as the ¦ hindermost gets foremost ; there is something in the scene to make one forget that there is danger in every boat-leap, and that a cata strophe may at any moment plunge victors and van quished into eternity. The noble steamboats on the northern lakes — Supe rior, Ontario, Erie, Michigan — which, o-wing to the keen rivalry of the different companies, become more and more sumptuous every year, are noted as model crafts, and not less for their spacious accommodation than for the excellence of their management. In the summer season these boats make, frequent and long excursions for the benefit of the people of the towns which are scattered along the borders of the lakes. A JAUNT ON THE GULF. 167 If you will look on the map of the United States, you will observe that, when the steamboat has reached the centre of Erie or Superior, the lake is a sea, a fresh-water sea, from whose midst no land — unless it be some island, bare and gaunt, or overgrown with shrubs and trees — is visible. Excursion parties often spend a day or two on the steamers, going from one city to another, landing now on some secluded island, where an impromptu picnic is held, then returning home, ¦with music, dancing, and game-playing to while away the hours. The captains and officers of the boats are most often genuine characteristic westerners, — a little reckless perhaps, but openhearted and generous, men who enjoy life heartily, wonderful story-tellers, skilful and energetic in their business, sociable and free- and-easy with everybody, lovers of whisky and their dinners, men of iron frames and stoutly compact phy sique, adventurous, a race by themselves, — inland tars of the lustiest and joUiest sort. A steamboat ride in the Gulf of Mexico on a sum mer's night is full of romance and dreamy sensuous pleasure. The day has been sweltering hot, and you have become languid and listless through the long burning hours. The soft night air, bearing gently to you a slight coolness, just perceptible — laden, too, with a delicate touch of the perfumes stolen from the luxuriant summer vegetation of the south, a faint scent of flowers and fruits ; the placid waters stretching far, and rippling liquid musically as the boat's prow ploughs 168 AMERICAN SOCIETY. it ; the moon high in the firmament, losing its look of dreary coldness in this southern clime, and now seem ing almost to send out warmth upon the earth; the far-off glimmering lights of the towns on the coast ; the groups of negroes forward, enlivening the jaunt by banjo-twangings and the quick thud of a negro jig ; the white folks on the aft deck, some unmindful of the loveliness of the scene and place, talking crops or poli tics, others gazing dreamily out upon the waters, — form a scene which, once witnessed, is always remembered with a Smile, and a regret that it cannot be enjoyed again. CHAPTER X. Railways : Improvements — Travelling luxuries and customs — The carriages ¦ — ¦ Sleeping-cars and res taurants — Car-saloons — The railway stations — The western railwa/ys — Newsboys and pedlars — The luggage system — The Pacific railroad. The first railway in the United States was built in the latter part of 1830. In 1840, there were about 2000 miles of railway ; in I860; nearly 9000 ; in 1860, 31,000; now there are somewhat more than 50,000. Up to 1848 the interior of the district west of the Mis sissippi was, to the mass of the people, an unknown territory ; as much so as Alaska now is, the bleak northern region recently purchased from Russia. Con gress has been munificent in aiding the construction of the railways. More than 170,000,000 of acres of public lands have been granted to the various companies ; and in addition to this assistance. Congress has issued bonds to guarantee the credit of many of these enter prises. It is remarkable how facilities for travel create travel. In some parts of America, railway and horse-car hues have been established, and are pros perous, in places which before their construction could not support an omnibus. It seems safe to make a 170 AMERICAN SOCIETY. road almost anywhere; and this is especially true of the west. The progress of the last twenty years has opened an intercourse with the western regions, has developed there with surprising rapidity the precious and useful metals, the products of a rich vhgin soil, and the yield of the forests. Now that the Pacific railway is completed, and others are to be built, the Americans look forward to reaping advantages from the ever-growing commerce between Europe and the Orient. That eastern trade which has always been looked upon by the civilised trading nations of the west as a source of riches and power, which became important as long ago as the time of Alexander, who marched to the Indus as well to establish centres of commerce as to achieve splendid conquests ; this trade will, partly at least, take a new direction, and will pos sess a new line of communication with Europe, across the American continent, having as its intermediate de pots San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. The railway system in America differs widely in many respects from those of Europe. Invention is the minister of luxury. The recent history of railways in America is one more proof of the axiom. Who would travel now as kings, ambassadors, and princes did a century ago ? Marlborough jogged along in great lumbering carriages, over rough uncouth roads, on his way to Blenheim and Ramilies. Even George the Fourth, magnificent " first gentleman in Europe," was fain to be content with a style and speed of locomotion ENGLISH RAILWAYS. 171 from which the veriest cheap John would now shrink. The seediest newspaper reporter, the smallest of tra velling clerks in America, would disdain the elaborate discomfort with which John Adams the elder journeyed to attend Congress at Philadelphia, or with which Washington hastened — -mighty slowly, according to modern notions — to take command of the meagre army before Boston. Now the most modest traveller must have luxuries en route, which would have made the good people who flourished early in the -century stare amazed. If he travels at a less speed than twenty- flve miles an hour — Washington was well content ¦with six — he is fldgety, and is prone to growl. Unless the seats are soft-cushioned, he anathematises the com pany. He must have every comfort provided by first class hotels. He must have at hand eatables and pot ables, washing-rooms and closets ; the carriage must be well warmed, not over warmed. If the journey is a long one, there must be good accommodations for the night ; the passengers must be able to go com fortably to bed, and to sleep tranquilly till morning. The English railways are superior to those of the United States in speed, and, generally speaking, in safety. They have been built at a greater comparative expense ; there is greater regularity of system, greater caution in the selection of agents, and, doubtless, a more extensive arrangement of signals and warnings. I think it must be a matter of wonder to every Ameri can who lands for the first time at Liverpool, and takes 17^ AMERICAN SOCIETY* ¦the rail for London, to find himself transported to the latter city— a distance of over two hundred miles — in something less than six hours. It was certainly quite beyond my experience, who have been accustomed to that country which is emphatically known abroad as the "fast" nation, to find myself in a Whitsuntide excursion train, hurled (no other word can so well ex press the emotion produced) from London Bridge to Brighton — some fifty miles — in less than an hour. The average rate of the American express trains — for oxample, over the Boston and Worcester, or Baltimore and Ohio roads, which are good specimens — is thirty or thirty-five miles an hour. One is quite conteht there with that rate. As to safety, the various Ame rican railways, as may be imagined, greatly differ. In the far west, almost all things are done pell-mell; a log house goes up in a morning, a city grows ill a decade ; there is a rush and a dash about western men and their deeds which harmonises with the rough country which it is their task to subdue. The railways, therefore, are rapidly and not too cautiously constructed ; and as one journeys from Chicago westward, he jolts and bounds at every motion of the train, and finds it an absorbing occupation to keep from jostling the old lady who sits in front, or his own head from too rude a contact -with the roof of the carriage. Accidents, therefore, both by rail and on the rivers, are much more frequent in the audacious west than in the more careful east. AMERICAN RAILWAYS. 173; The American railways differ from the English in the size and arrangement of the carriages. The Ame ricans call them " cars." Instead of short carriages, capable of seating eight or ten persons, the carriages are very long, and contain forty or fifty. Instead of long benches opposite each other, so that half the passengers- face the engine and the other half the rear, the seats aU face the engine, are ' each made for holding two. persons, and are placed in long rows on either side of the carriage -viith an aisle between them. Instead of first, second, and third class carriages, there is but one class. The only di-vision is into ladies' carriages, into- which only ladies, or ladies accompanied by gentlemen,. are admitted ; gentlemen's carriages, open to single men, and also to ladies, if they wish to go there ; smok ing carriages, which are equally and sometimes more comfortable than the others ; and on the main line " emigrant cars," with reduced prices. The carriages are plentifully supplied with windows throughout their length ; the seats are well cushioned, often bound with velvet; in the centre is a large stove, generally for burning wood, which, however, is often ineffective, dis persing but little heat to the extremities of the carri ages, and being altogether too warm in their immediate vicinity. Improvements in heating the carriages are,. nevertheless, being constantly made, and the primitive stoves are fast disappearing. At either end of the car riages, just outside the door, are little roofed platforms,. open at the sides, with a thin iron rail in front and 174 AMERICAN SOCIETY. -steps for persons entering the train or descending at the stations. The doors are left unlocked ; the passengers persist in standing on the platforms, though, as they go up the aisle, they may plainly read an obtrusive notice on the door that, "Passengers are positively for bidden to stand on the platform while the train is in motion." I cannot but think that, notwithstanding this occasional and dangerous use" of the platform, and the openness of the carriages, this plan has decided advan tages over the English and French carriages. In the latter, you find yourself locked in a tight little com partment, and left there, exposed to all sorts of acci dents and adventures for hours together. 'Vou are an absolute prisoner. You may find yourself the inmate of an impromptu madhouse; escaped lunatics glaring on you, clutching at you. It is not impossible that you may enter into a den of thieves, and be cosily locked up, without a chance of outer communication, with half a dozen strapping fellows, who may hold you down and insist on your watch and purse. The man in the corner may possibly be another Midler. He may have some sleep-giving essence hid about him. You smell and see smoke ; put your head out of window ; men in a field are wildly waving their arms ; there is a flame —your carriage is on fire. No guard within a dozen carriages; no bell-cord to warn them; necessity re duces you to a desperate self-preserving amateur fire man ; it is but owing to a rare chance that you escape the reductio ad absurdum, being belittled from a man to a cinder. Accidents happen, and you tremble help- ¦MEANS OF SAFETY. 175 less with the carriage, you are blown up with its beams and locks ; you are a part of it ; you cannot divest yourself from it ; your fate and its fate are one. In a free country you have effectually lost your liberty of person without a crime ; in a country of science and philosophy you are reduced to be the creature, possibly the victim, of sheer material wood, steam, and iron force. In the American carriage you have two safe guards ; there is the free aisle, the accessible platform, the possibility of precipitating yourself in plain air; there is the little cord, which runs along the roof of the carriage, over the platform from one carriage to another, through the long line of carriages to the com partment of the guards and the engine itself* If any thing happens, twitch the cord ; the guards hasten to you, not hanging on and climbing painfully along the outside of the carriages, but walking through their centre; not locked out from you, but having an easy entrance at the open doors. It has been said in Eng land, that by attaching these cords to the carriages, communicating -with the guards, they would be abused ; mischievous passengers would twitch them in sport, or for mere mischief; there would be many cries of "wolf" when there was no wolf. At least, this is not so in America. I have never known of any such annoy ance to the guards. It is forgotten that while such a thing might possibly be attempted by mischief-makers, * I observe that suoli cords have recently been adopted on the English rall-w-ays ; perhaps their efficacy has ah-eady 'been tested by the reader. 176 AMERICAN SOCIETY. it would be frowned on and prevented by the majority of passengers. There is a third safeguard in the American carriage, just hinted — the presence of many people ; there is no more danger of murder, robbery, lunacy, than on the crowded street. A lady, in an English or French carriage, may be insulted, assaulted, suffocated with -vile tobacco smoke ; there she is, tightly caged ; there is no protection near ; when, arrived at the station, she complains, the obnoxious party has vanished in the crowd. In America there are plenty of people at hand, ready, not only to protect, but to assist the fair traveller. A lady entering a full carriage is at once provided with a seat, yacated by a gentleman ; she is as safe in every way, be her journey two hours or as many days, as she is in her own parlour ; at least as far as human molestation is concerned. The rail way carriages in America are very different from those described by Mr. Dickens, which he saw thirty years ago; they were, indeed, in the early days of railways, " like shabby omnibuses ;" now they are spacious, airy, commodious. No longer are smokers allowed in, the common carriage; they have a carriage to them selves, fully equal to the others, and easily accessible from the others. A gentleman may leave his lady com panion, go through the carriages to the smoking car riage, and, after enjoying his havana at leisure, return to his place among the ladies. Some of the smokino-- carriages have long seats on either side velvet-cushioned, the passengers facing each other, spittoons for the smok ers, and tables for the whist or euchre players. SLEEPING-CARS. 177 The distances from one large place to another in America are " magnificent." It takes as long to go from Boston to New York, or from New York to Wash ington, as from London to Paris ; and it takes as long to go from New York to St. Louis as from London to Constantinople. Time was — not more than four or five years ago — when a man going between either of these places by the night trains was forced to sit bolt upright in a narrow seat, surrounded by some forty or fifty fel low-voyagers, many of whom spent the night laughing or playing whist, thus making sleep to the rest an im possibility. I recollect what an undertaking it used to be to go from the commercial to the political metropolis by a night train, especially in the depth of winter ; but all this is changed. Sleeping-cars were introduced by certain enterprising Yankees, who bought the privilege of attaching their cars to the regular trains, and charged an extra dollar for the privilege of a small berth and a sleepful night. To be sure, the sleeping-cars were a trifle confined : your berth was only just large enough to contain a medium-sized body ; there was little venti lation and a stifling sensation. In the morning, when you awoke, you found yourself in rather too close a proximity to your neighbours, who were stowed into every possible nook and crevice on every side of you. There was but little accommodation for your apparel, and none for the necessary morning ablutions ; and one was seldom free from an uncomfortable fear lest the pocket-book, the watch, or even the coat and trousers, VOL. II. N •sj. 178 AMERICAN SOCIETY. laid aside on retiring, should be missing in the morn ing — a fear scarcely allayed by putting one's valuables under one's pillow, as there were at least four hands -within reach of the pillow, without rendering it neces sary for the bodies to which they belonged to budge an inch. Still you could lie down, and could sleep if you would; and wake up in the morning to find yourself at a standstill in the station to which you were bound, your journey finished. Constant improvements have been made, and are still being made, on this bright idea of sleeping-cars. The ventilation has been made better, the beds more comfortable, facilities for the toilet added, and greater personal safety secured. State rooms have been appended to the sleeping-cars ; and for a little higher price you have a cosy sleeping-room quite to yourself, with two berths, a door which you may lock at will, the compartment provided with a gas jet, marble washstand, soap, and towels, and its floor elegantly carpeted with brussels. Another luxury which has been added to many of the railway lines within a few years is that of bar rooms and eating saloons. The trains carry compart ments fitted up with elaborate kitchens, having patent ranges, and every utensil and appHance for cooking. Next the kitchen is a compartment arranged as a bar room : there is a long counter, before which are high stools, and where you may dine as well and as cheaply as at a metropolitan hotel. Over the establishment often presides one of those dusky sons of the South, RAILWAY DRAWING-ROOMS. 179 who, whether bond or free, are born to achieve triulnphs in cookery. Mayhap it will be a fine old negro dame, -with white frizzly hair half concealed by a huge red- and-yellow handkerchief, which she has wound about her head turban fashion. The sight of one of these "mammies," presiding over the Idtchen, of itself gives an American, especially a Southerner, an appetite. Be hind the counter, against the side of the car, is a spacious sideboard, upon which you observe almost every variety of meat, hot and cold, pyramids of oysters, pates, pies, and soups. I doubt if you would call in vain for any dish proper to America ; and of edibles and potables peculiarly American — sweet potatoes, green corn, oyster roasts and stews, roast tomatoes, johnny cakes, buckwheats, and the thousand species of drinks, you find here the very best. Some of the railway companies have even improved upon this idea. Carriages are converted into restaur ants, with circular or square marble-topped tables placed here and there. You enter and sit down ; are handed an elaborate bill of fare, -with the price affixed to the name of each dish ; are served ¦with neat appliances, and well-cooked meats and vegetables, much as you would be in a city restaurant. Cars fitted up as saloons or drawing-rooms, both public and private, have been introduced. A parlour is on 'some lines attached to every train. This, like the saloons of the best ocean steamers, is supplied with all that can serve to pass away pleasantly the hours of 180 AMERICAN SOCIETY. travel. Here may the young ladies rival each other on the piano : they have at their side choice collections of music. A library of the most popular books stands against one side of the saloon ; the newspapers of the day cover an elegant centre table ; and sofas and arm chairs, bulging with soft and velvet -bound cushions, invite to post-prandian siesta and lazy reverie. Smaller compartments, equally luxurious, are fitted up for the reception of families ; and paterfamilias, if only he has made money enough by his war contracts, his gold or land speculations, or his great warehouse in the east, may here ensconce his wife and children for the tour, be it ever so long. To the family saloons are added little state rooms for the night ; every possible modern convenience; so that you may live as comfortably as if you were at home. Meals are served in these private compartments, as well as in the larger saloons. The railway guards — called in America "conductors" • — are constantly going backward and forward through the carriages, attending to the wants of the passengers, and seeing that everything is in proper trim. They wear no distinctive dress, as do the English guards; but on their hats, or the lappel of their coats, is a small brass ticket with the word "conductor." Instead of collecting the tickets at the windows just before reach ing the station, or penning the passengers up in the station, and taking the tickets as they go out, the con ductors, as soon as the train has left a station, go through the train, and take the tickets of the passengers RAILWAY STATIONS, 181 who have just got in. The conductors are, generally speaking, very sociable and obliging ; taking the single ladies under their especial protection ; often sitting down to a rubber of whist, or a chat with the passen gers ; and never on any account expecting or receiving a fee — indeed, the great complicated system of fee- giving which prevails in England is quite unknown in America. That annoyance of the tourist, at least, is spared him. When the train approaches a station, the conductor opens the carriage door, and shouts the name of the place distinctly. There is usually but one con ductor in charge of a train : as there is no unlocking of doors, and hasty collecting of tickets, many are not necessary. America, until within a few years, was decidedly behind England in the spaciousness and convenience of its railway stations. Railway enterprise, early in the days of steam travel, was in too much haste to build either good stations or good tracks. Anything in the shape of a stopping place was rapidly put up : the rails were carelessly laid. Of late there have been very im portant improvements in both respects. France and Belgium have certainly the neatest and most comfort able railway stations, taking those of the towns and rural districts together. In London there have recently been erected some very sumptuous stations; and per haps those at St. Pancras, Charing Cross, and Pad- dington are not equalled anywhere in America. The tendency toward luxury in everything, however, is re- 182 AMERICAN SOCIETY. suiting in the construction, in the principal cities, of noble edifices, which seem rather like huge castles or exhibition palaces than humdrum railway stations : they are built on no uniform plan, and are of every shape, size, and style of architecture. Some are brick, some granite, some sandstone, some fitted, as the more modern ones in England, with great iron pillars and arches, and large thick plates of glass. In the various sections of America the stations are very different. In the South, after you leave Philadelphia, passing through Wilming ton, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, and Charleston, the stations are. mostly wretched affairs, the first convenient shed being taken by the company for this purpose. They are miserable wooden huts, with a platform in front ; dismal cramped-up waiting rooms, scanty in winter fires, and a general lounging place for the loafers and bar patronisers of the villages. In the southern cities, the trains often run a long dis tance through the centre of their most squalid and smokiest streets, to the great peril of the pauper chil dren -with their smeared faces, and the shoals of pigs which are wandering unchecked through the thorough fare. The stations are situated in the midst of smoke and the crowded quarters, and are dark, gloomy, musty buildings enough. Everything about the western railways is charac teristic of the country and its people. The marked hearty roughness in the western nature, when it be comes toned down and civilised in great busy cities like WESTERN R.\1LWAYS. 183 Chicago and St. Louis, launches into extravagance. Here, therefore, you find superb railway stations, the largest and pleasantest and airiest on the continent; with plentiful buffets and glass roofs, and elegant wait ing rooms. But emerging thence, passing out upon the seemingly endless prairies, and you find little rude log huts for stations ; gathered about them rude groups of tobacco-spitting and loud-talking backwoodsmen, with their brawny female mates ; there, in a corner, the in evitable bar, with its supply of " fine old Bourbon" and execrable brandy. Station masters and conductors are the most free-and-easy unofficial personages in the world ¦ — never, or scarcely ever, insolent; having a reckless don't-care-what-happens air, which damps your confid ence in your safety on the rails, and yet has something- attractive for its imperturbable good nature. There is this difference between travelling by rail in England and in the West. In England one is constantly in con tact, as it were, with thickly surrounding civilisation ; it is seldom that one loses sight of human habitations ; from one village or town you pass almost immediately into another ; you are constantly in sight of beautiful la-wns and farms, a varied landscape of country hedge- bound roads, of art-formed copses, and winding rivers and streams, whose banks are under cultivation ; of pretty villages with their thatched roofs, their antique ivy-clad churches, and their traditional inns and foun tains. There is almost everywhere and at almost every moment something outside to distract and engage the 184 AMERICAN SOCIETY. attention ; for humanity and its works are various, and likes to gaze at itself in every changing scene. In western America, on the contrary, one is driven, on these long jaunts, to seek amusement inside the car^ riage, among the motley group of mortals by whom he is immediately surrounded. The vast expanse of waving prairies, the little rude log-hut settlements, the ever lasting fields of wheat and maize, soon become tiresome. You travel hour after hour without seeing anything new ; and the consequence is, that in a western journey the inmates of a carriage are compelled to draw near to each other to distract the hours with games and gossip, and to form extempore a little society among them selves. In the east — ^in the middle and New England states — there is more uniformity in the railway stations ; yet even here you find some of the city stations to be old- fashioned and gloomy; others light, cheerful, often vast and airy. The stations are sometimes in a thickly- settled quarter of the town, but generally on the edge of the suburbs. The country stations are neat and bright, being mostly pretty " frame" cottages, instead of stone ones, as in England. They are supplied with open plat forms running out to some distance on either side of the station. Almost every station has a refreshment room, where the creature comforts of the travellers are properly cared for. Some of them are noted for the excellence of their tables : they are often attended by bright Yankee girls, and at convenient intervals there HAWKERS AND PEDLARS. 185 are buffets, where one may sit down at table-d'hote, and eat a hasty but by no means scanty or ill-cooked dinner. There are in the stations two waiting rooms, one for gentlemen, the other for single ladies or ladies accom panied by gentlemen. The ticket offices have windows looking in upon the waiting rooms, and the passengers procure theh tickets at their leisure. They do not call getting their tickets " booking" for such and such a place : that is an expression which not a little puzzles an American arriving in England for the first time ; it implies to his mind a much more elaborate formality than merely purchasing a ticket, and he cannot at first imagine what he is expected to do. All the stations- are supphed, as in England, with newspaper and book stands, where you may procure the popular literature of the day — TroUope's last novel, or Longfellow's last poem, the sensational pictorial weekly, and the " daily" damp from the press. There is a custom on the American railways which does not prevail in Europe. Newsboys and pedlars are constantly going through the carriages while the train is en route, hawking their goods, and persistently forcing them on the attention of the passengers. You are hardly ensconced in your corner, and half way through- the " stunning" leader of your favourite editor, when an enterprising young man comes along and throws a printed paper into your lap. You find it to be a flaring advertisement of some sensational novel, or an eulogy on some wonderful patent or some peculiarly 186 AMERICAN SOCIETY. delicious article of confectionery. Aitei some time has elapsed, the same man reappears holding a box containing the article previously announced. He goes from passenger to passenger, collecting again his printed papers, and with a true Yankee determina tion to "make a sale," sings the praises of his wares and points out with persistent minuteness their many virtues. If it is a patent knife-sharpener or needle- holder, he insists on showing you "how it works." If it is maple candy, he entreats you to taste of it. If it is a new book, he points out how clear the type is, how fine the illustrations. One fellow, I remember, used to bring through the carriages a box full of pretty toys, which, he said, were made of " ivory that grows on trees." I wonder if there has been a traveller from New York to Washington these many years, who has not been forced to examine this marvel ! Then there are boys who go through the carriages shouting, "Gum drops!" "Best mixed-candy!" "Fine apples and oranges !" till you are weary enough of them. Often, when the train stops at a station a little dist ance from the city, itinerant fiddle-players or singers enter the carriages, take up a position at one end near the door, and proceed to play or sing for the delecta tion of the travellers ; afterward passing down with outstretched hats or caps for the stray cents of the generous. Sometimes these will be ragged little boys and girls, who rely upon their voices for a subsistence. Thus trade and money-getting invade you wherever you THE LUGGAGE SYSTEM. 