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Title: Walks and talks of an American farmer in England (Part 1 of 2)
Author: Frederick Law Olmsted
Release date: November 1, 2025 [eBook #77164]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: George P. Putnam, 1852
Credits: A Marshall, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
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WALKS AND TALKS
OF AN
AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.
[Illustration: The School-House]
NEW YORK:
GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY.
M.DCCC.LII.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,
BY GEORGE P. PUTNAM,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District
of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
BILLIN & BROTHERS,
NO. 10 NORTH WILLIAM-ST., N. Y.
J. F. TROW, PRINTER,
ANN-STREET.
TO
GEORGE GEDDES,
Late of the Senate of New York,
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,
PRESIDENT OF THE ONONDAGA COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,
ETC., ETC., ETC.,
THIS VOLUME IS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY
Inscribed.
PREFACE.
I do not deem it necessary to apologize for this memoir of a farmer’s
visit to England. Every man in travelling will be directed in peculiar
paths of observation by his peculiar tastes, habits, and personal
interests, and there will always be a greater or less class who will
like to hear of just what he liked to see. With a hearty country
appetite for narrative, I have spent, previous to my own journey, a
great many long winter evenings in reading the books so frequently
written by our literary tourists, upon England; and although I do not
recollect one of them, the author of which was a farmer, or whose
habits of life, professional interests, associations in society, and
ordinary standards of comparison were not altogether different from
my own, I remember none from which I did not derive entertainment and
instruction.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the triteness of the field, I may presume
to think, that there will be a great many who will yet enjoy to follow
me over it, and this although my gait and carriage should not be very
elegant, but so only as one farmer’s leg and one sailor’s leg with the
help of a short, crooked, half-grown academic sapling, for a walking
stick, might be expected to carry a man along with a head and a heart
of his own.
And as it is especially for farmers and farmers’ families that I have
written, I trust that all who try to read the book, will be willing to
come into a warm, good-natured, broad country kitchen fireside relation
with me, and permit me to speak my mind freely, and in such language
as I can readily command on all sorts of subjects that come in my way,
forming their own views from the facts that I give them, and taking my
opinions for only just what they shall seem to be worth.
Some explanation of a few of the intentions that gave direction to my
movements in travelling may be of service to the reader.
The wages, and the cost and manner of living of the labouring men, and
the customs with regard to labour of those countries and districts,
from which foreign writers on economical subjects are in the habit of
deriving their data, had been made a subject of more than ordinary and
other than merely philanthropical interest to me, from an experience
of the difficulty of applying their calculations to the different
circumstances under which work must be executed in the United States.
My vocation as a farmer, too, had led me for a long time to desire
to know more of the prevailing, ordinary, and generally accepted
practices of agriculture, than I could learn from Mr. Coleman’s book,
or from the observations of most of the European correspondents of our
agricultural periodicals, the attention of these gentlemen having been
usually directed to the exceptional improved modes of cultivation which
prevail only among the amateur agriculturists and the bolder and more
enterprising farmers.
The tour was made in company with two friends, whose purposes somewhat
influence the character of the narrative. One of them, my brother,
hoped by a course of invigorating exercise, simple diet, and restraint
from books and other in-door and sedentary luxuries, to re-establish
his weakened health, and especially to strengthen his eyes, frequent
failures of which often seriously annoyed and interrupted him in the
study of his profession. The other, our intimate friend from boyhood,
desired to add somewhat to the qualifications usually inquired after in
a professed teacher and adviser of mankind, by such a term and method
of study as he could afford to make, of the varying developments of
human nature under different biases and institutions from those of his
own land.
We all considered, finally, that it should be among those classes which
form the majority of the people of a country that the truest exhibition
of national character should be looked for, and that in their
condition should be found the best evidence of the wisdom of national
institutions.
In forming the details of a plan by which we could, within certain
limits of time and money, best accomplish such purposes as I have
indicated, we were much indebted to the information and advice given by
Bayard Taylor in his “Views a-Foot.”
The part now published contains the narrative of the earlier, and to
us most interesting, though not the most practically valuable, part of
our journey. I was in the habit of writing my diary usually in the form
of a letter, to be sent as occasion offered to friends at home. It is
from this desultory letter-diary, with such revision and extension and
filling up of gaps, as my memory and pocket-book notes afford, that
this volume has been formed. I have most desired to bring before my
brother farmers and their families such things that I saw in England as
have conveyed practical agricultural information or useful suggestions
to myself, and such evidences of simply refined tastes, good feelings,
and enlarged Christian sentiments among our English brethren, as all
should enjoy to read of. It was my design to have somewhat extended
this volume, that it might contain a greater proportion of more
distinctly rural matter, but the liberal proposal of Mr. Putnam to
include it in the excellent popular Series he is now publishing, makes
a limit to its length necessary. Should I have reason to believe,
however, that I have succeeded in the purposes which led me to write
for the public, I shall be most happy at another time to continue my
narrative.
FRED. LAW OLMSTED.
_Tosomock Farm, Southside, Staten Island._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Emigrant Passenger Agents.—Second Cabin.—Mutiny.—Delay.—Departure. 9
CHAPTER II.
At Sea.—Incidents.—Sea Sociability.—A Yarn.—Sea Life.—Characters.—
English Radicals.—Skeptics.—Education.—French Infidelity.—Phrenology.—
Theology. 14
CHAPTER III.
Sailors.—“Sogers.”—Books.—Anecdotes. 37
CHAPTER IV.
On Soundings.—English Small Craft.—Harbour of Liverpool. 41
CHAPTER V.
The first of England.—The Streets.—A Railway Station.—The Docks at
Night.—Prostitutes.—Temperance.—The Still Life of Liverpool.—
A Market. 50
CHAPTER VI.
The People at Liverpool.—Poverty.—Merchants.—Shopkeepers.—
Women.—Soldiers.—Children.—Donkeys and Dray Horses. 60
CHAPTER VII.
Irish Beggars.—Condition of Labourers.—Cost of Living.—Prices.—
Bath House.—Quarantine.—The Docks.—Street Scene.—“Coming Yankee”
over Nonsense.—Artistic Begging. 65
CHAPTER VIII.
Birkenhead.—Ferry-Boats.—Gruff Englishman.—The Abbey.—Flour.—
Market.—The Park.—A Democratic Institution.—Suburban Villas, &c. 74
CHAPTER IX.
A Railway Ride.—Second Class.—Inconvenient Arrangements.—First
Walk in the Country.—England itself.—A Rural Landscape.—Hedges.—
Approach to a Hamlet.—The old Ale-House and the old John Bull.—
A Talk with Country People.—Notions of America.—Free Trade.—The
Yew Tree.—The old Rural Church and Graveyard.—A Park Gate.—A Model
Farmer.—The old Village Inn.—A Model Kitchen.—A Model Landlady. 85
CHAPTER X.
Talk with a Farmer.—With a Tender-Hearted Wheelwright.—An Amusing
Story.—Notions of America.—Supper.—Speech of the English.—Pleasant
Tones.—Quaint Expressions.—The twenty-ninth of May.—Zaccheus in the
Oak Tree.—Education.—Bed-chamber.—A Nightcap and—a Nightcap. 92
CHAPTER XI.
The Break of Day.—A Full Heart.—Familiar Things.—The Village at
Sunrise.—Flowers.—Birds.—Dog Kennels.—“The Squire” and “The Hall.”—
Rooks.—Visit to a Small Farm.—The Cows.—The Milking.—The Dairy-Maids.—
The Stables.—Manure.—Bones.—Pasture.—White Clover.—Implements.—Carts.—
The English Plough and Harrow. 99
CHAPTER XII.
Breakfast at the Inn.—A Tale of High Life.—The Garden of the Inn.—An
old Farm-House.—Timber Houses.—Labourer’s Cottages.—Wattles and Noggin
Walls.—A “Ferme Ornée.”—A Lawn Pasture.—The Copper-Leaved
Beech.—Tame Black Cattle.—Approach to Chester. 104
CHAPTER XIII.
Chester without.—A Walk on the Walls.—Antiquities.—Striking
Contrasts. 111
CHAPTER XIV.
Chester within.—Peculiarities of Building.—The Rows.—The old
Sea-Captain.—Romancing.—An Old Inn.—Old English Town Houses.—
Timber Houses.—Claiming an Inheritance.—A Cook Shop.—One of the
Alleys.—Breaking into the Cathedral.—Expulsion.—The Curfew. 119
CHAPTER XV.
Chester Market.—The Town Common.—Race-Course.—The Yeomanry Cavalry,
and the Militia of England.—Public Wash-House.—“Mr. Chairman.” 128
CHAPTER XVI.
Visit to Eaton Hall.—The largest Arch in the World.—The Outer
Park.—Backwoods’ Farming.—The Deer Park.—The Hall.—The Parterre.—
The Lawn.—The Fruit Garden.—Stables. 133
CHAPTER XVII.
Gamekeeper.—Game Preserves.—Eccleston, a Pretty Village.—The School-
House.—Draining.—Children Playing.—The River-side Walk.—Pleasure
Parties.—A Contrasting Glimpse of a Sad Heart.—Saturday Night.—Ballad
Singer.—Mendicants.—Row in the Tap-Room.—Woman’s Feebleness.—Chester
Beer, and Beer-Drinking. 140
CHAPTER XVIII.
Character of the Welsh.—The Cathedral; the Clergy, Service, Intoning,
the Ludicrous and the Sublime.—A Reverie.—A Revelation.—The Sermon.—
Communion.—Other Churches.—Sunday Evening.—Character of the
Townspeople. 150
CHAPTER XIX.
Clandestine Architectural Studies.—A Visit to the Marquis of
Westminster’s Stud.—Stable Matters. 162
CHAPTER XX.
The Cheshire Cheese District and English Husbandry Upon Heavy
Soils.—Pastures.—Their Permanence.—The Use of Bones as a Manure in
Cheshire.—A Valuable Remark to Owners of Improved Neat Stock.—Breeds
of Dairy Stock.—Horses. 169
CHAPTER XXI.
Tillage.—Size of Farms.—Condition of Labourers.—Fences.—Hedges.—
Surface Drainage.—Under Drainage.—Valuable Implements for Stiff Soils,
not used In the United States. 177
CHAPTER XXII.
The General Condition of Agriculture.—Rotation of Crops.—
Productiveness.—Seeding down to Grass.—Comparison of English and
American Practice.—Practical Remarks.—Rye-Grass, Clover.—Biennial
Grasses.—Guano.—Lime.—The Condition of Labourers, Wages, etc.—
Dairy-Maids.—Allowance of Beer. 183
CHAPTER XXIII.
Remarks on the Cultivation of Beet and Mangel-Wurzel. 191
CHAPTER XXIV.
Delightful Walk by the Dee Banks, and through Eaton Park.—Wrexham.—A
Fair.—Maids by a Fountain.—The Church.—Jackdaws.—The Tap-Room and
Tap-Room Talk.—Political Deadness of the Labouring Class.—A Methodist
Bagman. 194
CHAPTER XXV.
Morning Walk through a Coal District.—Ruabon.—An Optimist with a Welsh
Wife.—Graveyard Notes.—A Stage-Wagon.—Taxes.—Wynstay Park.—Thorough
Draining.—A Glimpse of Cottage Life.—“Sir Watkins Williams
Wyn.” 199
CHAPTER XXVI.
Stone Houses.—Ivy.—Virginia Creeper.—A Visit to a Welsh Horse-Fair.—
English Vehicles.—Agricultural Notes.—Horses.—Breeds of Cattle;
Herefords, Welsh, and Smutty Pates.—Character of the People.—Dress.—
Powis Park. 206
CHAPTER XXVII.
English Vehicles.—A Feudal Castle and Modern Aristocratic Mansion.—
Aristocracy in 1850.—Primogeniture.—Democratic Tendency of Political
Sentiments.—Disposition towards the United States.—Combativeness.—
Slavery. 212
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Paintings.—Cromwell.—Pastoral Ships.—Family Portraits and Distant
Relations.—Family Apartments.—Personal Cleanliness.—The Wrekin. 224
CHAPTER XXIX.
Visit to a Farm.—Farm-House and Farmery.—Fatting Cattle.—Sheep.—
Vetches.—Stack Yard.—Steam Threshing.—Turnip Sowing.—Excellent
Work.—Tram-Road.—Wages. 228
CHAPTER XXX.
Visit to two English Common Schools. 232
Appendix A. 235
Appendix B. 246
LIST OF CUTS,
DRAWN ON WOOD BY A. FIELD.
_FROM SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR._
PAGE
1. THE SCHOOL-HOUSE (_vignette, title page_).
2. THE ENGLISH COASTER (_calm_), 45
3. THE ENGLISH COASTER (_squalls_), 47
4. THE ENGLISH PLOUGH (_vertical_), 103
5. THE ENGLISH PLOUGH (_horizontal_), 103
6. THE TIMBER HOUSE (_old farm-house_), 107
7. OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE (_Chester, 16th century_), 124
8. OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE (_Chester, 16th century_), 149
9. THE CLOD CRUSHER, 180
10. THE ULEY CULTIVATOR, 182
11. THE STAGE WAGON, 202
12. OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE (_the village schoolmaster’s
cottage_), 207
Walks and Talks
OF AN
AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
EMIGRANT PASSENGER AGENTS.—SECOND CABIN.—MUTINY.—DELAY.—DEPARTURE.
We intended, if we could be suited, to take a second-cabin state-room
for our party of three, and to accommodate me my friends had agreed to
wait till “after _planting_.” While I therefore hurried on the spring
work upon my farm, they in the city were examining ships and consulting
passenger agents. The confidence in imposition those acquire who are
in the habit of dealing with emigrant passengers, was amusingly shown
in the assurance with which they would attempt to _lie down_ the most
obvious objections to what they had to offer; declaring that a cabin
disgusting with filth and the stench of bilge-water was sweet and
clean, that darkness in which they would be groping was very light (a
trick, certainly, not confined to their trade), that a space in which
one could not stand erect, or a berth like a coffin, was very roomy,
and so forth.
Finally we _were_ taken in by the perfect impudence and utter
simplicity in falsehood of one of them, an underling of “a respectable
house”—advertised passenger agents of the ship—which, on the lie being
represented to _it_, thought proper to express _its_ “regret” at the
young man’s error, but could not be made to see that it was proper for
them to do any thing more,—the error not having been discovered in time
for us to conveniently make other arrangements.
We had engaged a “family-room” exclusively for ourselves, in the very
large and neatly-fitted cabin of a new, clean first-class packet. We
thought the price asked for it very low, and to secure it beyond a
doubt, had paid half the money down at the agent’s desk, and taken a
receipt, put some of our baggage in it, locked the door, and taken
the key. The ship was hauling out from her pier when we went on board
with our trunks, and found the spacious second cabin had been stored
half full of cotton, and the remaining space was lumbered up with ship
stores, spare sails, &c. The adjoining rooms were occupied by steerage
passengers, and the steward was trying keys to let them into ours. The
mate cursed us for taking the key, and the captain declared no one had
been authorized to make such arrangements as had been entered into with
us, and that he should put whom he pleased into the room.
[Sidenote: _PASSENGER AGENTS.—MUTINY._]
We held on to the key, and appealed first to the agents and then to the
owners. Finally we agreed to take a single room-mate, a young man whom
they introduced to us, and whose appearance promised agreeably, and
with this compromise were allowed to retain possession. The distinction
between second cabin and steerage proved to be an imagination of the
agents—those who had asked for a steerage passage were asked a little
less, and had berths given them in the second-cabin state-rooms, the
proper _steerage_ being filled up with freight. The captain, however,
directed the cook to serve us, allowed us a light at night in our
room, and some other extra conveniences and privileges, and generally
treated us after we got to sea as if he considered us rather more of
the “gentleman” class than the rest;—about two dollars apiece more, I
suppose.
After the ship had hauled out into the stream, and while she lay in
charge of the first mate, the captain having gone ashore, there was a
bit of mutiny among the seamen. Nearly the whole crew refused to do
duty, and pledged each other never to take the ship to sea. Seeing that
the officers, though prepared with loaded pistols, were not disposed
to act rashly, we offered to assist them, for the men had brought up
their chests and were collecting handspikes and weapons, and threatened
to take a boat from the davits if they were not sent on shore. It was
curious to see how the steerage passengers, before they had any idea
of the grounds of the quarrel, but as if by instinct, almost to a man,
took sides against the lawful authority.
Having had some experience with the ways of seamen, I also went forward
to try to pacify them. (Like most Connecticut boys, I knocked about the
world a few years before I _settled down_, and one of these I spent in
a ship’s forecastle.) The only thing the soberest of them could say
was, that a man had been killed on the ship, and they knew she was
going to be unlucky; and that they had been shipped in her when too
drunk to know what they were about. Perceiving that all that the most
of them wanted was to get ashore, that they might have their spree
out, and as there was no reasoning with them, I advised the mate to
send them a fiddle and let them get to dancing. He liked the idea, but
had no fiddle, so as the next most pacifying amusement, ordered the
cook to give them supper. They took to this kindly, and after using
it up went to playing _monkey shines_, and with singing, dancing, and
shouting kept themselves in good humour until late in the evening, when
they, one by one, dropped off, and turned in. The next morning they
were all drunk and sulky, and contented themselves with refusing to
come on deck when ordered.
When the captain came on board and learned the state of things, he
took a hatchet, and with the officers and carpenter jumped into the
forecastle, and with a general knocking down and kicking out, got them
all on deck. He then broke open their chests and took from them six
jugs of grog which they had concealed, and threw them overboard. As
they floated astern, a Whitehall boatman picked them up, and after
securing the last, took a drink and loudly wished us good luck.
Two or three of the most violent were sent on shore (not punished, but
so rewarded), and their places supplied by others. The rest looked
a little sour, and contrived to meet with a good many _accidents_
as long as the shore boats kept about us; but when we were fairly
getting clear of the land, and the wind hauled a bit more aft, and
the passengers began to wish she would stop for just one moment,
and there came a whirr-rushing noise from under the bows—the hearty
_yo-ho—heave-o-hoii_—with which they roused out the stu’n-sails was
such as nobody the least bit sulky could have begun to have found voice
for.
A handsome Napoleonic performance it was of the captain’s:—the more
need that I should say that in my mind he disgraced himself by it;
because, while we lay almost within hail of the properly constituted
officers of the law, and under the guns of a United States fortress
such dashing violence was unnecessary and lawless;—only at sea had he
the right, or could he be justified in using it.
I suppose that some such difficulties occur at the sailing of half the
ships that leave New York. I have been on board a number as they were
getting under way, and in every one of them there has been more or less
trouble arising from the intoxicated condition of the crew. Twice I
have seen men fall overboard, when first ordered aloft, in going down
the harbour.
[Sidenote: _THE START._]
The ship did not go to sea until three days after she was advertised
to sail, though she had her crew, stores, and steerage passengers on
board all that time. I do not know the cause of her detention; it
seemed unnecessary, as other large ships sailed while we lay idle;
and if unnecessary, it was not honest. The loss of three days’ board,
and diminution by so much of the stores, calculated to last out the
passage, and all the other expenses and inconveniences occasioned by it
to the poor steerage passengers, may seem hardly worthy of notice; and
I should not mention it, if such delays, often much more protracted,
were not frequent, sometimes adding materially to the suffering always
attending a long passage.
At noon on the 3d of May we passed out by the light-ship of the outer
bar, and soon after eight o’clock that evening the last gleam of
Fire-Island light disappeared behind the dark line of unbroken horizon.
CHAPTER II.
AT SEA.—INCIDENTS.—SEA SOCIABILITY.—A YARN.—SEA
LIFE.—CHARACTERS.—ENGLISH RADICALS.—SKEPTICS.—EDUCATION.—FRENCH
INFIDELITY.—PHRENOLOGY.—THEOLOGY.
_At Sea, May 28._
[Sidenote: _THE VOYAGE._]
We are reckoned to-day to be about one hundred and fifty miles to
the westward of Cape Clear; ship close-hauled, heading north, with a
very dim prospect of the termination of our voyage. It has been thus
far rather dull and uneventful. We three have never been obliged to
own ourselves actually sea-sick, but at any time during the first
week we could hardly have declared that we felt perfectly well, and
our appetites seemed influenced at every meal as if by a gloomy
apprehension of what an hour might bring forth. Most of the other
passengers have been very miserable indeed. I notice they recover
more rapidly in the steerage than in the cabin. This I suppose to be
owing to their situation in the middle of the ship, where there is the
least motion, to their simple diet, and probably to their having less
temptation to eat freely, and greater necessity to “make an effort,”
and move about in fresh air.
We have met one school of small whales. There might have been fifty
of them, tumbling ponderously over the waves, in sight at once.
Occasionally one would rise lazily up so near, that, as he caught sight
of us, we could seem to see an expression of surprise and alarm in his
stolid, black face, and then he would hastily throw himself under
again, with an energetic slap of his flukes.
One dark, foggy night, while we were “on the Banks,” we witnessed a
rather remarkable exhibition of marine pyrotechny. The whole water, as
far as we could see, was lustrous white, while nearer the eye it was
full of spangles, and every disturbance, as that caused by the movement
of the ship, or the ripples from the wind, or the surging of the sea,
was marked by fire flashes. Very singular spots, from the size of one’s
hand to minute sparks, frequently floated by, looking like stars in
the milky-way. We noticed also several schools, numbering hundreds,
of what seemed little fishes (perhaps an inch long), that darted here
and there, comet-like, with great velocity. I tried, without success,
to catch some of these. It was evident that, _besides the ordinary_
phosphorescent animalcula, there were various and distinct varieties of
animated nature around us, such as are not often to be observed.
Some kind of sea-bird we have seen, I think, every day, and when at the
greatest distance from land. Where is their home? is an oft-repeated
question, and, What do they eat? They are mysteries, these feathered
Bedouins. To-day, land and long-legged shore birds are coming on board
of us. They fly tremulously about the ship, sometimes going off out of
sight and back again, then lighting for a few moments on a spar or line
of rigging. Some have fallen asleep so; or suffered themselves, though
panting with apprehension, to be taken. One of these is a swallow, and
another a wheatear. Some kind of a lark, but not recognisable by the
English on board, was taken several days since. It had probably been
lost from the Western Islands.
[Sidenote: _A “BOARDING” ANECDOTE._]
We have seen but very few vessels; but the meeting with one of them
was quite an event in sea life. She was coming from the eastward,
wind north, and running free, when we first saw her, but soon after
took in her studding-sails and hauled up so as to come near us. When
abeam, and about three miles distant, she showed German colours, laid
aback her mainsail and lowered a quarter-boat, which we immediately
squared away to meet, and ran up our bunting, every body on deck, and
great excitement. With a glass we could see her decks loaded with
emigrants; and as her masts and sails appeared entirely uninjured, it
could only be conjectured that she was distressed for provisions or
water. The carpenter was sent to sound the water tanks, and the mate
to make an estimate of what stores might be safely spared, while we
hastened to our rooms to scribble notes to send home. We finished them
soon enough to see a neat boat, rowed by four men, come alongside, and
a gentlemanly young officer mount nimbly up the side-ladder. He was
received on deck by our second mate, and conducted aft by him to the
cabin companion, where the captain, having put on his best dress-coat
and new Broadway stove-pipe hat, stood, like a small king, dignifiedly
waiting. After the ceremony of presentation, the captain inquired,
“Well, sir, what can I have the pleasure of doing for you?” The young
man replied that he came from the ship so and so, Captain ——, who sent
his compliments, and desired “_Vaat is te news?_” This cool motive
for stopping two ships in mid-ocean, with a fresh and favourable wind
blowing for each, took the captain plainly aback; but he directly
recovered, and taking him into the cabin, gave him a glass of wine and
a few minutes’ conversation with a most creditable politeness; a chunk
of ice and a piece of fresh meat were passed into the boat, and the
steerage passengers threw some tobacco to the men in her. The young
officer took our letters, with some cigars and newspapers, and went
over the side again, without probably having perceived that we were any
less gregarious beings than himself. The curbed energy and suppressed
vexation of our officers, however, showed itself before he was well
seated in his boat, by the violent language of command, and the
rapidity with which the yards were sharpened and the ship again brought
to her course.
This occurrence brought to the mind of our “second dickey” that
night, a boarding affair of his own, which he told us of in the
drollest manner possible. I wish you could hear his drawl, and see his
immoveably sober face, but twinkling eye, that made it all seem natural
and just like him, as he spun us the yarn.
He was once, he said, round in the Pacific, in a Sag-Harbour whaler,
“rayther smart, we accounted her,” when they tried to speak an English
frigate, and did not get quite near enough. So, as they had nothing
else to do, they “up’t and chased her,” and kept after her without ever
getting any nearer for nearly three days. Finally, the wind hauled
round ahead and began to blow a little fresh, and they overhauled her
very rapidly, so that along about sunset they found themselves coming
well to windward of her, as they ran upon opposite tacks. They then
hove-to, and he was sent in a boat to board her, and she promptly
came-to also, and waited for him.
Dressed in a dungaree jumper, yellow oil-skin hat, and canvass
trowsers, he climbed on board the frigate and was immediately addressed
by the officer of the deck.
“Now then, sir, what is it?”
“Are you the cap’en of this here frigate, sir?”
“What’s your business?”
“Why, our cap’en sent his compliments to yourn, sir, and—if you are
a going home—he wished you’d report the bark Lucreetshy Ann, of
Sag-Harbour, Cap’en J. Coffin Starbuck, thirty-seven days from Wahoo
(Oahu), seven hundred and fifty barrels of sperm, and two hundred and
fifty of whale; guess we shall go in to Tuckeywarner (Talcahuano).”
“Is that all, sir?”
“Well, no; the old man did say, if you was a mind to, he’d like to have
me see if I could make a trade with yer for some tobacky. We hadn’t had
none now a going on two week, and he’s a most sick. How is’t—yer mind
to?”
“Is that all your business, sir?”
“Well—yes; I guess ’tis about all.”
“I think you had better get into your boat, sir.”
He thought so too, when he saw the main-yard immediately after begin to
swing round. As the officer stepped below, he went over the side. When
he called out to have the painter let go though, he was told to wait
a bit, and directly a small parcel of tobacco was handed down and the
same officer, looking over the rail, asked,
“Did you say the _Lucretia Ann_?”
“Ay, ay, sir; Lucreetshy Ann, of Sag-Harbour.”
“Mr. Starboard, I believe.”
“‘_Buck_,’ sir, ‘_buck_.’ How about this ’backey?”
The lieutenant, raising his head, his cap, striking the main-sheet as
it was being hauled down, was knocked off and fell into the water, when
one of the whalers immediately lanced it and held it up dripping.
“Hallo, mister; I say, what shall we do with this cap? Did you mean ter
throw it in.”
The officer once more looked over the side, with half a dozen grinning
middies, and imperturbably dignified, replied,
“You will do me the favor to present it to Captain Buck, and say to
him, if you please, that when he wishes to communicate with one of Her
Majesty’s ships again, it will be proper for him to do so in person.”
“Oh, certainly—oh, yes; good night to yer. Here, let’s have that cap.
Give way, now, boys,” so saying he clapped it on the top of his old
souwester, and as the frigate forged ahead, the boat dropped astern,
and was pulled back to the Lucretia Ann.
[Sidenote: _A GALE._]
We have had only three days of any thing like bad weather, and those
we enjoyed, I think, quite as much as any. The storm was preceded by
some twenty-four hours of a clear, fresh northwester, driving us along
on our course with foaming, sparkling, and most exhilarating speed.
It gives a fine sensation to be so borne along, like that of riding a
great, powerful, and spirited horse, or of dashing yourself through
the crashing surf, and in your own body breasting away the billows as
they sweep down upon you. Gradually it grew more and more ahead, and
blew harder and harder. When we came on deck early in the morning, the
horizon seemed within a stone’s throw, and there was a grand sight
of dark-marbled swelling waves, rushing on tumultuously, crowding
away and trampling under each other, as if panic-struck by the grey,
lowering, misty clouds that were sweeping down with an appearance of
intense mysterious purpose over them. The expression was of vehement
energy blindly directed. The ship, lying-to under trifling storm-sail,
seemed to have composed herself for a trial, and, neither advancing nor
shrinking back, rose and fell with more than habitual ease and dignity.
Having been previously accustomed only to the fidgety movements of a
smaller class of vessels, I was greatly surprised and impressed by
her deliberate movements; the quietness and simplicity with which she
answered the threats of the turbulent elements.
* * * * *
“If only that northwester had continued”—every body is saying—“we might
have been in Liverpool by this.” It’s not unfashionable yet at sea to
talk about the weather. I am to write about what is most interesting
us! Well, the wind and weather. Bad time when it comes to that? Well,
now,—here I am, sitting on a trunk, bracing myself between two berths,
with my portfolio on my knees—imagine the motion of the vessel, the
flickering, inconstant half-light that comes through a narrow piece of
inch-thick glass, which the people on deck are constantly crossing,
exclamations from them, dash of waves and creaking of timber, and
various noises both distracting and _lullabying_, and if you can’t
understand the difficulty of thinking connectedly, you may begin to
that of writing.
John’s eyes have been bad, and we have read aloud with him a good deal;
but I tell you it is hard work even to read on board ship. We have had
some good talks, have listened to a good deal of music, and to a bad
deal, and had a few staggering hops with the ladies on the quarter
deck. We contrived a set of chess-men, cutting them out of card-board,
fitting them with cork pedestals, and a pin-point to attach them to
the board so they would not slip off or blow away. Charley has had
some capital games, and I believe found his match with Dr. M., one of
the cabin passengers returning home from the East Indies by way of
California, who promises to introduce him at a London chess club.
[Sidenote: _THE VOYAGE._]
I told you in my letter by the pilot-boat, how we had been humbugged
about the second cabin. While this has reduced the cost of our passage
to a very small sum, we have had almost every comfort that we should
have asked. Our room is considerably more spacious, having been
intended for a family apartment, and has the advantage of much less
motion than those of the first cabin. For a ship’s accommodations it
has, too, a quite luxurious degree of ventilation and light. There is a
large port in it that we can open at pleasure, having only been obliged
to close it during two nights of the gale. Our stores have held out
well, and the cook has served us excellently, giving us, particularly,
nice fresh rolls, soups, omelettes, and puddings. We have hardly tasted
our cured meat, and with this and our hard bread we are now helping out
some of our more unfortunate neighbors. Split peas and portable soup
(_bouillon_), with fresh and dried fruit, have been valuable stores;
even our friends in the cabin have been gladly indebted to us for the
latter. Don’t forget when you come to sea to have plenty of fruit.
As the captain desired us to use the quarter-deck privileges, we have
associated as we pleased with the first-cabin passengers, and found
several valuable acquaintances among them. (Friend, rather, I should
call one now.)
Our room-mate, a young Irish surgeon, is a very good fellow, apparently
of high professional attainments, and possessed of a power of so
concentrating his attention on a book or whatever he is engaged with,
as not to be easily disturbed, and a general politeness in yielding to
the tastes of the majority that we are greatly beholden to. He is a
devoted admirer of Smith O’Brien, and thinks the Irish rising of ’48
would have been successful, if he (O’B.) had not been too strictly
honest and honorable a man to lead a popular revolt. Of what he saw
and knew at that time, he has given us some interesting particulars,
which lead me to think that the revolutionary purpose, insurrection,
or at least the insurrectionary purpose, and preparation was much more
general, respectable, and formidable, than I have hitherto supposed.
[Sidenote: _EMIGRANT PASSENGERS._]
Of his last winter’s passage, in an emigrant ship, across the Atlantic,
he gives us a most thrilling account.
He had been appointed surgeon of a vessel about to sail from a
small port in Ireland. She was nearly ready for sea, the passengers
collecting and stores taken on board, when some discovery was made that
involved the necessity of withdrawing her. Another ship was procured
from Liverpool, and the stores, passengers, doctor, and all, hastily
transferred to her in the night, as soon as she arrived. They got to
sea, and he found there was hardly a particle of any thing in the
medicine chest. He begged the captain to put back, but the captain was
a stubborn, reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and only laughed at him.
That very night the cholera broke out. He went again to the captain,
he beseeched him, he threatened him; he told him that on his head
must be the consequences; the captain didn’t care a rope yarn for the
consequences, he would do any thing else to oblige the doctor, but go
back he would not. The doctor turned the pigs out of the long-boat, and
made a temporary hospital of it. It was a cold place, but any thing
was better than that horrible steerage. Nevertheless, down into the
steerage the doctor would himself go every morning, nor leave it till
every soul had gone or been carried on deck before him. He searched the
ship for something he could make medicine of. The carpenter’s chalk
was the only thing that turned up. This he calcined and saved, to be
used sparingly. He forced those who were the least sea-sick to become
nurses; convalescents and those with less dangerous illness, he placed
beds for on the galley and the hen-coops, and made the captain give
up his fowls and other delicacies to them. Fortunately fair weather
continued, and with sleepless vigilance, and strength, as it seemed
to him, almost miraculously sustained, he continued to examine and
send on deck for some hours each day, every one of the three hundred
passengers. On the first cholera symptoms appearing, he gave the
patient chalk, and continued administering it in small but frequent
doses until the spasmodic crisis commenced; thence he troubled him only
with hot fomentations. The third day out a man died and was buried. The
captain read the funeral service, and after the body had disappeared
beneath the blue water, the doctor took advantage of the solemn moment
again to appeal to him.
“Captain, there are three hundred souls in this ship—”
“Belay that, doctor; I’ll see every soul of ’em in Davy’s locker, sir,
before I’ll put my ship back for your cursed physic.”
The doctor said no more, but turned away with a heavy heart to do his
duty as best he could.
I cannot describe the horrors of that passage as he would.
Nevertheless, as far as simple numbers can give it, you shall have the
result.
Out of those three hundred souls, before the ship reached New York,
there died one, and he, the doctor declared most soberly, was a very
old man, and half dead with a chronic (something) when he came on
board. So much for burnt chalk and—fresh air!
But seriously, this story, which, as I have repeated it, I believe is
essentially true, though not in itself a painful one, not the less
strikingly shows with what villainous barbarity, by disregard or
evasion of the laws of England, and the neglect or connivance of the
port officers, the emigrant traffic is carried on. Some of the accounts
of the three other medical men on board, who are also returning from
passages in emigrant ships, would disgust a slave-trader. They say that
many of the passengers will never go on deck unless they are driven or
carried, and frequently the number of these is so great, that it is
impossible to force them out of their berths, and they sometimes lie
in them in the most filthy manner possible, without ever stepping out
from the first heave of the sickening sea till the American pilot is
received on board. Then their wives, husbands, children, as the case
may be, who have served them with food during their prostration, get
them up, and, if they can afford it, change their garments, throwing
the old ones, with the bed and its accumulations, overboard. So, as
any one may see, from a dozen ships a day often in New York, they come
ashore with no disease but want of energy, but emaciated, enfeebled,
infected, and covered with vermin. When we observe the listlessness,
even cheerfulness, with which they accept the precarious and dog-like
subsistence which, while in this condition, the already crowded city
affords them, we see the misery and degradation to which they must
have been habituated in their native land. When in a year afterwards
we find that the same poor fellows are plainly _growing_ active,
hopeful, enterprising, prudent, and, if they have been favourably
situated, cleanly, tidy, and actually changing to their very bones as
it seems—tight, elastic, well-knit muscles taking the place of flabby
flesh, as ambition and blessed discontent take the place of stupid
indifference,—we appreciate, as the landlords and the government men of
Ireland never can, what are the causes of that degradation and misery.
Dr. M. gives much happier accounts of the English governmental emigrant
ships to Australia, in which he has made two voyages. Some few of their
arrangements are so entirely commendable, and so obviously demanded
by every consideration of decency, humanity, and virtue, that I can
only wonder that the law does not require all emigrant vessels to
adopt them. Among these, that which is most plainly required, is the
division of the steerage into three compartments: married parties with
their children in the central one, and unmarried men and women having
separate sleeping accommodations in the other two.
[Sidenote: _MIDSHIP PASSENGERS._]
The others of our midship passengers are mostly English artisans, or
manufacturing workmen. There are two or three farmers, a number of
Irish servants, male and female, and several nondescript adventurers;
two Scotchmen only, brothers, both returning from Cuba sugar
plantations where they have been employed as engineers. They tell us
the people there are all for annexation to the United States, but as
they cannot speak Spanish, their information on this point cannot be
very extensive. Besides ourselves, there is but one American-born
person among them. She is a young woman of quite superior mind, fair
and engaging, rather ill in health, going to England in hopes to
improve it, and to visit some family friends there. The young men are
all hoping the ship will be wrecked, so they can have the pleasure of
saving her—or dying in the attempt. One goes into the main-chains and
sits there for several hours, all alone, every fine day, for no other
reason that we can conceive, but to drop himself easily into the water
after her, in case she should fall overboard. There are three or four
other women, and as many babies, and little boys and girls. They do not
cry very often, but are generally in high spirits, always in the way,
frolicking or eating, much fondled and scolded, and very dirty.
The most notable character in our part of the ship, is one Dr. T.,
another returning emigrant physician. He appears to have been well
educated, and is of a wealthy Irish family. His diploma is signed by
Sir Astley Cooper, whose autograph we have thus seen. Though a young
man, he is all broken down in spirit and body from hard drinking.
He makes himself a buffoon for the amusement of the passengers, and
some of the young men of the first cabin are so foolish as to reward
him sometimes with liquor, which makes him downright crazy. Even the
pale-faced student, who kept his neighbours awake with his midnight
prayers while he was sea-sick, has participated in this cruel fun. Dr.
T. has been _smutten_, as the second mate says, by a young lady of the
first cabin, who does not altogether discourage his gallant attentions.
He keeps up the habits of a gentleman in the reduction of his
circumstances, eating his dinner at four o’clock, (being thus enabled
to cook it while the first-cabin people are below eating theirs, which
is served at half-past three). He declares it was only to oblige the
owners that he took a berth in the second cabin, and he certainly
should not have done so, if he had suspected the _promiscuous_
character of the company he should be associated with there. The
forenoon he spends in combing his hair and whiskers, cleaning his
threadbare coat, smoothing his crushed hat, and polishing his shoes.
Now, indeed, since he has become conscious of the tender passion, and
can feed on love, he has traded off a part of his stock of bread for a
pair of boots, which enables him to dispense with stockings and straps,
much to his relief in dances and fencing bouts. Towards noon he comes
on deck with his coat buttoned to the neck; he wears a stock and no
collar; his hat is set on rakishly; he has a yellow kid glove for his
right hand, the thumb only is missing—his thumb, therefore, is stuck
under the breast of his coat allowing the rest to be advantageously
displayed; his other hand is carried habitually in the mode of Mr.
Pickwick, under the skirt of his coat. He has in his mouth the stump of
a cigar that he found last night upon the deck, and has saved for the
occasion. After walking until it is smoked out with the gentlemen—to
whom he manages to give the impression that he has just finished his
breakfast—he approaches, with a really elegant air to the ladies, and,
gracefully bowing, inquires after their health. Then, after gazing
upwards at the sun a moment, he takes the attitude, “Napoleon at St.
Helena,” his left hand hidden under his right arm, and, in a deep,
tremulous voice, says, “Ourre nooble barruck still cleaves the breeny
ailiment, and bears us on with velucitay ’twarrd th’ expectant shoorres
of Albeeon’s eel. Ah! what a grrand expanse it is of weeld-washing
waterrers! Deleeghtful waytherr, ’pon my worrud.” He is a good
fencer, boxer, card player, and trickster; a safe waltzer, even in a
rolling ship, and, when half-seas over, dances a jig, hornpipe, or
French _pas seul_, and turns a _pirouette_ on the top of the capstan;
plays a cracked clarionet, and can get something out of every sort
of musical instrument; he spouts theatrically, gives imitations of
living actors, sings every thing, _improvises_, and on Sunday chants
from the prayer-book, so that even then the religiously inclined may
_conscientiously_ enjoy his entertainment. A most rare treasure for a
long passage. Some of our passengers declare they would have died of
dulness if it had not been for him!
[Sidenote: _CHARACTERS.—A POET._]
There is another Irishman (from the North), who has written a poem as
long as Paradise Lost, the manuscript of which he keeps under lock
and key, in a small trunk, at the head of his bed, and, as they say,
fastened to a life-preserver. It is never out of his head, however,
and he manages to find something to quote from it appropriate to
every occasion. You might suppose he would be made use of as a butt,
but somehow he is not, and is only regarded as a bore. I incline to
think him a true poet, for he is a strange fellow, often blundering,
stupidly as it seems, upon “good hits,” and, however inconsistently,
always speaking with the confidence of true inspiration. We have a
godless set around us, and he is very impatient of their card-playing
and profanity—particularly if the weather is at all bad—declaring
that he is not superstitious, but that he thinks, if a man is ever
to stand by his faith, it should be when he is in the midst of the
awful ocean, and in an unlucky ship. “Nay,” he asserts again, “he is
_not_ superstitious, and no one must accuse him of it, but if he
were not principled against it, he would lay a large wager that this
ship never does arrive at her destined port.” His poem runs somewhat
upon socialism, whether approvingly or condemnatory I have not yet
been able quite to understand. I rather think he has a scheme of
his own for remodelling society. He uses a good deal of religious
phraseology; he is liberal on doctrinal points, does not enlist under
any particular church banner, and says himself, that he can bear “any
sort of religion (or irreligion) in a man, so he is not a papist.”
Towards all persons of the Roman church he entertains the most orthodox
contempt and undisguised hatred, as becomes, in his opinion, an Irish
_Protestant-born_ man.
There is a good-natured fellow who has been a flat-boatman on the
Mississippi, and more lately a squatter somewhere in the wilds of
the West. His _painter_ and cat-fish stories, with all his reckless
airs and cant river phrases, have much entertained us; of course
he has no baggage, but a “heap of plunder.” He has a rough, rowdy,
blustering, half-barbarous way with him, and you would judge from his
talk sometimes, that he was a perfectly lawless, heartless savage;
yet again there is often evident in his behaviour to individuals a
singularly delicate sense of propriety and fitness, and there is not a
man in the ship with whom I would sooner trust the safety of a woman or
child in a time of peril. The great fault of the man is his terrific
and uncontrollable indignation at any thing which seems to him mean or
unjust, and his judgment or insight of narrow-mindedness is not always
reliable.
[Sidenote: _CHARACTERS._]
He has formed a strong friendship, or crony-ship, for an Englishman
on board, who is a man of about the same native intelligence, but
a strange contrast to him in manner, appearance, and opinions,
being short, thick-set, slow of speech, and husky voiced. He is a
stone-cutter by trade, and returns to England because, as he says,
there is no demand for so _fine work_ as he is able to do, in America,
and he will be better paid in London. These two men are always
together, and always quarrelling. Indeed, the Englishman has, with his
slowness and obstinate deafness to reason on any matter that he has
once stated his views of, an endless battery of logic and banterings
to reply to, for he is the only defender of an aristocratic form of
government amongst us, every other man, Irish, Scotch, or English,
being a thorough-going, violent, radical democrat. Most of them,
indeed, claim the name of red republican, and carry their ideas of
“liberty” far beyond any native American I have known. What is more
remarkable and painful, nearly all of them, except the Irish, are
professedly Deists or Atheists, or something of the sort, for all
their ideas are evidently most crude and confused upon the subject,
and amount to nothing but pity, hatred, or contempt for all religious
people, as either fools or hypocrites, impostors or imposed upon.