187 go ; and you once more repeat to yourself Mrs. Boffin's startling proposition — she must have had Americans in her mind — that man is a " thinldng steam engine." The luggage system is a complete and excellent one. The Americans, by the way, call luggage " bag gage." It is a solace to the luckless father of a family, upon whom rests the responsibility of taking charge of the numberless " portable villas" of his womankind, to think that he can deposit them with the railway officials -with perfect safety, and that he can shift the respon sibihty to their shoulders. He holds a talisman which, if the luggage is lost, compels compensation. On pro curing your ticket, you have your trunks and boxes car ried to a large apartment in the station, open at the sides, long counters between yourself and the luggage masters, and a space in the centre filled -with all sorts of traveUing bags and portmanteaus. You indicate your luggage to one of the officials, at the same time presenting your tickets. You are allowed to have a certain weight transported free ; if I remember, it is in some cases fifty, in others a hundred pounds for each of the party. There is no charge whatever for registering, no fee whatever to the luggage master. He takes your tickets and stamps holes in them; then he detaches from a bundle of small leather straps, one of the straps, upon which are hung two brass or lead labels, both bearing the same number. He leaves one of these on the string, which he attaches to a box of your luggage ; he takes off the other label and hands it to you; so 188 AMERICAN SOCIETY. he goes on, atl'aching straps to each of your articles, and handing you the corresponding labels. These you de posit quietly in your pocket, and think no more of your luggage until you have reached your destination. There, having duly deposited the ladies in a hack, you resort to the luggage car, where they are busily unloading, at the same time loudly calling out the numbers on the labels attached to each box. You take out the labels which were delivered to you on starting, and presently your boxes make their appearance ; you hear the num bers called which are on the labels you hold, and de mand your luggage. The official compares the two labels; and the numbers corresponding, delivers your boxes to the hackman, who conveys them to his car riage and drives off. By this means the chances of losing luggage are infinitely diminished ; and by hold ing the duplicate check, one holds the company respon sible (they being answerable as " common carriers") for any loss or damage which may occur. An improvement in the luggage system, which has recently been put into practice in America, is well worth noting. You have now only to buy your ticket at an office in town, and at the same time that you pro cure it order one of the railway luggage wagons to come to your house for your luggage. The companies not only take your boxes at your own door, but they receive the address to which they are to be sent ; and when you arrive at your destination, there they are, safe and sound. For instance, you are in New York. The IMPROVEMENTS. 189 luggage wagon takes your luggage at your house ; you tell the man in charge that you are going to Chicago (showing him your ticket), and that you want your luggage taken to No. — Lincoln-street, in the latter city. When you arrive; you find it already delivered at the house. You have no care of it whatever from your own door in New York to the door of your friend's house in Chicago. Another excellence of the American sys tem Is the plan of having coupon tickets, by which the traveller may purchase his ticket to almost any place in the country ; the detachable coupons passing him over the different railways which it is necessary to take. Thus one " checks" himself and his baggage through to any distance. The science of steam locomotion is advancing per ceptibly in America. The great railway corporations are, it is true, still too powerful, and speculation and swindling have a too plain effect on the safety of travel lers and the permanent efficiency and prosperity of the lines. Nevertheless, we have got beyond the period when it was a necessity to a company to have the ^rst railway ; the time has come when competition compels minute attention to comfort, speed, safety, and sub stantial permanency. Lessons from Europe are being learned, just as Europe in turn is learning from Ame rica. Agents are continually being sent across the Atlantic to examine and report on recent European im provements. The advantages which are afforded by the snug first-class English carriages have been combined. 190 AMERICAN SOCIETY. on some roads, with those of the American system. First-class English carriages are attached to the trains for the accommodation of small parties who desire pri vacy ; a trifling additional charge being made for their use. Monopolies here and there are manifestly yield ing ; even the Camden and Amboy line, which used to be a great scandal, and which is said to have long held autocratic power over New Jersey politics, feels the "pressure" ofthe times, and has built better carriages and conceded better accommodations. In the South the railways were to a great extent broken up by the war. Others are already being rebuilt, and probably these will be much better than the old ones ; and when completed, they must be an important agent in the re cuperation of that exhausted region. The completion of the Pacific railroad — not the least among the many wonders which have come to pass within the year 1869 — enables the traveller to journey continuously by rail some three thousand five hundred mUes, through an infinite variety of landscape and of civilisation, in from eight to ten days, and at a cost of one hundred and twenty dollars. If you take sleeping carriages, the cost is increased by about fifteen dollars ; and the cost of meals on the way is also additional. A regulation, however, provides for the conveyance of emigrants, in inferior cars, from Nev/ York to San Francisco, or vice versa, for about fifty dollars. Of the distance between New York and San Francisco, eigh teen hundred miles — to Omaha, in Nebraska — had al- THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 191 ready been completed when, in January 1866, the first rail of the Pacific railroad proper was laid. In less than three years and a half the line, built simultane ously westward from Omaha, and eastward from Sacra mento, and traversing a space of seventeen hundred miles, was finished. But these seventeen hundred miles were not miles of the ordinary kind. Many of them were much worse than Alpine in their difficulties. In a few sections of the line the trains have to run up a grade of one hundred and sixteen, feet to the mile ; in many parts, up grades of seventy-five and eighty feet to the mile. They traverse vast districts utterly savage — savage in vegetation, in precipices and gorges, in fierce hostile Indian tribes, in beasts and reptiles. The diffi culties of the enterprise were clearly enormous ; yet the line is declared to be the most carefully and substan tially built in America. The Mont Cenis railway is like one of many sections of the Pacific railway. The highest point reached by the trains in the rude passes of the Sierra Nevada is over seven thousand feet above the level ofthe sea ; an altitude one thousand feet higher than the summit of the Mont Cenis road. You are there in the upper, clear, dry, transparent air, which exhilarates like a strong liquor. You can almost see the Pacific itself from the highest point ; the panorama stretched out below is as grand as that from the crest of the Faulhorn, and stranger, for it is wild, savage, preserved for centuries in perfect newness. The rail way passes from Omaha, through the valley of the river 192 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Platte, across Utah — in near proximity to the disgusted Mormons — and so to the lower spurs of the Rocky Mountains. Then it ascends to the bleak Sierra Ne vada, thus in a south-westerly direction through the state of Nevada, zigzag to Sacramento — the swampy capital of California — reaching thence San Francisco and the Pacific. There are snow-capped mountains and vast glaciers, cataracts like rivers tumbling down the rugged mountain terraces, great black gorges far below you, green thick forests stretching off to the horizon. There are here and there emigrant posts, log-hut settle ments ; rude half-savage white faces — now and then a copper face — gaze at you from the hastily-built railway stations ; these are mining head-quarters. As you ap proach Sacramento and San Francisco, you begin to see the Chinese, with their squint eyes and high cheek bones. Going westward, you observe small villages, where building is rapidly going on, and skeletons of streets are discoverable. If you stay a few weeks in San Francisco, and then return eastward over the line, these villages have become towns ; the skeleton streets have received a body, a covering, life. One sight, for merly familiar to the adventurous tourist who went " overland" to the Pacific, will henceforth become more rare, if it does not cease to be seen altogether — the long trains of huge, uncouth, rumbling emigrant wagons, stretching out along the prairies, slowly creeping across the bridges, or up the mountain spurs. The emigrants will go to their destiny by rail. ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 193 On the line of the road here and there you see Chinamen at work, shortening the curves and ballast ing the track ; some -with basket hats, others with boots, trousers, and worldng blouses. As you penetrate the far west, you skirt for hours the famous Great Salt Lake, crossing its arms on neat trestle work — now run ning along the edge of its northern bank, where hun dreds of acres are white with the fine salt deposited by the floods; now, miles away, catching, through open ings between the hills, glimpses of its dark-blue waters, and its mountain islands crested with snow. Then you emerge upon the seemingly endless desert ; then up the spurs of the mountains, where the desert heat is re placed by a biting cold ; you go under long snow sheds, to protect you from the terrible broken avalanches which here tumble peU-Biell through the mountain crevices. Descending the western slopes, you reach a luxuriant, smihng country. You are among gardens blooming with the oleander and the rose, with clusters of cherries and nectarines ; long -vineyards and fig orchards ; wind mills far and near; low dweUings with wide porticos, half hidden by parasites and shading trees ; fields of barley and wheat; at last reaching the swampy flat plains of Sacramento. The cars are most comfortable ; from one end of the journey to the other you miss no convenience, no luxury. The sleeping apartments are spacious, and lavishly furnished ; fifty people may dine at the same time in the elegantly fitted dining car. There are ice boxes and provision cellars, in which the VOL. II. o 194 AMERICAN SOCIETY. meats and other edibles are packed. Wine, coffee, tea, fresh milk, are plentifully supplied. The richly fla voured wild game of the western forests are taken in along the route, and profusely furnished at the tables. Long since the thousands of land speculators have scat tered along the road. Some will make colossal for tunes; others ¦will be beggared; while the mass, the immigrants and settlers, will certainly prosper in a land which will now yield its treasures to civilisation for the first time, for all that we know, since the world was made. CHAPTER XI. The Professions : The medical profession — The sects and clergy — The American Episcopal church — Vo luntaryism — Church polity — The clerical prof ession — Provision for the poor — Popidar preachers — The Beechers — The revivals and revivalists — Negro preachers and meetings — Camp meetings — The Ro man Catholics. The profession of law, the education and customs of lawyers, have already been described. The education of physicians, their social position, and the constant demand for more of them, render the profession of me dicine, to those who have a taste for it, both an acces sible, a pleasant, and a profitable one. In America, you may observe every medical system, as well as every species of quackery... There is no distinction there be tween a physician and a surgeon, as in England., All physicians are surgeons, and vice versa ; they are never called by the latter name, however, being uniformly spoken of as "physicians," or "the doctor." There are distributed through the country fifty-one medical schools, many of them attached to colleges and univer sities, each of them having the power of conferring the degree of Doctor of Medicine. The candidates for the 196 AMERICAN SOCIETY. medical profession, in the same manner as those for the legal profession, either study for a while in an esta blished physician's office, going thence to the course of lectures at the medical school, or reverse this process, and, after completing their school curriculum and re- cei^ving the degree, finish their education by studying its practical operation. Many of the medical schools have a high reputation for the learning of their pro fessors and the thoroughness of their instruction. Those at Cambridge, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago are perhaps the best kno^wn. A few of them are homoe opathic; but the large majority teach the principles ofthe "old school," allopathy. These two schools are very bitter against each other, and their esp>rit de corps often prompts allopathic doctors to refuse to tend cases which have pre^viously been intrusted to a homoeopathist. The course of instruction at the medical schools has already been indicated ; it comprises from two to three years, is conducted by lectures, recitations, illustrations in the laboratories, experimental practice, and, finally, intrusting the students with the simpler cases in the hospitals. jA.u attendance for a certain time on the exercises, and, in most cases, a satisfactorily passed ex amination, entitles the student to the doctor's degree. When he proceeds to "put out his sign," and begin practice, he prescribes medicine and performs surgical operations, exercises his skill in midwifery, and is as well a consulting physician. Quackery finds a wide field in America; and many splendid fortunes have QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 197 been made out of "antibilious pills" and "cod-liver oil," "Jayne's expectorant" and "Mrs. Jones's con sumptive powders." There are quack doctors who have their brown stone palaces on Fifth Avenue, their castel lated ¦villas on the Hudson. There are great manu factories where elixirs and " waters of life," bitters, and panacea pills are made. The apothecary shops receive and sell the quack medicines as well as the scientific, and the newspapers contain glaring advertisements of them by the page together. If, as is thought by some, faith in a thing, whether in itself effective or not, tends to cure one, it may be questioned whether these quack medicines themselves have not their use ; certain it is that they secure a very wide patronage, and they are probably in most cases at least harmless. There are in America many hydropathic institutions — water cures — where one sees a queer commingling of invalids and fashionables. There are people who pretend to cure by mesmerism and clairvoyance, by wild herbs and hot steams. America is a field broad enough to give place to all the isms ; and isms medical, as well as religious, scientific, political, and social, flourish there, and find adherents and believers somewhere or other in the com munity. Still, the medical profession stands high, and " the doctor" is admitted as well to the best society as to the family confidences. In the sects, the state of religion, and the clergy of America, I approach what can hardly fail, at the present time, to be an interesting subject to English readers. 198 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Probably there never was a time when the organisation of churches, when both articles of faith, and ecclesias tical government, have been more thoroughly discussed than they are being discussed now. The disestabhsh- ment ofthe Irish church has turned English thought into a wide channel, wherein the gravest subjects are contemplated, and which includes a fresh consideration of very ancient principles. Naturally, Englishmen who are pondering on their own ecclesiastical system and laws, and who have just witnessed a change of this system in one of the three kingdoms, look with inquiry and a desire for information to those conntiies in which other systems prevail, which afford examples in contrast with English experience. How does voluntaryism, they ask, prosper where it has had a fair field ? What is the rehgions condition of a community where a political church is unknown ? how do the denominations sustain themselves ? what zeal do they display ? how do they progress? what provision is made for the poor wor shippers ? how thoroughly is the religious sentiment and faith infused into the people ? how, as compared ¦with countries where a state church prevails, does the cause of Christianity advance in a country of voluntary sects ? In America the voluntary system is universal, and has had the best of possible fields on which to exhibit its virtues and its disadvantages. Every sect, even to the Mormons and Free Lovers, has had, and still has, a full opportunity to try its own system of government and the vitality of its own faith. At nearly the samepe- RELIGIOUS SECTS. 199 riod the Puritan pilgrims transplanted the rigid tenets of Calvinism to New England, and the Cavahers the faith of the church of England to Vhginia. Not long after, the German Lutherans and the Dutch Reformers estabhshed themselves in New York, and the Quakers, under the lead of William Penn, in Pennsylvania. Roger Wniiams, seceding from the Puritan colony, made a nucleus for the Baptists in Rhode Island. During the era, in the seventeenth century, when the straggling settlements were gradually fiUing up to be a connected whole — a series of contiguous provinces — the colony of Lord Baltimore introduced Roman Catholi cism into Maryland, the Scotch emigrants imported Presbyterianism, and the Huguenot exiles brought to South CaroHna their sober and persecuted creed. Later still, Methodism grew up, and spread very rapidly throughout the country, outstripping in the south, and in a large portion of the west, the other denominations. Unitaiianism appeared, grew slowly, but finally pos sessed itself of the oldest and most highly-respected university. Harvard, and produced some of the most brilhant and intellectual preachers and thinkers who have lived in the repubhc. Of these, Channing, Theo dore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Edward Eve rett are perhaps as widely known in England as in America. From these sects there branched out others, and every phase of them, from the most moderate to the most extreme, may be discovered in America. The old Puritan CongregationaUsm (called in England In- 200 AMERICAN SOCIETY. dependents) was divided into the " old school" and the "new school." The Presbyterians separated into the "old school," with its doctrine of "predestined elec tion," the "new school," and the "united" Presby terians ; the Lutherans into synods — the general synod, the general council, and the independent synods; the Methodists into Methodist Episcopalians (under the government of bishops), the " non - episcopal Method ists," the " Wesleyan connection," and the "evangelical association;" the Baptists into "regular" Baptists, free-will Baptists, anti-mission Baptists, six-principle Baptists, seventh-day Baptists, Church of God, Dis ciples, Tunkers, and Mennonites. There are Univer salists in their various phases, Swedenborgians (a fast- growing church), and Moravians. The Mormon pro phets, after being driven from place to place, at last found a retreat for themselves and their followers in Utah. Throughout the states may be also found ex tensive bodies of Spiritualists, Latter-day Saints, Re surrectionists, Free Lovers, Shakers, and, in short, every modern religious idiosyncrasy. The commonwealth of the Puritan Fathers in New England was essentially that of a sect founded upon religious dogmas, and established with a ¦view to the free exercise of a particular worship. That religious liberty was the object aimed at by the Puritans is, with little doubt, an error. They founded a state, in which religious liberty finally became perfect and an organic principle ; but their original idea was by no means one THE PURITAN POLITY. 201 of universal toleration. Puritan Calvinism was, as it were, established as their state church ; it entered into their laws ; it was associated with their social customs ; it was laid as the corner stone of their little nation. The Puritans were intolerant. They cut off the ears of heretical Quakers ; they exiled heretical Baptists ; they di-ove away even Cal^vinists who were not strong and grim enough in the faith. Anglicans found no mercy ; Papists dared not venture there. Witches were executed. It was a grievous religious tyranny. They compelled every member of the community to attend meeting on Sunday, under heavy penalties ; only church members could vote; the law entered fami lies and dictated faith. This was perhaps the nearest approach to a state establishment which has existed in America ; and this system was, in the lapse of years, forced to give way before the rapid commingling of the different populations, the multiplication of sects, and the tolerance and enlightenment of the generations which fought their way to independence, based their new state upon religious and political equality, and, rejecting the idea of an establishment, gave to all sects the great essential qualities of coequal liberty and iden tical rights before the law. I cannot think that even statistics wiU be dry, when they are cited to show the state of sects in America, and how each sect originally planted in this or that section has held its own in its earliest seat. We find, then, that in the United States there are 27,000,000 202 ' AMERICAN SOCIETY. nominal Protestants, 5,000,000 Roman Catholics, .and 10,000 Orientals, the last consisting mainly of the Cali fornian Chinese. We find that, of the Protestant sects, the Methodists preponderate, having more than 2,500,000 active members ; the larger part are in the south and south-west, and they include 360,000 negroes. Next come the Baptists of various organisations, the total of active communicants being about 2,000,000 ; of these there are 84,000 in Georgia, 116,000 in Virginia, 62,000 in South Carolma, 40,000 in Illinois, 90,000 in New York ; while in Massachusetts there are but 37,000, in New Hampshire 7,000, in Connecticut 18,000, in Maine 19,000. There are ahout 300,000 Congregationalists, being most numerous in New England ; Massachusetts having 80,000, and Connecticut 50,000. Of Lutherans in the different synods there are 350,000, mostly in the middle states. The Protestant Episcopal (Anglican) church comprises about 200,000 communicants, mostly in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. The Presbyterians have about 600,000 members, and are most numerous in the middle states. The " Reformed" churches have about 175,000, the Moravians 12,000, the Quakers, or Friends, 100,000, and the Unitarians and Universalists a comparatively small number of mem bers. The Roman Catholics have 5,000,000 members, the chnrch being administered by seven archbishops and forty-six bishops. Congregationalism is predomi nant in New England, where it was first established ; the Dutch and Germ.an Protestants in the middle states; CHURCH GO-VERNMENT. 203 Methodism and Baptists in the south and south-west ; Anghcanism in the middle and more northerly south ern states, and principally in the cities; Catholicism in Maryland and the south-west ; and Presbyterianism in the middle states. Self-government is in America an ecclesiastical as well as a political principle. The authority in churches, as in pohtics, rests with the people. The idea of a state establishment was never, so far as I know, seri ously considered ; had it been, it could not have been adopted, because there was no sect sufficiently prepon derating to be established. But tho main reason why such a thing was not thought of was, that it would have been whoUy incompatible with the structure of American society, and quite inconsistent with the or ganic idea of the Republic itself. Therefore the English man finds very few religious endo-wments of any sort in America ; the vast preponderance of congregations of all Protestant denominations support their own churches and ministers. He finds that preferments, church patronage — whether possessed by a bishop or other clerical authority, or by private persons — advowsons, have no existence. There are no tithes or rates. He finds that no sect or sects are called " dissenters ;" each and every one calls itself, and is called by the others, a church. Each stands upon exactly the same footing with the others ; and the churches are mostly, whatever minor differences there may be in their systems of 204 AMERICAN SOCIETY. government, controlled, directly or indirectly, by the mass of their members. The position of the American Episcopal, or Angli can church — the offspring of the church of England — is not an exception to the rule. That church may fairly illustrate what the condition of an episcopal church is, when wholly disconnected from the state^ The Cavalier colony of Virginia imported thither the rites of the church of England, the doctrines embraced in the Thirty-nine Articles. That the New-England Puritans were not the only religious persecutors may be seen from the fact, that in the early history of the episcopalian Virginia colony there were laws by whose provisions every one, under the penalty of a fine of two thousand pounds of tobacco, was required to have liis children baptised by a church of England clergyman ; by which, " dissenting" ministers were forbidden, under pain of forfeiting ten thousand pounds of tobacco, to marry people, marriages by them being moreover void; by which Quakers and other heretics were fined twenty pounds a month for being absent from the church of England service ; and the last offence was also punished by giving the culprit ten lashes, "well laid on," on the back. Episcopacy did not make much progress elsewhere until after the Re volution. Finally, a bishop, duly consecrated in Eng land by the prelates of the mother church, arrived in America ; he carried with him the link in the apostolic succession necessary to give the American church the THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 205 sanction of orthodoxy, consecrated other bishops, who spread through the various states, and performed the necessary ordinations of priests and deacons. The English Prayer Book was adopted, certain modifica tion being made in its forms to put it in harmony with the position of the American church. For example, the prayers for the sovereign and the royal family were replaced by one for the President ; that for the Lords and Commons by one for Congress. Here and there verbal changes were made, certain prayers omitted and others substituted. But, with a few emendations, the Prayer Books are very much alike, and an Englishman would hardly note, in the course of the service, any difference. One of the most noticeable changes in the church polity was the mode of choosing the bishops. In England they are chosen practically by the crown or prime minister, the dean and chapter having but a nominal voice in the matter. In America the bishops are elected by ballot in a convention composed of dele gates, lay and clerical, from all the parishes of the diocese over which he is to preside. There are no archbishops; the country is divided into thirty-nine dioceses, each state composing a diocese; several of the states are divided into two, the state of New York into three dioceses ; and there are at present forty- nine American prelates holdling their dignity for life. The general government and supervision over the epis copal church is confided to a general convention, which 206 AMERICAN SOCIETY. meets regularly every third year. It consists, of two houses, the House of Bishops and the House of De legates, the latter composed of clerical and lay deputies from the various dioceses. Bishops are tried for heresy or misdemeanors by the house of their brother pre lates. The. convention has the power to di-vide dio ceses, and to establish new dioceses ; they elect the missionary bishops and the bishops over the territo ries. They may make changes in the Prayer Book ; but the tendency to self-government in America makes it impracticable for them, to exercise a very formidable power in enforcing strictly any mino-r points of doc trine. The senior bishop — who has longest exer cised the prelatical functions — is called the " pre siding bishop," and presides over the upper house of the convention. Besides this; general body, conven tions are held in each diocese, presided over by its bishop ; these try ministers against whom, an offence is charged, and make general laws for the government of the diocese.. The management of the affairs of the parishes is confided to " vestries," elected by the pew holders. The ministers are chosen by the vestries, and may. be displaced at their will. The vestries, being chosen annually, act naturally under a sense of direct responsibility to the congregations. The salaries, of the clergy are determiried by the parish, and paid, on the " voluntary" principle, from the sale and renting of pews, and contributions. A few episcopal churches — for example, Trinity Church in New York — have THE EPISCOPAL CLERGY. 207 great endowed wealth, and are supported from its in terest ; but such cases, far from being the rule, as in England, are very rare. The Episcopalian, as well as the Baptist or Congregationalist parson, preaches his " trial" sermons before the congi'egation for whose pas torship he is a candidate, and has to approve himself to them, not to a bishop or a private patron. If he becomes, unpopular, out he goes; no prelate or law can save him. . The clergy are so independent of the bishop, whose authority is confined -within narrow limits, and. whose main duty consists in administering con firmations, and ordaining- the ministers — that he can not preach in. their pulpits, -without their consent ; and it not seldom happens that, a clergyman who does not like his own bishop, calls upon the bishop of another diocese to perform the ceremony of confirmation in his church. The bishops do not have large incomes ; they are paid by contributions from the various parishes of their diocese ; and they usually administer, with the episcopal functions, the rectorship of one of the churches. That the supply of the episcopal clergy is •not in excess of the demand may be seen from the fact, that while there are in the United States 2,472 parishes, there are 2,730 clergymen, including rectors and their assistants. There is, naturally, a. very wide range in the salaries which they receive. It may be fairly said, in general, that there is much less unevenness in their incomes than in those of the English established clergy, and that the American episcopalian ministers 208 AMERICAN SOCIETY. are, almost without exception, able to live in comfort on their voluntarily provided stipends. In the cities, where episcopacy, being a somewhat aristocratic, wealthy, and fashionable sect, mostly fiourishes, the income of the clergy ranges from 1,500 to 4,000 and 6,000 dollars. In the rural districts, perhaps the medium salary may be estimated at 1,000 or 1,200 dollars. Sometimes there is a parsonage, belonging to the parish, for the clergyman's use; sometimes not. In the parishes which are wealthy and flourishing, the clergyman hves elegantly, and has probably reached his position by possessing a popular style of eloquence. But even in the poorest rural parishes the minister lives at least decently, perhaps eking out a comfortable subsistence by a little farming or magazine -writing. His profes sional success depends mainly upon himself. The voluntary system has at least this advantage, that it prompts the clergy to earnest individual effort. Its influence is the contrary of lethargic. The more ener getic and zealous the minister, the more vitality he infuses into the cause of the church, the better he fits himself to teach its doctrines, to impress his hearers, to perform his pastoral functions, the better will he prosper. There is thus a genuine hfe and spirit in the voluntary American churches. The clergy have no ancient substantial props to lean upon ; they do not ensconce themselves in cosy nests without exertion; they are never settled for life and beyond peradventure; there is no place for the indolent or the lukewarm. The ELECTION OF MINISTERS. 209 more effectually they fight the battle of the church, the more effectually, usually, they will fight their own battle in the world. In all the Protestant sects there is the same virtual self-government which has already been described as belonging to the Episcopalian church. The Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Lutheran, and Unita rian congregations, or their responsible delegates for them, choose the pastors, pay them, dismiss them. The Methodists have been governed by their episcopal and clerical conferences ; the ministers being apportioned in each district to the churches in rotation, changed from place to j)lace, at certain intervals, by the pre siding elders, and paid out of the general fund, as in England. Recently, however, by a vote of the sect, it has been determined to reorganise their polity; to hold a general constituent conference, composed of lay as well as of clerical delegates ; and to admit laymen as well as the clergy to a participation in the general church government. The clergy of all denominations are, for the most part, highly educated, earnest, ener getic men. Perhaps the Baptist and Methodist ministers are oftener little educated than those of the other sects. The ministry is not only accessible to every young man who feels desirous of entering it, but large facilities are given by all the sects to educate and prepare every one so inchned, if they are too poor to undergo the expense and spare the time themselves. The profession affords an excellent chance in life to those to v.iiom it is con- VOL. II. p 210 AMERICAN SOCIETY. genial. It pro-vides the young man of medium abihties and energy -with an immediate support, promotion, and a high place in society. He will never, it is true, rise to bishoprics, among whose prizes are spacious palaces in town and country, peerages, and incomes of 10,00OL a year ; but he enters at once on his professional work; he stands on a perfectly equal footing -with his colleagues ; he is sure of a competence ; he advances as he deserves it ; he does not see duller men rising above him by the power of personal favouritism ; and he belongs to the only aristocracy respectable in, and compatible with, a republic — that of intelligence and culture. It is, in America, the highest of professions — so considered, and so treated. The clergy are the moral, and to a large degree the intellectual, leaders of society ; they are ac tive, and take a keen — sometimes a too keen — interest in public affairs : the preference is given to them every where. In no part of America is there, so far as I know, any vddespread lukewarmness in supporting the churdhes. Voluntaryism there certainly does not pro duce indifference, nor frighten away congregations be cause they are expected to support it. There is the greatest -vigour in all the sects : missions, home and foreign, are supported with zeal and liberality. The want of churches in the new communities ofthe west becomes quickly felt, and is almost as quickly supphed. New churches are constantly being built in the cities ; and the " voluntary" societies have erected some ofthe noblest edifices in America. PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 211 It was contended by a distinguished English states man, in the debate on the Irish Church Bill in the House of Lords, that the American system of voluntary churches did not provide for the teaching of religion to the poor. The case of Plymouth church, Brooklyn, where the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher preaches, was instanced to prove it. There, it was said, the pews ¦n-ere put up at auction, and sold to the highest bidders for enormous prices ; none but the rich, therefore, could afford to go there. The speaker forgot, or did not know, that Plymouth church is a very conspicuous and rare exception to the overwhelmingly prevailing rule. Its pastor is the most popular of American pulpit orators ; the church is in a rich, fashionable quarter- of a wealthy city, where, let it be noted, there are forty or fifty churches open to all the world, to this single one which is not. There are probably not six churches in Ame rica similar in this respect to Plymouth church. The churches of every denomination, in every section of the country, for every service in town and country, and on all occasions, have accommodations specially set apart for the poor and humble worshippers who cannot afford to hire seats : they are as free to the homeliest labourer as to the wealthiest pew-holder. Multitudes of poor attend church year after year; and not only do these never pay a penny for their seats, but frequent contri butions are taken up in the various churches to give worldly aid to those who attend and who are in want. Strangers never fail to find seats at their disposal. 212 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Voluntaryism, as it is in America, has, if anything, an effect the contrary of denying to any class of the people the opportunity to worship and hear religious teaching; it encourages all, of whatever grade or means, to attend. Self-dependence has of itself awakened and kept up effort and vigour to sustain the churches, and given their organisation a vitality which is sufficient to offer religious food to the poor as to the rich. In the country districts, where one would suppose there ¦«'ould be the most difficulty in sustaining a church, probably a larger portion of the community goes "to meeting," and lends an active aid in providing for the ¦expenses, than in any other nation ; and this is true of each of the denominations. There are no curates in the American episcopal church. Sometimes, when the rector of a large society finds his labours too hea-vy, he is provided, at the ex pense of the congregation, ¦with an assistant, usually a young clergyman recently graduated. He is, however, not called a " curate." If a clergyman takes a vacation, he will invite some other clergyman, for the moment without a parish, to officiate for him while he is gone ; perhaps paying him himself, or more commonly the substitute being paid by the society. It is not the bishop, but the society, which gives the clergyman his "leave of absence." The Episcopahans are generally from among the wealthier and more fashionable classes, and are most numerous in the cities. It is seldom that you will find PULPIT ORATORY. 213 an Episcopal church in the -villages. In the northern villages the churches are mostly Congregationalist, or, as they are called, " orthodox ;" in the southern, mostly Methodist or Baptist. Perhaps a disadvantage of the choosing of ministers by each congregation is, that the clergy are often prone to seek rather after a worldly popularity than to be sub stantially useful as teachers of religion. Great atten tion is certainly paid to the graces and ornaments of oratory : the most eloquent preacher is sure to get the best pulpit. A clergyman of facile tongue and capti vating manners commands a higher salary than one of far more learning, and even piety, who is wanting in these traits. The sects are proud of their eloquent preachers; and each city society aims to procure the most attractive " sermoniser." The churches where such preachers hold forth are naturally much more sought and crowded than others. Especially fond of pulpit eloquence are the Unitarians (generally a highly intel lectual sect), the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Con gregationalists. The Episcopalians and Catholics do not usually insist so much upon oratory, regarding the service of the rubric as the essential feature of worship, and the sermon but a supplement, and of minor import ance. The different American denominations certainly produce many finished and forcible orators. Of those of the present generation, the Beechers are doubtless the most remarkable. The father of this gifted family, Lyman Beecher, who died a nonagenarian a few years 214 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ago, was a worthy descendant of the stern old Puritans, for many years a leader among the Calvinists, and a strong, solid, trenchant orator. Three or four of his sons became Congregational ministers after him; and Henry Ward Beecher, his youngest son, is facile prin- eeps in the American pulpit. Edward Beecher, the old est son, is a man of rare ecclesiastical learning, and a very powerful speaker ; but Henry is far the more ima ginative and sympathetic of the two. He is yet in the full vigour of his powers ; independent in his opinions ; outspoken, fluent, and forcible in language; deeply sym pathetic ¦with aU that concerns the masses of the people ; warmhearted and social, genially vain, enthusiastically earnest, and endowed with an imagination which pro duces image after image of great beauty and fitness ; his voice is full and sonorous, his manner easy, self- possessed, self-confident. In many respects he resem bles Spurgeon : he has the same bluntness and frank ness, the same exhaustless facility of language, and perhaps a shade more of intellectual refinement. He is a famous lecturer on assthetical and political subjects, as well as a great preacher ; and the volumes of his ser mons rival, in the extent of their sale, the most popular fictions of the day. He has always been prominent as a politician : no man was more active in guiding northern public opinion during the war ; perhaps no single one had a larger infiuence in sustaining the patrio tic spirit : he but aided to carry out the work which his sister, Mrs. Stowe, had done so much by Uncle Tom's RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 215 Cabin to begin. The Beechers were long among the most conspicuous and effective champions of abolition. Channing, Theodore Parker, Everett, Cheever, Emer son, Walker, were noted Unitarian preachers. Among the Baptists and Methodists, perhaps the most esteemed orators are those who devote themselves to promoting the revivals ; many of them eccentric earnest men, who revel in the excitements of a religious commotion, and who delight in stimulating religious enthusiasm to a heat and frenzy. Revivals are a popular and frequent mode of eon- version among the Congregationalists, Methodists, and Baptists ; they are deprecated by the Unitarians, Epis copahans, and Catholics. In the smaller to^wns and universities revivals are stirred up by the zealous, and rapidly become an absorbing event to many of the people and students. Meetings are held daily in the churches and chapels; exhortations are made by fervent speakers : a few are touched, discover themselves to be "miserable sinners;" they rise, in the excitement of the sudden discovery, declare themselves converted, and beg that prayers may be offered up for them — in short, they, in the popular phrase, "get rehgion." The example of the few infects the many : the worldly-minded and wicked announce that they have received grace, relate their "experiences," offer up earnest prayers, and, in their turn, make tearful appeals to the yet unconverted. The meetings grow more and more excited, new crowds are attracted, conversions are counted by the twenties, and the religious enthusiasm reaches its height ; mul- 216 AMERICAN SOCIETY. titudes of the converted partake of the sacrament, and join the church. Sometimes these revivals are con fined to a single congregation : more often they spread through the town, to the neighbouring towns and vill ages ; and sometimes large sections of the country catch their spirit, and are involved in their fervour. Many, doubtless, once having thus " got religion," adhere to it, and become earnest godly men and women; many others, the tide of pious excitement abated, become "backsliders," and revert to their old irreligious life, more hopelessly indifferent than before. The Methodist revivalists find a wide and' prolific field in the west and the south ; and in the latter sec tion the negroes are perhaps their most zealous converts and disciples. The negro Methodists comprise a dis tinct organisation ; they have their own bishops, con ferences, preachers. The revivalists, both black and white, possess an apparently inexhaustible supply of pious rhetoric, too expansive to be confined within Dr. Whateley's rules, on which they draw upon the least provocation. The negro Methodist preachers are a characteristic and notable race, high-flown and extrava gant, never wanting at any time in what the negroes call the "gift o' gab." Those who have read Uncle Tom's Cabin — and who has not ? — need not be told that the most ignorant slaves were often endowed with a sort of rude, unpolished, and ungrammatical, yet really pathetic eloquence. The negro revivalist may always count upon an enthusiastic audience, and is inspired by the infectious, eager sympathy of his sable hearers. NEGRO REVIVALS. 217 By his wordy facility, he is not long in raising his flock to a pitch of religious ecstasy. The sentences roll out of his mouth in a continuous rapid strain ; he becomes warmer and warmer, more and more demonstrative as he proceeds ; presently, both he and his audience are in a state of uncontrollable excitement. The scene in a negro revival, despite the solemn object of the meet ing, has a tinge of the ludicrous. The preachers and elders speak, shout, throw up their arms, spasmodically clutch theh hair, jump frantically up and down. An inspired negress leaps up on the benches, begins scream ing out a hysterical confession of her sins, from the acknowledgment of the theft of a piece of mistress's butter to the staying away from nieeting three Sundays ago. Two excited beings grasp each other's hands, and dance hither and thither, giving sudden shouts, then groaning excitedly to each other. It is a perfect pan demonium of howling, crying, singing, the beating of breasts, frantic embracings, abject grovelling on the floor, thro^wing out of arms ; in the midst of which the torrent of the preacher's exhortation rolls on more and more impetuously, till he sinks wearied and breathless on his seat. The Methodists often hold, for revival purposes, what are called "camp meetings;" and recently, national camp meetings, comprising persons of that sect from all parts ofthe country, have been held each year. The camp meeting is a unique and interesting occasion. The place chosen where to hold it is usually some spa- 218 AMERICAN SOCIETY. cious park or forest, where there are open la^wns and convenient places for containing large assemblages. Beauty of scenery, a variety of wood and water, are considered in the selection. The camp is often held on the edge of a wood, and by the bank of some pictur esque scene, in the midst of a shaded and pretty land scape, or near some lake cosily situated between sloping banks. Here gather, at the appointed time, many thou sands — as well of the curious and worldly-minded as of the faithful. Straightway are erected rows and groups of canvas tents ; for the meeting is held for several days together, and many of those who attend remain on the ground day and night until the camp breaks up. Some of the tents are wide and long, and here restaur ants are estabhshed, where the people take their meals; others are small private tents, for the accommodation of families and parties. Some come in little wagons, drawn by lean horses, ragged - harnessed ; some in great lumbering vehicles, fitted with broad seats, cush ioned -with blankets and last winter's buffalo robes ; some in stylish carriages and gigs, glistening with brass or silver mounting ; some in farmers' carts, some in buggies, some on horseback, many hundreds on foot. Many bring their own food and bedding, and set up their temporary habitation on the ground, cooking their own meals, and independent of outside aid ; others come quite unprovided, and rely upon the pubHc tent lodgings for a resting place, and the restaurants for their subsistence. Now you see approaching a A CAMP MEETING. 219 ¦wagon piled high -with mattresses, blankets, quilts, and sheets fresh from the good housewife's bureau ; the worthy family has come, perhaps, fifty miles to partici pate in the scene, which is one strangely mingled of pleasure and religious worship. Provision carts arrive in trains, bringing ice and bread, milk and cheese, meats and vegetables. Anon dashes up a broad farm wagon, full of merry young people from the neighbouring viU age. For all sorts of objects has this motley crowd gathered; some, purely for the love of fun and a picnic; some, curious to see for once what a camp meeting is ; some, because their friends were going ; some, to wor ship and receive a new pious inspiration : a democratic assemblage, where you see people in broadcloth and silks,j and people in homespun and rags. In an open space, surrounded by the tents, is erected a plain plat form ; perhaps there are three or four of these in dif ferent parts of the grounds. Here it is that the apostles of the church, the shepherds of the flock, the inspired revival orators address and exhort the crowds. The leading men of the sect have gathered, and are accom* modated in larger tents near the stands. On the ap pointed morning the exercises begin. A noted preacher appears on the platform ; the people hasten in all direc tions from the tents and assemble below it; the sermon begins, and the speaker warms graduaUy with his theme, exerting all his powers to stir the hearts of his hear ers. He is often interrupted by an energetic "Amen I" " Glory be, to God !" " 0 glory, Hallelujah !" " 0 yes, 220 AMERICAN SOCIETY. that's the truth !" " 0 Lord, help me !" from here and there in the crowd. In the evening a prayer meeting is held, the preachers being assembled on the platforms, one after another offering prayers and making brief exhortations. So it goes on, day after day, the religious exercises continuing to be held twice or thrice each day, and the people growing more and more earnest in their excitement. Perhaps in the midst of a sermon a rainstorm would come up, and the tents would begin to quiver, and some blow down. Then there would be a sudden cessation ofthe ceremonies, the multitude has tening to get under shelter. In the evening you would hear psalm singing, loud praying, individual exhorting, throughout the camp ; the preachers going from tent to tent and exhorting and encouraging those who had just been infected with the prevailing pious zeal. Little prayer meetings would be held in the separate tents; friends making appeals to friends, mothers to daugh ters, sons to fathers. Sometimes a group would gather on the open sward after night had fallen, under the stars, by the edge of the glistening tranquil lake, and sing fervidly an evening hymn, or hear the impromptu eloquence of some just-converted enthusiast. Some, too, would rise at dawn, perhaps after a restless excited night, and in the gray of the earliest morning pray or chant or exhort, eager to make their peace with God. The young people would hold prayer meetings and re late their "experience," guided by some sympathetic preacher who had just begun his pious career. Some- CAMP COMFORTS. 221 times, in the excitement of the meeting, there would be hysterical fits and swooning, and you would see the unconscious form of some worshipper whose spirit was stronger than his flesh, and whose ecstasy had fairly overcome him, borne out in the midst of the exercises. Meanwhile attention, more or less, is bestowed in the camp upon the "creature comforts." The restaurant keepers have come there to make money ; they charge high prices, and give but a scanty return in pro^visions ; the infections of the time and place do not take away - the appetite, and grumblings are heard that the bills of fare which read so temptingly are fanciful, and but delusive decoys to meanly furnished tables. In the smaller tents the good folk, after praying and singing, revert to feasting ; for it is not a puritanical stiff-backed meeting, but one of rejoicing over the salvation of souls and the progress of the truth. Right substantial are the family breakfasts and din ners ; you may even, at times, hear merriment and laughter from the souls so lately piously excited, and so soon to be so again. Now it is announced that the great orator ofthe sect — the leading bishop — will ad dress the camp ; he has been received with enthusiasm ; as he mounts the stand he is greeted with the cordial blessings of the multitude. As he stands there, with bare head, the sun comes glimmering through the branches, the birds are singing merrily in the trees, the wind is gently breathing through the forest ; in the distance are faint sounds of singing, the commotion 222 AMERICAN SOCIETY. of those who have kept to their tents ; every word from the great preacher's lips is eagerly drunk in by the vast crowd, who lean forward to hear him ; he tells the old yet ever eloquent story of Christianity in glowing words, with a clear earnest voice, which falls distinctly upon every ear. He teaches the lesson of life, and of the after-life. He is first logical, appeals to the mind ; then rhetorical, seizing the hearts of his hearers ; finally, waxing warmer and warmer, he pictures to them in fast foUo^wing intense sentences the xtnutterable woes of vice, the blessedness of virtue and piety. The multitude is moved to the depths of its heart; there are cries, groanings, shoutings ; the excitement has reached its highest pitch, and the stubbornest souls are fain to yield and prostrate themselves before their God. The bishop having finished, the crowd breaks up into excited groups, each with its own exhorter, male or female; people fall suddenly on their knees, and pray loud, long, and earnestly; there are embracings, self-casti- gations ; you may hear the story of many an awak ened sinner — his or her trials and struggles and final conversion — as you pass from group to group. The enthusiasts make it a point to seize upon the curious and worldly-minded who have resorted to the camp as lookers-on, and to remind them of their wicked nesses. They long to make those " who came to scoff, remain to pray." A middle-aged lady, full of pious zeal, espies a fast-looking young fop from the city, seizes him by the coat lapel, and inveighs in his un- THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. 223 willing ear, and to his manifest embarrassment, against the sins of dress, tobacco, and false pride. Another middle-aged lady is mounted on a barrel, and is be coming interesting with appeals to various worldly people in the crowd, pointing at this one or that, re marking on their personal appearance, and denouncing, with more force than elegance, the vanities which their exteriors betray. " Shame on you," says she to a ¦fashionably-dressed damsel, — " shame on yon, young woman, with that brazen head-gear and that ungodly hump on yom* back. Where's the modesty your mother taught you ?" (Young lady vanishes hastily among the trees.) " There's a young man chewing a vile weed a pig wouldn't touch — next to godliness, young man, is cleanliness." And so on, picking out all her vulner^ able hearers one by one, and castigating them in turn. Disturbances sometimes, but rarely, take place ; strong Hquors are prohibited in the camp, but occasionally in vade it secretly notwithstanding ; and a pohce force is usuaUy stationed on or near the ground. The rehgious freedom and equality which prevails in the United States have encouraged aU sects to flourish there, and none more so than the Roman Catholics. Early in the history of the country, Roman Catholic settlements had laid the foundation for that prosperity of the papal church which is now so evident and strik ing. Lord Baltimore's colony introduced aristocratic Cathohcism into Maryland ; and many of the oldest and proudest Maryland famihes are to-day earnest mem- 224 AMERICAN SOCIETY. bers of that church. The French Canadians, at the extreme northern frontier, were Catholics, and the pe culiar institutions of the papacy were already nume rous in the province. Florida, in the extreme south, acquired by the United States from Spain, was a Spanish Catholic colony ; Louisiana and the sections to the north and west of it was, until it was purchased from the empire, a French Catholic colony. From these points Catholicism has rapidly spread through out the land ; but another cause has far more effect ively increased its numbers and power. Emigration, especially of Catholic Irish, has supplied the church with its principal accessions. The Irish constitute probably a large majority of its body in the United States. The emigrants, it is well known, are mostly from the south of Ireland, from those parts where the priestly influence is the greatest. Arriving in America, the large preponderance adhere to their he reditary faith, and are as blindly subservient and obe- chent to the priesthood as they were at home. The priests control their morals, their family affairs, their politics, as well as their religious belief and duties. Some, however, under the influences of American ci-vil- isation, the independence, as well of thought as of ma terial well-being, which they acquire there, desert the ancient church, and either are indifferent to it or resort openly to Protestantism. This is, perhaps, more often the case with the Catholic Germans than the Catholic Irish. The children go to the free schools, and although- CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. 225.: they are never proselytised at the schools, the education they acquire, and the sphere of independent opinion in which they find themselves when their education is finished, often operate to make them Protestants. The labourers and servant girls who have emigrated from Ireland are almost universally devoted Catholics, gi-ving up a goodly share of their wages to the priests, and filling the churches every Sunday with a reverent though ple beian multitude. Not only the church itself, but many of its ancient orders, have flourished in America. The Jesuits are very numerous and very active ; they main tain some of the best schools in the country, which, however, are often snares for the proselytising of Pro testant chUdren. They have founded colleges in almost every state, and many theological seminaries, where priests are educated. There are thirty Cathohc uni versities and colleges, and fifteen large seminaries. The sectarian Catholic schools are numerous ; but the Catholics having to aid in the support of the public schools, the former are not so well supported as would other^wise be the case. The poor Irishman usually sends his children to the public schools, where they are educated free. The freedom of all religious effort enables the priests to exercise great activity in making conversions ; but probably their accessions from Pro testantism do not keep pace ¦with those of Protestant ism from the Catholics. There is, among the ex treme high -church Episcopalians a tendency toward Rome; and an episcopal bishop of North Carolina, VOL. II. Q 226 AMERICAN SOCIETY. some years ago, gave an additional impulse in this direc tion by abandoning his church and dignity to become a Catholic priest. Ritualism and Puseyism prevail to some extent, and their obvious influence is to lessen the horror of Romanism which is so earnest in the " evangelical" branch of the Anglican church. Some years ago the popular distrust of Catholicism, combined with a kindred distrust of the foreign influence in American politics, suddenly ripened into a ¦wide-spread political agitation. Secret societies, with the object of organising a crusade against Catholics and naturalised foreigners, were formed, and soon grew to a formidable importance. There were branches in every city and in every vUlage. Finally they nominated candidates for city, state, and national offices, and in many localities carried the elections. These were the " Know Noth ings." They succeeded in electing several United States senators, many representatives, governors, legis lators, mayors, councils; and in some of the states they held the power for several years. They proposed Mr. Fillmore for President, and Mr. Donelson for Vice- President in the general election of 1856, only prevail ing, however, in the state of Maryland. But their " platforms" were so entirely and palpably inconsistent ¦with the spirit of the constitution and the principles on which the Republic was founded, that they lost power almost as rapidly as they won it, and in a few years its former adherents were anxious to have their part in the organisation forgotten. The influence of THE CATHOLICS IN THE WAR. 227 the priests, silently exercised in politics, is undoubtedly great, and probably had much to do with the collapse of " Know-Nothingism." The emigrant population, the naturalised voters, are so numerous, that no political party can safely avoid conciliating them. The northern prelates and priests were mostly wise enough, in the war, to espouse the Union side ; and the regiments of Catholics which fought under Catholic commanders, attended by Cathohc chaplains, were, in many cases, among the bravest and most effective troops who fought under M'Clellan, Sherman, and Grant. CHAPTER XII. American Literature and Literary People : Histo rians : Prescott, Bancroft, Motley — Poets : Bryant, Long felloiv, Loivell, Holmes — Novelists: Irving, Haw thorne, Cooper, Mrs. Stowe— The Transcendentalists : Emerson — The humorists — Female ivriters — Other writers — The international copyright. A PURELY and distinctively national literature can hardly be said to have yet reached maturity in America. The productions of real genius, of which it can be said that they could have been produced in no other country, are not numerous. Yet such works are increasing, and there are indications here and there that a new litera ture, peculiar to the new world, will at no distant day contest the favour of the reading public with that which no^^v holds undisputed possession. American literature, as it is to-day, may be divided into two kinds — that which is the result of education and a ¦wide range of study, and is to some degree modelled upon classical foreign literature, in which I include the great masters of English prose and verse ; and that ¦^'hich boldly seeks independent channels of thought and modes of expres sion, which endeavours to reflect the spirit of the exist- MODERN LITERATURE. 229 ing generation, and to interpret the national habits, tastes, and aspirations. The former literary school, which has hitherto produced the best and most famous works, has modelled itself upon the literature of the past, especially English literature; the latter aims to catch up, picture forth, and preserve the traits and emotions of the peculiar civilisation by which it is surrounded. The American literature of the past half century — and until within flfty years there were few American books of standard value — bears a clear resem blance to the classical literature of England. Its productions have abounded in flowers of rhetoric, in elaborate description, in an unchecked play of the fancy, in studied and leisurely efforts of the imagination. It has celebrated legends, illustrated the past, and por trayed the history more often of foreign peoples than of its own. But this age, in America, is a pushing, serious, practical age. All aim at a definite end, and take the nearest road — the " shortest cut" — to reach it. The ornaments and graces of life are less consi dered than its practical uses and ambitions. Therefore the new literature sacrifices leisurely elegance to bre- ¦vity and force. The American toiler has no time to dally with sweet fancies or longdrawn illustration ; he must have the gist of the subject abridged in a nut shell — it must be provided in the briefest practical and striking sentences. English literature, ancient and modern, has always been and stUl is a precious boon to the American read- 230 . AMERICAN SOCIETY. ing public. The great English ¦writers are quite as familiar in America as in their own country; are quoted as often ; are pored over with as much delight. Shake speare has an audience a hundredfold larger than he ever could have dreamed of; Ben Jonson and his con temporaries, Dryden and his, Milton and his, Addison and his, Johnson, Goldsmith, and theirs, Co^wper and his, Coleridge and his, Tennyson, Dickens, and Thackeray and theirs, are known and read everywhere in the re public. Among historians, the Americans read Hume, Macaulay, Froude, Hallam, Mahon ; for poetry, the long catalogue of English poets from Chaucer and Spenser to Tennyson and Browning ; for essayists, from Brown, Burton, Addison, to Matthew Arnold and Carlyle ; for novelists, from Fielding and Goldsmith to Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, Reade; for metaphysicians, Mandeville, Stewart, Hamilton ; for philosophers. Bacon, Ne-wton, Locke, Bentham, Mill; for preachers, from South and Jeremy Taylor to Irving and Spurgeon. In American popularity there is no comparison be tween the more prominent English and the American romancers. No one has yet arisen across the Atlantic to chaUenge the popular affection for Dickens and Thack eray, Scott and George Eliot, Collins and Reade. No works penned by an American hand, unless indeed it be Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Cooper's and Irving's works, are so famUiar as Pickwick Papers and Pen- clennis, as Ivanhoe and Adam Bede, as The Woman in White and Peg Woffington. According to the statistics HISTORIiNS. 