There is only one of them that seems to have ever thought upon the
matter at all carefully, or to be able to argue upon it, and he is so
self-satisfied (precisely what he says, by the way, of every one that
argues against him), that he never stops arguing. Of him I will speak
again.
A remark of one of the farmers, an Englishman, and a very sensible
fellow, upon these sentiments so generally held among our company,
seemed to me true and well expressed. I think my observation of the
lower class of Englishmen in the United States generally confirms it.
“I have often noticed of my countrymen,” said he, “that when they cease
to honour the king, they no longer fear God.” That is, as I understand
it, when they are led to change the political theory in which they
have been instructed, they must lose confidence in a religious creed
which they owe about equally to the circumstances of their birth,
neither having been adopted from a rational process in their own minds.
Seeing the childish absurdity of many forms which they have been
trained to consider necessary, natural, and ordered of God, they lose
confidence in all their previous ideas that have resulted from a merely
receptive education, and religion and royalty are classed together as
old-fashioned notions, nursery bugbears, and romances. It is partly the
result of the abominable masquerade of words which is still constantly
played off in England on all public occasions, clothing government
with antiquated false forms of sacredness. The simple majesty and
holy authority that depends on the exercise of justice, love, and
good judgment, so far from being made more imposing by this mummery,
is lost sight of; while all the folly, indiscretion, and injustice of
the administration of the law by fallible and unsanctified agents, is
inevitably associated in the minds of the ignorant with all that is
holy and true.
The only idea now, these our shipmates entertain of Christianity,
seemed to be the particular humbug by which the bishops and clergy
make the people think that they must support them in purple and fine
linen, just as royalty is the humbug on which the queen is borne, and
government the humbug by which the aristocracy are carried on their
shoulders, all, of course, in combination. And nothing would convince
them of the sincerity of the clergy short of their martyrdom—even that,
I fear, should the time come for them to act as judges, they would
rather attribute to pride, or, at best, to an exceptional deluded mind.
With these ideas, nothing but thorough contempt for him, or fear of
punishment, would prevent them from putting a bishop to the test of the
stake, if he should fall into their hands.
[Sidenote: _DEMOCRACY.—SKEPTICISM._]
While this explanation, if it is correct, should not hinder the
promulgation of sound republican views, it strongly opposes the fear
that many have, of providing for the lower classes an education that
shall make them capable of free independent thinking. It is long ago
too late in any country in the world, to prevent the masses from
learning that little that is dangerous. Yet, even in England, it is
argued by churchmen that education, unless managed by the church, is
the foe of their religion! Surely, there must be consciousness of evil
in this fear of the light. True religion is not a machinery for fitting
men with beliefs and morals. The free man in Christ cannot be the
subject of ignorance. It is as much slavish and disloyal to God to be
blindly led by a priest, as to be wheedled by a politician; and more
than it is to be ruled over and crushed by a tyrant. Let _us_ remember,
too, that slaves to party or to creed are not confined to monarchies,
but that all churches and governments whose authority is not dependent
on the untrammelled and honest judgment of free intelligent minds, are
alike ungodly and degrading.
If this view of the connection of liberal politics with religious
skepticism is correct, it follows that we may look with less of horror
and more of hope upon the infidelity which has so scandalized the
national character of France. We may conceive it as the unnatural
and convulsive action of a mind which the last thrust of tyranny
has suddenly aroused from a long, false dream. Sitting in judgment
over the wickedness of tyrants and the licentiousness of courts, it
would be strange, unnatural, almost unreasonable, that a people whose
religious teachers had been dependent on those tyrants,—had been the
most active sycophants of those courts,—teachers, who had taught them
that the power there seated was sacred, should hold in reverence for
a moment longer, any of the dogmas of a religion so debased. The
authority, the stability of the throne, which they have ground to
powder and thrown to the free winds, was a part of the very idea of the
being and government of the God in whom they had been instructed to
believe. Would they not be fools still to worship _such_ an idol of the
imagination? And what then? The natural and fearful reaction here also,
from torpidity and stupid delusion, which a _little_ knowledge must
provoke. And which is best—a dead, superstitious morality, or a live,
working-onward infidelity—a slow poison, swallowed in a sugar-coated
bolus, or an active, painful, purging black-draught? Let us yet hope
(for years are but hours with a nation), that repudiation of lying
forms and ignoble use of the name of God, and His Holy Word is but a
symptom which precedes a return of healthy fidelity to the truth of God.
* * * * *
To return to the man that I mentioned as being more thoughtful and fond
of argument than the others, and who for that reason I have reserved to
speak of more particularly, as affording a more tangible illustration
of English popular skepticism and agrarianism of the day.
[Sidenote: _A DEIST._]
He was born near Sheffield, had been a good while in the United
States, and now returned to England, thinking that some particular
art, in smelting, I believe, that he had acquired, would be more
valued there. He had certainly been a serious and constant thinker,
but his information was limited, superficial, and inaccurate, and
he was better at quibbling and picking inconsistencies, than at
sustained and thorough reasoning. He was a man that would have a strong
influence with a certain kind of honest people, not able to think
far originally; and as his activity would infuse itself into them,
and he was generally in earnest after something, his influence might
possibly in the end be more good than bad. No one could sleep easily,
at all events, while he was near them (as, literally, some of us had
uncomfortable experience). He had been brought up to the best of the
cunning of his parents and friends, a strict ——ist; and nothing can be
more characteristic of the blundering progress likely to be made by a
man cramped with an “education,” after the cowardly fashion to which
the stiff-necked people of England so generally condemn their children,
than his account of his coming to Deism.
While quite young, he said that he saw inconsistencies in the religious
doctrines which had been battered into him, and for years labored
painfully and devoutly to reconcile them; yet each dogma, however
contradicted by another, seemed plainly to rest on Bible language
(always understanding that language as interpreted by his teachers),
constantly looking into every thing else that came in his way, he
obtained from itinerant lecturers some knowledge of phrenology, and
reading a few books upon it, and practising among his fellow-workmen,
he soon acquired not only a good deal of theoretical understanding of
the science, and acuteness in discerning character, but considerable
skill as a manipulator. So, as he moved from place to place, sometimes,
I suspect, giving lectures himself also upon it, he had accumulated
experience that to him incontestably proved the foundation in nature
of the science. He was still a church-going man, and still worshipped
under the shadow of his congenital creed, still trying to reconcile
what seemed its discrepancies, when one day he read in the religious
newspapers of his sect an article on phrenology, in which the reverend
editor, in strong terms, declared its devilish origin and untruth.
His argument, what there was of it, for his strength was mostly spent
in ridicule, denunciation, and everlasting condemnation, was based
on the assumption that phrenology was inconsistent with free will
and moral responsibility, therefore irreconcilable with the Bible.
To listen to phrenologists, then, was to close the eye of faith;
“if you accept phrenology as truth, you deny God. If the Bible is
true, phrenology is false; if phrenology is true, the Bible is a lie.
Phrenology is infidelity.”
“Then,” exclaimed he, “_I_ am an infidel, for I _know_ as well as
the nose on my face, that phrenology _is_ true.” He forthwith began
to study infidel books, soon so scandalized his church, that he was
publicly expelled from it, and thenceforth he had looked upon the Bible
only as a block in the road, over which every man must leap before he
can become free to truth. As the great barrier to the progress of his
race, he set himself diligently to searching out every cranny of error
and crevice of inconsistency from which he could proudly poke the dust,
and expose to reasoners equally shallow with himself; unconscious, poor
fellow, that he was merely picking into blind traditions, uninspired
translations, and hard-squeezed interpretations; rubbish of mortal
church-builders and vain-glorious creed-idolaters, accumulating for
nineteen centuries over the real under-laying adamant of divine truth.
He had even yet, while with us, all the zeal and activity in this
purpose that characterizes the young convert to any faith; talked to
every one that would listen to him, and lugged in his “cause” most
pertinaciously with every company he joined, no matter what might be
the subject of conversation before he entered. There was little use
to argue with him, for he would shift his ground as fast as it was
weakened under him, and by changing the question, never knew that
he failed to sustain himself. He would insist on making the Bible
responsible for every ridiculous notion that foolish or designing men
have ever professed to ground upon it, and constantly insisted on
taking part in those quarrels, it was little matter to him on which
side, which, like the fierce little disputes one often hears in a
family, only show the real bond of love, in the common interest, that
can make matters so trivial seem important. On the grand and simple
purpose of the Bible, from which all Christendom is nursed, he would
always avoid to look or argue.
I had myself always managed to avoid discussion with him, till one
night, as he came to me on deck to repeat the good things with which
he had successively sent to bed the Episcopalian, the Unitarian, the
Calvinist, and the poet, fearing that he presumed from my silence
that I sympathized with his opinions, and would enjoy his triumphs,
I thought it not honest to do so longer; but as I really cared very
little for the views one way or the other against which the shafts
of his wit had been directed, I desired, if possible, to get him
to examine the broad, catholic citadel of which these, at best,
were insignificant outworks, in which alone, too, I had sufficient
confidence to be willing to encounter him. I found it almost
impossible, however, to draw his attention from them. They had been
made to appear to him so much the most important part of Christianity,
that he could hardly for an instant raise his eyes above them, or see
through their obstruction. This difficulty, common enough perhaps
anywhere, is peculiarly characteristic of English working-men, and
is, as I imagine, a direct result of the prevalent views of education
among the religious classes of their country. I have seen immense
evil, as I think, arising from it, and have a strong conviction of its
exceeding folly and danger. I cannot, however, presume upon the general
interest of my readers in the subject, and will not pursue it; but as
illustrating what I mean, and also as showing what seems to me the best
way to meet the difficulties I have referred to, I will endeavour to
give, in the Appendix, for those who care to listen to it, a report of
our conversation.[1] It is, of course, impossible to report minutely
a conversation after a considerable lapse of time. I wish to give
the general ideas brought out, with so much of their connection as
shall show the manner in which they were suggested, and the motive of
presenting them, as this must often greatly affect their force and
character. The reader is requested to bear this remark in mind in other
conversations which will be found in this book. It is the idea given,
and the exhibition of character presented in any way, that I endeavour
to recall and dramatize with all the truth of my memory.
[1] See Appendix A.
CHAPTER III.
SAILORS.—“SOGERS.”—BOOKS.—ANECDOTES.
[Sidenote: _OUR SHIP’S CREW._]
If the purport of my title would permit it, I should like to write a
long chapter on our ship’s crew, and the general subject of American
officers and seamen. I will, however, but give, in this one word,
my testimony, as one having had some experience as to the tyranny,
barbarity, and lawlessness with which in most of our merchant ships
the common seamen are treated; and the vice, misery, and hopelessness
to which, as a body, they are left on our shores, by the neglect or
ill-judged and parsimonious assistance of those who compass sea and
land to make proselytes of the foreign heathen.
Our ship’s crew, as is usual in a Liverpool packet, are nearly all
foreigners—English, Scotch, Irish, Danes, French, and Portuguese. One
boasts of being “half-Welsh and half-Heelander,” judging from this
specimen, I have not a very high opinion of the cross. The mate is a
Dane, the second and third mates, Connecticut men. The captain, also,
is from somewhere down east. He is a good and careful seaman, courteous
in his manners, and a religious man, much more consistently so than
pious captains I have known before proved to be, after getting on blue
water. He never speaks to the seamen, or directly has any thing to do
with them. In fact, except when he is taking observations, or in bad
weather, or an emergency, you would never see in him any thing but
a floating-hotel keeper. It is plain, nevertheless, that his eye is
everywhere, and a single incident will show that the savage custom of
the sea has not been without the usual influence upon him. He went to
the kitchen the other day and told the cook he must burn less wood
than he had been doing. The cook, who is a peculiarly mild, polite,
peaceable, little Frenchman, replied that he had along been careful not
to use more than was necessary. The captain immediately knocked him
down, and then quietly remarking, “You’ll take care how you answer me
next time,” walked back to join the ladies. The cook fell on the stove,
and was badly burned and bruised.
The men complain that their food is stinted and poor, and they are
worked hard, at least they are kept constantly at work; men never exert
themselves much when that is the case. It has been evident to me that
they all _soger_ systematically. (_Sogering_ is pretending to work,
and accomplishing as little as possible.) It is usually considered an
insult to accuse one of it, but one day I saw a man so evidently trying
to be as long as he could at some work he had to do in the rigging,
that I said to him,—
“Do you think you’ll _make eight bells_ of that job?”
He looked up with a twirl of his tongue, but said nothing.
“Have you been at it all the watch?”
“Ay, sir, I have.”
“A smart man would have done it in an hour, I should think.”
“Perhaps he might.”
“Do you call yourself a soger?”
“Why, sir, we all sogers, reg’lar, in this here craft. D’ye see, sir,
the capten’s a mean man, and ’ould like to get two days’ work in one
out on us. If he’d give us _watch-and-watch_, sir, there’d be more work
done, you mote be sure, sir.”
[Sidenote: _SAILORS’ ETHICS._]
Sunday is observed by sparing the crew from all labour not necessary to
the sailing of the ship, but as it is the only day in which they have
watch-and-watch, or time enough to attend to such matters, they are
mostly engaged in washing and mending their clothes. We had selected
a number of books at the Tract-house, which we gave away among them.
They were received with gratitude, and the pictures at least read
with interest. The printed matter was read somewhat also; I noticed
three men sitting close together, all spelling out the words from
three different books, and speaking them aloud in a low, monotonous
tone. If they had come to a paragraph in Latin, I doubt if they would
have understood what they read any less. The truth is, as I have
often noticed with most sailors, _a book is a book_, and they read it
for the sake of reading, not for the ideas the words are intended to
convey, just as some people like to work out mathematical problems
for the enjoyment of the work, not because they wish to make use of
the result. I saw a sailor once bargaining with a shipmate for his
allowance of grog, offering him for it a little book, which he said
was “first-rate reading.” After the bargain was closed I looked at
the book. It was a volume of Temperance tales. The man had no idea of
making a practical joke, and assured me with a grave face, that he had
read it all through. One Sunday, in the latter part of a passage from
the East Indies, one of my watchmates, an old sea-dog, closed a little
carefully preserved Testament, and slapping it on his knee, said, with
a triumphant air, as if henceforth there was laid up for him a crown of
glory and no mistake,—“There! I’ve read that book through, every word
on’t, this voyage; and, damme, if I ha’nt got more good out on’t than
I should ’a got going aft long with the rest on ye, to hear that old
pharisee (the captain) make his long prayers.” Then, after gazing at it
a few moments, he added, musingly, as if reflecting on the mutability
of human affairs, “I hookt that book from a feller named Abe Williams,
to the Home, down to Providence, ’bout five year ago. His name was
in’t, but I tore it out. I wonder what’s become on him now; dead,—as
like as not” (puts it up and takes out his pipe); “well, God’ll have
mercy on his soul, I hope.”
CHAPTER IV.
ON SOUNDINGS.—ENGLISH SMALL CRAFT.—HARBOUR OF LIVERPOOL.
_Sunday, May 25th._
[Sidenote: _CAPE CLEAR.—GALE._]
At sunset yesterday the mate went to the royal yard to look for land,
but could not see it. By our reckoning we were off Mizzen Head, a point
to the westward of Cape Clear, steering east by south, fresh wind and
rising, going nine knots, thick weather and rain. Several gannets (a
kind of goose with white body and black wings) were about us. Some
one said they would probably go to land to spend the night, and there
was pleasure in being so made to realize our vicinity to it. Several
vessels were in sight, all running inside us, and steering northeast.
We thought our captain over anxious to give Cape Clear a wide berth,
and were very sorry not to make the land before dark. After sunset
it grew thicker, and the wind, which had been increasing all day, by
midnight was a gale. He got all sail in but the reefed topsails; then
hove-to, and found bottom in fifty-five fathoms. I was quite satisfied
now with the captain’s prudence; the sea was running high, and the
cliffs of Ireland could not be many miles distant. As it was, I felt
perfectly safe, and turned in, sleeping soundly till nine o’clock this
morning. About an hour later they made the light on the old Head of
Kinsale, where the Albion was lost some thirty years since. The captain
says we passed within ten miles of Cape Clear light without seeing it.
He was just right in his reckoning, and the vessels that went inside
of us were all wrong, and he thinks must have got into trouble. We are
now nearly up to Waterford, and off a harbour where, many years ago, a
frigate was lost, with fifteen hundred men. It is foggy yet, and we can
only see the _loom_ of the land.
* * * * *
_Monday, May 27th._
[Sidenote: _ENGLISH CHANNEL._]
The Channel yesterday was thick with vessels, and I was much interested
in watching them. A collier brig, beating down Channel, passed close
under our stern. We were going along so steadily before it that I had
not before thought of the violence of the wind. It was amazing to see
how she was tossed about. Plunging from the height of the sea, her
white figure-head would divide the water and entirely disappear, and
for a moment it would seem as if some monster below had seized her
bowsprit and was taking her down head foremost; then her stern would
drop, a great white sheet of spray dash up, wetting her foresail almost
to the foretop; then she would swing up again, and on the crest of the
billow seem to stop and shake herself, as a dog does on coming out of
the surf; then, as the wind acted on her, she would fall suddenly over
to leeward, and a long curtain of white foam from the scuppers would
be dropped over her glistening black sides. It was very beautiful, and
from our quiet though rapid progress, showed the superior comfort of a
large ship very strikingly. We have not rolled or pitched enough during
all the passage to make it necessary to lash the furniture in our room.
Afterwards we saw a Welsh schooner, then a French lugger with three
masts, then a cutter with one, all quite different in rig and cut of
sail from any thing we ever see on our coast.
About four o’clock we sighted Tuscar light, and could see beyond it,
through the fog, a dark, broken streak, on which we _imagined_ (as the
dull-eyed said) darker spots of wood and lighter spots of houses, and
which we called Ireland. We saw also at some distance the steamer which
left Liverpool the day before for Cork. She was very long and low, and
more clipper-like in her appearance than our sea-going steamers of the
same class. At sunset we were out of sight of land again and driving
on at a glorious rate, passing rapidly by several large British ships
going the same course.
I was up two or three times during the night, and found the captain
all the while on deck in his India-rubber clothes, the mate on the
forecastle, look-outs aloft, every thing drawing finely, and nothing
to be seen around us but fog, foam, and fire-flashing surges. At three
o’clock this morning, John called me, and I again came on deck. It was
still misty, but there was LAND—dark and distinct against the eastern
glow—no more “imagination.” It was only a large, dark ledge of rocks,
with a white light-house, and a streak of white foam separating between
it and the dark blue of the sea; but it seemed thrillingly beautiful.
In a few minutes the fog opened on our quarter, and disclosed, a few
miles off, a great, sublime mountain, its base in the water, its head
in the clouds. The rock was the Skerrys; the mountain, Holyhead. Very
soon, high, dark hills, piled together confusedly, dimly appeared on
our right—dimly and confused, but real, substantial, unmistakable solid
ground—none of your fog-banks! These were on the island of Anglesea.
Then, as the ship moved slowly on, for the wind was lulling, past
the Skerrys, the fog closed down and hid it all again, and we went
below to dress. When again we came up it was much lighter, and the
brown hills of Anglesea were backed up by the blue mountains of Wales
distinct against the grey cloud behind them. Soon a white dot or two
came out, and the brown hill-sides became green, with only _patches_ of
dark brown—_ploughed ground_—real old mother earth. As it grew still
lighter, the white spots took dark roofs, and coming to Point Linos, a
telegraph station was pointed out to us; our signal was hoisted, and in
five minutes we had spoken our name to a man in Liverpool. We had just
begun to distinguish the _hedgerows_, when there was a sudden flash
of light, disclosing the cottage windows, and Charley, looking east,
exclaimed, “THE SUN OF THE OLD WORLD.”
[Sidenote: _PILOT.—STEAM-TUG._]
A long, narrow, awkward ugly thing—a cross of a canal-boat with
a Mystic fishing-smack—with a single short mast, a high-peaked
mainsail, a narrow staysail coming to the stem-head, and without any
bowsprit; so out from the last fog-bank like an apparition comes the
pilot-boat. Directly she makes more sail, and runs rapidly towards us.
Our yachtman-passenger, coming on deck, calls her by name, and says
that she is here considered a model of beauty, and that a portrait
of her has been published. To say the right thing for her, she does
look stanch and weatherly, the sort of craft altogether, if he were
confined to her tonnage, and more mindful of comfort than of time,
that one might choose to make a winter’s cruise in off Hatteras, or to
bang through the ice after Sir John Franklin. The pilot she has now
sent aboard of us does not, in his appearance, contrast unfavourably
with our own pilots, as travellers have generally remarked Liverpool
pilots do. He is an intelligent, burly, sharp-voiced Englishman—a
reliable-looking sort of man, only rather too dressy for his work. He
brings no news; pilots never do. When we took on board the New York
pilot, in my passage from the East Indies, we had had no intelligence
from home for more than six months. The greatest news the pilot had for
us, turned out to be that another edition of Blunt’s Coast Pilot was
out. I contrived to keep myself within earshot of him and the captain,
as they conversed for half an hour after he came on our deck, and this
was all I could learn, and except the late arrivals and departures
and losses of vessels, this was all we got from him for two days. Our
Liverpool pilot, however, brings us a Price Current and Shipping-List
newspaper, in which we find an allusion to “the unfavorable news from
France” as affecting the state of trade, but whether it is of floods,
hurricanes, or revolutions, there is no knowing. In the same way we
understand that the loyal English nation are blessed with another baby
prince, and are stopping their mills to give God thanks for it. There
is a slight fall in cotton too reported, and since he read of it, our
New Orleans man has been very busy figuring and writing letters.