231 of the publishers, these books, and their companions by the same authors, find a much larger circula tion in America than they do in England. There is scarcely a farmhouse in the country — scarcely a west ern hamlet, which cannot boast its thumbed and dog eared cheap edition of Dickens ; no gentleman's library is wanting in ponderous editions of Scott and Thack eray in half-morocco. The great American national novelist, to portray things present and peculiar to that people, has yet to appear ; whether to hold up the fol lies and foibles of modern "good society" to ridicule, and to expose and drive to shame the manifold shams of the bon ton, as did Thackeray with keen and bitter pen ; or to depict the miseries, the crimes, the virtues of the lower social strata, which Dickens made his mission ; or to hold up to public opprobrium public institutions abused by stupidity and cruelty, which the master hand of Reade has so thrillingly done in England. But America is becoming constantly less and less depend ent on England for her reading and models of style ; her books are fast becoming peculiarly the " growth of her own life." In several departments of literature, America has produced writers who may fairly rank with the English classics. It is worthy of remark that in a new country, whose own history is so brief, the beginnings of whose career as an independent nation may be remembered by men still living, there should have arisen historians whose works have a place with those of Hume, Mac- 232 AMERICAN SOCIETY. aulay, Thiers and Michelet. Historical writing has been sedulously cultivated, and the American histo rians have achieved many notable triumphs. When it is considered, that to the mind, as to the eye, distance "lends enchantment to the view," this fact will not appear so surprising. No travellers are probably so deeply interested in the ancient monuments of Europe as intelligent, well read Americans : the reason is simple. Those monuments bear testimony to a civilisation in vivid contrast with that to which they have been accus tomed. Curiosity, admiration, are most excited by the strange, the unwonted. Englishmen, Germans, Ita lians have been born and have grown up in the midst of temple and castle ruins, of ancient battle fields, of : spots consecrated by tradition, and by a heroism which, in the lapse of time, has become hallowed and venerable. All these are quite within their experience ; their curio sity in them is at least not a yearning curiosity. The American, born in a country where everything about him is young, where life is practical and unpoetic, re gards the great European museum of antiquities ¦with intense interest, almost with awe. So it is that, just as , he loves to linger under the ivies of Kenilworth, and is charmed to stand musing in the Forum, so he is absorbed in the reading of history, delights to peruse the tales of old ceremonies, wars, and customs — to follow in fancy the chivalry to the crusades, and to wonder at the deeds of heroes and the devotion of martyrs. This undoubted and widely spread taste for history IRVING AND PRESCOTT. 233 has had its natural result in not only securing a wide circulation to the best English and French historians, but also in producing native historians of great talent, who have told their o^wn country's story, and not less that of more than one European epoch. These native historians have displayed a culture, an imagination, a ready appreciation of events, such as entitle them to a rank beside their English rivals; and, indeed, more than one of them has taken his place as a favourite author among English readers themselves ; while they are in some cases read in almost every European lan guage, and have become cosmopolitan classics. The American historians have selected theh sub jects from many countries and many eras. They have aimed as well to portray picturesque and romantic epochs as to illustrate the philosophy of history, and the causes and effects of events. Washington Irving was, perhaps, rather a biographer than a historian ; but the variety of the topics which he selected may be seen in the titles of his three best known biographical works — the Life of Columbus, that of Goldsmith, and- — ¦ the last work of his life, a work of reverent love — the Life of Washington. Prescott chose for his theme the period of Spain's splendour and power. In the cha racter and career of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, in the eventful reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and in Isabella's o^wn marked and attractive character, in the conquest of Peru and the fall of the Montezumas, and in Cortes' expedition to Mexico, he found a field con- 234 AMERICAN SOCIETY. genial to his love of romantic lore, and well adapted to the finish and picturesqueness of his style. Prescott belonged to an old and honoured New England family, was a graduate of Harvard University, and possessed sufficient wealth to enable him to devote himself to his favourite pursuit. He was the first of American his torians to achieve a world-wide reputation : he brought to his work a rare zeal, which even blindness — which overtook him before he had reached his prime— could not subdue, nor even abate. It has been noticed that the histories which he wrote after the advent of his affliction were even more poetic and more vivid in glow ing description than those which he had previously pro duced; as if the loss of bodily sight — as in Milton's case — had increased the lucidity of the mental vision. The only historian who has attempted an elaborate account of the American colonies and states is Mr. George Bancroft. His History of the United States, which is contained in nine or ten octavo volumes, em braces the time between the Pilgrim and Cavalier set tlements and the close of the revolutionary war. He has spent more than thirty years in its preparation, having meanwhile occupied the offices of Secretary of the Navy, Minister to England, and Minister to the German Confederation. The style is plain, dry, matter of fact ; the historian seems to have shunned the graces, to have sacrificed the romantic for the practical -view of the course of events. John Lothrop Motley is certainly the most talented JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 235 of living American historians, and is a worthy suc cessor of his fellow townsman Prescott. It was Mot ley's good fortune to become suddenly famous by the production of his first elaborate work. When, in 1856, the Rise ofthe Dutch Republic was published in London, it at once became a standard work, and won for its author the almost unanimous homage of the English as well as the American literary world. Motley, like Prescott, belonged to a family of standing and wealth ; he graduated, at seventeen, from the same university of which Prescott was an alumnus; and spent several years in Europe, studying the languages and delving into historical lore, visiting memorable scenes, and preparing for what was doubtless already his chosen vocation. The Rise of the Dutch Republic having met with so noble a success, he continued in the field of Dutch history; and in 1865 appeared his United Nether lands, which was not less cordially received than its pre cursor. Motley's works are as rich and eloquent in description, especially of character, as Prescott's ; hardly less briUiant and epigrammatic than Macaulay's ; and as philosophical in searching out causes and tracing to re sults as Hallam's. There is a -vigour and freshness, an ease in developing events, and an evident familiarity and enthusiasm in the age of which he writes, which infects the reader, and carries him on with all the in terest which attaches to the historical romances of Scott. Poetry is not seldom the earliest literary manifes tation of a people. There is no great prose work in ;236 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Greek history anterior to Homer and Hesiod ; Chaucer and Spenser were the patriarchs of English letters. The poets in America were at least as soon as the prose writers, claiming the attention and the favour of the public. It has been said, that in the younger countries the imagination has all the freer scope, that experience is slight ; the fancy revels amid the fresh ness and youth of a people. However this may be, there are American poets who have commanded the attention of the reading world everywhere, and have betrayed a ripeness in the art not inferior to that of their modern English and continental rivals. There has, as yet, risen no great epic poet ; America awaits her Homer, her Dante, her Shakespeare, her Milton. Such masters of the art can only appear after long, •eventful ages; can only work upon a history ancient, romantic, legendary, full of vicissitude. Nor yet has America produced a great distinctly national poet ; one who, breaking loose from the old grooves, has achieved a style peculiarly adapted to the new civilisation, and a mode of thought in exclusive sympathy with the cha racter and aim of his own nation. The poets who have won fame have adhered to classical forms and habits, and both shell and kernel bear a resemblance to those of the poetry of the older nations. So recently has poetry become a cultivated and appreciated art in America, that one of the very earliest poets — Richard Henry Dana the elder — is still living, and another — Fitzgreene Halleck — has just passed away. Within fifty years LivnjG POETS. 237' Bryant has given to the world, from his quiet little New York sanctum, such poems as Thanatopsis, The Prairies, and the Battle Field. Edgar Allan Poe has for a brief period shone forth with a bright startling light, and held his readers breathless over The Raven and his; ghastly stories — soon to descend, alas, to reckless de bauchery, and finally to sink into an untimely and obscure grave. Longfellow, whose name need only be' mentioned to English readers to bring up the memory of numberless delightful hours and pleasing dreams, came forth from his college chair to assume, to main tain the highest place in the group of American poets, and to contest the palm, in the English reading world, ¦with the author of In Memoriam, and The Idylls of the King. Lowell has produced that keenest and most elaborate of American satires, the Bigloiv Papers, in which he clothed many a striking truth in the homely garb of the Yankee dialect. Emerson has shown how a philosophical and deep pondering mind may some times relieve itself by the study of nature and a con templation of whatever is beautiful, and has proved that a luminous intellect does not always dry up the finer and gentler emotions ofthe heart. Holmes has revelled in humorous description, pouring it out in an exuberant stream, and leading his reader from surprise to surprise, in the ludicrousness and genial wit of his portrayals ; while, as we write, a younger race of poets is arising, and boldly entering the field where laurels are to be^ won. There is laurel enough to make crowns for all ;. 238 AMERICAN SOCIETY. this is a battle field in which the defeat of one com petitor is not necessary to the victory of others. Bryant is the Nestor of the living poets, and -there are some who think him a greater genius than Long feUow. Unlike Longfellow, he has written no elaborate works, and has mainly contented himself with produc ing occasional pieces, and confining himself to lyrics and odes ; and unlike Longfellow, he has mingled ac tively in the business of the world, making composition rather a pastime and a relief from sterner labours, than his life work. More than forty years ago he became a leading editor in New York, and has ever since that period laboured earnestly to establish the pohtical doc trines — especially on the subject of free trade — which he then espoused. Now, in the evening of his days, he hves in elegant ease at his home on Long Island, near New York, and may often be seen, with long, flowing white beard and deep thoughtful eye, passing along the streets of the city. Ever and anon appears a poem from his pen — the dedicatory ode of a monu ment, a farewell greeting to a friend, a patriotic piece — which shows that he retains the vigour of his pure and noble fancy, though almost half a century has passed since he wrote the Ages. Bryant's poems are remark able for their purity of thought and language. His rural descriptions, his moral lessons, his life -philosophy, clothed always in facile, and often in exceedingly beau tiful verse, are his happiest and most successful efforts. Of Longfellow one need hardly speak to English JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 239 readers. His poems are as familiar in England as in his own land. Evangeline and H-laivatha, The Court ship of Miles Standish, The Tales of a Wayside Inn, the translation of Dante, Hyperion, The Spanish Stu dent, have long since been scattered far and wide through the British Isles. James Russell Lowell, Longfellow's near neighbour, and his successor in the Professorship of Modern Lan guages at Harvard University, is hardly less well known. While still pursuing his college curriculum, Lowell was noted for the facihty ¦with which he composed, and the brightness of his fancy. He was, on graduation, chosen to deliver the " class-poem," which received many encomiums from the papers, and the eminent alumni who heard it. Soon after, in his twenty-second year, he published a little volume of poems, and an other in 1844. Of these, the Legends of Brittany and Prometheus offer the best illustrations of his earlier style. These poems indicated that thus early in Hfe he had been an interested student of politics and social questions, and betrayed as well the very keen and sa tirical tone of his mind. The Fable for Critics, how ever, was the poem which established his reputation in America. This was probably suggested by Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and is one of the most piquant pieces of irony and humorous personal description extant. Mr. Lowell now unites the offices of Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, and of editor of the North Ame- 240 AMERICAN SOCIETY. rican Review ; although his connection with the latter is little more than nominal. His versatility as a writer is marked. He turns as easily from the composition of a Blglow paper to an erudite discussion on politics, a charming lyric, a searching criticism on the works of a classic, or a scathing satire on men or manners, as Sheridan did from writing the School for Scandal to a field night in the House, and as Goldsmith did from geography to the Deserted Village. Among other American poets of reputation and merit may be mentioned Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the quaint and genial Autocrat of the Breakfast Table ; Percival, an eccentric, melancholy bard, not unlike Cowper, who probably died insane ; N. P. Willis, like Tom Moore, a rollicking man of the world, and a writer of exquisite sacred poetry; Fitzgreene Halleck, the author of that favourite of school-boy declaimers, Marco Bozarris, and oiAlmvick Castle, who lived to a good old age, long after he had ceased writing, and was honoured as a patriarch by later literary generations ; John G. Whittier, the Quaker poet, and the inspired bard of abolition; Richard H. Dana, the author of The Idle Man, The Dying Raven, and The Buccaneer, and the representative of one of the oldest American families ; James T. Fields, the genial Boston publisher ; Bayard Taylor, who has added a reputation as a poet to that of being the best of travel-writers; Doctor HoUand, author of Bitter -Sweet, whose naturalness and vivid- NOVELISTS. 241 ness of character description has given him a high rank among living writers ; Buchanan Read, the painter- poet; Gilmore Sims, the only notable southern bard; Howells, Dorgan, Walt Whitman, Stedman, Trowbridge, and the many rising stars of poetry, of more or less lustre and genuineness — these may be noted to show that, in the United States, poetry apparently runs little danger, for the present, of becoming one ofthe "lost arts." Novelists and would-be novelists are almost as nu merous as poets and would-be poets. Few writers of fiction have, however, attained a permanent place in American literature, and have made themselves known abroad. 'When I have mentioned Cooper, Irving, Haw thorne, Holmes, Poe, and Mrs. Stowe, probably I have included all the American novelists whose works are familiar in England. Irving and Hawthorne were masters of a pure and enticing English prose, were endowed with a fine, delicate sense of humour, and pos sessed the art of sustaining a deep interest in their books throughout. It is evident, however, in reading them, that they were not ambitious to found a new American literary school ; although no two men could have been more American in feeling, they were clearly pupils of English masters. Their works prove that they must have been careful students of writers like Addison and Sir Walter Scott ; and their styles, whether designedly or not, were doubtless largely influenced by those of the English writers. In the early part of the present century, Irving won his reputation by publishing in VOL. II. R 242 AMERICAN SOCIETY. London his Sketch Book, Sir Walter Scott aiding him to find a publisher, and highly commending the ex quisite style of the work. His English fame soon spread to America, and he -n^as henceforth regarded as a standard author — perhaps the first and best prose writer whom America has produced. He wrote a number of stories, which, although not " sensational" in plot, are so rich in the literary graces, are told ¦with such beauty of diction and such genial humour, that they are still the delight of tasteful readers on both sides of the ocean. Hawthorne's productions are scarcely less charming; his style is not unlike Irving's — perhaps it is somewhat lighter, and possesses a tinge of dry New England humour, somewhat different from that of the historian of the Knickerbockers. Hawthorne's individuality, too, seems to appear more distinctly to the reader of his works than does that of Irving ; al though in reahty Hawthorne was the most shy and retiring of men, while Irving delighted in companion ship, and loved to find himself in the midst of a host of friends. Both Irving and Hawthorne were fond of choosing for their subjects the early times of that part of America in which each lived. Irving has given us quaint and attractive pictures of the Dutch settlers of New York — the Knickerbockers — from Heinrich Hudson down. Hawthorne, in the Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, has illustrated early life in New England, the Puritan severities and cus toms, wea^ving touching stories from the legends of the JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 243 Massachusetts settlements. Hawthorne was also a de lightful writer of faiiy tales. His Tangleivood Tales, which are beautifully told legends from Greek and Roman mythology, have found their way to the hearts of thousands of boys and girls, and are composed in his most genial, as well as his most finished style. The Marble Faun is perhaps, after those mentioned, his most esteemed production. Of American novelists, perhaps Fenimore Cooper was the most national, and corresponded most nearly to Sir Walter Scott ; and Cooper is as well known in England as in the country whose literature he adorned. It is very noticeable how great a contrast there was, how ever, between the events which made the groundwork of his novels, and those upon which Scott built so noble a literary monument. Sir Walter had for his material the lore of centuries ; he found vast stores in the su perstitions, the traditions of the past ; all round him were the ruins and the monuments of a hoary civilisa tion. It was his charming task to weave, from these, heroic stories, to illustrate history by the light of an imagination fed from exhaustless historic stories. Cooper had to deal with a new land, to which civilisation — at least any civilisation now known- — ^had been but yester day a stranger. He had to depict the life and the customs of the Indian denizen of the forests and river banks of an unsettled continent ; he had to describe the beginnings of civilised settlements, the troubles of the adventurous pioneer, the hot conflict between the 244 AMERICAN SOCIETY. race which was declining and that which was about to dominate the territory. He had also to introduce the reader to the second great American struggle — the first being with the Indians, the second with the mother country. He found a glowing theme in the revolution for independence ; the devotion of the colonies ; the heroism of individual patriots. Sir Walter was the romancer of the old, Cooper of the new ; and each, in his own direction, shed a new light upon mankind and civilisation. Those who have read Ivanhoe know inti mately both what a crusader was, and what were the prevailing features of the crusadal age ; those who have read The Last of the Mohicans can vi^vidly imagine the mixture of nobility and barbarism, the generosity and the malignity, of the Indians in their last days of free dom and domination. Probably no novel ever achieved more serious prac tical results than Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was a gaunt let thrown down by a single woman to two millions of slaveholders. A whole section of the country was mer cilessly lashed by the exposure of the truth but half disguised in fiction. Under the guise of a thrilling and dramatic romance, the horrors of slavery were made known to thousands who had never dreamed of them. It entered into the homes of the people, north and south ; it was a most formidable ally of the great agi tation which ended in the war and the extinction of slavery. It was first published as a serial in a Wash ington anti-slavery paper, The National Era, in the UNCLE tom's cabin. 245 midst of a pro-slavery population, where outspoken aboli tionists then almost held their lives in the palms of their hands. It is not too much to say that Uncle Tom's Cabin alone advanced the anti-slavery cause a decade. It was one of the great, silently -working powers which aided in hastening the " irrepressible con flict" between the principle ofthe manhood of man and the principle of perpetual and hereditary servitude not inflicted for crime, and of a particular race. Some of my readers have not forgotten the reception which both the book and its author received in England. Uncle Tom's Cabin intensified the detestation in which Eng land aheady held slavery. It stirred public feeling here, as there, to its depths. The book must live, since it is a faithful and striking picture of a phase in Ame rican life which long had a very great influence over American politics and society, but which has now hap pily passed away, and is matter of history. Mrs. Stowe's subsequent works have been cordially received as com ing from the authoress of Uncle Tom ; none of them have approached its deep interest and marvellous por trayals. Dred, Agnes of Sorrento, The Minister's Woo ing, and lately, Oldtown Folk, are the principal works which she has produced since her first triumph. Dr. Holmes, the "autocrat," is also a novelist of note, having written, among other works, Elsie Venner, a charming story. Among less well-known novelists are Donald G. Mitchell, the author of Doctor Johns, George William Curtis, Colonel Higginson, Robert Dale Owen, 246 AMERICAN SOCIETY. and Theodore Winthrop. The highly- spiced, sensa tional school has its writers in profusion; there are many cheap weekly journals which supply them with work, and which flourish on the patronage of the lower classes. Many of the American magazines purchase the advance sheets of English novelists, their romances appearing simultaneously in an English and an Ame rican periodical. Reade, TroUope, Collins, Thackeray, have thus been read at the same time in serials in the two countries. There is in New England a literary coterie, which has had a marked influence on the course of serious thought in America, known as the Transcendentalists. The most famous of them is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, with a touch of poetic sentiment, is perhaps the most original, as well as the most profoundly philo sophical, of American writers. He has a keen sym pathy with humanity in every class and condition, and quite as keen a dislike for its hypocrisies and shams. Although he is far from being a graceful or attractive speaker, his public lectures are anticipated with eager interest, and he frequently addresses large audiences on philosophical, political, social, and religious topics. His style is often as difficult and intricate as that of Carlyle; the excellence is rather in the rich veins of original thought than in the composition. Channing, Hawthorne, Alcott, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller d'Ossoli, were among the intellectual lights grouped in the circle of the Transcendentalists. They were marked by a HUMORISTS. 247 frondeur spirit of inquiry and an intellectual independ ence which thought for itself, and which was not de ferential to authority, whether human or sacred. Many years ago an attempt was made at the celebrated "Brook Farm" to try the experiment of a transcen dental Utopia — to see if it were possible to establish a colony of dreamers and thinkers in the midst of, yet outside of, the active world. The attempt was, how ever — as always such attempts have been — soon given up. A peculiar type of American humour has long been famUiar to the English reader. Sam Slick was the first to portray Yankee character — in exaggerated co lours, to be sure, but sufficiently life-like to give a zest and relish to his humour ; while in Artemus Ward are to be observed many ofthe same peculiar expressions and traits, clothed in suggestive language, and having a sparkle which the covert sathe — an undercurrent running through all his chapters — alone could impart. Following these two masters in this peculiar school are a host of imitators, varying from an ability inferior only to them, to a senseless vapidity which is apt to disgust one even with the best. Petroleum V. Nasby, Josh Billings, Orpheus C. Kerr, and others, are inevitable inflictions, certain to have been produced after "A. Ward" had "made his mark;" and they may be dis missed as but feeble imitators of a humour which itself was, at best, but a coarse reflection of the humour of the nation, and whose greatest merit is that of casti- 248 AMERICAN SOCIETY. gating and holding up to ridicule many popular follies and delusions. Of Lowell's exquisite and pohshed humour, as be trayed in the Bigloiv Papers, I have already spoken. His fellow professor at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes — who divides his time between instructing the youth in anatomy and physiology, writing poems, and com^ posing essays and romances — is a humorist who, if a trifle less scholarly, is more exuberant than Lowell. His fun is impetuous, rollicking, so continuous at times, as to be almost exhausting. Sometimes it is rather sparkling, epigrammatic wit, than humour ; more often it is a succession of ludicrous descriptions and images, apparently perfectly spontaneous, the thoughts and notions poured upon the page without effort, and yet in the happiest garb of language. The Enghsh reader knows Holmes best by that inimitable and ex quisite mixture of philosophy, practical maxims, over flowing humour, pathos, and vivid description, the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. The Autocrat is a kind of Noctes Ambrosiance transferred to a boarding house breakfast table. Its plan is such as to enable the author to exhibit each of his versatile talents in turn. There is a vein of vanity running through it which is too cheerful and happy to be displeasing. Now you are treated to a learned disquisition on science or social customs ; now to a brisk running fire of banter between the boarders; now to a titbit of the most natural and infectious sentiment ; now to a rollickinff. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 249' humorous rhyme — for example, The One-horse Shay ^ then to a pathetic poem, full of touching thoughts and lovely images ; passing from one topic to another with the same ease and not unnatural abruptness which marks breakfast-table conversation. Throughout there. runs a genial, gentle current, which irresistibly attracts one to the author's identity. His ¦wit is never harsh or cynical. On every page there is ample evidence how full of sentiment, tenderness, and imagination — warm, broad, and prolific — the writer is. A little, active man, with large bright eyes; a perpetual smile upon his round jovial face ; a Yankee briskness in every move ment ; a cheerful word always on his lips ; a witty sally' ready for all occasions, — it would be hard to find a more attractive companion than the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Many attempts have been made to establish in Ame rica a satirical journal which should be to America what Punch has so long been to England, and Charivari to France ; but they have mostly been but feeble imi tations ; they have had neither the wit and humour nor the distinct national character which could insure suc cess; and they have all, so far as I am aware, failed — at least, they have failed to gain the position attained by then- French and English prototypes. The present age is remarkable, among other things, for the notable activity of female writers. Both in England and in America many authoresses have ap peared within the last thirty years, some of whom have 260 AMERICAN SOCIETY. reached a higher standard of excellence than the female writers of any previous period. Charlotte Bronte and her sisters seem to have inaugurated a new era in the history of intellectual womanhood. The stately rhymes of Mrs. Hemans, the starch propriety of Hannah More, the old-fashioned formality of Madame D'Arblay's ro mances, even the sanguinary plots of Mrs. Radcliffe, were superseded when Jcme Eyre and Wuthering Heights appeared. Since then a still higher genius has been developed among lady writers. Mrs. Browning and George Eliot have produced works quite as brUliant as any of their male contemporaries. Mrs. Stowe has at tained a rank with Cooper and Hawthorne. This in tellectual activity among women is perhaps even more obtrusive in America than in England. There are lady lecturers — like Anna Dickinson, Miss Field, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe — •who not only draw audiences as large as those which assemble to hear Beecher or PhUlips, but whose efforts display a real originality and aptness of thought, great facility and eloquence of expression, and a marked taste, as well in the manner as in the matter of their performances. The author esses occupy a large share of the pages of the best magazines. The publishers are constantly issuing their poems, essays, reveries, arguments, novels. The "wo man's rights" movement has at least had the good result of developing in the eager lady champions who have hastened into print to defend it, literary talents which otherwise might have remained "mute, inglo- MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. 