[Illustration: THE ENGLISH COASTER (_calm_)]
After the pilot came the first English shower (“It’s a fine day,” says
the boatman, just now coming on board—we have only had three showers
this forenoon), and then it fell calm, and the ship loitered as if
fatigued with her long journey. It is now noon, and while I am writing,
a low, black, business-like scullion of a steamboat has caught hold of
the ship, and means to get her up to the docks before night. On her
paddle-boxes are the words in letters once white, and the only thing
pretending to be white about her, “The Steam-Tug Company’s Boat, No. 5,
the _Liver_ of Liverpool.” Long life to her then, for she is a friendly
hand stretched out from the shore to welcome us. A good-looking little
boat too she is, much better fitted for her business than our New York
tow-boats.
* * * * *
_May 28th._
We were several hours in getting up to town yesterday, after I
had written you. Long before any thing else could be seen of it
but a thick black cloud—black as a thunder-cloud, and waving and
darkening one way and the other, as if from a volcano—our approach
to a great focus of commerce was indicated by the numbers which
we met of elegant, graceful, well-equipped and ship-shape-looking
steamers, numerous ships—graceful spider-rigged New York liners, and
sturdy quarter-galleried, carved and gilt, pot-sided, Bristol built,
stump-to’-gallant-masted old English East-Indiamen (both alive with
cheering emigrants, hopeful of Australian and Michiganian riches, and
yet defiant of sea-sickness), dropping down with the tide, or jerked
along by brave little steam-tugs, each belching from her chimney, long,
dense, swelling volumes of smoke; with hosts of small craft lounging
lazily along, under all sorts of sooty canvass.
[Sidenote: _SAILING CRAFT OF THE CHANNEL._]
These small craft are all painted dead black, and you cannot imagine
how clumsy they are. The greater part of them are single masted, as
I described the pilot-boat to be. In addition to the mainsail and
fore-staysail (an in-board jib), they set a very large gaff topsail,
hoisting as a flying sail, with a gaff crossing the topmast (like our
men-of-war’s boat sails), their bowsprit is a spar rigging out and in,
like a steering sail-boom, and with this they stretch out an enormous
jib, nearly as long in the foot as in the hoist, and of this too,
before the wind, some of them make a beam-sail. If it blows fresh, they
can shorten in their bowsprit and set a smaller jib; and about the time
our sloops would be knotting their second reef and taking their bonnets
off, they have their bowsprit all in board, their long topmast struck,
and make themselves comfortable under the staysail and a two-reefed
mainsail. If it comes on to blow still harder, when ours must trust
to a scud, they will still be jumping through it with a little storm
staysail, and a _balance-reefed_ mainsail as shown in the cut.
[Illustration: THE ENGLISH COASTER (_squalls_)]
These single-masted vessels are called cutters, not sloops (a proper
sloop I did not see in England); and our word cutter, wrongly applied
to the revenue schooners, is derived from the English term, revenue
cutter, the armed vessels of the British preventive service, being
properly cutters. Cutters frequently carry yards and square sails.
We saw one to-day with square-sail, topsail, top-gallant, and royal
set. I have heard old men say that when they were boys, our coasting
sloops used to have these sails, and before the revolution our small
craft were, not uncommonly, also cutter-rigged. Instead of being of
whitewashed cotton, the sails of the coasters here are _tanned_ hemp,
having the appearance, at a little distance, of old worn brown velvet.
In sailing qualities the advantage is every way with us; in the build,
the rig, and in the cut, as well as the material of the sails; for our
cotton duck will hold the wind a great deal the best. Ninety-nine in
a hundred of our single-masted market-boats, in a light wind, would
run around the fastest coaster in the Mersey with the greatest ease.
They are not calculated at all for working to windward, but are stiff
and weatherly, and do very well for boxing through the Channel, I
suppose; but for such business we should rig schooner fashion, and
save the expense of an extra hand, which must be wanted to handle
their heavy mainsail and boom. Further up, we saw on the beach several
cutter-rigged yachts. They were wide of beam, broad sterned, sharp
built, and deep, like our sea-going clippers.
[Sidenote: _ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL._]
The immediate shores grew low as we entered the Mersey. It was nearly
calm, but though the surface of the water was glassy smooth, it was
still heaving with the long muscular swell of the sea until we reached
the town. We approached nearer the land, where, on the right hand,
there was a bluff point, bare of trees, with large rocks cropping out
at its base; beneath the rocks a broad, hard, sand beach, and low on
the water’s edge, a castle of dark-brown stone, the only artificial
defence, that I noticed, of the harbour. The high ground was occupied
by villas belonging to merchants of Liverpool, and the place is called
New Brighton, and bearing a resemblance to our New Brighton. There is
the same barrenness of foliage, and some similarity in the style of
the houses, though there are none so outrageously out of taste as some
of those that obtrude upon the scenery of Staten Island, and none so
pretty as some of the less prominent there.
As we entered the cloud that had hitherto interrupted our view in
front, we could see, on the left, many tall chimneys and steeples,
and soon discerned forests of masts. On the right, the bank continued
rural and charming, with all the fresh light verdure of spring. Below
it we could distinctly see, and quite amusing it was, many people,
mostly women and children, riding donkeys and driving pony-carriages
on the beach. It seemed strange that they did not stop to look at us.
There were bathing-wagons too, drawn by a horse out into three or four
feet water, and women floundering into it out of them and getting back
again very hastily, as if they found it colder than they had expected.
We approached incomplete structures of stone-work along the water’s
edge, in which men and horses were clustering like bees. Soon we passed
them, and were looking up at the immense walls of the docks, each with
its city of shipping securely floating fifteen or twenty feet higher
than the water on which we were, it being now low ebb. At five, in the
rumble and roar of the town, our anchor dropped. The ship could not
haul into the docks until midnight tide, and the steam-tug took us, who
wished it, to the shore, landing us across the Dublin steamer at the
Prince’s Dock quay.
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST OF ENGLAND.—THE STREETS.—A RAILWAY STATION.—THE DOCKS AT
NIGHT.—PROSTITUTES.—TEMPERANCE.—THE STILL LIFE OF LIVERPOOL.
—A MARKET.
At the head of the gang-plank stood a policeman, easily recognised and
familiar, thanks to Punch, who politely helped us to land, thus giving
us immediate occasion to thank the government for its hospitality, and
its regard for our safety and convenience. It was a real pleasure to
stamp upon the neat, firm, solid mason-work of the dock, and we could
not but be mindful of the shabby log-wharves we had stumbled over as
we left New York. We were immediately beset by porters, not rudely,
but with serious, anxious deference and care to keep a way open before
us. I was assisting a lady, and carried her bag; a man followed me
pertinaciously. “I tell you I have no baggage,” said I. “But, sir, this
bag?” “Oh, I can carry that.” “Excuse me, sir; you must not, indeed;
_gentlemen_ never does so in _this country_.” After handing the lady
into a hackney-coach, we walked on. The landing-place was spacious, not
encumbered with small buildings or piles of freight, and though there
was a little rain falling, there was a smooth, clean stone pavement,
free from mud, to walk upon. There was a slight smell of bituminous
smoke in the air, not disagreeable, but, to me, highly pleasant. I
snuffed it as if passing a field of new-mown hay—snuffed and pondered,
and at last was brought to my mind the happy fireside of the friend,
in the indistinct memory of which this peculiar odour of English coal
had been gratefully associated.
[Sidenote: _LIVERPOOL.—RAILWAY STATION._]
Coming on shore with no luggage or any particular business to engage
our attention, we plunged adventurously into the confused tide of
life with which the busy streets were thronged, careless whither it
floated us. Emerging from the crowd of porters, hackmen, policemen, and
ragged Irish men and women on the dock, we entered the first street
that opened before us. On the corner stood a church—not un-American
in its appearance—and we passed without stopping to the next corner,
where we paused to look at the dray-horses, immensely heavy and in
elegant condition, fat and glossy, and docile and animated in their
expression. They were harnessed, generally, in couples, one before
another, to great, strong, low-hung carts, heavy enough alone to be
a load for one of our cartmen’s light horses. Catching the bustling
spirit of the crowd, we walked on at a quick pace, looking at the
faces of the men we met more than any thing else, until we came to a
wall of hewn drab stone, some fifteen feet high, with a handsomely
cut balustrade at the top. There was a large gateway in it, from
which a policeman was driving away some children. People were going
in and out, and we followed in to see what it was. Up stairs, we
found ourselves on a broad terrace, with a handsome building, in
Tuscan style, fronting upon it. Another policeman here informed us
that it was a railway station. The door was opened as we approached
it by a man in a simple uniform, who asked us where we were going.
We answered that we merely wished to look at the building. “Walk in,
gentlemen; you will best take the right-hand platform, and return by
the other.” A train was backing in; a man in the same uniform stood
in the rear car, and moved his hand round as if turning an imaginary
driving-wheel, the engine at the other end being governed by his
motions:—forward—slower—slower—faster—slower—stop—back. The train
stopped, the doors were unlocked by men in a more brilliant uniform,
and there was a great rush of passengers to secure good seats. Women
with bundles and band-boxes were shoved this way and that, as they
struggled to hoist themselves into the doors; their parcels were
knocked out of their hands, porters picked them up and threw them in,
reckless where. So bewildered and flustered did they all seem to be,
that we could not refrain from trying to assist them. There was nothing
in the plan or fittings of the building that needs remark, and we soon
returned to the terrace, where we remained some time observing the
peculiarities of the houses and the people passing in the vicinity.
Going into the street again we wandered on till it was quite dark,
with no other object but to get a general impression of the character
of the town. We looked into a few houses where we saw a sign of “Clean
and well-aired beds,” and found that we should have no difficulty in
getting comfortable lodgings at a very moderate price. From nine until
twelve we were waiting at the dock for the ship to haul in, or trying
in vain to get a boat to go on board of her. There were many vessels
laying near the great gates, all standing by, when they should be
opened at high-water, to be hauled in.
[Sidenote: _PROSTITUTES.—SAILORS._]
The broad promenade outside the dock walls was occupied by the
police, stevedores, watermen, boarding-house keepers, and a crowd of
women, waiting to help in the ships or to receive their crews when
the tide should have risen enough to admit them. I was surprised at
the quietness and decency of these “sailors’ wives,” as they called
themselves; they were plainly and generally neatly dressed, and talked
quietly and in kind tones to each other, and I heard no loud profanity
or ribaldry at all. Whether this was owing to the presence of the
police I cannot say, but I am sure it would be impossible to find,
in America, vice, shame, and misery so entirely unassociated with
drunkenness or excitement and riot. They were not as young as girls of
the same sort in the streets of New York, and in the strong gas-light
their faces seemed expressive of a quite different character; generally
they were pensive and sad, but not ill-natured or stupid. It occurred
to me that their degradation must have been reached in a different way,
and had not brought with it that outcasting from all good which they
would suffer with us. As they stood, companioned together with each
other, but friendless, some with not even hats to protect them from the
rain, others, with their gowns drawn up over their head, and others,
two together, under a scanty shawl, it would have been difficult, I
thought, for a woman, who is always found most unforgiving of her
sister’s sin, not to have been softened towards those abandoned thus
to seek support of life that night. We could not but think the kind
words with which the sailors recognised and greeted them, as the ships
hauled near, were as much dictated by pity and sympathy as by any worse
impulses. They said, “If nobody else cares for you, we do.” If nobody
else is waiting to welcome us, we know that you will be glad that
we are coming to the land once more, so, cheer up, and we will help
each other again to enjoy a short space of jollity, excitement, and
forgetfulness.
There is a benevolent enterprise on foot here for shipping these
victims of frailty by wholesale to Australia. A strange way, it seems,
to think of peopling a new Anglo-Saxon world; but who is prouder of
his ancestry than your Virginian, whose colony, it is thought, was
originally furnished in much the same way with mothers? The fact that
the project is favoured by intelligent, practical, religious men,
is gratifying, and the remarks they are reported as making in public
meetings on the subject, indicate a hopeful appreciation of the effect
of circumstances upon character.
Tired of waiting for the ship, and a good deal fatigued with our tramps
on the pavements, about half-past twelve we went back into the town,
and by the very obliging assistance of the policemen found lodgings in
a “Temperance Hotel,” still open at that late hour. We were a little
surprised to find a number of men in the coffee-room drinking beer
and smoking. The subject of their conversation was some project of an
association of working-men to combine their savings, and make more
profitable investment of them than could be made of the small amounts
of each separately. There were late newspapers on the table, and we sat
up some time longer to read them, but they were still at it, puffing
and drinking, and earnestly discussing how they could best use their
money, when we went up to bed. We had good beds in pleasant rooms for
which we paid twenty-five cents each.
The next morning we got our trunks from the ship, the custom-house
officers searching them before they left the dockyard. Books, letters,
and daguerreotypes were examined minutely, but the officers were very
civil and accommodating; so also were the cartmen that took them to the
inn for us. The expense of getting our luggage through the searching
office, and carting it a mile, was only twenty-five cents for each
trunk, and “tuppence for beer.”
We went to a small lodging-house that we had examined last night,
and found neat and comfortable, and kept by an agreeable woman. We
have a large front room, comfortably furnished, and down stairs is a
quiet parlor and dining-room. We breakfast in the house, and dine and
sup at eating shops. The whole cost of living so we make but about
seventy-five cents each a day. As good entertainment would cost more
than that in New York. We have made a few purchases of clothing, and
find every thing we want cheaper than in New York.
* * * * *
_Liverpool, Tuesday, 28th May._
[Sidenote: _COST OF LIVING.—BUILDING MATERIALS._]
The common building material here is a light, greyish-red brick. Stone
of different colours is used in about the same proportion that it is
in New York. The warehouses are generally higher than the same class
of buildings there, but the dwelling-houses lower, seldom over three
stories. The old houses, in narrow streets, are generally small, and
often picturesque from the carvings of time upon them, or from the
incongruous additions and improvements that have been made to them
at intervals. At the railway station we noticed such differences in
the windows of a two-story house near us, as these. There were two
below; one of these, being a shop front, was entirely modern, with
large panes of glass in light wooden sashes. The other was of small
panes, set in heavy wood-work, such as you see in our oldest houses.
One of the upper windows had small square panes set in lead; those of
the other were _lozenge_-shaped, and in neither were they more than
three inches wide. The frames were much wider than they were high, and
they opened sideways. In the newer part of the city, the fashionable
quarter, there are a good many brick-walled houses faced with _stucco_.
Others are of Bath stone, and these are not unfrequently _painted_ over
of the original colour of the stone. Bath stone, which is the most
common material of mason work, is a fine-grained freestone, very easy
to the chisel. It is furnished much cheaper than our brown stone, so
much so that there would be a chance of exporting it to America with
profit. There is a finer sort of it, called by the masons Caen stone,
which is brought from Normandy. The colour of both is at first buff,
but rapidly changes to a dark brown. There are some buildings of red
sandstone, of a little lighter colour than that now so much used in New
York. In buildings mainly of brick, stone is used more considerably
than with us; and there are none of those equivocating, sanded-wood
parapets, porticos, steps, &c.; all is the _real grit_. The bricks are
mottled, half red and half greyish yellow; the effect, at a little
distance, being as I said a yellow or greyish red, much pleasanter than
the bright red colour of our Eastern brick. Every thing out of doors
here soon gets _toned down_, as the artists say, by the smoke. Perhaps
it is partly on this account that pure white paint is never used; but
the prevailing taste is evidently for darker colours than with us. The
common hues of the furniture and fitting up of shops, for instance, is
nearly as dark as old mahogany. This gives even the dram-shops such a
rich, substantial look, that we can hardly recognise them as of the
same species as our tawdry “saloons,” that are so painted, gilded,
and bedizened to catch flies with their flare. There are no “oyster
cellars,” but oysters “raw and in the shell,” are exposed in stands
about the street, like those of our “hot corn,” and apple women. Liquor
shops, always with the ominous sign of “_Vaults_,” are very frequent,
and often splendid. The tea and coffee shops are among the richest in
the streets. The bakers’ fronts are also generally showy, and there
are a great many of them. It seems to be the general custom, for poor
families at least, to make their own bread, and send it in to them to
be baked. The first night we were ashore, we got some bread and butter,
and American cheese, at a baker’s, and saw in ten minutes a dozen
loaves called for. They had sheet-iron checks, with numbers on them,
which were given up on the presentation of a corresponding check, and,
for a loaf of ten or twelve pounds, a penny for baking—in the same way
that passengers’ baggage is checked on our railroads.
[Sidenote: _LIVERPOOL.—STREETS._]
Wood is used in the interior of houses more than I had imagined it
would be. Its cost is high. I inquired the price of what looked like
a common “Albany board,” such as I buy in New York for sixteen cents;
it was of the value of about thirty five cents. The kitchens, as far
as we have observed, are on the street floor, level with the living
apartments. Coarse pottery and wicker-work utensils are more common
than with us. Few of the houses in the town have trees about them.
Occasionally an old mansion is set a little back, and has a little
shrubby foliage in front of it—most commonly of elms dwarfed to the
size and natural shape of a green-gage plum-tree. There are, though, in
the better part of the town, some most charming public grounds. I have
never seen any thing in America to compare with them. I will speak of
them more particularly at another time.
The surface of the ground on which the town is built is irregular,
and the streets crooked and running at every angle with each other.
Generally they are short, and if long, at every few blocks the names
are changed. The names are often singular; many, far apart, have the
same with different prefixes, as Great and Little, North and South,
&c. We are in “Great Cross Hall street;” after a slight turn it is
called “Tythe Barn street,” and further on Chapel street. _Tythe Barn_,
I understand, is derived from the name of the building in which the
tithes were deposited when they were taken in kind—a tenth of the hay,
wheat, poultry, &c. There is a steep ascent near us called “Shaw’s
Brow;” it is fitted with smooth stone tracks for cart-wheels, with
narrow stones between them set _on end_ for the horses’ feet, double
teams here generally going _tandem_. The best streets are paved, as in
New York, only one quarter the distance across them, the intermediate
space being macadamized. This makes a very pleasant road. There is
generally a wide sidewalk, which is flagged as in our cities; but in
the commercial streets it is oftener paved like the carriage-way, and
in the narrowest there is none at all. The streets are very clean, and
all the side-walks, gutters, and untravelled spaces appear to be swept
every day.
[Sidenote: _MARKETS.—ECONOMIES.—HOURS._]
I have been through two markets. One of them is an immensely large
building, covering about two acres, right in the centre of the town;
it is clean, light, and well ventilated. What a wonder it is that the
people of New York will put up with such miserable, filthy, crowded
hovels as their markets are! In this building there are over five
hundred stalls and tables. It has its own superintendant of weights
and measures, and a thorough and constant police. There are twelve men
whose employment is to keep it clean. The garbage is passed readily
through traps into vaults below, from which it is removed at night. The
rules for those who use it, are excellent to secure healthy condition
of food, neatness, order, and fair play, and they are strictly
enforced. To my mind, this structure, and the arrangements connected
with it, is an honour to Liverpool, not second to her docks. And she
has three other large public markets, besides small ones for particular
purposes. The meat stalls are frequently owned by women, and, except a
better supply of birds and rabbits, did not offer any thing different
from those of our butchers. A part of the market seemed to be occupied
by country women for the sale of miscellaneous wares.
The fish market was in another building, which was entirely occupied
by women, nice and neat, though skinning eels and cleaning fish. The
milk market also seemed to be altogether in the hands of women. Milk
is not peddled about as in New York, but sold from cellar-shops. If
one wants a cup of tea, our landlady runs across the street for a
penny-worth of it. “From hand to mouth” so, seems to be common with
many things. The material for our breakfast is mostly bought after we
have ordered it. As we did not mention what we would have till after
the shops were closed last night, we had to wait till nine o’clock for
it this morning. Business hours begin later than in America. I think
the market is not open till eight, which they speak of as “very early.”
In this respect we have found no difficulty in accommodating ourselves
to English customs.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PEOPLE AT LIVERPOOL.—POVERTY.—MERCHANTS.—SHOPKEEPERS.—
WOMEN.—SOLDIERS.—CHILDREN.—DONKEYS AND DRAY HORSES.
[Sidenote: _LIVERPOOL PEOPLE._]
I have mentioned the most general features of the town which, at first
sight, on landing in Europe from New York, strike me as peculiar.
Having given you its still life, you will wish me to people it.
After we had wandered for about an hour through the streets the
first afternoon we were ashore, I remarked that we had not yet seen
a single well-dressed man, not one person that in America would have
been described as “of respectable appearance.” We were astonished to
observe with what an unmingled stream of poverty the streets were
swollen, and J. remarked that if what we had seen was a fair indication
of the general condition of the masses here, he should hardly feel
justified in dissuading them from using violent and anarchical means
to bring down to themselves a share of the opportunities and comforts
of those “higher classes” that seem to be so utterly separated from
them. There are a great many Irish in Liverpool, but the most that
we had thus far seen evidently were English, yet not English as we
have known them. Instead of the stout, full-faced John Bulls, we had
seen but few that were not thin, meagre, and pale. There was somewhat
rarely an appearance of actual misery, but a stupid, hopeless,
state-prison-for-life sort of expression. There were not unfrequently
some exceptions to this, but these were men almost invariably in some
uniform or livery, as railroad hands, servants, and soldiers.
The next morning, in the court-yard of the Exchange (the regular
’Change assemblage seemed to meet out of doors), we saw a large
collection of the merchants. There was nothing to distinguish them
from a company of a similar kind with us, beyond a general Englishness
of features and an entire absence of all _oddities_—with astonishing
beards and singularities of costume. One young man only wore small
clothes and leggins, which would perhaps have disagreeably subjected
him to be noticed with us. They were stouter than our merchants, and
more chubby-faced, yet not looking in vigorous health. They were, on
the whole, judging by a glance at their outsides, to be more respected
than any lot of men of the same number that I ever saw together in
Wall street. Many of them, and most of the well-dressed men that we
have seen in the streets, have had a green leaf and simple _posy_ in a
button-hole of their coats.
The shopkeepers of the better class, or retail merchants, are exactly
the same men, to all appearance, that stand behind the counters with
us. _Merchant_, means only a wholesale dealer in England; retailers are
_shopkeepers_. The word _store_ is never applied to a building; but the
building in which goods are stored is a _warehouse_.
Women are more employed in trade than with us; I have no doubt
with every way great advantage. The women in the streets are more
noticeably different from ours than the men. In general, they are very
cheaply and coarsely clad. Many of the lower class have their outer
garments ordinarily drawn up behind, in the scrubbing-floor fashion.
Caps are universally worn, and being generally nice and white, they
have a pleasant effect upon the face. The very poorest women look
very miserably. We see bruised eyes not unfrequently, and there is
evidently a good deal of hard drinking among them. They are larger
and stouter, and have coarser features. There are neither as many
pretty nor as many ugly faces as with us; indeed, there are very few
remarkably ill-favoured in that respect, and almost none strikingly
handsome. The best faces we have seen were among the fish-stalls in
market. With scarcely an exception, the fish-women were very large and
tall, and though many of them were in the neighbourhood of fifty, they
had invariably full, bright, unwrinkled faces, beautiful red cheeks,
and a cheerful expression. English women, generally, appear more bold
and self-reliant, their _action_ is more energetic, and their carriage
less graceful and drooping than ours. Those well dressed that we have
seen, while _shopping_, for instance, are no exceptions. Those we have
met to converse with are as modest and complaisant as could be desired,
yet speak with a marked promptness and confidence which is animating
and attractive. We met a small company last night at the residence of a
gentleman to whom we had a letter, and spent the evening precisely as
we should at a small tea-party at home; we might easily have imagined
ourselves in New England. The gentlemen were no way different, that we
noticed, from cultivated men with us, and the ladies only seemed rather
more frank, hearty, and sincere-natured than we should expect ours to
be to strangers.[2] There was nothing in their dresses that I can think
of as peculiar, yet a general air, not American—a heavier look and more
_crinkles_, and darker and more mixed-up colours. We see many rather
nice-looking females, probably coming in from the country, driving
themselves about town as if they understood it, in jaunty-looking
chaises and spring-carts. As J. and I were standing this noon by
the window of a curiosity-shop, a lady addressed us: “This is very
curious; have you noticed it?” (pointing at something within the
window). “I wish you would help me to read what is written upon it.”
She spoke exactly as if she _belonged to our party_. She was not young
or gayly-dressed, but had all the appearance and used the language of
a well-bred and educated woman. We conversed with her for a minute or
two about the article, which was some specimen of Australian natural
history.
[2] These ladies were Irish. The remark hardly applies to English
ladies, certainly not unless you meet them domestically. The English in
their _homes_, and the English “_in company_,” are singularly opposite
characters.
There are a good many soldiers moving about in fine undress uniforms;
one regiment is in blue, which I did not suppose the British ever
used. The men look well—more intelligent than you would suppose. Many
are quite old, grey-headed, and all are very neat and orderly in the
streets.
[Sidenote: _CHILDREN’S DRESS.—DONKEYS._]
The children look really _punchy_. It strikes me the young ones are
dressed much older, while the young men are clothed much more boyishly
than in America. Quite large children, of both sexes, are dressed
exactly alike, and whether girls or boys (they look between both), you
cannot guess—girls with fur hats, such as full-grown men wear, and boys
in short dresses and pantalettes.
* * * * *
There are lots of the queerest little donkeys in the streets; some of
them would not weigh more than Nep (my Newfoundland dog), and most of
them are not as large as our two-year-old steers. They are made to
draw most enormous loads. I saw one tugging a load of coal, on the top
of which two stout Irishmen sat, and stopped them to ask the weight.
It was 1200 (besides themselves), and the top of the donkey’s back
was just even with my waist. The driver said he bought her five years
ago for two pounds ($10), and she was then called an old one. Here
is one now coming up the hill with a great load of furniture, a man
on behind it, and a boy on the shafts—a poor little rat of a thing,
with the meekest expression you can conceive of. It is just as much
as he can stagger along with, and the boy jumps off to relieve—no!
the young satan has gone to his head and is cudgelling him. The poor
little donkey winks and turns his head, and drops his ears, and nearly
falls down. The boy stops (probably a policeman heaves in sight) and
takes his seat on the shaft again, and the donkey reels on. The man
aft has continued his smoking all the while, without taking any notice
of the delay. As I write, there goes by another—a very handsome, large
fat one, drawing a market cart, with a pretty country girl among the
hampers driving.
CHAPTER VII.
LIVERPOOL CONTINUED.—IRISH BEGGARS.—CONDITION OF LABOURERS.—COST
OF LIVING.—PRICES.—BATH HOUSE.—QUARANTINE.—THE DOCKS.—STREET
SCENE.—“COMING YANKEE” OVER NONSENSE.—ARTISTIC BEGGING.
[Sidenote: _BEGGARS.—PLACARD._]
I have learned nothing reliable about the price of labour here; the
Irish emigration keeps it lower in Liverpool than elsewhere. This
reminds me of beggars, and of a placard posted everywhere about the
streets to-day. The beggars are not very frequent, and are mostly poor,
pitiable, sickly women, carrying half-naked babies. The placard is
as follows:—“The SELECT VESTRY inform their fellow-citizens, that in
consequence of the extremely low price of passage from Ireland—4_d._ (8
cts.), great numbers are coming here apparently with no other object
than to beg. They earnestly desire that nothing should be given them.”
As a specimen, they mention the following: an Irish woman, pretending
to be a widow, was taken up, who had obtained 3_s._ 2_d._ (80 cts.) in
an hour and a half after her arrival. Her husband was found already in
custody.
The people all seem to be enjoying life more, or else to be much more
miserable than in America.[3] The labourers seem haggard and stupid,
and all with whom I have talked, say a poor man can hardly live here.
There is a strong anti-free-trade growling among them, and they
complain much of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, asserting that
American ships are now getting business that was formerly in the hands
of the English alone, and so American sailors do the labour in the
docks which was formerly given to the stevedores and working-men of the
town.
[3] I was surprised to find this remark in my first letter from
Liverpool, for it is the precise counterpart of my impression on
landing again in the United States, after six months absence in Europe.
I observe lately, that the Earl of Carlisle has said something of
similar import. I do believe the people of the United States have less
of pleasure and less of actual suffering than any other in the world.
Hopefulness, but hope ever unsatisfied, is marked in every American’s
face. In contrast with Germany, it is particularly evident that most of
us know but little of the virtuous pleasure God has fitted us to enjoy
in this world.
[Sidenote: _PRICES.—BATHING.—DOCKS._]
Clothing, shoes, &c., and rents, are a good deal cheaper than in New
York, and common articles of food but little higher. I have obtained
the following, as specimens of prices for a few ordinary necessaries of
life (1st of June):
_Beef_, _mutton_, and _pork_, fine, 12½ cts. a pound; _lamb_, 16 cts.;
_veal_, 10 cts.
_Salmon_, 33 cts. a pound; _fresh butter_, 27 cts.; _potatoes_, 31 cts.
a peck.
_Fowls_, 75 cts. a pair; _rabbits_, 50 cts. a pair; _pigeons_, 37 cts.
each.
_Best Ohio flour_ (“superfine”), $6.25 a barrel.
_Bread_, 2½ cts. a pound, or a loaf of 12 lbs., 30 cts.
_Bread_ of best quality, 3 cts. per lb., or loaf of 12 lbs., 35 cts.
Sugar is higher, and tropical fruits, pine-apples, oranges, &c., are
sold by the hucksters for more money than in New York.
_Gas._—The town is well lighted by gas, and it is much used in private
houses—much more generally than in New York. Price $1.12 per 1000 feet.
_Water._—Water is conveyed through the town and to the shipping in
tubes, through which I believe it is forced by steam-engines by several
companies. The manner in which they are remunerated I did not learn.
_Bathing._—There is a very large and elegant bath-house (covering
half an acre), built of stone, by the corporation, at an expense of
$177,000. It is fitted with suitable accommodations for all classes of
bathers, at various prices. There is a public bath (45 by 27 feet) for
gentlemen, and another for ladies. The water is all filtered, and the
cold baths have a constant fresh supply and outflow. A steam-engine is
employed for pumping, etc. From what I saw, I should suppose the use of
this establishment was _fashionable_. There are also floating baths in
the river, as at New York; and beach-bathing and sea-swimming can be
enjoyed at a few minutes’ distance, by ferry, from the town.
_Quarantine._—There are no buildings or ground employed for quarantine,
but a number of large hulks are moored in the bay for this purpose.
Quarantine vessels are anchored near them, and keep a yellow flag
flying. It is a great many years since a vessel has been quarantined
here, however, the medical men being generally agreed that such
precaution is useless, or effective of more harm than good.
* * * * *
We have not made a business of sight seeing, and I want to give you
the general aspect of the town, rather than show up the lions. The
Liverpool docks, however, are so extensive, and so different from any
thing we have of the kind in America, that you will wish me to give a
few particulars of them.
_The Docks_ are immense basins, enclosed from the river, or dug out
from the bank, walled up on all sides by masonry, and protected on the
outside, from the sea, by solid stone piers or quays. In these quays
are gates or locks, through which, at high-water, vessels enter or
leave. When the water has slightly fallen they are closed, and the
water being retained, the ships are left securely floating at a height
convenient for removing their cargoes. The docks are all enclosed
by high brick walls, but between these and the water there is room
enough for passing of carts, and for the temporary protection of goods
under wooden sheds, as they are hoisted out, and before they can be
removed. The streets about the docks are mostly lined with very large
and strong fire-proof warehouses. The quay outside the docks is broad
enough to afford a wide terrace upon the river, which is called the
Marine Parade, and is much resorted to as a promenade. Stone stairs at
intervals descend to the bottom of the river, and there are similar
ones within the docks to give access to small boats. There are buoys
and life-preservers lashed to the rails of the bridges, and small
houses, occasionally furnished with instruments and remedies, for the
resuscitation of drowning persons.
There are graving docks in which the depth of water can be regulated at
pleasure, for the inspection and repair of the bottoms of vessels; and
there are large basins for coasters, to which there are no gates, and
in which the tide rises and falls, leaving them in the mud at the ebb.
The large docks are connected with each other, and with the graving
docks, by canals, so a vessel can go from one to another at any time of
tide, and without going into the river.
[Sidenote: _LIVERPOOL.—DOCKS._]
But you have yet no idea of the spaciousness and grandeur of the docks.
Some of them enclose within their walls ten or twelve acres, half of
which, or more, is occupied by vessels. The twelve now completed (there
are more building) extend along in front of the town uninterrupted
by buildings for more than two miles, or further than from Whitehall
Stairs to Corlear’s Hook, in New York. On the other side of the river,
a considerably larger extent of docks is laid out and constructing. A
basin for coasters, which covers over sixteen acres, and in which there
is twelve feet at low water, is just completed there.
Each dock has its own dock-master, custom-house superintendant, and
police force. The police is the most perfect imaginable. It is composed
of intelligent and well-instructed young men, most courteous and
obliging, at the same time prompt and efficient. It quite surprised
me to see our fierce captains submit like lambs to have their orders
countermanded by them.
There are three docks for the convenience of steamers alone. The
American steamers, I suppose, are too large to go into them, for they
are lying in the stream.
The docks were built by the town, and besides the wonderful increase
of its commerce which they have effected, the direct revenue from them
gives a large interest on their cost. The charges are more moderate
than at other British ports, and this has, no doubt, greatly helped to
draw their commerce here. This is the principal ground, for instance,
of the selection of Liverpool in preference to Bristol as the port of
departure for transatlantic steamers. The foreign commerce of Liverpool
is the most valuable of any town in the world. Its immense business
is probably owing to its being the best port in the vicinity of the
thickest manufacturing district of England. It is not naturally a good
harbour, but a very exposed and inconvenient one. The port charges at
Bristol have been lately greatly reduced, and are now lower than those
of Liverpool, or any other port in the United Kingdom. The amount paid
by vessels for dockage has in some years been $1,000,000, and the whole
is expended by the corporation in improvements of the town and for
public purposes.
The small steam craft do not usually go into the docks, but land
passengers on the quays outside. The ferry-boats, of which there are
half a dozen lines crossing the Mersey, all come to one large floating
wharf, from which the ascent to the quays is made easy at all times of
tide, by a sufficiently long, hinged bridge.
There is a Sailor’s Home now building here, which will certainly be
a noble record of the justice and liberality of the merchants of the
port to their humble associates on the sea. It is situated in an open
public place, not far from the Custom House and City Hall. It is
built of stone, in the Elizabethan Gothic style, and was considered
a design worthy of giving Prince Albert honour in the laying of its
corner-stone. It is already a stately edifice.
There are chapels for seamen in several (possibly in all) of the
docks.[4]
[4] The laws of the port require, That for three hours at high water,
there shall be an efficient person on the deck of every vessel in the
docks or basins: That the anchor shall be in-board, jib-boom run in,
&c.: That no article of freight shall be allowed to remain on the
dock-quays for more than forty-eight hours [penalty, $1.25 an hour]:
That no light or fire shall be allowed [without special permission] on
any vessel in the docks or basins at any time. This last regulation
prevents cooking on board, and makes it necessary for the crews to live
on shore. The consequent customs are very inconvenient, expensive, and
demoralising to the seamen.
* * * * *
_Later._ We have left Liverpool, and while breathing this delicious
fragrance of hawthorn and clover, it is hard to think back to the
stirring dusty town, but I will try for a few minutes to do so, and
then bring you with me (I wish I could!) out into the country.
A great deal that interested us at Liverpool I must omit to tell
you of. I should like to introduce you to some of the agreeable
acquaintances we met there, but in what we saw of social life there,
there was hardly any thing to distinguish it from America. We were
much pleased with some of the public gardens and pleasure-grounds that
we visited, and when we return here I may give you some account of
them. I meant to have said a little more about the style of building
in the newer and extending parts of the city; it did not differ much,
however, from what you might see at home, in some of the suburbs of
Boston for instance.
[Sidenote: _COMPARATIVE STREET-POVERTY._]
It would be more strange to you to see long, narrow streets, full from
one end to the other, of the poorest-looking people you ever saw, women
and children only, the men being off at work, I suppose, sitting,
lounging, leaning on the door-steps and side-walks, smoking, knitting,
and chatting; the boys playing ball in the street, or marbles on the
flagging; no break in the line of tall, dreary houses, but strings
of clothes hung across from opposite second-story windows to dry;
all dwellings, except a few cellar, beer, or junk shops. You can see
nothing like such a dead mass of pure poverty in the worst quarter
of our worst city. In New York, such a street would be ten times as
filthy and stinking, and ten times as lively; in the middle of it there
would be a large fair building, set a little back (would that I could
say with a few roods of green turf and shrubbery between it and the
gutter in which the children are playing), with the inscription upon
it, “Public Free School;” across from the windows would be a banner
with the “Democratic Republican Nominations;” hand-organs would be
playing, hogs squealing, perhaps a stampede of firemen; boys would
be crying newspapers, and the walls would be posted with placards,
appealing, with whatever motive, to patriotism and duty, showing that
statesmen and demagogues could calculate on the people’s reading and
thinking there. There would be gay grog-shops too, with liberty poles
before them, and churches and Sunday-school rooms (with lying faces
of granite-painted pine) by their side. The countenances of the
people here, too, exhibited much less, either of virtuous or vicious
character, than you would discern among an equally poor multitude in
America, yet among the most miserable of them (they were Irish), I was
struck with some singularly intelligent, and even beautiful faces,
so strangely out of place, that if they had been cleaned and put in
frames, so the surroundings would not appear, you would have taken them
for those of delicate, refined, and intellectual ladies.
* * * * *
_Thursday morning, May 30th._
We packed all our travelling matter, except a few necessaries, in two
trunks and a carpet-bag, and I took them in a public carriage to the
freight station, to be sent to London. The trunks were received, but
the bag the clerks refused, and said it must be sent from the passenger
station. I had engaged to meet my friends in a few minutes at the
opposite side of the town from the passenger station, and the delay of
going there would vexatiously disarrange our plans. I therefore urged
them to take it, offering to pay the passenger luggage extra, freight,
&c. They would be happy to accommodate me, but their rules did not
admit of it. A _carpet-bag_ could not be sent from that station at any
price. I jumped on to the box, and drove quickly to the nearest street
of shops, where, at a grocer’s, I bought for twopence a coffee-sack,
and enclosing the bag, brought it in a few minutes back to the station.
There was a good laugh, and they gave me a receipt at once for _a
sack_—to be kept in London until called for.
[Sidenote: _STREET BEGGING._]
On the quay, I noticed a bareheaded man drawing with coloured crayons
on a broad, smooth flagstone. He had represented, in a very skilful and
beautiful manner, a salmon laid on a china platter, opposite a broken
plate of coarse crockery; between these were some lines about a “rich
man’s dish” and a “poor man’s dinner.” He was making an ornamental
border about it, and over all was written, “_Friends! I can get_ NO
WORK; _I must do this or starve_.”
His hat, with a few pence in it, stood by the side of this. Was it not
eloquent?
CHAPTER VIII.
BIRKENHEAD.—FERRY-BOATS.—GRUFF ENGLISHMAN.—THE
ABBEY.—FLOUR.—MARKET.—THE PARK.—A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION.—SUBURBAN
VILLAS, &c.
The ferry-boat by which we crossed to Birkenhead was very small and
dingy. There was no protection from the weather on board of her,
except a narrow, dark cabin under deck. There were uncushioned seats
all around the outside, against the rail, and the rest of the deck was
mostly filled up with freight, spars, &c. She had a bowsprit, and a
beautiful light, rakish mast, and topmast fitted to carry a gaffsail.
She was steered with a wheel in the stern. The pilot or master (a
gentleman with a gold band on his hat and naval buttons), stood on
the paddle-boxes to direct, and a boy stood over the engine to pass
orders below. The engine was under deck, the tops of the cylinders only
appearing above it. It was, however, entirely exposed to observation,
and showed excellent workmanship, and was kept perfectly clean and
highly polished. It was of entirely different construction from any
American engine, having three oscillating cylinders. The “_hands_”
looked like regular tars, wearing tarpaulins, with the name of the boat
in gilt letters on the ribbon, blue baize shirts, and broad-bottomed
trowsers hung tight on the hips. The boat came _alongside_ the wharf,
ran out her hawsers, and took in her passengers by a narrow gang-plank;
and yet she makes her trip once in ten minutes. There would not be
room enough on her decks for one of our Rockaways to stand, and she
seemed to have no idea of ferrying any thing but foot-passengers. What
would the good people of Birkenhead think of a Fulton ferry-boat, with
its long, light, and airy rooms, their floors level with the street,
and broad carriage-roads from stem to stern, crossing and recrossing
without turning round, or ever a word of command, or a rope lifted from
morning till evening and from evening till morning? The length of the
ferry is about the same as the South Ferry of Brooklyn, and the fare
one penny.
[Sidenote: _BIRKENHEAD._]
BIRKENHEAD is the most important suburb of Liverpool, having the same
relation to it that Charlestown has to Boston, or Brooklyn to New
York. When the first line of Liverpool packets was established, there
were not half a dozen houses here; it now has a population of many
thousands, and is increasing with a rapidity hardly paralleled in the
New World. This is greatly owing to the very liberal and enterprising
policy of the land-owners, which affords an example that might be
profitably followed in the vicinity of many of our own large towns.
There are several public squares, and the streets and places are broad,
and well paved and lighted. A considerable part of the town has been
built with reference to general effect, from the plans and under the
direction of a talented architect, GILESPIE GRAHAM.
We received this information while crossing in the ferry-boat from a
fellow-passenger, who, though a stranger, entered into conversation,
and answered our inquiries with a frankness and courtesy that we have
thus far received from every one in England. By his direction, we
found near the landing a square of eight or ten acres, about half of
it enclosed by an iron fence, and laid out with tasteful masses of
shrubbery (not trees), and gravel walks. The houses about it stood
detached, and though of the same general style, were sufficiently
varied in details, not to appear monotonous. These were all of stone.
We left this, and were walking up a long, broad street, looking for a
place where we could get a bite of something to eat, when the gentleman
who had crossed at the ferry with us joined us again, and said that as
we were strangers we might like to look at the ruins of an ABBEY which
were in the vicinity, and he had come after us that if we pleased he
might conduct us to it.
Right in the midst of the town, at the corner of a new brick house,
we came upon an old pile of stone work. Old, indeed!—under the broken
arch of a Gothic window, the rain-water had been so long trickling as
to wear deep channels; cracking, crumbling, bending over with age, it
seemed in many places as if the threatening mass had only been till now
withheld from falling prostrate by the faithful ivy that clung to it,
and clasped it tight with every fibre.