261 rious." " Gail Hamilton," a lady of decided gifts, and possessing, with a finesse aU womanly, a true masculine force and -vigour of style, has produced some volumes which, with all their oddity, are full of thought and power, and aim to demolish prejudices and to chastise cant. Mrs. Spofford has written many thriUing stories, which are not mere stories, but vehicles for brilliant character dra-wing and keen reflection. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, the -wife of the noted philanthropist Dr. Howe, suddenly won a national fame by her noble pa triotic song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic ; and more recently, Miss Elizabeth Phelps has known how to touch a chord in every breast by her simple, yet exquisitely beautiful. Gates Ajar. Mrs. Lydia Si- gourney long held a place in American literature not unlike that held by Mrs. Hemans in England; and Miss Catherine Beecher, an elder sister of Mrs. Stowe, is -widely known as a forcible writer. There are several lady novelists who give promise of a brilliant literary career; but Mrs. Stowe has as yet been the only one to establish a claim to a standard place in American literature. It may be added, that there are many exceUent Ame rican writers of religious works. Among them are Dr. Barnes, the author of the Notes on the Bible ; Dr. Bushnell, one who knows how to be genial in his efforts to inculcate piety; Drs. Clarke, Osgood, and Walker, of the Unitarian body, and Edward Beecher. The two best dictionaries of the English language were pro- 252 AMERICAN SOCIETY. duced in America by Noah Webster and Joseph E. Worcester, both graduates of Yale University. The philosophical writings of Dr. Benjamin Franklin are as well known among English as American readers. Of political writers there have been many from the earliest days of the republic. The Federalist — a volume of essays, designed to be a commentary on the constitu tion, and written jointly by Alexander Hamilton, the flrst Secretary of the Treasury, John Jay, the first chief justice, and James Madison, the fourth President of the United States — is regarded as a model of pure and forcible English, and of clear philosophical political discussion. Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, John Adams the elder, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay left many essays and letters on political matters, which were pub lished and are revered as the highest authorities on American political history. Judges Story and Kent wrote works commenting upon the English law, which are quoted as well at Westminster as in their own country. Professor Coppee, of Philadelphia, has pro duced a text book on logic, which in America has to a large extent superseded that of Dr. Whateley. Mr. Wheaton's work on International Law, and President Woolsey's (of Yale) more recent book on the same sub ject, are looked up to in America as the best authorities on the subject of which they treat, and are also held in deserved esteem by English international la-wyers. From what has been said, it will be seen that the literary acti vity of America extends through all the departments of INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 253 the art, producing both philosophical, scientific, and professional works, as well as poems, histories, novels, satires, and essays. The most extensively popular books are religious works, next fictions and children's books ; then school books, biographies, books of travel, histories, and pro fessional works. The business of publishing is a flourishing one, and is rapidly extending through the west. The headquarters of the book trade, however, continue to be at New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and few firms outside these cities are widely known. The best English literature is so eagerly sought, that there is a zealous competition among the great pub lishers to obtain the advance sheets of the well-known writers and publish them in America simultaneously with their issue in London. Thus the successive books of Reade, Collins, Dickens, Eliot, Mill, Dixon, Oliphant, and others, are secured by the Boston or New York houses, the advance sheets bought for a substantial price, and American editions issued. There is certainly much unfair advantage taken of the absence of an international copyright. Unscrupulous men appropriate the most popular English works without payment, and scatter them broadcast in cheap forms. Such conduct, also, is not unknown in Eng land; Artemus Ward, Lowell, "Hans Breittmann," were not -without cause of complaint. But the evil is greatly diminished, and the want of an international copj^right somewhat compensated by the purchase of 254 AMERICAN SOCIETY. the advance sheets by the best American publishers. They are thus able to be the first in the field ; to some extent, and in most cases completely, they can forestall the market by securing the first orders — which usually constitute the bulk of the publishers' harvest — and be the first to satisfy the impatience of the public curio sity. Besides, the mass of readers and the libraries and clubs prefer the "authorised edition." A constant agitation for an international copyright treaty with England — which must be initiated in Con gress — is going on in America, encouraged by many eminent literary men and some public-spirited pub lishers. As yet, however, no official movement has been made in that direction. It is evidently for the interest of the American author, who is now competing on the unfairest terms with his English fellow writers ; for that of the English author, who would then reap the full benefit of his labour, where he now reaps but a portion of it ; for that of the substantial American pub lisher, who would derive a proper profit for that for which he paid, undamaged by dishonest rivals ; and for the literature of both countries — the highest object of all — which would thus receive a new impetus and encouragement, extending the audience of the writers over two empires, and doubling or tripling their fame and the reward of their toil. CHAPTER XIII. American Newsp^ers : The enterprise and character istics of the press — Bennett and the "Herald" — Greeley and the "Tribune" — Advertising- — Weekly papers — The provincial press — The editorial profes sion — Magazine literature — Lyceums and lecturings. What Carlyle says of the journalists — ^that they " are now the true kings and clergy;" that there must be no more histories of Bourbons and Hapsburgs, but rather of " stamped broadsheet dynasties, and quite new successive names, according as this or the other able editor gains the world's ear" — is especially applic able to America. Newspapers everywhere are not only a daUy diary of the people, but are mirrors in which the characteristics of a nation are truly reflected. They are not the utterances of an individual, even only of a party ; they must betray the popular traits, or they cannot exist. In a country like America, where the press is not only free under the law, but is also ex tremely free in manner and outspokenness, the news papers are most representative of all. The press, re- fying rather upon intuition than logic, is certainly " history in the rough ;" most of all is it a history of 266 AMERICAN society. change, progress, the influence of popular manners and customs and habits of thought. American newspapers, although resembling far more the English than the French or German, have very many characteristics peculiar to themselves. The Eng lish journal is deliberate, cautious, grapples carefully, almost timidly, -with a newly started idea. It is stu dious not to transgress the limit to which the existing state of public opinion confines it. It is decorous, often refined ; avoids usually sensational appeals. The Eng lish weekly literary paper is dignified, critical, at need caustic and ironical, and in its best examples is fair, learned, and judicial in its judgments. The French paper is not enterprising, and is essentially dramatic. It deals with events in rhetorical forms ; in every part of it one discovers a proneness to gratify the national love of sensation. American newspapers are more out spoken and bold than the English ; far more enterprising and energetic than the French. They are less apt to clothe their meaning in the graces, on the one side of courtesy, on the other of editorial eloquence. They grapple with a political idea or the character of a public man in a straightforward, sometimes too rugged a way ; but it is an effective way, and one which appeals to the bold and frank genius of the people. There is a far greater variety in the American than in the English or French papers. The national character, while having certain traits which give it everywhere a peculiar and distinctively marked tone, is, in different sections. NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE. 267 divided into species, the various states having traits special to themselves, and distinct from the others. While, therefore, you will find all American papers clearly impressed with traits which you recognise as purely and strikingly American, you discover that the southern press differs widely in many respects from the northern, and from the western press. The thoughtful and critical New Englander, accustomed to judge all things cautiously, decorous and substantial, needs a very different paper from the warm-hearted, indo lent, sentimental southron, descendant of the cavalier, the Spaniard, and the Frenchman ; or from the rough and hardy westerner (hardy in thought as in action), who will not suffer the splitting of straws in points of logic, and, while he is not averse from it, is little affected by too profuse a rhetoric ; who demands pell-mell assaults, and truth, rough hewn, driven home by a sledge-hammer ; or from the driving, bustling New Yorker, who as a rule wants neither literary criticism nor philosophical disquisition, but the earliest and best reports of the markets and stocks, and the rise and faU of gold. Enterprise, in the direction demanded by the popu lar taste, is the salient characteristic of the American press. The rivalry between the papers, as rivalry in all professions and trades, is much sharper in America than in England. In whatever other respects one or the other people may be deemed superior, it is generally confessed that the Americans have more " go-aheadi- tiveness," a more aggressive, pushing energy, than the VOL. II. s 258 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Europeans. To outstrip one's rivals, to issue the first biography of the incoming President, to expose for sale the first instalment of fall silks, to be earliest on the race-course, to secure the front seats at the opera, to walk, run, ride, swim faster and better than others, to print the first report of the Paris Exposition and the first news of the fall in the Bourse, to grow the biggest pumpkins, and show the fattest pigs and the heaviest bullocks, — these are examples of the direction which American ambition takes. The press shares this sharp ness of competition ; keenly alive to the fact that, unless it keeps apace with the times, it -will be ruined. In every department of the metropolitan newspaper, no pains or expense are spared to give the earliest and completest intelligence. If one paper receives and prints an important item before its rival, it is a substantial triumph, betraying itself in the swelled subscription books ofthe one, and the falling off in those ofthe other. The American almost invariably patronises the paper which is the most enterprising in gi-ving news. He often gives up the journal which reflects his own poli tical -views for one to whose opinions he is hostile, if the last will tell him at two o'clock what the first delays till four. The Englishman is content to wait for the news until his favourite paper prints it; and the Frenchman is yet more prone to bide the time when the journal with whose politics he sides reaches him in its own leisnrely good time. The American paper, speaking generally, makes the procuring of news its NEWSPAPER RIVALRY. 269 first and great object, to which all other departments must be subservient. It is enterprise in management, in collecting news, which establishes the popularity and success of the American journal ; until it has become a close com petitor in this department with its rivals, it seldom shares the political power which is one of the most coveted objects of editorial ambition. Having won a wide audience by its business energy, it may then speak with authority on the topics of the day, and exercise an influence over its readers by its leading articles. Such papers have, indeed, a very great and recognised power over public opinion. They do, as in England, keenly feel the tendency of popular thought ; they are scarcely less led than leading; they seize hints from ideas al ready afloat in the air, not yet wholly articulate, and express and develop them. But the American press has many examples of independence on the part of their conductors, who boldly strike out a new line, advocate a novel policy, and apparently put themselves out, in a manner, with the times. Such a course can only be pursued by an editor whose paper is already recognised both as a political power, upon whose wisdom great popular reliance is placed, and as an energetic collector of news ; then he may often be safely independent. The business energy and the political influence of journalism in America can be best judged by the cha racter of the four leading New York daihes — the Tri- bune, edited by Horace Greeley ; the Herald, by James 260 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Gordon Bennett; the Times, until recently conducted by Henry J. Raymond ; and the World. Of these, the Tribune and Times, while professedly Republican in poli tics, are by no means the organs of cliques or the servile mouthpieces of party magnates ; they are independent and outspoken, and franldy censure, when they sec reason for it, the men and measures of their own creed. The Herald can be said to belong to no party; it aims to be the reflection of current public opinion, following it through its changing phases — now conservative, now radical ; one day proposing one man for President, the next bringing a quite new name before the public. It apparently aims to follow the London Times in its studied sensitiveness to public feeling, and its adoption of popular inconsistencies. The World is the great central organ of the democratic party ; and while usually sustaining, with great ability, the party doctrines and measures, is itself prone at times to be independent, and to speak its mind to its own party leaders in no cringing terms. There is an association formed of the leading papers for procuring telegrams, for the use of all, from various parts of the world. The expense is thus materially reduced ; for the cost of each telegram, instead of being paid for by one, is divided among all. But the great New York papers which have been named are not con tent to confine themselves to this method of obtaining news in common ; it gives no chance for greater enterprise and outlay ; it demonstrates no superiority of one over NEW YORK REPORTERS. 261 the others. Besides the use of the associated press tele grams, each paper has its private agents and correspond ents at all the important points ; these send exclusive despatches to their employers, which are printed beside those of the associated press. The enterprise of the New York papers in this particular may be judged by the fact, that one of them has more than once published the debates in the House of Commons in full, simul taneously with the London Times, on the morning after its occurrence. The Queen's and Emperor's speeches, an important leader or international document, a debate on the Alabama claims, or a description of Derby day, are sure to be read in New York, in detail, on the same day as in London. They often have a column, some times two, devoted to European telegrams. In America the staffs of these journals are well-nigh ubiquitous. Wherever an important address is to be delivered, a statue to be unveiled, a reception held, a presentation made, wherever there is a public ball, a patriotic fair, an annual festival, you -will see squads ofthe Tribune or Herald reporters — a reporter to do the general pictur esque, a reporter to take the speeches in short-hand, a reporter to describe the dinner, a reporter to "touch off" the decorations, reporters to act as relieving corps. If war breaks out in Germany, Mexico, or Paraguay, there, straightway, comfortably made up for a protracted camp life, you will stumble on Jenkins, of the New York Times, or Judkins, of the Herald; if a railway train rushes pell mell over a precipice in Colorado, New York 262 AMERICAN SOCIETY. reporters are soon on the spot, each aiming to outdo the others in the minuteness of his details and the harrowing pathos of his description. One might say that a New York reporter presides over the birth of almost every event which occurs Christendom over. The Tribune and Herald were the first papers which demonstrated what editorial enterpri.se could really do in America. The Herald was established in New York thirty -five, and the Tribune about thirty years ago; and from their foundation to the present, they have maintained themselves in a popularity and prosperity not reached by any competitor. It is a somewhat sug gestive fact that both were the product of the perse verance and genius of two " self-made" men. James Gordon Bennett, the founder of the Herald, now one of the millionaires of " Gotham," was a poor Scotch youth from Banffshire. His family being too poor to educate him, as had been intended, for the Romish priesthood, he emigrated to America, arriving at New York in his nineteenth year. He first tried school- teaching in the south ; that not succeeding, he became a reporter in the metropolis ; then the happy idea that he could himself manage a journal seized him, and in 1835 appeared the first number of the New York Herald. It has been conducted ever since with wonderful apphcation and energy; Bennett, now past seventy, continues to be its active manager. To make the paper sell, is apparently the object at which he constantly aims : it is sensational ; no expense is spared to give HORACE GREELEY AND THE " TRIBUNE." 263 it precedence of its rivals ; and although it cannot be relied on as a faithful exponent of American opinion and feeling, its news department gives it, deservedly, an enormous circulation. Horace Greeley, the founder, and stiU the principal editor, of the Tribune, was the son of a hardworking New Hampshire farmer, and barely re ceived a common school education. He was, however, in his boyhood a passionate lover of books, and possessed aU that energy which is so marked a trait ofthe " down- easters." He arrived in New York, as did Bennett, with but a pittance in his pocket ; his fortune con sisted of ten doUars. He became a printer ; made seve ral unsuccessful efforts to establish a journal; and fin aUy, on " a leaden, funereal morning, the most inhos pitable of the year," in 1841, appeared the first num ber of the famous New York Tribune. The first week the new venture secured a thousand subscribers; within a year it numbered ten thousand, and had achieved a permanent footing and a sure success. The Tribune, whUe a sharp competitor -with the Herald in the en terprise of coUecting news, is a far more powerful journal in political influence. It has a very positive, though independent, tone of its own ; it has won a reputation both for the sincerity and the wise force of its utter ances. They are often eccentric and unexpected; the original, talented, and earnestly thinking mind of its founder and editor give its columns an individuality and piquancy which attract attention, and secure it a ¦wide and attentive audience. The Tribune is one of 264 AMERICAN SOCIETY. the veritable powers of American politics. Its influence in guiding public opinion is much greater than that of any other paper ; for its ability and patriotism are not only marked, but are strengthened by a frankness and an integrity above suspicion. From the dingy sanc tum of its editorial office have many times gone forth edicts which have given new channels to the course of political events. It has been justly said of Greeley, that "he has more deeply impressed his character upon this generation than that of any American, save Abra ham Lincoln." It is doubtful if even that exception should be made. It was Greeley who, through the Tribune, brought about the nomination of General Fre mont, as well as that of Abraham Lincoln, for the presidency ; who demanded that the army should move on the Confederates at Bull Run ; who compelled Pre sident Lincoln to the sticking point of "Emancipa tion." The Tribune did more than any other paper or public influence to found, cherish, put and maintain in power the Republican party, which has ruled in America without interruption since 1861. Repeatedly solicited to take office, Greeley has preferred the far greater power which he wields by means of his paper ; he has served for a short time in Congress, and, but for his outspoken frankness and independence of party government, would have been a senator from New York. But as editor of the Tribune he has an influence over the public mind greater than that which the President can exercise from the highest seat in the nation. I have ADVERTISING. 265 described the Tribune and the Herald as representatives of the enterprise and influence of the metropolitan press. The Times and World, the one the principal organ of the moderate Republicans, the other of the Democrats, are well known for the energy of their man agement, the ability of their writers, and the political influence which each exerts over its own party members. Besides their daily issues, these papers publish tri weekly, semi-weekly, and weekly editions, containing a compendium of the news in the preceding dailies. The semi-weekly editions are circulated largely in the rural districts ; thousands of the farmers preferring the semi-weekly from New York to the more meagre papers of their own vicinity. In remote villages of New Eng land you will find the semi-weekly Tribune arriving in large bundles at the regular intervals, industriously impregnating the yeomanry with Greeley's advanced doctrines. Several of the New York journals also issue special editions on the days when the steamers leave for Europe, to supply their subscribers abroad with the fullest and latest American news. These larger papers are printed, as are the English, on double sheets, containing eight folio pages ; when there is an unusual pressure of news, they are increased to triple sheets. The Englishman will observe them to contain many more advertisements than most English papers. The Americans advertise to a very large extent; and the native ingenuity and variety of the schemes to catch the popular eye, in the Herald or Times advertise- 266 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ments, are curious and amusing. The larger portion of the space, on the pages not given up to adver tisements, is devoted to news; telegrams, each paper having usually at least two columns of telegraphic news ; long letters from correspondents from every part of the world ; reports of courts, police, pubhc meetings, conventions, interesting events of all sorts, descriptions of new railways or buildings, proceedings in Congress or the Legislature; while a page is occupied by the news summary and the editorials. The American papers are not so well printed, or supplied with as good paper, as the English and French. The dailies devote less space to art and festhetical subjects than do the English journals ; now and then there is a column devoted to "art and literature," "foreign gossip," " short items ;" once or twice a week there are reviews of new books and magazines — somewhat oftener than the English papers notice them. Some of the papers — for instance, the Evening Post, edited by the vener able poet Bryant — aim to combine a news with a lite rary, ffisthetical, and scientific paper; but the success of these is less brilliant than that of those which con centrate their energies upon the providing of facts ; though the Post, and some others of this class, are prosperous and widely respected. There are, of course, papers which represent as a specialty each of the vari ous interests, professions, and tastes ofthe community; law reviews, medical journals, religious journals, com mercial and manufacturers' journals, phrenological ¦WEEKLY PAPERS. 267 journals, historical and statistical journals, agricultural and scientific journals, spiritualist journals; even a journal devoted to the cause of woman's rights, and a journal whose mission it is to propagate imperialism in the Republic. Of weeklies, devoted to literature of a more or less sub stantial kind, illustrated, reviews of politics and books, and repositories of sensational novels and stirring adventure, there is scarcely a less be-wildering variety. There are as yet no papers which have attained so high a hterary standard as the Spectator, Athence-um, or Saturday Revieiv ,- no papers which are everywhere recognised as worthy umpires on the merits of current literature. There has been, however, great progress in this respect within the last ten years. Several of the New York weekly journals— notably the Nation and the Independent — are not only supplied by many writers of marked abUity, but display an independence and -vigour of thought, on rehgious, political, and scientific, as well as on literary subjects, which give their utterances great weight among the higher literary circles. Their example has stimulated further attempts; and there are many signs that this department of letters in Ame rica will ere very long rival the same class of journals in England. The art of criticism — using the word in its best sense — is manifestly progressing. Such writers as Grant White and Howells, in the department of criticism, would grace the most highly regarded English columns. The newspaper iUustrations in the lighter 268 AMERICAN SOCIETY. weeklies- — those devoted to amusement rather than learning — are not equal to those of some of the London papers ; but this art is also yearly improving. There has been no American artist who could equal Leech or Cruikshank in their respective lines; but Nast and Dar- ley have at least proved that there exists much artistic genius in illustration, to be developed as time goes on. Among the weeldies which aim to supply the senti mental public with highflown romances and startling sensations, the same spirit of zealous enterprise is to be observed as has already been remarked of the great dailies. The expedients to which some of them resort, not only by advertising, but for the purpose of securing striking matter for their columns, are innumerable, and many of them amusing. The public was amazed, some years ago, to learn that the proprietor of the most sen sational of all the sensational weeklies, had engaged a series of articles from the pen of the venerable Edward Everett, the most accomplished orator, one of the most dignifled and refined scholars, and one of the most pro minent statesmen in the land. Not less so, some time afterward, to learn that the same paper had engaged the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher to write a novel — his first and last attempt in this line. The indefatigable editor was not content with this. 'When General Grant was a candidate for President, the energetic knight of the quill either went or sent to the far west, hunted General Grant's venerable father from obscurity, and, doubtless for a substantial remuneration, actually persuaded the THE PROVINCIAL PRESS. 269 aged parent to write for publication in his paper a sketch of the general's childhood and youth ! There are some sensational novelists in America who are not to be out done anywhere in their peculiar department ; the most noted perhaps are Mrs. Southworth and Sylvanus Cobb. New York by no means monopolises the best papers ; those of Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, though less elaborate, and inferior in the extent of their agencies and correspondence, are Imown for their good editorial qualities; the papers of each city reflecting faithfully the special characteristics of its people. Some ofthe "pro-vincial" papers too have won a high place in public estimation by some excellence which has distinguished them from the mass of the country press. The Spring field Republican, long edited by Dr. Holland, the author of Bitter-Sweet and Katrine, is known for its refine ment and literary polish, and its able editorials ; the Journal, of Pro^vidence, is another instance of a provin cial paper having a national reputation. Often a pro vincial journal, hitherto obscure, becomes of a sudden famous by publishing a peculiar and brilliant series of articles or letters which obtain a wide popularity. Such instances are those of the Louisville Journal, enlivened by the irrepressible ¦wit of George D. Prentice, and the Toledo Blade, which was the medium by which the humorous and satirical letters oi Petroleum V. Nasby, on political men and events, first reached the public eye. The editorial profession is one of the most direct paths to political eminence in the republic. Many of 270 AMERICAN SOCIETY. the most prominent senators, cabinet ministers, and foreign envoys have reached their positions from edito rial sanctums. Schuyler Colfax, now vice president, Mr. Blaine, the speaker ofthe House of Representatives, Mr. Anthony, formerly president ofthe senate, Mr. Ham lin, formerly vice president and now a senator, and many ofthe diplomatic corps, were editors. This is a striking proof how powerful an engine of political influence is the American press. Magazine literature was never so flourishing as it has been since the breaking out of the civil war. The magazines are generally of a higher standard, the com petition among writers ambitious of reaching literary fame by means of their columns is more sharp, and the taste for reading serials and striking papers is more general and more mature. Of quarterly reviews there are but two which are highly regarded among scholars — the North American Review and the New Englander. The former is unitarian in religious tone, and radical republican in politics ; the latter is the organ of the Yale University savants and of the " new school" con gregationalists. The North American Revieiv, under the editorship of Lowell and Norton, has taken within a few years a very high rank, and discusses every topic of interest with a force and scholarship which entitle it to be compared with the English reviews. Of monthly magazines there are many claiming the public favour, and some of them are well worthy of it. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco are each pro- MAGAZINES. 271 vided-with excellent periodicals; some of them modelled after the best English magazines ; others taking an in dependent American tone, and confining themselves in a large degree to illustrations of national habits and manners. Some are sensational magazines ; others mainly literary and critical magazines ; others quiet unpretentious magazines for home reading. The American, as the Enghsh periodicals, rely mainly for their pecuniary success upon the serial novels of weU-kno-wn writers, whether American or English. There are no popular weeklies corresponding to All the Year Round, publishing stories in serials and made up in monthly parts. There are, however, a number of "eclec tic" periodicals, which publish collections of the best ar ticles from the foreign re-views and magazines, often purchasing advance sheets of the latter with this object. The lyceum has long been an established institu tion in America ; lecturing is a distinct and to many a lucrative profession. There are few country towns which would now be content to give up their ¦winter course of lectures ; and in aU the cities a number of associations announce long hsts of lecturers for the season. It is a recreation very attractive to and eagerly anticipated by a certain class of American society. Tickets are taken for the courses in the same way as for a series of popular concerts. The lists of speakers embrace many well-kno^wn names, celebrities as well in politics, the pulpit, and science, as in the immediate domain of letters. The profession of lecturing, indeed. 272 AMERICAN SOCIETY. is in America a very tempting one. It is the first step which costs ; a first success achieved, the lecturer has a wide field, plenty to do, and excellent remuneration for doing it. Some of the most eminent Americans adopt it as their principal sphere of labour ; Ralph Waldo Emerson and Wendell Phillips are perhaps the best known and most successful lecturers. Henry Ward Beecher and many other eloquent clergymen derive a large income from their annual winter lecturing tours ; and not a few politicians and editors find it a profitable change from their professional labours to appear on the Lyceum platforms. Mr. Colfax, the present vice presi dent, became very popular as a lecturer while speaker of the lower House of Congress, taking for his subject an account of his jaunt across the continent before the days of the Pacific railroad. The lady lecturers are not the least attractive ; some of them combine personal beauty and engaging manners with a faculty of pleasing by literary grace, and of imparting a deep interest to the subject matter of their discourses. Humorists who have won a reputation by their pens are prone to take to the platform, and give a personal expression and individuality to their peculiar vein. Artemus -Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby gave a new zest and interest to their drolleries by bringing them in person on the stage. The prices paid to lecturers vary very widely, ac cording to their reputation and the pecuniary ability of the associations which engage them. The more famous have 160 dollars or 200 dollars for delivering a single LECTURING. 273 lecture; persons less Imown, who have not "got their name up," are very well content with 10 dollars and their expenses. In all the cities and larger to^wns there are spacious haUs devoted to lecturing, and societies established for the purpose of providing the public with this excellent species of entertainment. In the smaller towns and ¦villages the lectures take place in the " town haUs" or in the churches; they are often varied by concerts by local vocalists, or recitations from Shake speare and the poets. The professional lecturers who have become weU kno-wn in this field prepare in the summer and early autumn two, or perhaps three, lec tures; these are their capital for the winter. When the lecture season begins they have - received invitations to lecture in a great many places, and have so arranged them as to go in a regular trip from one town to an other, lecturing often three or four evenings in the week. The subjects are of course very various ; each lecturer choosing his own, in a field familiar to him, and furnishing the lecture committees with the topics to be pubhshed in the papers. Agassiz will entertain his hearers with some curious account of the wonders of natural history or geology ; Emerson will discourse of some high moral or philosophical topic ; Phillips will give a bitter, scathing, political essay; Whipple will produce a refined and eloquent criticism on an epoch in history or a gi-eat writer. In some cases, public- spirited persons have founded lyceums, to whose lec tures the public is admitted free, the lecturers being VOL. II. T 274 AMERICAN SOCIETY. paid from the endowment. Such is the "Lowell In stitute" in Boston. This universal custom of lyceums and lectures is readily seen to be an important and useful element in the intellectual improvement of so ciety. It takes the form of an entertainment, and it cultivates a keener taste for useful subjects. The great est teachers of morals, philosophy, and letters in the land present themselves before the audiences, and thereby give a high tone to the current of popular thought. The aid which the lyceums give in cultivating the public mind is a substantial one. The universal in telligence of the community makes them popular ; they in turn make useful learning popular. The prices of admission are moderate enough to give all an oppor tunity of hearing them ; and the prizes which the system holds out to ambitious young writers and speakers are sufficiently dazzling to keep the supply of good lecturers always equal to the demand. CHAPTER XIV. Emigration: The foreigner in America— The Germans and Irish — The prosperity of emigrants — The home stead privileges — How to get ivestern farms — The new West; its growth and advantages — The neiv South; the South as it was and as it is — Emigration to the South — Middle class emigrants. Emigration has long been to America, and is now to England, a subject of peculiar interest and importance. It has always been the boast of the Republic that it affords an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations — ^that it welcomes its citizens from every part of the world. The overcrowded nations of Europe needed thinning out; the vast unoccupied regions of America needed filling up; hence emigration. Eng land, Ireland, Germany, -with their limited territory, find it hard to give their excessive populations a sub sistence ; America provides subsistence and citizenship for every man who wiU accept them. Emigration takes its way to Australia and other distant colonies ; but the great bulk of it tends towards America, where the emi grant both has every local advantage, and is nearer his native land. The question is often asked. What the emigrants do when they reach America ? what is their 276 AMERICAN SOCIETY. position there? what fields are open to them? The thousands who, especially in the spring, weekly fill the steamers at Queenstown, Bremen, and Hamburg — what becomes of them all in their new home ? The Germans comprise the majority of the emigrants to America; next come the Irish. Both races prosper there, almost without exception ; there is congenial employment some where on the western continent for every one. Pro bably, however, few of the emigrants have a definite idea what they will do when they have crossed the At lantic. They only know that here, in the Old World, there seems to be no place for them; each seems one too many ; they find existence apparently hanging upon a daily accident. They have heard that beyond the ocean is a country where there is more than room enough for all. Friends have returned, and told the story of a market craving labour. Brothers, sons, sis ters, have sent back letters urging them to come, and have given a substantial proof of their well-being by occasional remittances. So they have laid away the hard-earned pennies and silver groschens, till their ¦I treasure has become sufficient to pay the six or seven pounds necessary to procure a steerage passage, and have taken ship in crowds, hoping that fortune would be kind when they reached the other shore. The German emigrants are apt to push westward, to found colonies, to set about subduing the vast and hitherto virgin dis tricts. The Irish, on the contrary, for the most part seem inclined to remain near the thick civilisation of the IRISH EMIGRANTS. 277 Atlantic coast. In the suburbs of almost every American town you will find an Irish colony, nicknamed by the natives "Dubhn." Here they are crowded thickly into all sorts of shanties and tumble-down frame houses, living often half-a-dozen families in a house ; yet you will seldom see among them any evidences of that squalid and desperate poverty which may be witnessed in many English and Irish towns. To be out of work is with them the rare exception. The Irish are the drudges of the American towns ; they mostly build the railroads, they invariably clean the streets, dig the gut ters, make the high roads, have charge of the sewers, are the scavengers. They are essentially the plodders, working literally by the sweat of their brows. You will see them everywhere — tugging away at quarries and stones, mending the railways, doing the farm drudgery, cleaning away mud, putting down gas-pipes, and, under a native master mason or carpenter, erecting houses, bridges, and barns. Some of the larger towns — New York, Philadelphia, Boston — are doubtless fully sup plied -with Irish labourers to fulfil these duties ; but in most of the towns the supply of them is even yet not equal to the demand. There is plenty of farm work for them in the country; but comparatively few avail themselves of it. The Irishman is by nature essenti ally social; he likes to huddle with his own country folk, although it be in a close suburb ; he hangs about the skirts of crowded cities. So long as he earns enough to live upon, and to feed his numerous brood 278 AMERICAN SOCIETY. • of children with," he is more than content — he is happy. WhUe he is away all day at his heavy drudgery his wife is washing, perhaps doing a little of the coarser kinds of sewing, perhaps acting as charwoman or day nurse. They are both good, earnest, hearty workers, going about it willingly and uncomplainingly. As for the hearty Irish girls who emigrate, the very large majority of them, as has been said, become servants. The hotels are full of Irish chambermaids, cooks, and washerwomen. The private houses, especially in the eastern states, are, in nine cases out often, supplied with Irish servants ; and, notwithstanding the extensive emigration of these girls during the past ten years, the housekeepers still complain of the scarcity of " help." These are the main occupations of the Irish e.migrants — ^the men do the hard drudgery, wherever it is to be done, and do it well ; the women wash, sew, nurse ; the young girls go out to service — are cooks, chambermaids, and nursery girls. The Germans, inconsistent as it seems to be with their solid, conservative national cha racter, are more adventurous. They become, in many cases, backwoodsmen, penetrate to the western towns, work as mechanics and as farmers. Many, however, remain in the eastern cities, and, being a steadier and more self-balanced race, they rise to a higher social grade, and procure more dignified employments, than do the Irish. The foreign population in America is an important element in society. The political parties seek their support ; they are taken into account in the fram- THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 279 ing of political platforms, in the acts of legislatures, and the pohcy of governors. The " Know Nothings" were annihUated by the foreign vote. It is a hazardous experiment for any party to advocate the closing of lager beer saloons on a Sunday. Some sons of Irish emigrants, some German refugees, have become gene rals, senators, ministers, presidents. It is this mixture of races which has given American civilisation, to a large degree, its peculiar traits and spirit. It is a truth patent to every American, that the over whelming mass of the emigrants thrive and prosper ; they gain a new lease of life beyond the Atlantic. A German pauper in America is a rare curiosity ; an Irish pauper is seldom seen : compared -with pauperism in Europe, that in America is trifling. The industrious are well nigh sure of success ; the vicious and idle, of course, come to want : it is very rarely that scarcity of work is the cause of ruin. Figures apprise us that a large majority of the perpetrators of crime in the United States — the murderers, thieves, committers of arson — are of foreign birth : in the host of emigrants, of course Europe sends to America a multitude of her criminals. America receives good and bad : the good she provides ¦with work, the bad ¦with prison cells. "Five Points" is two-thirds foreign : the riots are mostly foreign riots. These — the transplanted European vagabondage and its progeny — are to be left out of account when we speak of the emigrants and -their success in America. Not only have they, when earnestly anxious to gain a con- 280 AMERICAN SOCIETY. stant living, hitherto prospered ; but there are now op portunities open to the emigrants which vastly increase their chances of success, and vastly diminish the danger of failure. Probably there never will be — certainly there never has been — a time when there was so wide a road open to thousands of comfortable homes. A great war has depopulated and exhausted of human energy and capacity a large, most fertile and prolific, cultivated sec tion ; a great enterprise has opened the way to the even now inestimable agricultural, mineral, and commercial treasures of the far west. Of all things the republic needs, needs now more than ever, and now most of all — human labour. An Irishman or a German, with the brains to understand these two things — that he has arms and hands to work with, and that there is a place now open where arms and hands may build up fortunes and found families : such a one may gather together his little stock, and safely emigrate. The American government encourages emigration by granting public lands on easy conditions. Perhaps it wiU be interesting to give a few facts relating to the grants of homesteads. During 1867 (the latest report we have), a little less than 2,000,000 acres were taken up as homesteads. The principle of the homestead laws is, that any one who chooses to go and settle upon the surveyed, and as yet unoccupied, public lands ; who erects a dwelling and actually resides upon the domain, subdues and cultivates it, is entitled, by such an occu pation, to purchase it, to the extent of 160 acres, at the THE HOMESTEAD PRIVILEGE. 281 sum of one dollar and twenty-five cents (5s.) an acre. To be entitled to "pre-empt," or buy in his settlement, his residence upon and cultivation of it must con tinue for five years. This privilege is, however, confined to citizens of the United States, or to such persons as may have declared their intention to become citizens. To possess the necessary qualification, the foreign emi grant over twenty-one years of age may, at any time after his arrival in America, declare before any court his intention to become a citizen, and to renounce all foreign allegiance for ever. Two years after this declaration he may apply to become a citizen ; or he may so apply with out ha^ving declared such an intention, after a five years' residence in the republic. He is thereupon naturalised, and becomes a citizen with full privileges ; the condi tions being that, if a titled person, he shall renounce his titles ; that proof of a five years' residence, or of a declaration of intention, shall be adduced ; and that he shaU have resided in the state where he applies one year. The naturalised citizen's children who are minors are also regarded as citizens. Thus it will be seen that an emigrant — say from England or Ireland — who goes to America, when he arrives there, makes a formal de claration of an intention to become an American citizen ; proceeds to the west, and settles upon unoccupied land ; erects a dwelling, cuts down the forest, clears the ground, and cultivates it : thus continuing for five years, he will be entitled to buy it in at an almost nominal price. That this system has been a great boon, ahke to the na- 282 AMERICAN SOCIETY. tion and to the individual settler, is apparent by simply contemplating the American west as it was a quarter of a century ago, and as it is now. Up to June 1867 an area of more than 7,000,000 of acres had, under the provisions of the homestead laws, been actually entered upon and brought under successful cultivation ; that is, some 60,000 thriving farms, held in fee by freeholders, supplying the east with Ulimitable wheat and corn, and converting a ¦wilderness into many busy and populous communities. The law provides that three classes of persons (citizens or intended citizens) shall be entitled to " pre-empt" after the required term of residence and cultivation, namely : 1. every person being the head of a family; 2. a ¦widow; 3. a single man over the age of twenty-one years. Under the last head it has been decided that single -women over twenty-one years pos sess the right to pre-empt ; but unmarried daughters of householders, li^ving at home, cannot claim it : they must separate from their family, and that not for the purpose of " securing different tracts of land, so that the title may eventually centre in a common head ;" in short, they must be bond fide settlers and culti^vators. It is thus within the easy reach of every emigrant to America, by a few years' labour, to become the o"wner of 160 acres of land ; whereby, if he only be steady and industrious, he may make a comfortable home, produce both his necessities and his conveniences, and transmit to his children a landed proprietorship which -wiU be constantly doubling and tripling in value. I may add. BACKWOODS SETTLEMENTS. 283 that an alien over twenty-one years of age, who enlists in the regular or volunteer armies of the United States, and is honourably discharged, is admitted to citizenship after one year's residence in the country, and then, of course, enjoys the privileges of the homestead laws. Although very many of the emigrants prefer to re main in the east, whicb is ¦^hickly settled, and affords them every convenience of civilisation, this is, of all parts of America, their least profitable field. The east is almost as well supplied -with labour as the old coun tries themselves. It is in the west and in the south that pecuhar inducements are held out to the emigrant. If he goes to the west, he may procure his land at very- cheap prices, or, under the homestead law, at a nominal price. But there he has to begin at the beginning ; there nature presents its greatest obstacles ; it is there a contest between man and nature in their full strength. A settlement in the backwoods of the west is full of hardship and danger. One must live alone, at a dis tance from other habitations, in regions yet haunted by wild beasts and Indians; dependent upon himself and his o^wn unaided labour for existence from day to day. He must be a hewer of wood ; must spend years in clearing his ground, in rendering it fit to grow wheat, corn, or fruit. If, indeed, he goes thither with a mode rate sum, he can afford to purchase a property nearer the growing viUages and towns, and close upon the line of the Pacific raUway. A few hundred dollars will buy an exceUent farm, already prepared for cultivation, and 284 AMERICAN SOCIETY. within easy reach of human intercourse. But it is not only to farmers that the new west offers brilliant oppor tunities. The rapidity with which settlements are grow ing up, towns with squares, lyceums, libraries being built, and little commonwealths clustering at frequent intervals along the railway and the banks of the rivers, affords openings in many places for every variety of industry. Mills and manufactories are seen at frequent intervals by those who journey from Omaha to San Fran cisco. Builders of houses and streets— the speculators w^ho have secured their "eligible lots" — need carpenters and masons; blacksmiths and shoemakers, tradesmen and millers, are wanted. There are many promising fields for physicians, lawyers, editors, clergymen. In a word, in this new country, all are needed who aid in making up an established and fast -growing common wealth. Food is cheap in the west; labour is high. The work to be done by female hands is plenty — seam stresses, cooks, chambermaids, factory girls are wanted ; wives, too, are sadly wanted, for the women are very few in proportion to the men. A finer opportunity for the emigrant, whether male or female, whether labourer, mechanic, or professional, than the west presents, it would be hard to imagine. Let me cite a single ex ample of western prosperity and growth. Within the memory of youths still in their teens, Omaha, situated on the Missouri river, 1,300 miles west of New York, and 500 west of Chicago, was a petty hamlet, compris ing a few backwoodsmen's huts. Opposite to it was OMAHA. 286 CouncU Bluffs, a thriving frontier town. Now Omaha has far outstripped its neighbour : it has grown to con sider itself metropolitan. It has its " Academy of Mu sic," its "Tivoli Gardens;" horse cars jingle constantly over its well-paved streets; you wander along square after square of neat high houses ; it is lighted by gas ; from "First" street you go to "Twenty-second" street; the population exceeds 25,000 souls; land, at a mUe distant from the centre of trade, costs 1,000 dollars an acre ; residence lots, 130 feet deep, command 2,000 and 3,000 dollars. " There are," says a recent visitor to Omaha, " wooden shanties, along these plank sidewalks, in which the annual sales reach half a million of dollars — divided into hardware, grocery, dry goods, and drug stores, all elegantly furnished, and filled with goods from ceUar to roof. Many of the residences have ample grounds, beautiful in lawns, flowers, and shrubberries ; in shady cotton-woods, locusts, poplars, and maples, though the original prairie was naked enough." And what Omaha has grown to be within a decade, other places, many of them further west, all along the Pacific raUway, from the Missouri to the Sierra, will now be come in less than half the time. A story is told of a poor boy who, some twenty years ago, crossed the Missouri river with his ox team, on his way to the far west. Soon after the Pacific railway was completed, twenty years after, he returned eastward for the first time, on his way to visit home once more. He rode in his own special car, with his family — for he is 286 AMERICAN SOCIETY. now immensely rich, and the superintendent of the Central Pacific. And, as if to typify alike his own success and the wonderful growth of the far west, he brought with him a profusion of blooming flowers, of luscious fruits, conveyed two thousand mUes from Californian orchards, through the green valleys of the Pacific slope, and over the snow-diifts of the Rocky Mountains ; preser-ving them with ice from Alaska, the new far northern American province. The climate of the far west has long been noted for its healthfulness. The dry, bracing air — especially of Minnesota and California -— renders the west a fa vourite resort for people inclined to consumption and pulmonary complaints. Even in the hottest localities of California, where the noonday sun beats down with savage intensity, the air is not close or stifling ; but find a shade, and you find comfort ; at night you need the same blankets which you have used in winter. There are no sunstrokes, no hydrophobia known in California. The atmosphere is a mental and physical stimulant, exhilarating, bracing one up to acti^vity of movement and clearness and keenness of intellect. The people who have long lived there — the once saUow and slender Yankees as the rest — betray the influence of the chmate in their well-rounded forms, their ruddy cheeks, theh brisk walk, their cheery physical well- being. The present generation of Cahfornians are a race quite different in many respects from the Ameri cans of other sections, yet possessing withal characteris- THE SOUTH. 287 tics clearly national. Of all " wide-awake" Americans they are widest awake ; they drive business more zeal ously than the New Yorkers, enjoy themselves more keenly than the southerner, are sharper at a bargain than the New Englander. It is a ¦vigorous, healthy, cheery race — ^the last, perhaps the best, phase of the American character. The cEmate and the newness of the country have made them what they are. Once more the com mingling of races has produced a race not inferior to any of those of which it is made up, uniting to a large degree the virtues of each. That they are notably in dependent in character ; that they think freely with minds untrammeled by any traditions or convention alities, is not surprising. They have long lived apart from any neighbouring civilisation ; and between the time when gold was discovered, and that when the Pacific railroad was completed, their traits have de veloped and become estabhshed, and will now rather influence than be influenced by the more easterly com munities. In a few years the south ¦will have as completely changed its aspect as has the west ; but in a different way. In the west, the wildness of nature is replaced by human settlement, hitherto unknown to it. In the south, an old and effete civilisation is being replaced by a new. Down to the civil war, the great prevailing feature of the south — which tinged and controlled every other — ^was the system of negro servitude. Negro ser vitude was feudalism refined to its. last consequences. 288 AMEEICAN- SOCIETY. The slave-owner was rather more than a lord of the manor, the slave rather less than a vassal. Every law and social institution, every regulation of trade, every custom of agriculture, every department of thought, were dominated by the autocrats of slavery, with a view to strengthening and perpetuating slavery. Statutes were enacted, justice was administered, by slaveholders or the elect of slaveholders. The slaveholders governed, the slaves worked. But this, in a republic of theoreti cally equal men, was monstrous. It was a monopoly of a class ; there was no competition in any sphere of enterprise. It was an exclusive community, which frowned on intruders, whencesoever they might come. The results of this worse than feudal system were most startling, perhaps, in the fate of that class whom the slave-holders contemptuously called "the poor whites," and whom the slaves themselves looked down on, and nicknamed "the poor white herrings." Rome in these days of papal sovereignty, Spain with its bookless and superstitious peasants, hardly betray a more degraded, aimless, unhuman class than were the "poor whites" of the south. They were outcasts, wanderers, beggars. There was no place for them : the negro absorbed the demand for labour ; the slave-holders monopolised the land. There were no schools, where they might learn to read and write, and so become useful ; there were few factories, where they might work ; they had their homes in squalid suburbs, or out in the fields and fever- infecting morasses; they were marauders and thieves THE POOR WHITES OP THE SOUTH. 289 of the most craven, sneaking sort ; they were loafers and loungers. All ambition had become torpid in them. Generation succeeded generation in shiftlessness and misery, in ignorance, and in li^ving day by day " from hand to mouth." The slaves were, compared with them, not only happy and prosperous, but proud and intelligent. It was even a disgrace for a negro to marry a "poor white." The lowest order of negroes would sometimes consort with them, and would be shunned by the more " respectable" blacks. They were not only at the very foot of the social ladder — one might say, in a dark pit altogether underneath it — but they were sternly and indefatigably kept there by the ruling class. Let the " poor white" be, by a miracle, ambitious, there was no possibility for him to rise ; he must fret out his aspiration amid his squalid mates. The law, the judge, the press, the money, pubhc opinion, even the sentiment of the negro, was against him. He was a poor condemned Sisf phus ; the stones rolled down long before they were half way up; he poured water into buckets which had no bot tom. Such was the south — with an oligarchy of slave holders, a monopoly of slave labour, and a prostrated nether race of outcast ignorant whites — when the war came, and swept the iniquitous and too long enduring system away. It had no place in the nineteenth cen tury, and on the western continent; the remedy was terrible, but it was effectual. The result of the extinction of slavery and the VOL. II. 'u 290 AMERICAN SOCIETY. utter prostration of the south, effected by the war, has been to impoverish, to a large extent, the owners of the land, to destroy the monopoly of labour by the blacks, and to leave the country open to the capital of other sections and to free emigration. The era of tran sition from the old to the new state of things is not, indeed, ended. There is still confusion; the various classes have not yet found their places ; there is a general unsettled feeling — a feeling, in many places, of insecurity on one side and the other ; the relations of the whites and the blacks to each other are not deter mined ; the effect of a free competition between the labour of the two races, under the altered condition of the former slaves, is not clearly seen. The native whites of the south are distrustful of the new position of the negro ; what ¦will be the result of his freedom, his civil equality, his exercise of the suffrage ? There are frequent troubles — now and then a riot, now and then brutal outrages committed by the one race upon the other. Domains bounteously blessed by nature lie idle and unproductive amid the suspense and mystery of transition. The rich farms of the Virginian valleys, the prolific cotton plantations and rice fields of the far south, await a settled society and an assured order. The old owners are too poor or too distrustful of en franchised labour to resume an energetic cultivation. The capitalists of the north are timid to invest in a region which has suffered from the shocks of a long war, and which still seems, here and there, fitfully THE SOUTH IN TRANSITION. 