You cannot imagine the contrast to the hot, hurrying, noisy world
without, that we found on entering the little enclosure of the old
churchyard and abbey walls. It was all overshadowed with dense foliage,
and only here and there through the leaves, or a shattered arch round
which the ivy curled with enchanting grace, would there be a glimpse
of the blue sky above. By listening, we could still hear the roar of
wheels, rumbling of rail-cars, clanging of steamboat bells, and the
shouts of jovial sea-captains, drinking gin and water in a neighbouring
tea-garden, over which the American flag was flying. But within the
walls there was no sound but the chirps of a wren, looking for her
nest in a dark cranny; the hum of bees about an old hawthorn bush; the
piping of a cricket under a gravestone, and our own footsteps echoed
from mysterious crypts.
Our guide having pointed out to us the form of the ancient structure,
and been requited for his trouble by seeing the pleasure he had given
us, took his leave. We remained a long time, and enjoyed it as you may
think.
[Sidenote: _BIRKENHEAD ABBEY.—SCHOOL-HOUSE._]
Did you ever hear of Birkenhead Abbey? I never had before. It has no
celebrity; but coming upon it so fresh from the land of youth, as
we did, so unexpecting of any thing of the kind—though I have since
seen far older ruins, and more renowned—I have never found any so
impressively aged.
A ruined end of the old prior’s house had been repaired and roofed over
many years ago, and was used as a school-house—many years ago, for
the ivy on it was very strong and knarled, and bushes and grass were
growing all over the roof. I send you a hasty sketch of it;—wouldn’t
you like the memory of such a school? (_See vignette, title page._)
At the market-place we went into a baker’s shop, and, while eating some
buns, learned that the poorest flour in market was American and the
best French. Upon examination of his stock, we thought he had hardly
a fair sample of American flour, but his French flour was certainly
remarkably fine, and would be so considered at Rochester. He said it
made much whiter bread than either American or English, and he used
but little of it unmixed, except for the most delicate pastry. French
and English flour is sold in sacks, American in barrels. He thought
American flour was not generally _kiln-dried_,[5] and was much injured
in consequence. When we left he obligingly directed us to several
objects of interest in the vicinity, and showed us through the market.
It is but little less in size, and really appears finer and more
convenient than the one I described in Liverpool.
[5] The great bulk of the flour we are now exporting to England is of
inferior quality, worth about $3.50 when common superfine is $4.50.
It is used extensively by the _millers_ in England to mix with a
superior quality of their own grinding of English wheat. By the way,
the custom of taking a toll in kind, as a compensation for grinding
at grist-mills, which our fathers brought from England, and which we
retain, is now obsolete there. The millers make their charges in money,
and are paid as in any other business.
The roof, which is mostly of glass, is high and airy, and is supported
by two rows of slender iron columns, giving to the interior the
appearance of three light and elegant arcades. The contrivances to
effect ventilation and cleanliness are very complete. It was built by
the town, upon land given to it for the purpose, and cost $175,000.
The baker had begged of us not to leave Birkenhead without seeing their
_new park_, and at his suggestion we left our knapsacks with him, and
proceeded to it. As we approached the entrance, we were met by women
and girls, who, holding out a cup of milk, asked us—“_Will you take a
cup of milk, sirs?—good, cool, sweet, cow’s milk, gentlemen, or right
warm from the ass!_” And at the gate was a herd of donkeys, some with
cans of milk strapped to them, others saddled and bridled, to be let
for ladies and children to ride.
The gateway, which is about a mile and a half from the ferry, and
quite back of the town, is a great, massive block of handsome Ionic
architecture, standing alone, and unsupported by any thing else in the
vicinity, and looking, as I think, heavy and awkward. There is a sort
of grandeur about it that the English are fond of, but which, when it
is entirely separate from all other architectural constructions, always
strikes me unpleasantly. It seems intended as an impressive preface
to a great display of art within; but here, as well as at Eaton Park,
and other places I have since seen, it is not followed up with great
things, the grounds immediately within the grand entrance being very
simple, and apparently rather overlooked by the gardener. There is a
large archway for carriages, and two smaller ones for those on foot,
and, on either side, and over these, are rooms, which probably serve
as inconvenient lodges for the labourers. No porter appears, and the
gates are freely open to the public.
[Sidenote: _PEOPLE’S GARDEN._]
Walking a short distance up an avenue, we passed through another light
iron gate into a thick, luxuriant, and diversified garden. Five minutes
of admiration, and a few more spent in studying the manner in which
art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was
ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be
thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden. Indeed, gardening
had here reached a perfection that I had never before dreamed of. I
cannot undertake to describe the effect of so much taste and skill as
had evidently been employed; I will only tell you, that we passed by
winding paths, over acres and acres, with a constant varying surface,
where on all sides were growing every variety of shrubs and flowers,
with more than natural grace, all set in borders of greenest, closest
turf, and all kept with most consummate neatness. At a distance of a
quarter of a mile from the gate, we came to an open field of clean,
bright, green-sward, closely mown, on which a large tent was pitched,
and a party of boys in one part, and a party of gentlemen in another,
were playing cricket. Beyond this was a large meadow with rich groups
of trees, under which a flock of sheep were reposing, and girls and
women with children, were playing. While watching the cricketers, we
were threatened with a shower, and hastened back to look for shelter,
which we found in a pagoda, on an island approached by a Chinese
bridge. It was soon filled, as were the other ornamental buildings,
by a crowd of those who, like ourselves, had been overtaken in the
grounds by the rain; and I was glad to observe that the privileges of
the garden were enjoyed about equally by all classes. There were some
who were attended by servants, and sent at once for their carriages,
but a large proportion were of the common ranks, and a few women
with children, or suffering from ill health, were evidently the wives
of very humble labourers. There were a number of strangers, and some
we observed with note-books and portfolios, that seemed to have come
from a distance to study from the garden. The summer-houses, lodges,
bridges, &c., were all well constructed, and of undecaying materials.
One of the bridges which we crossed was of our countryman, REMINGTON’S
patent, an extremely light and graceful erection.
I obtained most of the following information from the head
working-gardener.
The site of the park and garden was, ten years ago, a flat, sterile,
clay farm. It was placed in the hands of Mr. PAXTON, in June, 1844, by
whom it was laid out in its present form by June of the following year.
Carriage roads, thirty-four feet wide, with borders of ten feet, and
walks varying in width, were first drawn and made. The excavation for a
pond was also made, and the earth obtained from these sources used for
making mounds and to vary the surface, which has been done with much
_naturalness_ and taste. The whole ground was thoroughly under-drained,
the minor drains of stone, the main, of tile. By these sufficient water
is obtained to fully supply the pond, or lake, as they call it, which
is from twenty to forty feet wide, and about three feet deep, and
meanders for a long distance through the garden. It is stocked with
aquatic plants, gold fish, and swans.
[Sidenote: _A MODEL FOR AMERICAN TOWNS._]
The roads are macadamized. On each side of the carriage-way, and of all
the walks, pipes for drainage are laid, which communicate with deep
main drains that run under the edge of all the mounds or flower beds.
The walks are laid first with six inches of fine broken stone, then
three inches cinders, and the surface with six inches of fine rolled
gravel. All the stones on the ground which were not used for these
purposes, were laid in masses of rock-work, and mosses and rock-plants
attached to them. The mounds were then planted with shrubs, and heaths
and ferns, and the beds with flowering plants. Between these, and the
walks and drives, is everywhere a belt of turf (which, by the way, is
kept close cut with short, broad scythes, and shears, and swept with
_hair-brooms_, as we saw). Then the rural lodges, temple, pavilion,
bridges, _orchestra for a band of instrumental music_, &c., were
built. And so, in one year, the skeleton of this delightful garden was
complete.
But this is but a small part. Besides the cricket and an archery
ground, large valleys were made verdant, extensive drives
arranged—plantations, clumps, and avenues of trees formed, and a large
park laid out. And all this magnificent pleasure-ground is entirely,
unreservedly, and for ever the people’s own. The poorest British
peasant is as free to enjoy it in all its parts as the British queen.
More than that, the baker of Birkenhead has the pride of an OWNER in it.
Is it not a grand good thing? But you are inquiring who _paid_ for it.
The honest owners—the most wise and worthy townspeople of Birkenhead—in
the same way that the New-Yorkers pay for “the Tombs,” and the
Hospital, and the _cleaning_ (as they amusingly say) of their streets.
Of the farm which was purchased, one hundred and twenty acres have
been disposed of in the way I have described. The remaining sixty
acres, encircling the park and garden, were reserved to be sold or
rented, after being well graded, streeted, and planted, for private
building lots. Several fine mansions are already built on these (having
private entrances to the park), and the rest now sell at $1.25 a square
yard. The whole concern cost the town between five and six hundred
thousand dollars. It gives employment at present, to ten gardeners and
labourers in summer, and to five in winter.[6]
[6] “When the important advantages to the poorer classes, of such an
extensive and delightful pleasure-ground, are taken into consideration,
no one will be inclined to say that such an expenditure does not merit
the most unbounded success, and the deepest public gratitude. Here
nature may be viewed in her loveliest garb, the most obdurate heart may
be softened, and the mind gently led to pursuits which refine, purify,
and alleviate the humblest of the toil-worn.”
The generous spirit and fearless enterprise, that has accomplished
this, has not been otherwise forgetful of the health and comfort of the
poor.[7] Among other things, I remember, a public washing and bathing
house for the town is provided. I should have mentioned also, in
connection with the market, that in the outskirts of the town there is
a range of stone slaughter-houses, with stables, yards, pens, supplies
of hot and cold water, and other arrangements and conveniences, that
enlightened regard for health and decency would suggest.
[7] “Few towns, in modern times, have been built with such regard to
sanitary regulations, as Birkenhead, and in no instance has so much
been done for the health, comfort, and enjoyment of a people, as by
those energetic individuals with whose names the rise and progress of
Birkenhead are so intimately connected.”—_Dr. J. H. Robertson._
The consequence of all these sorts of things is, that all about the
town, lands, which a few years ago were almost worthless wastes, have
become of priceless value; where no sound was heard but the bleating of
goats and braying of asses complaining of their pasturage, there is now
the hasty click and clatter of many hundred busy trowels and hammers.
You may drive through wide and thronged streets of stately edifices,
where were only a few scattered huts, surrounded by quagmires. Docks
of unequalled size and grandeur are building, and a forest of masts
grows along the shore; and there is no doubt that this young town is
to be not only remarkable as a most agreeable and healthy place of
residence, but that it will soon be distinguished for extensive and
profitable commerce. It seems to me to be the only town I ever saw that
has been really built at all in accordance with the advanced science,
taste, and enterprising spirit that are supposed to distinguish the
nineteenth century. I do not doubt it might be found to have plenty
of exceptions to its general character, but I did not inquire for
these, nor did I happen to observe them. Certainly, in what I have
noticed, it is a model town, and may be held up as an example, not only
to philanthropists and men of taste, but to speculators and men of
business.
[Sidenote: _LIBERAL ENTERPRISE AND PROSPERITY._]
After leaving the park, we ascended a hill, from the top of which we
had a fine view of Liverpool and Birkenhead. Its sides were covered
with villas, with little gardens about them. The architecture was
generally less fantastic, and the style and materials of building more
substantial than is usually employed in the same class of residences
with us. Yet there was a good deal of the same _stuck up_ and uneasy
pretentious air about them that the suburban houses of our own city
people so commonly have. Possibly this is the effect of association,
in my mind, of steady, reliable worth and friendship with plain or
old-fashioned dwellings, for I often find it difficult to discover
in the buildings themselves the elements of such expression. I am
inclined to think it is more generally owing to some disunity in the
design—often, perhaps, to a want of keeping between the mansion and
its grounds or its situation. The architect and the gardener do not
understand each other, and commonly the owner or resident is totally
at variance in his tastes and intentions from both; or the man whose
ideas the plan is made to serve, or who pays for it, has no true
independent taste, but had fancies to be accommodated, which only
follow confusedly after custom or fashion. I think, with Ruskin, it is
a pity that every man’s house cannot be really his own, and that he
cannot make all that is true, beautiful, and good in his own character,
tastes, pursuits, and history manifest in it.
But however fanciful and uncomfortable many of the villa houses about
Liverpool and Birkenhead appear at first sight, the substantial and
thorough manner in which most of them are built will atone for many
faults. The friendship of nature has been secured to them. Dampness,
heat, cold, will be welcome to do their best. Every day they will
improve. In fifty or a hundred years fashions may change, and they
will appear, perhaps, quaint, possibly grotesque; but still strong,
HOME-LIKE, and hospitable. They have no shingles to rot, no glued and
puttied and painted gimcrackery, to warp and crack and moulder; and can
never look so shabby, and desolate, and dreary, as will nine-tenths of
the buildings of the same denomination now erecting about New York,
almost as soon as they lose the raw, cheerless, impostor-like airs
which seem almost inseparable from their newness.
CHAPTER IX.
A RAILWAY RIDE.—SECOND CLASS.—INCONVENIENT ARRANGEMENTS.—FIRST WALK
IN THE COUNTRY.—ENGLAND ITSELF.—A RURAL LANDSCAPE.—HEDGES.—APPROACH
TO A HAMLET.—THE OLD ALE-HOUSE AND THE OLD JOHN BULL.—A TALK WITH
COUNTRY PEOPLE.—NOTIONS OF AMERICA.—FREE TRADE.—THE YEW TREE.—THE
OLD RURAL CHURCH AND GRAVEYARD.—A PARK GATE.—A MODEL FARMER.—THE OLD
VILLAGE INN.—A MODEL KITCHEN.—A MODEL LANDLADY.
[Sidenote: _RAILROAD SCENES._]
We were very tired when we again reached the baker’s. After
passenger-life at sea, a man’s legs need to be brought into active
service somewhat gradually. As we had spent more time than we had meant
to at Birkenhead, we determined to rest ourselves for a few minutes,
and get a start of a few miles into the country by the railroad. A
seat, however, on the hard board benches of an English second-class
car, crowded, and your feet cramped under you, does not remove fatigue
very rapidly.
A heavy cloud darkened the landscape, and as we emerged in a few
moments from the dark tunnel, whirling out of town, big drops of rain
came slanting in upon us. A lady coughed, and we closed the window.
The road ran through a deep cutting, with only occasionally such
depressions of its green-sodded bank, that we could, through the dusty
glass, get glimpses of the country. In successive gleams:—
A market-garden, with rows of early cabbages, and lettuce, and peas;—
Over a hedge, a nice, new stone villa, with the gardener shoving up
the sashes of the conservatory, and the maids tearing clothes from the
drying-lines;—
A bridge, with children shouting and waving hats;—
A field of wheat, in drills as precisely straight, and in earth as
clean and finely-tilled, as if it were a garden-plant;—
A bit of broad pasture, with colts and cows turning tail to the squall;
long hills in the back, with some trees and a steeple rising beyond
them;—
Another few minutes of green bank;—
A jerk—a stop. A gruff shout, “BROMBRO!” A great fuss to get the window
on the other side from us open; calling the conductor; having the
door unlocked; squeezing through the ladies’ knees, and dragging our
packs over their laps—all borne with a composure that shows them to
be used to it, and that they take it as a necessary evil of railroad
travelling. The preparations for rain are just completed as we emerge
upon a platform, and now down it comes in a torrent. We rush, with
a quantity of floating muslin, white ankles, and thin shoes, under
an arch. With a sharp whistle and hoarse puffing the train rumbles
onward; grooms pick up the lap-dog and baskets; flaunting white skirts
are moved again across the track; another rush, in which a diminutive
French sun-shade is assisted by a New York umbrella to protect a new
English bonnet; a graceful bow in return, with lifting eyebrows, as if
in inquiry; and we are altogether crowded in the station-house.
In a few minutes they go off in carriages, and room is left us
in the little waiting-room to strap on our knapsacks. The rain
slackens—ceases, and we mount, by stone steps up a bank of roses and
closely-shaven turf, to the top of the bridge over the cutting.
[Sidenote: _FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE “COUNTRY”._]
There we were right in the midst of it! The country—and such a
country!—green, dripping, glistening, gorgeous! We stood dumb-stricken
by its loveliness, as, from the bleak April and bare boughs we had left
at home, broke upon us that English May—sunny, leafy, blooming May—in
an English lane; with hedges, English hedges, hawthorn hedges, all in
blossom; homely old farm-houses, quaint stables, and haystacks; the old
church spire over the distant trees; the mild sun beaming through the
watery atmosphere, and all so quiet—the only sounds the hum of bees
and the crisp grass-tearing of a silken-skinned, real (unimported)
Hereford cow over the hedge. No longer excited by daring to think we
should see it, as we discussed the scheme round the old home-fire;
no longer cheering ourselves with it in the stupid, tedious ship; no
more forgetful of it in the bewilderment of the busy town—but there we
were, right in the midst of it; long time silent, and then speaking
softly, as if it were enchantment indeed, we gazed upon it and breathed
it—never to be forgotten.
At length we walked on—rapidly—but frequently stopping, one side and
the other, like children in a garden; hedges still, with delicious
fragrance, on each side of us, and on, as far as we can see, true
farm-fencing hedges; nothing trim, stiff, nice, and amateur-like,
but the verdure broken, tufty, low, and natural. They are set on a
ridge of earth thrown out from a ditch beside them, which raises and
strengthens them as a fence. They are nearly all hawthorn, which is now
covered in patches, as if after a slight fall of snow, with clusters
of white or pink blossoms, over its light green foliage. Here and
there a holly bush, with bunches of scarlet berries, and a few other
shrubs, mingle with it. A cart meets us—a real heavy, big-wheeled
English cart; and English horses—real big, shaggy-hoofed, sleek, heavy
English cart-horses; and a carter—a real apple-faced, smock-frocked,
red-headed, wool-hatted carter—breeches, stockings, hob-nailed shoes,
and “_Gee-up Dobbin_” English carter. Little birds hop along in the
road before us, and we guess at their names, first of all electing
one to be Robin-Redbreast. We study the flowers under the hedge, and
determine them nothing else than primroses and buttercups. Through
the gates we admire the great, fat, clean-licked, contented-faced
cows, and large, white, long-wooled sheep. What else was there? I
cannot remember; but there was that altogether that made us forget
our fatigue, disregard the rain, thoughtless of the way we were
going—serious, happy, and grateful. And this excitement continued for
many days.
[Sidenote: _VILLAGE ALE-HOUSE._]
At length as it becomes drenching again, we approach a stone spire.
A stone house interrupts our view in front; the road winds round it,
between it and another; turns again, and there on our left is the
church—the old ivy-covered, brown-stone village church, with the
yew-tree—we knew it at once, and the heaped-up, green, old English
churchyard. We turn to the right; there is the old ale-house, long,
low, thatched-roofed. We run in at the open door; there he sits, the
same bluff and hearty old fellow, with the long-stemmed pipe and the
foaming pewter mug on the little table before him. At the same moment
with us comes in another man. He drops in a seat—raps with his whip.
_Enter_ a young woman, neat and trim, with exactly the white cap,
smooth hair, shiny face, bright eyes, and red cheeks, we are looking
for—“_Muggoyail, lass!_”
... Mug of ale!—ay, that’s it! Mug of ale!—Fill up! Fill up! and the
toast shall be
“MERRIE ENGLAND! HURRAH!”
* * * * *
We sit with them for some time, and between puffs of smoke, the talk
is of “the weather and the crops.” The maid leaves the door open, so
we can look into the kitchen, where a smart old woman is ironing by a
bright coal fire. Two little children venture before us. I have just
succeeded in coaxing the girl on to my knee, as C. mentions that we are
Americans. The old woman lays down her iron and puts on her spectacles
to look at us. The stout man who had risen to take an observation of
the weather, seats himself again and calls for another mug and _twist_.
The landlord (a tall thin man, unfortunately) looks in and asks how
times go where we come from. Plenty of questions follow that show alike
the interest and the ignorance of our companions about America, it
being confused apparently in their minds with Ireland, Guinea, and the
poetical _Indies_. After a little straightening out, and explanation
of the distance to it, its climate and civilized condition, they ask
about the present crops, the price of wheat, about rents, tithes, and
taxes. In return, we get only grumbling. “The country is ruined;”
“things weren’t so when they were young as they be now,” and so on,
just as a company of our tavern-lounging farmers would talk, except
that every complaint ends with blaming Free-Trade. “Free-Trade—hoye
sirs,—free-trade be killing the varmers.”
We left them as soon as the shower slackened, but stopped again
immediately to look at the yew through the churchyard gate. It was a
very old and decrepit tree, with dark and funereal foliage—the stiff
trunk and branches of our red-cedar, with the leaf of the hemlock, but
much more dark and glossy than either. The walls of the church are low,
but higher in one part than another. The roof, which is slated, is
high and steep. The tower is square, with buttresses on the corners,
on the tops of which are quaint lions rampant. It is surmounted by a
tall, symmetrical spire—solid stone to the ball, over which, as I am
the son of a Puritan, is a weather-cock. There are little, narrow
windows in the steeple, and swallows are flying in and out of them. Old
weather-beaten stone and mortar, glass, lead, iron, and matted ivy, but
not a splinter of wood or a daub of paint. Old England for ever! Amen.
A mile or two more of such walking as before the shower, and we came
to a park gate. It was, with the lodges by its side, neat, simple, and
substantial. The park was a handsome piece of old woods, but, as seen
from the road, not remarkable. We were told, however, that there was a
grand old hall and fine grounds a long ways within. Near the park there
were signs of an improving farmer: broad fields of mangel-wurzel in
drills; large fields, partly divided by wire fences, within which were
large flocks of sheep; marks of recent under-draining; hedges trimmed
square, and every thing neat, straight, and business-like.
[Sidenote: _THE COUNTRY INN._]
As it grows dark we approach another village. The first house on the
left is an inn—a low, two-story house of light drab-coloured stone.
A bunch of grapes (cast in iron) and a lantern are hung out from it
over the foot-path, and over the front door is a square sign—“THE RED
LION—_licensed to sell foreign spirits and beer, to be drunk on the
premises_.” We turn into a dark hall, and opening a door to the left,
enter—the kitchen. Such a kitchen! You would not believe me if I could
describe how bright every thing is. You would think the fireplace a
show-model, for the very bars of the grate are glistening. It is all
glowing with red-hot coals; a bright brass tea-kettle swings and sings
from a polished steel crane—hook, jack, and all like silver; the brass
coal-scuttle, tongs, shovel, and warming-pan are in a blazing glow, and
the walls and mantel-piece are covered with bright plate-covers, and I
know not what other metallic furniture, all burnished to the highest
degree.
The landlady rises and begs to take our wet hats—a model-landlady,
too. What a fine eye!—a kind and welcoming black eye. Fair and stout;
elderly—a little silver in her hair, just showing its otherwise thick
blackness to be no lie; a broad-frilled, clean white cap and collar,
and a black dress. Ah ha! one of the widows that we have read of. We
hesitated to cross the clean-scoured, buff, tile floor with our muddy
shoes; but she draws arm-chairs about the grate, and lays slippers
before them, stirs up the fire, though it is far from needing it, and
turns to take our knapsacks. “We must be fatigued—it’s not easy walking
in the rain; she hopes we can make ourselves comfortable.”
There is every prospect that we shall.
CHAPTER X.
TALK WITH A FARMER;—WITH A TENDER-HEARTED WHEELWRIGHT.—AN AMUSING
STORY.—NOTIONS OF AMERICA.—SUPPER.—SPEECH OF THE ENGLISH.—PLEASANT
TONES.—QUAINT EXPRESSIONS.—THE TWENTY-NINTH OF MAY.—ZACCHEUS IN THE
OAK TREE.—EDUCATION.—BED-CHAMBER.—A NIGHTCAP AND ... A NIGHTCAP.
[Sidenote: _TALK WITH A FARMER._]
On one side near the fire there was a recess in the wall, in which was
a _settle_ (a long, high-backed, wooden seat). Two men with pipes and
beer sat in it, with whom we fell to talking. One of them proved to be
a farmer, the other a jack-of-all-trades, but more distinctly of the
wheelwright’s, and a worshipper of and searcher after ideal women, as
he more than once intimated to us. We were again told by the farmer
that free trade was ruining the country—no farmer could live long in
it. He spoke with a bitter jocoseness of the regularity of his taxes,
and said that though they played the devil with every thing else, he
always knew how _tithes_ would be. He paid, I think he said, about a
dollar an acre every year to the church, though he never went to it
in his life; always went to chapel, as his father did before him. He
was an Independent; but there were so few of them thereabouts that
they could not afford to keep a minister, and only occasionally had
preaching. When he learned that we were from America, he was anxious
to know how church matters were there. Though a rather intelligent
man, he was utterly ignorant that we had no state church; and though
a dissenter, the idea of a government giving free trade to all sorts
of religious doctrine seemed to be startling and fearful to him. But
when I told him what the rent (or the interest on the value) of my
farm was, and what were its taxes, he wished that he was young that he
might go to America himself; he really did not see how he should be
able to live here much longer. He _rented_ a farm of about fifty acres,
and was a man of about the same degree of intelligence and information
that you would expect of the majority of those _owning_ a similar
farm with us. Except that he was somewhat stouter than most Yankees,
he did not differ much in appearance or dress from many of our rather
old-fashioned farmers.
The tender-hearted wheelwright could hardly believe that we were really
born and brought up in America. He never thought any foreigners could
learn to speak the language so well. He too was rather favourably
struck with the idea of going to America, when we answered his
inquiries with regard to mechanics’ wages. He was very cautious,
however, and cross-questioned us a long time about the cost of every
thing there—the passage, the great heat of the climate, the price of
beer; and at length, touching his particular weakness, he desired to
be told candidly how it would be if he should marry before he went. If
he should get a wife, a real handsome one, would it be safe for him
to take her there? He had heard a story—perhaps we knew whether it
was true or not—of a man who took a handsome wife out with him, and
a black man, that was a great rich lord in our country, took a great
liking to her, and offered the man ten thousand pounds for her, which
he refused; and so the great black lord went away very wroth and vexed.
When he was gone, the woman upbraided her husband: “Thou fool, why
didst thee not take it and let me go with him? I would have returned
to thee to-morrow.” Then the man followed after the black lord, and
sold his wife to him for ten thousand pounds. But the next day she did
not return, nor the next, neither the next; and so the man went to
look for her; and lo! he found her all dressed up in silk and satin,
’lighting from a coach, and footmen waiting upon her. So he says to
her, “Why didst thee not return the next day?” “_Dost take me for a
fool, goodman?_” quoth she, and stepped back into her fine coach and
drove off; and so he lost his handsome wife.
Besides the kitchen, there were, on the lower floor of the inn, two
or three small dining or tea rooms, a little office or accounting
closet for the mistress, and a _tap-room_, which is a small apartment
for smoking and drinking. These are all plainly but neatly furnished.
There is a large parlour above stairs, somewhat elegantly furnished.
The kitchen, tap-room, and office are low rooms, and over these is
the parlour. The dining-rooms are higher, and over them are the
bed-chambers. Thus the parlour is allowed a high ceiling, level with
the eaves of the roof, and you enter it from a landing some steps
lower than the bed-chambers. The latter are carried up under the roof,
with dormer windows, and are very pleasant rooms. It will be seen that
all the travellers’ rooms or apartments are thus made spacious at the
expense of height in the others, and that yet there is a convenient
arrangement and connection of the whole.
We had supper in a little back room, as neat as care and scouring could
make and keep it. The table was much such a one as Mrs. Marcombe,
in Hanover, would have set for a couple of tired White Mountain
pedestrians, except the absence of any kind of cakes or pies. The ham
had a peculiar taste, and was very good, C. says, the least unpleasant
of any he was ever tempted to eat. It had been dried by hanging from
the ceiling of the kitchen, instead of being regularly _smoked_, as is
our practice. The milk and butter (which was not in the least salted)
were very sweet and high-flavoured.
[Sidenote: _THE ENGLISH IN CONVERSATION._]
In the evening we had a long talk with the old woman and her daughter.
The latter was a handsome person with much such a good, beaming face
as her mother, but with youth, and more refinement from education and
intelligence. She also was a widow with two sweet, shy little girls.
There are peculiarities in the speech of these women that would
distinguish them anywhere from native Americans. Perhaps the novelty
of them is pleasing, but it has seemed to us that the speech of most
of the people above the lowest class of labourers that we have met,
is more agreeable and better than we often hear at home. Perhaps
the climate may have effect in making the people more habitually
animated—the utterance more distinct and varied. Sentences are more
generally finished with a rising inflection, syllables are more
forcibly accented, and quite often, as with our landlady, there is a
rich musical tone in the conversational voice to which we are not yet
so much accustomed, but that it compels us to listen deferentially.
I wonder that beauty of speech is not more thought of as an
accomplishment. It is surely capable of great cultivation, and should
not be forgotten in education.
Except in the lower class, the choice of words seems often elegant,
and we hear very few idiomatic phrases or provincialisms. Where we
do notice them, in the class I am now speaking of, it would not seem
an affectation of singular language in an educated person with us,
but rather a fortunate command of vigorous Saxon words. We have never
any difficulty in understanding them, while we do sometimes have to
reconstruct our sentences, and find substitutes for some of our words,
before we are plainly understood. The “H” difficulty is an exception to
all this, with nearly all the people, except the most polished, that
we have met. Is it not singular? Among the lowest classes, however,
there are many words used that puzzle us; others are pronounced
curiously, and many of our common words are used in new combinations.
There is an old-fashioned, quaint set of words in common use that we
only understand from having met with them in old books—in the Bible,
for instance. The words _Master_ and _Mistress_ (instead of Mister and
Misses, as we have got to pronounce them), and _lad_ and _lass_, are
usual. “_Here, lad!_” “_Well, Maister?_” I first heard in the Liverpool
market. I passed a man there, too, leading a dray-horse, with a heavy
load, up one of the steep streets. He was encouraging him in this way:
“Coom on, my lad! Coom on, my good lad!” When he had reached the brow
he stopped and went before the noble beast, who, with glistening eyes,
and ears playing beautifully, bowed his head to be patted, “_Good lad!
good lad! Well, thee’s done it!_”[8]
[8] A gentleman, riding towards Chowbet, and seeing a boy in the
road, shouted out to him, “My lad, am I half-way to Chowbet?” Young
Lancashire looked up at the querist, and said, “Hah con aw tell, tha’
foo’, when I doon’t know wheear ta’ coom fra?”—_Liverpool paper._
* * * * *
We had noticed yesterday in Liverpool that the omnibuses were decorated
with branches of trees, ribbons, and flags; the union-jack (British
ensign) was hoisted in several places, the children seemed to be
enjoying a half-holiday in the afternoon, and once we saw them going
together in an irregular procession, carrying a little one dressed
with leaves and crowned with a gilt-paper cap, and singing together in
shrill chorus some verses, of which we only understood the frequent
repetition of the words: “The twenty-ninth of May! the twenty-ninth
of May!” It occurred to C. to ask whether all this was intended to
celebrate any thing. “Oh, surely,” our hostess said, “it was the
twenty-ninth of May—King-Charles-and-the-Oak day.” In her husband’s
time, they used always to keep it in good style, ornamenting their
house all over with oak boughs, and all the stage-coaches and the
horses used to be decked with oak boughs too. “How beautifully,” says
C., aside, “do such pretty simple customs keep alive the remembrance
of old historic facts!” “But why do they carry about the _child_?”
She did not recollect clearly, but she had the impression that King
Charles was a baby when it occurred. She had forgotten exactly how
it was, she said, “but it told all about it in the Bible.” “In the
Bible! mother; you mean in the History of England, do you not?” said
her daughter, smiling. “Was it?” replied the old lady, “I never had
time to read much in the large History of England. Let me see—why,
no; now I am sure it was in the Bible. Don’t you remember—what’s his
name—Zack—Zack—Zacheriah? yes, Zacheriah; how he climbed up into an oak
tree to see King Charles go by!”
[Sidenote: _SCRIPTURAL EDUCATION._]
A large and most powerful class, including many even of the more
conservative of the dissenters in England, are terribly afraid of a
national system of education that shall be free from Church influence.
The people had better be left to grow up in ignorance, rather than that
they should not be instructed in theological dogmas. I have actually
heard a refined and educated gentleman, occupying an influential
position, advocate the idea that all the education the common
people needed was so much as would enable them to read their Bible,
prayer-book, and catechism. Except for this, he would never let them
have a teacher, but would leave them to the parson. He would break up
every dissenter’s school—have no school in the land that was not a part
of the Church. The godless system of education which was now favoured
in high quarters (on the plan of our New England common schools!) he
verily believed, if adopted, would be a national sin that God would
arise in his anger to punish.
Our landlady had lived almost to old age under the shadow of the
Church, in which the story of Zaccheus is every year read aloud, and
in which a religious celebration of the restoration of King Charles is
by law performed every 29th of May. But a person of sound faculties,
native-born, could not probably be found in New England, whose godless
education would not have made impossible such a confusion of religious
instruction as had been given her.[9]
[9] There is a service for the 29th of May in the Book of Common
Prayer, which, by royal order (commencing “_Victoria Regina_. It is
our Royal Will and Pleasure,” &c., and countersigned by Lord John
Russell on the 21st of June, 1837), is to be performed in every church,
college, and chapel in the United Kingdom every year. It is most
blasphemously absurd and false in its historical allusions and slavish
moralizings.
I am writing now in my bedroom. Though the ceiling is low, it is large
and well furnished. There are large pitchers of water, foot-bath,
and half a dozen towels. The bed is very large, clean, and richly
curtained. The landlady has sent me up a glass of her home-brewed beer,
with a nightcap which I noticed she hung by the fire when I left the
kitchen. The chambermaid has drawn down the bed-clothes, and says, “The
bed has been well aired, sir.” Good night.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BREAK OF DAY.—A FULL HEART.—FAMILIAR THINGS.—THE VILLAGE
AT SUNRISE.—FLOWERS.—BIRDS.—DOG KENNELS.—“THE SQUIRE” AND “THE
HALL.”—ROOKS.—VISIT TO A SMALL FARM.—THE COWS.—THE MILKING.—THE
DAIRY-MAIDS.—THE STABLES.—MANURE.—BONES.—PASTURE.—WHITE
CLOVER.—IMPLEMENTS.—CARTS.—THE ENGLISH PLOUGH AND HARROW.
[Sidenote: _FAMILIAR ENGLISH LANDSCAPE._]
_31st May._
It was very early this morning when I became gradually aware of the
twittering of house-sparrows, and was soon after brought to more
distinct consciousness of time and place by the long clear note of some
other stranger bird. I stepped from bed and kneeled at a little, low,
latticed window, curtained without by a woodbine. Parting the foliage
with my hands, I looked out upon a cluster of low-thatched cottages,
half overgrown with ivy; a blooming hawthorn hedge, enclosing a field
of heavy grass and clover glistening with dew; a few haystacks; another
field beyond, spotted with sheep; a group of trees; and then some low
hills, over which the dawn was kindling, with a faint blush, the quiet,
smoky clouds in a grey sky. It may seem an uninteresting landscape, but
I gazed upon it with great emotion, so great that I wondered at it.
Such a scene I had never looked upon before, and yet it was in all its
parts as familiar to me as my native valley. Land of our poets! Home of
our fathers! Dear old mother England! It would be strange if I were not
affected at meeting thee at last face to face.
I dressed, and worked my way through the dark, crooked stairs to the
kitchen, where, on the bright steel fender, I found my shoes dry and
polished. I walked through the single short street of the hamlet. The
houses were set closely together, with neat little gardens about them.
They were of every age; one I noticed marked with the date 1630—about
the time of the first settlement in Connecticut. It was of stone,
narrow, with a steep roof covered with very small slates; the windows
much wider than high, and filled with little panes of glass set in
strips of lead. Except in this and the materials of which it was built,
it was not unlike some of the oldest houses that we yet see in our
first Puritan villages, as Hadley and Wethersfield.
[Sidenote: _ROOKS.—VISIT TO A FARM._]
A blackbird hopped before me, but did not whistle, and plenty of little
birds were chirping on the walls and rose-bushes, but there was nothing
like the singing we have at home of a spring morning.[10] At the other
end of the village was another inn—“The Blue Lion,” I believe, and a
tall hostler opening the stable doors was dressed just as I wanted to
see him—jockey-cap, long striped waistcoat, breeches, and boots.
[10] An English friend, now in America, thinks I am wrong in this.
As I returned I saw the farmer that had been at the inn the night
before, and asked him to let me see his cows. He said they were coming
down the lane, and if I went with him I should meet them. Passing
a group of well-built, neat, low buildings, he said they were the
squire’s kennels. They were intended for greyhounds, but he had his
pointers in them now.
“The squire’s! But where’s the squire’s house?”
“Yon’s the hall,” pointing to a distant group of trees, above which a
light smoke was rising straight up in the calm air, and a number of
large black birds were rapidly rising and falling. “Yon’s the hall; ye
see the rooks.”
“The rooks! Then those are rooks, are they?”
“Ay, be they—rooks—do ye not know what rooks be?”
“Yes, but we don’t have them in America.”
“No! not have rooks? They be main good in a pie, sir.”
We met the cows, of which there were about a dozen, driven by a boy
towards the farm-house. Any one of them would have been considered
remarkably fine in America. They were large and in good order; with
soft, sleek skin, and like every cow I have seen in England, look as if
they had just been polished up for exhibition. He could tell nothing of
their breed except of one, a handsome heifer, which he said came partly
of Welsh stock. He took me across a field or two to look at a few cows
of the squire’s. They were finer than any of his, and seemed to be
grade short-horns.
The cows were driven into hovels, which he called _shippens_, and
fastened at their mangers by a chain and ring sliding on an upright
post (the latest fashion with us), eight of them in an apartment,
standing back to back. Three or four of his daughters came out to
milk—very good-looking, modest young women, dressed in long, loose,
grey, homespun gowns. They had those high wooden tubs to milk in
that we see in the old pictures of sentimental milkmaids. It seems
constantly like dreaming to see so many of these things that we have
only known before in poetry or painting.
The dairy-house and all the farm buildings were of brick, interworked
with beams of wood and thatched. They were very small, the farm being
only of fifty acres, and the hay and grain always kept in stacks.
The arrangements for saving manure were poor—much the same as on any
tolerably good farm with us—a hollowed yard with a pool of liquid on
one side. He bought some dung and bones in Liverpool, but not much. He
esteemed bones most highly, and said they did immense good hereabout.
They made a sweeter, stronger, and more permanent pasture. Where he
had applied them twelve years ago, at the rate of a ton to an acre, he
could see their effect yet. He took me into an adjoining field which,
he said, was one of the best pastures in the village. It had been
ploughed in narrow lands, and the ridges left high, when it was laid
down. The sward was thicker, better _bottomed_, than any I ever saw in
America. He sowed about a bushel of grass seeds to the acre, seeding
down with oats. For cheese pasture, he valued white clover more than
any thing else, and had judged, from the taste of American cheese,
that we did not have it. For meadows to be mowed for hay, he preferred
sainfoin and ray-grass. He had lately under-drained some of his lowest
land with good effect. His soil is mostly a stiff clay resting on a
ledge of rocks.
The farm-carts were clumsy and heavy (for horses), with very large
wheels with broad tires and huge hubs, as you have seen the English
carts pictured. The plough was a very long, sharp, narrow one,
calculated to plough about seven inches deep, and turn a slice ten
inches wide, with a single pair of horses. The stilts, of iron, were
long and low, and the beam, also of iron, very high, with a goose-neck
curve. It is a very beautiful instrument, graceful and strong; but
its appearance of lightness is deceptive, the whole being of iron;
and this, with its great length, though adding to its efficiency for
nice, accurate work in perfectly smooth and clear, long fields, would
entirely unfit it for most of our purposes. On the rocky, irregular,
hill-side farms of New England, or the stump lands of the West, it
would be perfectly useless; but I should think it might be an admirable
plough for our New York wheat lands, or perhaps for the prairies after
they had been once broken.
[Sidenote: _THE ENGLISH PLOUGH._]
The harrow used on the farm was also of iron, frame and all, in three
oblong sections, hinged together. These were about all the tools I saw,
and they were left in a slovenly way, lying about the farm-yard and in
the road.
[Illustration: THE ENGLISH PLOUGH (_vertical_ and _horizontal_)]
CHAPTER XII.
BREAKFAST AT THE INN.—A TALE OF HIGH LIFE.—THE GARDEN OF THE
INN.—AN OLD FARM-HOUSE.—TIMBER HOUSES.—LABOURERS’ COTTAGES.—WATTLES
AND NOGGIN WALLS.—A “FERME ORNEE.”—A LAWN PASTURE.—COPPER-LEAVED
BEECHES.—TAME BLACK CATTLE.—APPROACH TO CHESTER.
I returned to my room in the inn, and had written a page or two of
this before any one was stirring. Then I heard the mistress waking the
servants, and soon after “John the boots” came to my door to call me,
as I had requested him to.
After with difficulty prevailing upon the landlady and her daughter
to breakfast with us, we had a very sociable time with them over the
tea and eggs which they had prepared for us. They were interested to
hear of the _hard_ coal we burned (anthracite) that made no smoke, and
of _wood_ fires, and of our peculiar breakfast dishes, griddle-cakes,
and Indian bread. They told us of other members of their family—two or
three in Australia—and of the clergy and gentry of the neighbourhood.
They spoke kindly and respectfully of the vicar—“a sporting man, sir,
and fond of good living,” the old lady added, after mentioning his
charity and benevolence. In speaking of the gentry, it was difficult
for her to believe that we did not know the general history of all the
families. We asked about a park we had passed. It was —— Park, and
had a remarkable story to be told of it; but so constantly did she
anticipate our knowledge, taking for granted that we knew all that had
occurred until within a short time, that it was long before we could
at all understand the _news_ about it. As you are probably equally
ignorant, I will tell you the tale connectedly, as we finally got it.
[Sidenote: _A TALE OF HIGH LIFE._]
It had been the property of Sir T——, who occupied the hall in it
until his death, a year or two ago, and had been in his family many
hundred years. The estate included several villages—the whole of them,
every house and shop, even the churches—and was valued at £800,000
($4,000,000). On the death of Sir T., Sir W., his son, inherited his
title and estate. But Sir W. was a sporting man, and had previously
gambled himself in debt to Jews in London £600,000. He came to the
hall, however, and remained there some time, keeping two packs of
hounds. He was a good landlord, and the family were beloved. Lady M.
had established and maintained a national (church) school; and in the
winter was in the habit of serving out a large quantity of soup every
day to the poor of the estate. But at length the bailiffs came, and Sir
W. went to France, and his family dispersed among their relatives all
over the kingdom. Lady M. last winter had been very ill, and nothing
ailed her, the physicians said, but sorrow.
And now they were going to sell it—they did not know how they could—but
they showed us a considerable volume, illustrated with maps and
lithographs, of “plans and particulars” of the estate, on the first
page of which, “Messrs. —— had the honour to announce that they had
been instructed by the honourable proprietor, to sell at auction, on a
certain six days, upwards of fifteen hundred acres of very fine rich
land, let to an old and respectable tenantry, including the whole of
the town of ——, together with several manors and manorial rights,
which have been commuted at £500 _per annum_.” They showed us also
another volume, containing in one hundred and twelve quarto pages,
descriptions of the furniture, plate, library, paintings, wines, &c.,
with many engravings—a strange exposure of noble housekeeping to our
republican eyes. Seeing that we were much interested in this, the
landlady offered to give it to us; it was of no use to her, she said,
and we were quite welcome to it. It was really of some value in several
ways, and we offered to pay for it, but she would not sell it.