291 volcanic. Emigration is shy of a country where the relations of labour, the rivalry of labouring races, can not well be now adjusted ; besides that, the chmate of the south renders it doubtful to the emigrants whether, in the broUing suns and stifling heat, white labour can really compete ¦with the black labour which has always been at home there. There seems, however, no reason to believe that the disturbed condition of the south, and of labour there, is chronic. A whole system, deep seated m every in stitution, custom, and law, has been ¦violently uprooted ; the completest of revolutions, social and political, has taken place. Were not some confusion of years to ensue, it would be miraculous. The present unsettle- ment is natural, logical, necessary. Did it not exist, the state of the south would be abnormal and unprece dented. At least, the " irrepressible conflict" of which Lincoln spoke, is over, and cannot be repeated. The disturbed condition of the south, natural as it is, is but temporary. It is but the chaos of transition. Out of it, in due time, will certainly come order and tranquil lity. The section must become accustomed to its new state ; the negro and the white must realise, by an ex perience doubtless difficult, yet salutary, their novel position. The new state organisations — and their con stitutions, as I have said, are in some respects improve ments on those of New England itself— must get into working order ; free schools are already established in many parts for both whites and blacks, taught by both 292 AMERICAN SOCIETY. male and female teachers.; the negroes are forming associations of mutual help and encouragement in la bour and in political progress. At Charleston, in South Carolina, which was, a decade ago, the veiy centre and " hotbed" of the slavery and secession party, the city corporation has of its own motion organised free schools for both races ; and these schools — so has time effected wondrous .changes — are taught by sons and daughters of the once haughty slave aristocracy. A traveller to the south tells us that he recently visited a negro school at Charleston containing one thousand pupils: "the exercises in various studies," says he, "are as thorough as I have ever seen in any school. I doubt whether there is a school in America better organised ; and the system is the same, as that ofthe Boston schools. At flrst, coloured parents, were suspicious, but gradually the school filled." I look to these agents — to free republican state governments, .to emigration, and to education — to regenerate, revivify, re-tranquillise, and re-enrich the south. Moreover, the troubles which we ever and anon hear of as occurring in the south, seem to be rather of a po litical than of a labour nature. There is, among those who are interested in emigration in Europe, a fear that foreign emigrants will come into collision with the negroes. They would, . it is thought, fare badly in a rivalry with the former slave labourers. This probably arises from an erroneous impression of the causes of the existing confusion. I do not believe these fears to LABOUR IN THE SOUTH. 293 be well grounded. There is little danger of a rivalry detrimental to foreign emigrants as long as the south is 'as ill supplied with capital and labour as it is now. The south needs these, above all. It_; needs energetic men -with money to buy in the idle estates which are going to vs^aste for want of cultivation.. It needs la bourers to fill up the thinned ranks ofthe negro labour ers, decimated by the war.- Every day the security of person and property increases, as the political settle ment becomes more and more assured. The south presents an opening, not only for the moneyless emi grant who would earn his subsistence by the hard toil of his hands and the sweat of his brow, but' also for men of the middle class with moderate fortunes, to buy the farms, and instead of living meagrely all their hves in overcrowded Europe, to double and triple their capital almost in geometrical progression. The de mand for the labouring class of emigrants may be judged from the fact that associations have been formed to introduce Coolie and. Chinese labourers into the south. But the preference would certainly be given to European labour, did it freely enter the market. It is hardly any longer doubtful that it is possible for white men to work, even in the cotton and rice fields ofthe "gulf" states.* The largely prevailing testimony from those who have either tried or seen tried the ex periment, indicates that, excepting in some few locali- * A Charleston (South Carolina) paper states that 200,000 whites are no-w successfully worldng the cotton fields in that state. 294 AMERICAN SOCIETY. ties, this is quite practicable. Enterprising southerners have personally made the test in Mississippi and Ala bama — extreme southern states — and declare that la bourers from Europe, new to the work, may engage in the cotton culture to great advantage, and with good health. The climate is not so ruinous to the consti tution as has been imagined. In some of the states, for instance in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, the country is very healthy, for but a short period op pressively hot ; and here are lying idle, farms probably not equalled, for capacity of productiveness, in the British Isles. The southern planters are not yet, it is true, in a position to pay wages for the labour which they employ ; ready money is very scarce. Those who do pay wages, give able workmen twelve or fourteen dollars a month, besides their board and lodging. The prevailing system is cooperative ; the labourer receives one half of the crop, paying the expenses of cultivation, and is also provided -with a house and garden ; or he receives a third ofthe crop, without defraying the ex pense of cultivating. Thus the emigrant — supposing he were to choose the south in preference to the west — would prosper according to his energy and abilities. English testimony is added to American as to both the practicabUity and healthfulness, and the peculiar ad vantages offered by the south to emigration. English men who have been there assert that their countrymen now residing and working in the south have done well and are now prospering. Land is cheap, easily acces- ENGLISH EMIGRATION TO THE SOUTH. 295 sible — perhaps the average price is twelve shillings an acre ; timber is plentiful ; the water is good ; the crops are almost certain, and command high prices ; the mar kets are near and easily reached; emigrants, "especi ally if they are direct from England," says one who should know, are cordially welcomed. The emigration which, sooner or later, from the northern states. Great Britain and Ireland, and Ger many, is sure to pour southward, will doubtless form what has hitherto been wanting in that section — an independent, thriving, substantial middle class. The negroes, while some of them -will rise to be legislators. lando-wners, doctors, la-wyers, clergymen, even ambas sadors, will probably as a mass long continue as the lower labouring and servant class. There will, then, be the wealthy farmers and planters, the moderate emi grant farmers and the upper stratum of labouring emigrants, and the negro labourers and servants. All will be civiUy and politically equal ; I believe, too, that ¦within two generations, men of any colour or condition who cannot read and write will be as rare in the south as they are now rare in Massachusetts. There will be — there is indeed now — an open chance for every man to rise ; society will be republican, men's own merits wUl tell on their fortunes and their social standing. There will be no " hard and fixed line" between the classes spoken of. Every one, by his own capabilities and energy, will freely rise or gravitate to his proper place. I can only indicate the opportunities which the 296 AMERICAN SOCIETY. west, and more especially the south, present to the European emigrant ; the ways and means of reaching the field of his future destiny, how he will manage to live at first, are matters which depend on a variety of circumstances. He must have money enough to give a range to accidents and unforeseen delays. "Wherever he goes, it will not probably be at first an easy exist ence. Emigration is at best, on many accounts, pain ful. Associations exist to aid emigrants ; more will doubtless be formed. Neither the American nor the English government as yet give a direct assistance to them ; it may be questioned whether it is not the true policy of both to do so. England needs thinning out ; America filling up. How, to what extent, under what safeguards such aid could be given, are knotty points. The middle-class emigrants — the younger sons of gentlemen, the children of poor clergymen, the trades men, the farmers, have at least no reason to fear that, in the south and west, conventionality will hamper their action. No one will think the worse of them for working ; if they drive their loads of produce to market, are seen drudging in the fields, or carrying bundles, or mending wagons, or dressed in coarse labouring garb ; so long as their employment is honest and useful, it is not only not degrading — it is respected. There is no " losing caste" by using whatever abilities or forces one can. Let him overcome his own prejudices, and for once make up his mind that to work is honourable, to be idle miserable and a stigma, and he will not fail to THE PROSPECT BEFORE THE EMIGRANT. 297 prosper. There is no place there for genteel poverty, and slothfulness kept alive by a grinding economy on a pittance already possessed. To produce and repro duce — to double and triple the ten talents in hand; these are the proper objects of the emigrant, which, by industry and perseverance, he can hardly fail to achieve.* * For some statistics of emigi-ation, see Appendix, Note A. CHAPTER XV. The Chinese in America. It is not the least curious fact in the sudden growth of the Pacific states, that there should have been so large an immigration into them from the Orient. China too, ¦with its four hundred miUions of population, needed thinning out ; and thousands have transferred their for tunes from the oldest to the youngest of empires. It is a moderate estimate to state the number of Chinese who have taken up their abode in various sections of the states bordering on the Pacific at one hundred thousand, and that they comprise about one-fourth of the adult male population. They have been for the past few years arriving in constantly increasing num bers, and have scattered themselves in the cities, vil lages, and the open country between the ocean and the Rocky Mountains. They are, perhaps, most numerous in California and near its larger towns ; but Chinese settlements are also to be found in the territories of Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. Like the Irish, the Chinese are prone to huddle together in a quarter of their own. Every town and hamlet has appended to it a " China town," which is invariably found to be its CHINESE SETTLERS. 299 most dilapidated, poverty-stricken, and squalid suburb. They are even more clannish and shy of the world than the Irish; for they live wholly, or as far as possible, by themselves, manifest little disposition to learn the customs, laws, and manners of the community, take no interest in politics or public events, and apparently sedulously seek to shut out all modernising influences. The earhest Chinese emigrants betook themselves to surface mining — they could not be made to engage in deep mining — to cloths washing, the digging of gutters and sewers, and the constructing of roads. When their good qualities as labourers became more apparent, and it was seen how humble were their needs, how moderate their desires, how patiently and steadily they toiled, how easily they were contented and controlled, — their sphere of usefulness ¦widened, until now they are em ployed in a great variety of the departments of labour. You may find them working by the hundred— many of them adhering to the ruder sort of Oriental costumes — in the woollen mills ; at many of the hotels and dwell ing houses Chinamen are superseding the chamber maids and cooks, and become expert in the making of beds and the concoction of favourite dishes. The women who toil for a living may well look with jea lousy and dislike upon the little, leather - skinned, squint-eyed emigrants from the East ; for not only do they do household work much more cheaply, and quite as weU, but are found to be excellent hands with sewing machines, at shoe-binding, at tailoring, and at bag and 300 AMERICAN SOCIETY. box fashioning. The steadiness, thoroughness, and care with which they work make them admirable gar deners, and even farmers; it is noted that the best fruits and vegetables come from the orchards and gar dens which they have cultivated. They lack the spirit and ambition to acquire land, and to become independ ent husbandmen themselves ; they toil for others, under the supervision of others, for a pittance, and are con tent. Not only is it found profitable to employ the Chinese in making railways and high roads, in felling ¦wood and gleaning fruit, as shepherds and operatives, as tailors and cooks ; they are also to be found rolling cigars and firing engines, making tin wares and wooden wares, doing fancy painting and fitting upholstery, act ing as butchers, and mending Yankee-made clocks and watches. Chinese apothecaries put up prescriptions for you ; Chinese bar-keepers shake you up a cock tail, or mix you a delicious rum punch. All the lighter employments, which need manual deftness, which can be performed without an appeal to the brain, the .Chinaman does well, more cheaply than any one else, and with great facility. They take no pains to learn English ; they read, write, talk the innumerably-lettered language of Confucius. Yet there are Chinamen in California who set types, who put up an English newspaper from leader to advertisement, swiftly and correctly, being the while in total ignorance ofthe meaning of every letter which they put in its place. They are ready, even anxious, to learn everything by CHINESE LABOUR. 301 which they may earn money ; they obstinately refuse to learn anything else. They are surprisingly imitative, and soon catch the trick of doing what they, see done by others. They resemble the tortoise rather than the hare, are far slower in their work than the Irishman or American ; but what they do is done steadily, is continued patiently and without intermission, and is more substantial and complete when accomplished. They have not the physical strength of the European, but are less fitful in their energies ; they make up for their inferior prowess by steadiness and unequalled patience. The cheapness and steadiness with which the Chinese work have aroused against them a hostile feeling among the other labouring people, which has been utilised by pohticians in subjecting them to unequal and unjust laws. Their situation in California is, on this account, not an enviable one. A tax of four dollars a month is levied upon the Chinese miners, designed to protect the other miners from the consequences of the small wages which the Chinese are content to receive. This is, in deed, the only tax which weighs especially on the Chinese ; but they are followed up in the collection of the other taxes with exceptional rigour. But taxation is not the heaviest of the Chinaman's burdens. He is subjected, more than any other class, to high charges of rent,to high way robberies and burglaries, which are committed ¦with the greater impunity that the Chinese are timid and will not fight, and that — what is certainly disgraceful 302 AMERICAN SOCIETY. to California legislatures — the Chinese are not allowed to testify in the courts of justice against the whites. StiU, it is not true that the Chinese are not protected in person and property. They walk the streets in safety, and their quarter is as well guarded as practicable — it is not always practicable in remote parts — ^from the de predations of thieves and ruffians. While the labouring classes detest them, and doubtless would, if they could, prohibit Chinese immigration into the Pacific states, the great corporations, the employers of labour, the tradesmen protect them, and encourage their coming. The Chinese have thus two allies — the constitution, which forbids the prohibition of immigration, and the power of capital. The early manifestations of hostility to them have, to a large degree, ceased. Formerly, woollen mills which employed the Chinese were burned to the ground; now, every woollen mill employs as many Chinese as possible. A year ago, the Chinese who superseded the Irish in grading the streets of San Francisco were cruelly mobbed by the Hibernians whom they had displaced ; now, ten Chinese are employed in this kind of work to one Irishman. There is at once clearly seen a marked difference between this immigration from the celestial empire and that which has found its way to America from Europe. The difference between the Chinaman and the African, in their respective new conditions, is quite as striking. European immigration has consisted of races in many respects simUar to the American people. It CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS. 303 has been composed of elements which have with little difficulty moulded themselves into a homogeneous com munity. It has been quite possible to Americanise them ; they have readily imbibed the spirit of Ame rican institutions and habitudes. The negro, too, was a pure barbarian ; he had nothing to unlearn ; he was open to impressions and influences. He had no past to interpose itself and resist the customs of the American community. But the Chinese are both totaUy unlike the European and the American, and are deeply imbued ¦with a venerable history and a proud civilisation of their own. They are celestials ; all other races are sublunary to them. Their ideas are rooted in the learning and superstition, the manners and customs, which are now but what they were in times long anterior to those of Moses. They are vain and stubborn in their national beliefs ; there is to them no civUisation comparable to that which betrays itself at Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is true that to a certain extent the Chinese become Americanised ; they learn how to barter and make bargains, to be keen at a trade, to labour in directions wholly unknown in their own empire ; they sometimes consent to throw offJtKTr washbowl - shaped hats, their bulging trousers, their turned-up shoes, for the customary apparel of their new homes; but they continue to observe the essential habits of the Orient. The Californian Chinaman is a superficially altered Chinaman of Canton — outwardly S04 , AMERICAN SOCIETY. somewhat changed, inwardly the same being. They are stUl addicted to lying, stealing, and perjury; to infan ticide, abduction, and mercenary assassination. They are filthy in their habits ; their quarters are squalid and offensive. They form secret associations, and within these they govern, punish, and correct each other. Of American politics they have apparently not the faintest knowledge, or desire for knowledge; the Christian re ligion is not only an enigma to them, but an enigma which they are not in the least anxious to solve. They are forbidden the right of suffrage, and prudently ; for they would, if voters, be but the puppets of employers or of rogues. They even manifest little or no disposition to be naturalised; for they all regard their residence in America as but temporary, and look forward to the time when, having amassed a sufficient sum, they will return to the celestial empire, and live out their days in plenty. What is to be the result of this fast-in creasing Chinese immigration into America, drawn from an exhaustless supply of 400,000,000 people ; how it is to affect labour throughout the republic; whether it will stop at the Rocky Mountains, or advance toward the Atlantic coast; how it will influence the relations of the different sections ; whether the Chinese will gradu ally be moulded into homogeneity with the rest of the nation, or whether they will prefer to continue to be a nation within a nation ; whether they will, in the end, force back and put an end to immigration from THE FUTURE OF CHINESE EMIGRATION. 305 Europe, supplying everywhere the demand for labour at rates so cheap as to make it impossible for Europeans to compete with them, — are questions even now earnestly agitated in America, but which can only be solved by that which unravels all enigmas — Time. VOL. II. CHAPTER XVI. The Extent and Productions of the United States. The domain of the United States comprises all that territory which lies between the Atlantic on the east, the Pacific on the west, the British American provinces on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico on the south. Its sway also extends over Alaska, the dis- - trict lying north of British America, which was recently purchased by the United States from Russia. The republic possesses no distant colonies, and has confined its exertions to populating the vast area of its vacant lands and bringing them under cultivation. Leaving out Alaska, the United States is contained between latitudes 24° 20' and 49° north, and longitudes 10° 14' east, and 47° 30' west. The population of the United States in 1860, when the last census was taken, was 34,560,000, to 38,192,000 in France, 29,321,000 in Great Britain, and 77,000,000 in Russia. It is probable that the in habitants of the republic under the census of 1870 will nearly if not quite reach 40,000,000. The area of the United States has increased with singular rapidity during its brief history. In 1783, when the independ ence of the states was conceded by Great Britain, its INCREASE OP TERRITORY. 307 whole territory was comprised in about 800,000 square miles. Not long after, the French colony of Louisiana was ceded to the republic by the Emperor Napoleon I. ; Florida was next bought from Spain, Texas was ad mitted into the group of states, Oregon was acquired by treaty, California was conquered from the Mexicans and Arizona was obtained from the same nation by nego tiation, and finally Alaska, ¦with nearly 600,000 square miles, was added to the domain. Thus, in the space of eighty-four years, the territory of the United States increased from 800,000 to 3,578,000 square miles. It is interesting to observe that the territory of the Bri tish possessions in America comprises about 3,600,000 square miles, being not far from the same area as that occupied by the American republic : while the area of the United Kingdom itself is but about 121,000 square miles. The area of the United States is a little less than half of that of all the North American continent. The sea coast bordering the states extends on the At lantic for 2,163 miles, on the Pacific 1,343 miles, and' on the Gulf of Mexico, 1,764 miles. The states of Minnesota, Virginia, Texas, Florida, California, Oregon, Missouri, Kansas, and Georgia have each a larger area than that of England and Wales. New York is the most populous state, having a popula tion of something over 4,000,000, of which the city of New York contributes about 760,000. The rapid pro gress of the population has been marked ; in 1812 the inhabitants of the United States numbered 7,500,000; S08 AMERICAN SOCIETY. now the two states of New York and Pennsylvania alone equal those numbers. From 1812 to 1860 the popula tion of the republic quadrupled. A brief survey of the productions and industries of the several states ¦will show how various are the advan tages, how prolific the soil, how adapted to every depart ment of human effort is the broad belt ofthe western continent, occupied by the Union. The country con tains ¦within itself resources so numerous as to make it self-dependent, absolutely needing no foreign aid, and capable, if necessary, of confining itself to its own pro ductions. Maine, the most north-easterly state, lying along the borders of Lower Canada, having an exten sive sea coast, excellent harbours and noble rivers, presents fine opportunities for ship building and those manufacturing establishments which rely upon water power. But perhaps its chief production is timber. In the interior there are vast forests, supplying its sister states with the material for buildings and ships; and agriculture is in some parts of the state a profitable calhng. New Hampshire, the " granite state," must have been hard to subdue to the plough and the seed, for it is rocky, bare, and hleak ; yet husbandry is its main prop, and Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, and hay are successfully raised there. There are also in this state many manufactories, especially at Manchester, which are supplied by the broad Merrimac, the Cocheco, the Saco, and other rivers. Vermont is an inland state, and like its neighbour. New Hamp- RESOURCES OF THE EASTERN STATES. 309 shire, relies mainly on agriculture; besides the products named as those of New Hampshire, Vermont produces hops and buckwheat. It is a fine country for dairies, and for making sugar from the sweet maple; within its limits are mines of copper and iron, as well as slate and granite quarries, and there is a growing lumber trade. Massachusetts is noted at once for its excellent farms, its extensive manufactures of cottons, woollens, and especially of boots and shoes, its ports, and its whale, mackerel, and cod fisheries. Much attention is paid in its agricultural districts to the raising of pork, sheep, and cows; and butter, cheese, and honey are among its productions. Rhode Island is the seat of many important manufactures of cotton and woollen materials ; it is less agricultural than a dairy country. Connecticut is also a manufacturing state, producing, as well as cottons, india-rubber goods, sewing-machines, and many smaller useful articles. Along the banks of its beautiful rivers, the Connecticut and the Farming- ton, are to be found many fertile farms, and especially large tracts planted with tobacco : tobacco of a good quality grows there, and an active industry is that of tobacco-curing and cigar-making. The state of NewYork is large enough, and various enough in soil, climate, and the boons of nature, to in clude ¦within its limits almost every variety of civilised effort. Its agricultural districts are rich and fertile; it possesses the finest harbour on the continent, where seven-eighths of the imports to the United States are 310 AMERICAN SOCIETY. entered ; it has rivers large and picturesque, delightful to the eye, and blessed to the sons of toil ; it far surpasses every other state in the magnitude of its commerce ; it contains extensive canals, and is checked and cross checked with railroads ; finally, its manufactures are very important, and it produces timber, marble, and iron in considerable quantities. During 1867, the customs receipts at the port of New York alone amounted to 23,000,000L ; more than 64,000,000L worth of goods passed in one year over the canals ofthe state. The vast commerce which tides from the almost boundless west Europeward, pours through New York state and to New York city; and that metropolis cannot but greatly increase in activity and wealth now that the Pacific railroad has linked it with the prolific wheat lands and mines of the Pacific coast, and perhaps also with the inestimable trade which is destined to grow up between the far Orient and the more civilised continents. Pennsylvania is divided between farming and mining ; it is the foremost state in the production of coal, iron, and petroleum : of the latter, 40,600,000 gallons were exported from PhUadelphia in 1868. About 80 per cent of all the coal produced in the United States comes from Pennsylvanian mines, and more than half the iron ; its interior lands are prolific in cereals and roots, in rye, buckwheat, and oats. The little state of New Jersey may perhaps be fitly called the "garden state." Its fruits and vegetables are nowhere excelled ; its peaches, pears, grapes, sweet potatoes, are especially renowned ; SOUTHERN PRODUCTIONS. 311 it possesses zinc and iron mines, and is beginning to be the seat of flourishing manufactures. Delaware is also a fruit and vegetable state ; has some lumber, and an increasing manufacturing interest. When we reach Maryland and Virginia, we approach the richly-productive southern region. Here we find excellent tobacco — the principal seat of that tobacco which is sent, to be smoked in pipes or chewed, all over the world. Grains and fruits also flourish ; and there are a few mines. We have left the great manu facturing country in the north-eastern and middle states. Perhaps there are few spots on the American continent better adapted to the husbandman than the lovely and now historic Virginian valley ofthe Shenandoah. North Carolina is also agricultural ; but it has also extensive fisheries, which yield quantities of shad, herring, rock, perch, and blue-fish ; in its jagged and irregular surface it produces gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, coal, and plumbago — about 50,000L ofgold being yearly obtained. Going southward to South Carolina, we come upon some of the distinctively southern productions, especially that crop upon which many foreign industries have almost wholly depended. Here are extensive cotton-fields ; and South Carolina produces more rice than all the other states together, over 100,000,000 pounds of it yearly : Indian corn, wheat, and rye are products of the interior. Georgia is the principal manufacturing state in the south. It possessed, before the civil war, 1,800 manufactories. Georgia is also noted for its siveet potatoes, its cotton. 312 , AMERICAN SOCIETY. and its mines of gold, iron, and marble. In Florida we reach that luxuriance of growth which marks Italy, southern Spain, and Greece — a growth produced by hot suns and an equable climate: cotton and sugar, rice and corn, oranges, pine-apples, bananas, figs, dates, lemons, and citrons abound there, and grow with little care. Alabama is the foremost cotton state, producing, in 1860, nearly a million bales: sugar and rice, pine lumber, and coal, iron, limestone, and marble are among its most valuable resources. Mississippi is mainly agricultural, being the third state in producing cotton, and yielding also large crops of rice and sugar. Louisiana is per haps the most prolific of the " gulf" states, the states which border on the Gulf of Mexico. Its lower lands, near the gulf, are inexhaustible, apparently, in their capacity of production : sugar, corn, and potatoes are extensively grown ; in the south, rice, sugar, and to bacco flourish, and there is a most favourable district for pasturing and grazing in the vast flat meadows of the Opelousas prairies ; and wood is very abundant — ash, cypress, pine, and gum yielding large profits. New Orleans, the principal port of Louisiana, is the great, almost the exclusive, cotton market ; it is to the south what New York is to the north and west, the emporium of its commerce, the centre of export and import. Texas, with its area of 247,300 square miles, is an immense tract, thinly settled, but possessing signal ad vantages. Its soil is almost uniformly fertile, and is to a large extent virgin, awaiting to reward with its yet tHE S0UTH--WE STERN STATES. 313 untouched bounties the pioneer farmer. Its climate is even and mild — far more healthy than the contiguous country of Mexico. It offers pastures which may be utihsed from one year's end to the other. It yields a perennial growth to the husbandman. Vast forests cover its hills and valleys ; the timber is of excellent quality. All the southern crops flourish there, and it is now the most extensive ofthe cattle-gro^wing states. It has mineral resources, the extent of which has not yet been discovered, but which, from the discoveries aheady made, give great promise. Cultivated farms may now be bought there for from 11. to 11. 10s. per acre; while, to the adventurous pioneer, who is ready to subdue the stiU wild but fertUe regions of the in terior, land is offered at as low a price as a shilling an acre. Arkansas and Missouri are, like Texas, rich and various in soil, and produce crops and minerals similar to those of Texas. The Mississippi river, its branches, and the tributaries in its valley, provide some twenty thousand miles of navigation. St. Louis, in Missouri, situated near the junction of the Missouri and the Mis sissippi rivers, is a depot both of the communication of the far west and south with the east, and of the far west, the north, and the east with the south. It is the midway emporium between San Francisco and New York, between Minnesota and Nebraska and New Or leans. It is one of the most rapidly-gro^wing cities of the Union, having been thirty years ago a frontier vil lage, and now fast becoming the rival of Chicago, New 314 AMERICAN SOCIETY. York, and San Francisco in population and wealth. To estimate the resources and the future industrial great ness of the west — beginning at Ohio, and extending-^ three thousand miles to the Pacific — is a difficult task. " Westward the star of empire takes its way." That is notably true of America. There — between the frontiers of civilisation and the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, beyond the Rocky Mountains, in the valleys which lie between them and the Sierra Nevada, and through the regions extending northward to the boundary of British America, and southward to the Rio Grande — there are vast solitudes, yet untrodden by civilised man, the "de lectable hunting grounds" of the Indian tribes, the boundless homes of buffaloes, deer, and panthers, with streams beneath whose banks lie secret deposits of gold and silver; mountains where are hid every ore which can minister to the needs of man ; forests to burn, to build, and from which to extract useful juices and "medicinal gum;" hill sides for future innumerable herds and flocks ; and rivers on whose banks there will one day rise cities and commonwealths. Ohio, the most easterly of the so-called western states, was largely populated by settlers from the New England states ; its resources have been utilised and its lands cultivated with all that energy which marks the New England character. It is a fine country for fruits, and along the banks of the Ohio river vineyards abound, producing grapes for ¦wine making, particularly the Catawba grape, from which a rich sparkling wine is manufactured. THE NORTH-WESTERN STATES. 315 Ohio is famous for its wheat and corn crops, and for its horses, sheep, and wool. It has 12,000 square mUes of coal mines, and iron is extensively found ; there are also some petroleum wells. Its contiguity with Lake Erie gives Ohio facilities for inland commerce, and the Ohio river and its branches, and several canals, also afford important commercial advantages. Indiana and lUinois are great and growing states, having wide ex panses of prairie, considerable coal, lead, and marble, some gold, copper, and sUver, and many vineyards and thriving farms. Illinois is particularly noted for its extensive wheat crops ; and Chicago, its principal city, having a fine harbour on Lake Michigan, has certainly had a wonderful growth, and is the great centre of communication between the far west and the Atlantic seaboard. Kentucky is an agricultural, mineral, and grazing state ; Tennessee, yielding the same products, is more fertile and prolific, and grows cotton to some extent. Michigan, which in 1820 was almost a wilder ness, and the extreme limit of ci-vilised settlement, now contains about a miUion inhabitants, and is rich in its crops of fruits, grains, hay, maple sugar, wool, and tobacco. Lumber, copper, silver and iron are among its resources. There are yet vast tracts of rich and unoccupied land in Michigan, which can be bought at trifling prices, the value of which is yearly increasing, and which afford an excellent opportunity to the emi grant and the pioneer. Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska 316 AMERICAN SOCIETY. are examples of young western states, which are grow ing so fast, thanks to emigration and native adventurous spirit, that no precise data can be given at a particular time as to their population, and extent of cultivation. They are rapidly being occupied and filled up ; cities and to'wns spring up. there almost in a night. Railroads, telegraph lines, and high roads are constantly being con structed ; the prairies are being subdued to yield large crops of wheat and other cereals ; mines are being dis covered and worked ; the forest is receding, and its lumber sent down the rivers to be used for building and burning. The territories, not yet become states, lying between the western line of states and those of the Pacific coast, comprise rich mines of gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, and hon, and for the most part fertile lands, awaiting the approach of emigration and pioneer enterprise. They abound in noble rivers, in lofty mountains; in some places there are vast deserts; on almost every hand pre cious metals and ores come to light as the country is explored. Colorado has produced more than 30,000,000 dollars of gold and silver ; Idaho and Montana, each 25,000,000; Oregon state and Washington territory, 25,000,000; Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, 5,000,000. The state of California — which may be called the golden El Dorado for which the Spaniard sighed, but which he failed to discover — had produced, up to 1868, 900,000,000 doUars in gold and silver ; and its sister state of Nevada, lying between California and Utah, CALIFORNIA. 317 produced 100,000,000. The total yield of the western states and territories up to 1868 was 1,000,000,000 in gold, and 100,000,000 in silver. California, just united by the Pacific railway ¦with her eastern sister states, seems to possess inexhaustible resources for the husbandman, the merchant, and the miner. San Francisco, its principal city, possesses the best harbour on the American Pacific coast, and its trade with Japan and China, and now, through New York, with Europe, is increasing every day. The mines- of California are sufficiently described by the figures I have just given ; its agricultural advantages are perhaps quite as valuable and important. Eighty-nine milhons of acres in the state are suited to the several branches of husbandry. Forty milhons are fit for the plough ; the rest present excellent facilities for the raising of stock, the growing of fruit, and garden productions. The agri cultural area of California is larger than that of the United Kingdom, and larger than that of the entire peninsula of Italy. The range of its agricultural pro ductions is a very wide one ; its climate is one of the finest and healthiest, one of the most equable and best suited to farming, in the world. Its wheat crops are im mense; barley, oats, and potatoes, hops, tobacco, hay, and sorghum, corn, cotton, and the sugar cane, and almost every known variety of garden vegetables, are grown there in abundance. The fruits of California are not surpassed, perhaps not equalled, in the United States, fpr variety, quantity, and richness of quahty. In every 318 AMERICAN SOCIETY. part of the state, strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, figs, grapes, apples, peaches, and pears are cultivated; in the northern part quinces, plums, and cher ries, apricots and nectarines ; and in the southern part oranges and lemons, citrons and olives, pomegranates and aloes, walnuts and almonds, currants, prunes, pine apples, bananas, cocoanuts and plantains, are plenteous. There are few parts of the world where fruit trees grow so rapidly, bear so early, so regularly, and so abundantly, produce fruits so various and of such size and quality as on the southern coast of California. Of the Califor nian fruits perhaps the pear is the favourite ; the Cali fornian pears are delicious in flavour and are remarkably large. The grapes are well adapted to -wine making, and the Californian "hock" and " sparkling Catawba" and "Catawba brandy" are beginning, in the eastern states, to compete with the wines of Spain, Portugal, the Rhine, and France. The vineyards yield something like two thousand pounds of grapes per acre, and some times they produce even twenty thousand. Wine to the amount of 300,000 dollars was exported from Cali fornia in 1868. California is rapidly developing many new industries, as well as increasing the facilities for impro-ving those established early in its history as a state. Mining, which was begun -nith pick, shovel, and rocker, is now carried on -with delicate and intricate machinery. Fruit raising led to wine making. Wool growing led the way to manufactures. The enterprise of the people has discovered yet more remarkable re- THE FUTURE OF AMERICA. 319 sources. One is the cultivation of the olive, which thrives in every part of the state, the olives being both eaten as fruit and used for making olive oil. This pro duction must in time become very profitable ; the olive is of slow gro-wth, but when mature is wonderfully pro- hfic and lasting. The advent of the Chinese suggested the trial of tea planting ; and the hopes of those who have introduced the plant are raised high by their first experiment. Another novelty has been what may per haps now be stated as the successful rearing of the silk worm. The worm thrives in California, and produces its young in great plenty. A year ago California be gan to export silkworm eggs to France and Italy ; it is claimed that they are the best and healthiest in the world. From these facts it may be seen how various are the resources which minister to the present generation and await the future generations in America. In the older states the productions and industries, far from exhausting the soil and the capabilities of the country, have but been developed so that they may be estimated. In the newer states and territories the resources of the continent are as yet only to be conjectured. It would be hard to point out any production or industry known to civilisation, which some part or other of the United States is not capable of developing. With such pos sessions already assured, and such promises for the future, it is only by the misdeeds of humanity that the country can fail to prosper. Providence and nature 320 AMERICAN SOCIETY. have been bountiful, have left nothing to be desired ; wise statesmanship, public virtue and intelligence, a liberty just and evenly measured to all, will be the agencies at once to improve to their highest uses the great gifts of Providence, and to make those gifts a, perpetual blessing to all the people. APPENDIX. Note A (p. 297). It may be useful to those readers who are especiaUy inter ested in the subject of emigration, if I give a few statistics derived from official sources. The official reports show the numbers, destination, and nationahty of the emigrants from the United Kingdom, from 1853. Here are the tables, in groups of five years, sho-wing the numbers of Enghsh, Scotch, and Irish emigrants who have gone to the British Colonies, the United States, and other locahties respectively : 1853 to 1857 inclusive. English. Scotch. Irish. BritiBli Colonies . . TJnited States Other places . . 198,904 . . . 154,578 . 618 . . 63,969 . . 26,605 . 226 . . 128,676 . 450,066 892 1858 to 1862 inclusive. British Colonies . . United States Other places 92,912 . . . 64,011 . 1,081 . . 38,731 . . 10,713 . 630 . . 55,514 . 186,511 1,074 1863 to 1867. British Colonies . . TJnited States . . Other places . . 115,639 . . . 169,849 . 8,068 . . 37,173 . . 30,103 . . 1,032 ' . 81,352 . 437,055 1,560 VOL. II- Y 322 AMERICAN SOCIETY. It may he added, that the average annual emigration for the decade ending 1867 faUs much below that of the preced ing decade. In the past ten years the average annual emi gration was 161,915; in the preceding, 275,276. The faUing oif was mainly in agricultural labourers : the industrial trades' emigraiits have rather increased. The greatest number of emigrants landing in any one year at New York was in 1854, when, there were 319,223. The tide of emigration fell to its lowest ebb in 1861, when but 65,500 landed at ISTew Tort. This may be accounted for by- the breaking out of the civil war in that year. In 1865, at the close of the war, the tide of emigration again set in, and the arrivals at I^ew York numbered 196,352; in 1866, 233,418; m 1867, 242,731; in 1868, 213,866; and up to July in 1869, 253,754. The re lative emigration of Irish to the United States has decreased since 1851. In 1868 the Irish numbered only a little over one-fifth of the emigTants. On the other hand, emigration from England is manifestly increasing. " The signs are," says a recent American authority, " that the exodus from England is likely to be as great as ever that of Ireland was ; while whatever continued falling off there may be in the arrival of Irish will be fully made up by the steadily increasing tide from, Germany and other countries." The number of emigrants arriving in the United States during the fii-st half of 1869 (up to July 1), was 352,569— males, 214,748 ; females, 137,821. Of these, 253,754 arrived at New York; 35,586 at Huron; 23,294 at Boston; 1.3,490 at San Francisco, and the rest at smaller ports. There were 132,537 Germans, 60,286 English and Scotch, 64,938 Irish, 24,000 Swedes, 21,000 Canadians, 16,000 Norwegians, and 13,000 Chinese; others, in much smaller numbers, came from France, Switzerland, Denmark, the Indies, Belgium, Italy, Holland, and Spain; the comparative numbers bemg APPENDIX. 323 in the order of the countries given. The occupations of these emigrants are given as follows : Labourers . 88,649 Farmers Mechanics . 28,096 . 16,553 Servants . 10,265 Merchants 8,809 Miners . G,005 Clerks . 1,643 Masons . 1,388 Mariuers . 1,219 Tailors . 1,124 Shoemakers . . 1,106 Bakers 870 Weavers 771 Butchers 645 Physicians 397 Artists 375 Painters 369 Clergymen 298 Engineers 285 Seamstresses . . 282 Brewers 247 Fishermen 211 Teachers 181 Jewellers 171 All other occupations . 1,436 Occupations not stated 725 *Without occupation . 180,449 Total immigi ants . . 352,569 Mostly -women and children. GENERAL INDEX. Academies, i. 174 ; the academical system, 174 ; religious status, 175 ; academy expenses, 176; the academical course, 177; working scholars, 177, 179 ; boarding and day scholars, 178 ; the academical year, 178 ; course of study, 181 ; exhibitions, 182, 188 ; academy buildings, 183 ; daily life of the scholars, 184 ; the routine, 185 ; pastimes, 187 ; -West Point Military Academy, 253 ; military cadets, 255 ; Annapolis Naval Academy, 257.] Actors, ii. 17-22. Adams, John Quincy, i. 135. Agriculture, the department of, i. 46. Amusements, popular, ii 13-32. Anniversaries, national and popular, ii. 44-71 ; public holidays, 44 ; Christmas among the Puritans, 45 ; the modern Christmas, 47 ; Ne-w Tear's-day, 48 ; official receptions, 51 ; a fashionable reception, 53 ; New Year's below stairs, 56 ; Thanksgiving, 57 ; Independence day (Fourth of July), 58 ; preparations for the Fourth, 59 ; picnics and pastimes, 61; reading the "Declaration," 62; concerts, 63; sports, 64 ; society meetings, 65 ; the Cincinnati, 65 ; the Tammany Society, 65 ; Anniversary week, 66 ; religious conventions, 66 ; the Anti- Slavery Society, 67 ; the Spiritualists, 67 ; Woman's Eights conven tions, 68 ; Orange societies, 70 ; Irish societies, 71. Army, the United States, i. 42 ; the Commander-in-chief, 42 ; grades in, 43 ; numbers of, 43. Arts, the, in America, ii. 1 ; love of music, 1 ; foreign professors, 2 ; singing and playing, 2 ; the Peace Jubilee, 3 ; American composers, 3 ; songs and ballads, 4 ; negro melodies, 5 ; battle songs, 6 ; national airs, 6 ; operas and oratorios, 6 ; American prime donne, 7 ; foreign singers, 8 ; sculpture and sculptors, 9 ; painting and painters, 10 ; modem artists, 11 ; picture galleries, 11 ; the drama, 13 ; Puritan horror of theatres, 14 ; theatrical luxury, 15 ; American actors, 16. Attorney General of the United States, the, i. 47, 87. Attorneys, district, i. 87. BaUs, i. 293 ; ii. 22 ; masquerades, 25. Bancroft, George, ii. 234. Beecher, Lyman, ii. 213. Beecher, Henry -Ward, ii. 214. Bennett, James Gordon, ii. 262. Boarding houses, i. 260, 328, 330. Booth, Edwin, ii. 17. Bryant, William CuUen, ii. 237. 328 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Buchanan, President James, i. 27. Bureau, the freedman's, i. 42 ; the Indian, 45 ; the patent, 45 ; the pen sion, 45. Ciabinet, the American, differences between the English and, i. 21 ; the appointment of, 21, 34 ; how constituted, 34 ; its official tenure, 34 ; its functions, 34 ; the Secretary of State, 35 ; the State Department, 36 ; the Secretary of the Treasury, 35 ; the Secretary of War, 41 ; the Secretary of the Na-vy, 44 ; the Secretary of the Interior, 45 ; the Postmaster General, 46 ; the Attorney General, 47 ; the Cabinet ia Society, 49. Capitol, the, at Washington, i. 62 ; its exterior, 62 ; its interior, 64. Caucuses : see Conventions. Chancery, courts of : see Courts. Chief -Justice of the United States, the, i. 85 ; his tenure of office, 85 ; salary, 85. Chinese, the, in America, ii. 298-305. Christmas in America, ii. 45-48. City government, i. 113 ; how constituted, 113 ; sessions, 115 ; the city government of New York, 115-118. Clergy, the, ii. 208-215. Clubs, i. 305 ; Union League, 305. Colleges : see Universities. Congress, the United States, i. 50 ; time of meeting, t>2 ; sessions, .52 ; duration, 53 ; privileges, 53 ; salaries, 53 ; adjournment, 53 ; exemp tion from arrest, 53 ; powers, 54 ; meetmg, CO ; caucuses, 61 ; political parties, 61 ; customs, 75-78. Consular service, the, i. 37 ; salaries, 39. Conventions, political, i. 4 ; state, 5 ; national, 6. Conveyances, public, i. 332. Cooper, James Fenimore, ii. 243. Cornell University, appendix, i. note A. Corporation of New -York, the, i. 117. Cost of living, i. 331. Country life : see Rural life. Courts, law, i. 84 ; the Supreme Court of the United States, 85 ; its chamber, 85 ; duties of Judges, 86 ; circuit courts, 86 ; district courts, 87 ; courts of chancery, 87 ; state courts, 88 ; courts of bankruptcy and probate, 89 ; customs, 89 ; a court-room, 102 ; western courts, 105. Cushman, Charlotte, ii. 19. Dancing schools, ii. 24 ; halls, 24. Diplomatic service, the, i. 37 ; salaries, 39. District attorneys, i. 87. Domestic life, i. 258 ; love of home, 259 ; housekeeping, 262 ; servants, 263 ; American breakfasts, 265 ; ice, 268 ; table dishes and beverages, 269 ; dinners, 270 ; tea and supper, 271 ; oysters, 272 ; houses, 273 ; marketing, 274 ; evenings at home, 275 ; visiting, 277. Drama, the, ii. 13. Edifices, the public at Washington, i. 47. Education, i. 48-2.57 ; government grants for, 251 : see note A. Appendix. Elections, differences between English and American, 57 ; expenses of, 58 ; features of, 142. Electors, presidential, i. 13 ; state, 110 ; qualifications in different states, 110-112. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, ii. 246. GENERAL INDEX. 327 Emigration, ii 275-297; benefits, 275; emigrants to America, 276; the Irish, 277 ; the Germans, 278 ; success of emigrants, 279 ; criminal population, 279 ; government land-grants to emigrants, 280 ; the homestead pri-vileges, 280 ; qualifications to prefimpt, 281 ; how emi grants may obtain land, 281 ; practical success of the homestead policy, 282 ; settling in the AVest, 283 ; need of men and women, 284 ; rapid growth of the West — Omaha, 284 ; the climate of the AVest, 286 ; the Cahfornians, 286 ; the South before the war, 287 ; the times of slavery, 288 ; the "poor whites," 288 ; results of the war, 289 ; reno vation, 291 ; labour in the South, 292 ; white labour practicable, 293 ; the Southern climate, 294; emigration southward, 294; a new middle class, 295 ; middle class emigrants, 296 ; Chinese emigration, 298 ;. statistics of emigration. Appendix, ii. note A. Executive, differences between the English and American, i. 22. Extent of the United States, ii. 306-308. Fairs, ii. 26. Farm lite, ii. 120-154 : see Rural life. Fire companies and firemen, i. 310. Forrest, Edwin, ii. 18. Fourth of July, ii. 58-66. _ Freedmeu's Bureau, the, i. 42. Government, the United States, its constitution, i. 1 ; departments of, 1^ Governors, of states, i. 106 ; their powers, 107 ; in society, 108. Greeley, Horace, ii. 263. Harvard University : see Universities. Ha-wthorne, Nathaniel, ii. 242. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, ii. 240, 248. Home recreations, i 275. Hotels, i. 313 ; Anierican passion for travelling, 313 ; hotel competition, 315 ; New York hotels, 316 ; the " Fifth Avenue," 317 ; interior arrangement, 317; hotel apartments, 318; parlours, 320; kitchens,. 321 ; dining and breakfast rooms, 321 ; expenses, 322 ; hotel servants, 323 ; country taverns, 324; railway hotels, 326 ; -wines, 327. House of Representatives, the United States : see Representatives. Houses in America, i. 273. Independence day, ii. 58-66. Indian Bureau, the, i. 45. Interior, the Secretary of the, i. 45 ; the department of the, 45-48. Irving, Washington, ii. 233, 241. Johnson, President, impeachment of, i. 3. Judges, of the United States Supreme Court, i. 85, 98 ; of the circuit courts, 86 ; of the district courts, 87 ; of the state courts, 88, 89, 99, 100. Law in America ; the common law, i 90 ; the civil la-w in Louisiana, 91 ; the profession of, 91, 102. Law Schools, i. 93 ; lectures, 94 ; course of study, 94 ; libraries, 94 ; moot courts, 95 ; degrees, 95, 250. Lawyers, i. 91; differences between English and American, 92; education of, 93; admission to practice, 96; examinations, 96; in politics, 101. Lectures and lecturing, ii. 271. Legislatures, state, i. 55. 328 AMERICAN SOCIETY. Literature, Americaji, ii. 228-254; English authors in America, 229 English novelists, 230 ; historians, 231 ; Irving, 233 ; Prescott, 233 Bancroft, 234; Motley, 234; poetry and poets, 235; Bryant, 237 Longfellow, 238 ; Lowell, 239 ; Holmes, 240 ; other poets, 240 ; no-^el- ists, 241 ; Hawthorne, 242 ; Cooper, 243 ; Mrs. Stowe, 244 ; other novelists, 245 ; the Transcendentalists— Emerson, 246 ; humonsts — A. Ward, 247 ; lady writers, 249 ; miscellaneous authors, 251 ; Eng lish dictionaries— Webster and AVorcester, 251 ; Franklin, 251 ; poli tical writers, 252 ; Wheatou, 252 ; reprints of English works, 253 ; international copyright, 254 ; newspapers, 255 ; magazines, 270 ; lec turing, 271. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, ii 35, 238. Louisiana, the laws of, i 91. LoweU, James Russell, ii. 37, 239. Lyceums, ii 271. Magazine literature, ii. 270. Markets, i 307. Marshals, United States, i. 87. Masquerades, ii 25. Mayors, i 113 ; terras of office, 114. Medicine, the profession of, ii. 195-197. Messages, the President's, i. 20. Military Academy at AVest Point, the, i. 253. Motley, John Lothrop, ii 234. Municipal government, i 113. Music iu America, ii. 1-8. Naval Academy, the United States, i. 257. ' Navy, the United States, i. 44 ; the Secretary of the, 44 ; the Depart ment of the, 44 ; numbers of naval forces, 44 ; grades in, 44. Newspapers, ii. 2.55-270 ; influence of the press, 255 ; papers of different nations, 256 ; newspaper enterprise, 257 ; New York papers, 260 ; the associated press, 260 ; telegraphic news, 261 ; rival reporters, 261 ; the Herald and Bennett, 262 ; the Tribune and Greeley, 263 ; semi-week lies and weeklies, 265 ; special editions, 265 ; advertisements, 265 ; miscellaneous contents, 266 ; the Sfation and the Independent, 267 ; criticism, 267; illustrated papers, 268 ; editorial ingenuity, 268; pro vincial papers, 269 ; the editorial profession, 269. New Year's-day, i. 80 ; ii. 48-57. New York, the city government of, i 115 ; a walk in, 281 ; Five Points, 287. Office, rotation in, i 139 ; office-seeking, 137. Painters and painting, ii 10-12. Parks, public, i 279. Patent-office, the, i. 45. _ Pension bureau, the, i 45. Platforms, party, i 11. Politics, American, i. 125 ; public speaking, 127 ; the clergy in, 128 ; the military element in, 129 ; military candidates, 130 ; military Presi dents, 131 ; political agitation, 132 ; corruption, 136 ; office-seeking, 137 ; disturbances in, 141. Postmaster- General, the, i. 46. Post-office department, the, i 48. Powers, Hiram, ii 9. GENERAL INDEX. 329 Prescott, William Hickling, ii. 233. President of the United States, the, i. 2 ; his tenure of office, 2 ; impeach ment of, 2 ; how elected, 3-14 ; his nomination, 8 ; his election, 12 ; his inauguration, 14 ; his qualifications and powers, 19 ; his messages, 20 ; differences between the English Executive and, 22 ; his official residence, 23 ; public receptions, 26 ; levees, 28 ; official dinners, 30 ; after retirement from office, 134. Productions of the United States, ii. 308-319. Professional schools, i 249 ; theological seminaries, 249 ; law schools, 93, 250 ; medical schools, 2.51, ii 195 ; free agricultural colleges, i. 252 ; commercial colleges, 253 ; military and naval schools, 253-257. Professions, the, ii 195-227 ; the medical profession, 195 ; quackery, 196 ; the state of religious sects, 197 ; voluntaryism, 198 ; growth of the sects, 198 ; subdivisions of the sects, 200 ; the New England Puritans, 200 ; religious statistics, 201-2 ; ecclesiastical self-government, 203 ; endowments, 203 ; the American Episcopal Church, 204 ; the Virginia Episcopalians, 204 ; the Prayer-Book, 205 ; how the bishops are elected, 205 ; general government, 205 ; election of ministers, 206 ; trial ser mons, 207 ; the Episcopal bishops and clergy, 207 ; clerical incomes, 208 ; the Methodists, 209 ; the ministry as a profession, 209 ; provi sion for the poor, 211 ; Plymouth Church, 211 ; pulpit oratory and clerical ambition, 213 ; the Beechers, 213 ; noted preachers, 215 ; re ligious revivals, 215 ; negro revivals, 216 ; camp-meetings, 217 ; the Roman Catholics, 223 ; the "Know-Nothings," 226. KaUways, ii. 169 ; railway statistics, 169 ; modern velocity, 170 ; English and AJnerican railways,' 171 ; relative speed, 172 ; arrangement of car riages, 173 ; improvements, 173 ; advantages of American carriages, 174 ; means of safety, 175 ; smoking carriages, 176 ; distances, 177 ; sleeping carriages, 178 ; railway restaurants, 178 ; saloons and draw ing-rooms, 179 ; travelling comforts, 179 ; conductors (guards), 180 ; railway stations, 181 ; travelling in the West, 183 ; newsboys and ped lars, 185 ; the luggage-system, 187 ; progress in railways, 189 ; the Pacific Railway, 156, 170, 190 ; across the Rooky Mountains, 192. Reconstruction in -the South, i. 144 ; acts of Congress relating to, 145. Religion in America, ii. 197. Representatives, the United States House of, i. 51 ; its comjjosition, 51 ; tenure of members, 51 ; apportionment of members, 51 ; qualification of members, 52 ; election of officers, 52 ; election of members, 56 ; the representatives' chamber, 64 ; the galleries, G5 ; the House iu session, 67; customs in Congress, 68; divisions, 69; mode of proceeding, 69; committees, 70. Eesorts, summer, ii 72-106 ; the Catskills, 72 ; the Adirondacks, 73 ; Saratoga, 74 ; Niagara, 75 ; Newport, 76 ; on Long Island Sound, 79 ; sea-side hotels, 80 ; fashionable recreations, 83 ; the White Moun tains, 92 ; Lake Winnepiseogee, 93 ; lake islands, 97 ; mountain stage coaches, 99 ; Conway, 101 ; mountain pastimes, 102 ; hotel life, 105. Resources of the United States, ii. 308-319. Restaurants, i. 328. Rural life, ii 107-154 ; difference between English and American villages, 107 ; an American -village. 111 ; the village church. 111 ; the academy, 113 ; the shops, 113 ; the post-office, 114 ; the tavern, 115 ; rural houses, 116 ; professional men, 118 ; the squire, 119 ; country homes, 119 ; farms and farmhouses, 120 ; barns, 122 ; Irish labourers, 128 ; country boys and girls in the city, 130 ; a typical farmhouse, 133 ; pastimes, 136 ; village sights, 137 ; picnics, 138 ; serenading parties. 140 ; country balls, 142 ; Sunday in the country, 145 ; corn-huskings. 330 AMERICAN SOCIETY. 147 ; apple-bees, 147 ; iquiltings, 148 ; maple-sugar parties, 148 ; agri cultural fairs, 149 ; sports, 151 ; winter amusements, 152 ; sleighing, 153 ; sociables, 154. Schools, i 148 ; country schools, 149 ; origin of the common schools, 162 ; teachers, 156, 165 ; city schools, 160 ; the buildings, 161 ; the interior of a Boston school, 161 ; the public school system, 164 ; sessions, 166 ; studies, 166 ; Latin schools, 166 ; female education, 168 ; normal schools, 168 ; school discipline, 170 ; the schools and religion, 171 ; rewards and punishments, 172 ; examinations, 173 ; government grants for schools, 251. (See Academies and Professional Schools.) Sculpture and sculptors, ii. 8. Sects, religious, ii. 197. Senate, the United States, i. 50 ; its composition, 50 ; qualifications of senators, 50 ; elections of senators, 50 ; term of office, 50 ; divisions of, 50 ; powers, 51 ; number of senators, 51 ; the senate chamber, 73 ; the gallery, 75 ; the senate in session, 76 ; mode of election of senators, 55 ; position of senators, 73 ; leading senators, 75. Skating, ii 28. Slavery, the agitation against, i. 132. Society, American, i 258 ; in New York, 292-297 ; in Boston, 298 ; in Philadelphia, 300 ; in the West, 300 ; in the South, 302. South, the, i 142 ; political and social changes in, 143 ; the negro's posi tion, 144 ; reconstruction of, 144 ; ii 287. Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the, i 52 ; salary, 53; his election, 61, 67. Spiritualists, the, ii. 67. Sports, popular, ii. 27. State governments, i 106. State legislatures, election of United States senators by, i. 55 ; compo sition of, 108 ; tenure of members, 108 ; powers and proceedings, 110. State, the Secretary of, i. 35 ; department of, 36, 48. State courts : see Courts. Steamboats, ii. 157 ; river and lake steamboats, 158 ; how built and de corated, 159 ; the saloon, 160 ; state-rooms, 161 ; cabins, 161 ; meals on board, 162 ; modern improvements, 163 ; tourists, 163 ; Mississippi steamboats, 165 ; on the great lakes, 166 ; iu the Gulf of Mexico, 167. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, ii. 241. Streets, in America, i 280. Suburban life, ii 33 ; residences, 33 ; Longfellow's home, 35 ; Lowell's home, 37 ; pastimes, 39 ; croquet, 39 ; villas on the Hudson, 41. Summer resorts : see Resorts, Thanksgiving, ii. 57. Theatres, ii 13 ; dramatic talent, 16. Town governments, i 119. Town life, i 279 ; the public parks, 279 ; the streets, 280 ; a walk on Broadway, 281 ; shops and saloons, 284 ; bar-rooms, 285 ; street trades, 286 ; the Five Points, 287 ; the up-to-wn quarter, 288 ; self-made men, 290 ; town society, 291 ; a fashionable party, 293 ; lionising, 297 ; so ciety in different cities, 298 ; clubs, 305; markets, 307; barber saloons, 308 ; liveries and heraldry, 309 ; fire companies, 310 ; hotels, 313 ; restaurants, 328 ; boarding houses, 328 ; cost of living, 331. Town meetings, i. 5, 121. Townships, i 120. Travelling in America, ii. 155 : see Railways and Steamboats. Treasury, the Secretary of the, i. 39 ; the Department of the, 40, 47. GENERAL INDEX. 331 Universities and Colleges, i. 190 ; their designations, 190 ; Harvard Uni versity, 191, 193 ; number of coUeges, 192 ; charters, 193 ; changes, 194 ; religious foundations, 194 ; Yale and Harvard compared, 195 ; American and English universities compared, 196, 203 ; government of the colleges, 197 ; the college buildings, 197 ; division of the classes, 198 ; professors and tutors, 199 ; examinations for admission, 201 ; conditions of entering, 202 ; method of instruction, 203 ; the daily routine, 204 ; boarding and clubbing, 204 ; recitations, 205 ; attending chapel, 206 ; college terms, 206 ; term and annual examinations, 207 ; scholastic rank, 207 ; the studies, 208 ; lectures, 208 ; declamation and composition, 209 ; expenses, 210 ; punishments, 212 ; honours and rewards, 214 ; scholarships, 215 ; prizes, 216 ; literary societies, 216 ; physical exercises, 218 ; student soldiers, 219 ; libraries, 220 ; college literature, 220 ; honorary degrees, 221 ; university customs and pas times, 222-248 ; Cornell University (Appendix), i note A. Yice-President of the United States, the, i.l5; official duties, 15 ; salary, 10 ; position, 50. War, the Secretary of, i 41 ; the Department of, 41, 48. Ward meetings, i. ."i. "Washington, society at, i 78 ; description of, 79 ; New Year's-day at, 80. West Point Military Academy, i 253. White House, the, i. 23 ; its interior, 24 ; hospitalities of, 26 ; levees at, 28 ; everyday life at, 31. Woman's rights, the agitation of, i. 133 ; convention of, ii 68. Women, American, i. 263 ; domestic virtues, 263 ; deference to women, 303. THE END. LONDON: KOBSON AND SONS, PEINTEKS, PANGEAS KOAD, N.-W. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 01461 2221 -' ( -' i^^Ji^J ^r-T\', ^a>:r