Before we left, they showed us through the little garden of the inn;
it was beautifully kept, and every thing growing strongly. Then,
after buckling on our knapsacks, and bringing us another mug of
_home-brewed_, our kind entertainers took leave of us with as much
good-feeling and cordiality as if we were old friends, who had been
making them a short visit, following us out into the street, with
parting advice about the roads and the inns, and at last a warm shaking
of hands.
The country we walked over for a few miles after leaving the village,
was similar to that we saw yesterday—flattish, with long, low
undulations—the greater part in pasture, and that which was not, less
highly cultivated than I had expected to find much land in England,
the stock upon it almost altogether cows, and these always looking
admirably well; the fields universally divided by hedges, which,
though they add much to the beauty of the landscape, when you are in a
position to look over it, greatly interrupt the view, and always are
ill-trimmed, irregular, and apparently insecure. We met no one on the
road, saw very few habitations, and only two men at work, ploughing,
for several miles; then a cluster of cottages, an inn, and a large
old _timber-house_. As I had been informed (very wrongly) that these
were getting rare in England, and it was very peculiar and striking, I
stopped to sketch it.
[Sidenote: _OLD TIMBER FARM-HOUSE._]
Imagine a very large, old-fashioned New England farm-house with the
weather-boarding stripped off and all the timber exposed. Fill up the
intervals with brick, and plaster them over even with the outer surface
of the beams; then whitewash this plastered surface and blacken the
timber, and you have the walls of the house. A New England house,
however, would have three times as many windows. The roof is mostly
of very small old slates, set with mortar, and capped (ridged) with
thick quarried stones. It is repaired with large new slates in several
places, and an addition that has been made since the main part was
erected, which is entirely of brick in the walls, with no timber, is
heavily thatched with straw, as are also all the out-buildings.
[Illustration: THE TIMBER HOUSE (_old farm-house_)]
The rear of the farm-house probably contains the dairy, and is covered
with thatch to secure a more equable temperature.
All the other buildings in the hamlet were similarly built—timber and
whitewashed walls, and thatch roofs. While I was sketching, the farmer,
a great stout old man, and the first we have seen in top-boots, came
out and entered into conversation with us. He was much amused that I
should think his house worth sketching, and told us it had been long
(rented) in his family. He had no idea how old it was. He described the
cottages, which were certainly very pretty to look at, as exceedingly
uncomfortable and unhealthy—the floors, which were of clay, being
generally lower than the road and the surrounding land, and often wet,
and always damp, while the roofs and walls were old and leaky, and full
of vermin. The walls of these cottages were all made by interlacing
twigs (called _wattles_) between the timbers, and then _plashing_ these
with mud (_noggin_), inside and out, one layer over another as they
dried, until it was as thick as was desired; then the surface was made
smooth with a trowel and whitewashed.
A few miles further on we came to a large, park-like pasture, bounded
by a neatly trimmed hedge, and entered by a simple gate, from which
a private road ran curving among a few clumps of trees to a mansion
about a furlong distant. We entered, and rested ourselves awhile at
the foot of some large oaks. The house was nearly hidden among trees,
and these, seen across the clear grass land, were the finest groups of
foliage we had ever seen. A peculiar character was given it by one or
two _copper-leaved_ beeches—large, tall trees, thickly branched from
the very surface of the ground. (These trees, which are frequently used
with great good effect in landscape gardening in England, are rare in
America, though they may be had at the nurseries. There are two sorts,
one much less red than the other.) The cattle in this _pasture-lawn_
were small and black, brisk and wild-looking, but so tame in reality,
that as we lay under the tree, they came up and licked our hands like
dogs. The whole picture completely realized Willis’s beautiful ideal,
“The Cottage _Insoucieuse_.”
[Sidenote: _APPROACH TO CHESTER._]
The country hence to Chester was more elevated and broken, and the walk
delightful. We saw many beautiful things, but have seen so many more
interesting ones since, that I can hardly remember them. The road, too,
was more travelled. We met a stage-coach, with no inside passengers,
and the top overloaded, and a handsome carriage and four, the near
wheeler and leader ridden by postilions in bright livery, and within,
an old gentleman under a velvet cap, and young lady under a blue silken
calash. The fields, too, were more tilled; and one of fifty acres,
which was ridged for some root crop, was the most thoroughly cultivated
piece of merely farming ground I ever saw. There were several women at
work in the back part of it. I could not make out what they were doing.
About the middle of the forenoon, we came to the top of a higher hill
than we had before crossed, from which we looked down upon a beautiful
rich valley, bounded on the side opposite us by blue billowy hills.
In the midst of it was the smoke and chimneys and steeples of a town.
One square, heavy brown tower was conspicuous over the rest, and we
recognised by it the first cathedral we had seen.
As we approached the town, the road became a crooked paved street,
lined with curious small antique houses, between which we passed,
stopping often to admire some singular gable, or porch, or grotesque
carving, until it was spanned by a handsome brown stone arch, not
the viaduct of a railroad, as at first seemed likely, nor an arch of
triumph, of the pictures of which it reminded us, but one of the four
gateways of the city. Passing under it, we found on the inner side a
flight of broad stone stairs leading on to the wall, which we ascended.
At the top, on the inside of the wall, was a printer’s shop, in which
guide-books were offered for sale. Entering this we were received by
an intelligent and obliging young man who left the press to give us
chairs, and with whom we had an interesting conversation about the town
and about his trade. Printers’ wages, if I recollect rightly, were
about one quarter more in New York than in Chester. After purchasing a
guide-book and a few prints of him, we accepted his invitation to leave
our knapsacks in his shop, and take a walk on the walls before entering
the town.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHESTER WITHOUT.—A WALK ON THE WALLS.—ANTIQUITIES.—STRIKING
CONTRASTS.
_Chester, June 2d._
[Sidenote: _A WALK ABOUT CHESTER._]
My journal is behindhand several days, what little time I have had to
write being occupied in finishing my last letter. Meantime, I have seen
so much, that if I had a week of leisure I should despair of giving
you a good idea of this strange place. But that you may understand
a little how greatly we are interested, I will mention some of the
objects that we have seen, and are seeing. Use your imagination to the
utmost to fill up the hints, rather than descriptions, of these that I
shall give you. You need not fear that when you come here the reality
will disappoint you, or fail to astonish you with its novelty, its
quaintness, and the strange mingling of venerable associations with its
modern art and civilization.
We were about to leave the printer’s for a walk on the wall. I will not
detain myself with a detailed account of our proceedings, but imagine
that you are with me, while I point out to you a few of the note-worthy
objects.
* * * * *
We are on the top of the wall, a few feet from the side of the archway
through which we entered the town. Look down now on the outside. The
road, just before it enters the gate, crosses, by a bridge, a deep
ravine. In it, some seventy feet below us, you see the dark water,
perhaps of old the _fosse_, but now a modern commercial canal. A long,
narrow boat, much narrower than our canal-boats, laden with coals, is
coming from under the bridge; a woman is steering it, and on the cabin,
in large, red letters, you see her name, “_Margaret Francis_,” and the
name of the boat, the “_Telegraph_.” That arch was turned by a man now
living, but that course of stones—the dark ones between the ivy and the
abutment—was laid by a Roman mason, when Rome was mistress of the world.
Walk on. The wall is five feet wide on the top, with a parapet of
stone on the outside, and an iron rail within. Don’t fear, though it
is so far and deep to the canal, and the stone looks so time-worn and
crumbling; it is firm with true Roman cement, the blood of brave men.
Here it is strengthened by a heavy tower, now somewhat dilapidated.
Look up, and you see upon it a rude carving of a phœnix; under it an
old tablet, with these words:—
“ON THIS TOWER STOOD CHARLES THE FIRST, AND SAW HIS ARMY DEFEATED.”
Within the tower is the stall of a newsman. Buy the London Times, which
has come some hundred miles since morning, with the information that
yesterday the honourable president of a Peace Society was shot in a
duel. (A fact.)
Pass on. On one side of us are tall chimneys, through which, from
fierce forge fires, ascend black smoke and incense of bitumen to the
glory of mammon. Close on the other side stands a venerable cathedral,
built by pious labour of devout men to the laud and service of their
God. We look into the burying-ground, and on the old gravestones
observe many familiar names of New England neighbours.
[Sidenote: _STREET SCENES._]
Narrow brick houses are built close up to the wall again, and now on
both sides; the wall, which you can stride across, being their only
street or way of access. Here, again, it crosses another broad road,
and we are over another entrance to the city—the “_new gate_;” it is
not quite a century old. We look from it into the market-place. Narrow,
steep-gabled houses, with their second story frowning threateningly
over the side-walks, surround it. But the market-building is modern.
See! the sparrow lighting on the iron roof burns her feet and flies
hastily over to the heavy, old, brown thatch, where the little dormers
stick out so clumsily cosy.
Odd-looking vehicles and oddly-dressed people are passing in the
street below us: a woman with a jacket, driving two stout horses in
one of those heavy farm-carts; an omnibus, very broad, and carrying
passengers on the top as well as inside, with the sign of “The Green
Dragon;” the driver, smartly-dressed, tips his whip with a knowing nod
to a pretty Welsh girl who is carrying a tub upon her head. There are
lots of such damsels here, neat as possible, with dark eyes and glossy
hair, half covered by white caps, and fine, plump forms, in short
striped petticoats and hob-nailed shoes. There goes one, straight as
a gun-barrel, with a great jar of milk upon her head. And here is a
little donkey, with cans of milk slung on each side of him, and behind
them, so you cannot see why he does not slip off over his tail, is a
great brute, with two legs in knee-breeches and blue stockings, bent
up so as to be clear of the ground, striking him with a stout stick
across his long, expressive ears. A sooty-faced boy, with a Kilmarnock
bonnet on his head, carrying two pewter mugs, coming towards us, jumps
suddenly one side, and, ha! out from under us, at a rattling pace,
comes a beautiful sorrel mare, with a handsome, tall, slightly-made
young man in undress military uniform; close behind, and not badly
mounted either, follow two others—one also in uniform, with a scarlet
cap and a bright bugle swinging at his side; the other a groom in
livery, neat as a pin; odd again, to American eyes, those leather
breeches and bright top-boots. Who was it? Colonel Lord Grosvenor,
going to review the yeomanry. We shall see them the other side of
the city. His grandfather built this gate and presented it to the
corporation; you may see his arms on the key-stone. But now go on.
On the left, you see an old church tower, and under it the ragged
outline and darker coloured stone of still older masonry. A swallow has
just found a cranny big enough to build her nest in, that Father Time
has been chiselling at now for eight hundred years. Eight hundred? Yes;
it was _rebuilt_ then. You can see some of the _older_, original wall
at the other end—no, not that round Saxon arch, but beyond the trees—a
low wall with a heavy clothing of ivy. The steamboat is just coming out
from behind it now. In the year 973, King Edgar landed at this church
from a boat, in which he had been rowed by eight kings, whom he had
conquered. An ugly, smoky old tub is that steamboat; it would hardly be
thought fit for the conveyance of criminals to prison in America. But
doubtless it is a faster and more commodious craft than King Edgar’s
eight-king power packet.
We cross another gateway, and pass a big mill. The dam was built, I
don’t know when. The Puritans, they say, tried to destroy it, for its
bad name, perhaps, but could not, because, like a duck, it kept under
a high flood of water until the Cavaliers, making a rush to save it,
spiked their guns.
[Sidenote: _QUEENS AND BEGGARS._]
Our path turns suddenly, and runs along the face of a stone wall,
supported by brackets high above the water of the river, but some
distance below the parapets—parapets of a castle. Soon we pass a
red-coated sentry, and now you see a tower that looks older than the
rest. The battle-axes of William the Conqueror once clanged where that
fellow is lounging with a cigar. Beyond, on the esplanade, were wont
to assemble the formidable feudal armies of the Earls of Chester, whose
title is now borne by the German Prince Albert’s eldest son. Quite a
different appearance they must have made from this regiment of Irishmen
in red-cloth coats and leather helmets.
Stop a moment to look at the old bridge—step back to the angle—there
you see it—half a dozen arches of different forms and shades of colour,
not particularly handsome, but worth noticing. The blackest of the
arches was turned half a century before Jamestown was founded—that is,
it was then _rebuilt_. The _old_ bridge, from which the stones for it
were taken, was built by Queen Ethefleda. Who was she? I am sure I
don’t know—some one who reigned here a thousand years ago, I believe,
though I never heard any thing else of her. You’ll be shown her
great-grandmother’s cradle somewhere about town very likely.
Just above is another bridge. What a fine arch! Yes; the longest in the
world, it is said. That was not built by a queen, but a little girl
was the first to cross it, who afterwards _developed up_ into “her
most gracious Majesty, Victoria, whom God long preserve,” as the loyal
guide-book has it.
* * * * *
“... Poor fellow! he is very lame, isn’t he!”
“Oh, he is begging; probably an impostor. Don’t encourage him.”
“He only asks a penny to keep him from starving; his son has not been
able to get any work lately, or he would not let him beg.”
“Let him go to America; there’s enough work for him if he really wants
it; it’s what they all say. Give him a ha’penny then, and be rid of
him. Now, look over there, between the trees, and see the entrance to
the Marquis of Westminster’s park.”—A great, fresh pile of bombastic
towers and battlements to shelter a gate and protect the woman who
opens it from—rain and frost. It is but recently finished, and costs,
says the printer, £10,000.
What says the beggar? Free trade and the Irish have cut down wages,
since he used to work on the farms, from five shillings to eighteen
pence. I don’t believe it.
He reasserts it, though. He has stood himself at Chester Cross on the
market day, and refused to work for four and sixpence, and all the
beer he could drink. It may be true—the printer tells us; in the old
Bonaparte years, in harvest time, it was not unlikely to have been so.
With wheat at a guinea a bushel, the farmers did not have the worst of
it even then. Those were good times for farmers. Soldiers can’t reap,
but they must eat. The government _borrowed_ money to pay the farmers
for supporting the war, and now the farmers are paying the debt.
“Give me something to buy a little bread, good sirs,” repeats the old
man; “I can’t work, and my son.... These dirty Irish and this cussed
free trade....”
* * * * *
Hark! horns and kettle-drums! Come on. It is the band of the yeomanry;
we shall see them directly.... There! Five squadrons of mounted men
trotting over a broad green meadow below us. Well mounted they seem
to be, and well seated too. Ay; fox hunting will make good cavalry.
Doubtless many of those fellows have been after the hounds.
Possibly. But never one of them charged a buffalo herd, I’ll be bound.
[Sidenote: _RUINS AND RAILROADS._]
This green plain—a sort of public lawn in front of the town—is about
twice as large as Boston Common, and is called “The Roodee.” It is free
from trees, nothing but a handsome meadow, and a race-course runs
round it. On this course, by the way, the greatest number of horses
ever engaged in a single match have been run. In 1848, the entries were
one hundred and fifty-six, of which one hundred and six accepted.
Right below us, on the meadow, there is pitched a _marquée_. It belongs
to a cricket club. I want you to notice the beautiful green sward of
their playing ground. It is shaven so clean and close. You see men are
sweeping it with hair-brooms.
Here again, in this garden on the other side of the wall, there used
to be a nunnery. There is the entrance to a subterranean passage, by
which, if you could keep a candle burning, you might pass under the
city back to the cathedral.
* * * * *
... Are you tired of ruins? Here is one more that may rouse your
Puritan blood: a heavy tower built into the wall, connected with a
larger one at some distance outside. How old they look! No paintings
and no descriptions had ever conveyed to me the effect of age upon the
stone itself of these very old structures. How venerable! how stern!
how silent—yet telling what long stories! We will not ask for the
oldest of them, but—you see there, where the battlements are broken
down in one place—that breach was made by a ball thrown from the hill
yonder; and the cannon that sent it was aimed by OLIVER CROMWELL.
How beautiful, how indescribably beautiful, are those thick masses of
dark, glossy, green ivy, falling over the blackened old ramparts, like
the curls of a child asleep on its grandfather’s shoulder!—_Whew!_
don’t let the sparks get in your eye! They have pierced the wall right
under us, and here goes an express train fifty miles an hour, from
Ireland to London by way of Holyhead, with dispatches for her Majesty
(by way of Lord Palmerston’s head). The Roman masonry that resisted
the Roundhead batteries, has yielded to the engines of peace.
But, as we move on, even higher marks of civilization are pointed out
to us. Here, close to the wall, and in the shadow of the old tower,
is a public bath and wash-house. A little back is a hospital for
the poor, and near it a house of correction. Across the valley is a
gloomy-looking workhouse, and in another direction a much more cheering
institution, beautifully placed on a hill, among fine, dark, evergreen
trees, through which you can see the bright sunshine and smile of
God falling upon it. It is the Training College—a normal school, for
preparing teachers for the church schools of the diocese. And here,
on the left, as we approach the north gate again, is an old charity
school-house, the Blue-coat Hospital. The boys at play are all young
George Washingtons, dressed in long-skirted blue coats, and breeches,
and stockings.
* * * * *
... So here we are, back at the good-natured printer’s office, having
been a circuit of three miles on the walls of the city. Its population
is twenty-five thousand (mostly within). If you have observed that
nearly all the houses are low, you will not suppose that much room
is taken up by streets and unoccupied grounds, where that number is
accommodated in such limited space, and you will be ready to explore
the interior with great curiosity. If your taste for the quaint
and picturesque is at all like mine, you will be in no danger of
disappointment.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHESTER WITHIN.—PECULIARITIES OF BUILDING.—THE ROWS.—A
SEA-CAPTAIN.—ROMANCING.—AN OLD INN.—OLD ENGLISH TOWN HOUSES.—TIMBER
HOUSES.—CLAIMING AN INHERITANCE.—A COOK SHOP.—ONE OF THE
ALLEYS.—BREAKING INTO THE CATHEDRAL.—EXPULSION.—THE CURFEW.
[Sidenote: _OLD STREET ARRANGEMENT._]
The four gates of the city are opposite, and about equally distant
from each other. Four streets run from them, meeting in the centre
and dividing it into four quarters. These principal streets are from
one to three rods wide, and besides them there are only a few narrow
alleys, in which carts can pass. But the whole city is honeycombed
with by-ways, varying from two to five feet in width; sometimes open
above, and sometimes built over; crooked and intricate, and if he cares
where they lead him to, most puzzling to a stranger. Besides these
courts, alleys, and foot-paths, there is another highway peculiarity in
Chester, which it will be difficult to describe.
Imagine you have entered the gate with us after the walk about the
wall. The second story of most the old houses is thrown forward, as
you have seen it in the “old settler’s” houses at home. Sometimes it
projects several feet, and is supported by posts in the sidewalk.
Soon this becomes a frequent, and then a continuous arrangement; the
posts are generally of stone, forming an arcade, and you walk behind
them in the shade. Sometimes, instead of posts, a solid wall supports
the upper house. You observe, as would be likely in an old city,
that the surface is irregular; we are ascending a slight elevation.
Notwithstanding the old structure overhead, and the well-worn, thick,
old flagging under foot, we notice the shop fronts are finished with
plate-glass, and all the brilliancy of the most modern commercial art
and taste. Turning, to make the contrast more striking, by looking at
the little windows and rude carvings of the houses opposite, we see a
bannister or hand-rail separates the sidewalk from the carriage-way,
and are astonished, in stepping out to it, to find the street is some
ten feet below us. We are evidently in the second story of the houses.
Finding steps leading down, we descend into the streets and discover
another tier of shops, on the roofs of which we have been walking.
Going on, we shortly come to where the streets meet in the centre of
the town. Passing over the ground where the _cross_, and the pillory,
and other institutions of religion, and justice, and merry-making
formerly stood, we ascend steps, and are again in one of those singular
walks called by the inhabitants the Rows. There are no more stylish
shop fronts, but dark doorways and old windows again, and on almost
every door-post little black and red checkers, which hieroglyphics,
if you are not sufficiently versed in Falstaffian lore to understand,
you can find rendered in plain black and white queen’s English (or
people’s English by our law), under some woman’s name, painted on the
beam overhead—“Licensed to sell beer,” &c. Generally there will be an
additional sign, naming the inn or tavern, always in letters and almost
never in portraiture. I remember “The Crown and Castle,” “The Crown and
Anchor,” “The Castle and Falcon,” “The King’s Head,” “The Black Bear,”
“The Blue Boar,” “The Pied Bull,” “The Green Dragon,” “The White Lion,”
“The Sun and Apple Tree,” “The Colliers’ Arms,” “The Arms of Man,” “The
Malt Shovel,” etc., etc.
Instead of columns and a hand-rail, or a dead-wall on the street side
of the row, it is now and then contracted by a room, which is sometimes
occupied by a shop, and sometimes seems to be used as a vestibule and
staircase to apartments overhead, for we see a brass plate with the
resident’s name, and a bell-pull, to the door.
On the inner side are frequent entrances to the narrow passages that I
mentioned, which may be long substitutes for streets, communicating,
after a deal of turning and splitting into branches, with some distant
alley or churchyard, or other main street, with the front doors of
wealthy citizens’ houses opening upon them; or they may be merely
alleys between two tenements leading to a common yard in the rear; or
again, if you turn into one, it may turn out to be a private hall,
and after one or two short turns end in a kitchen. Never mind—don’t
retreat; put on a bold face, take a seat by the fire as if you were
at home, and call for a mug of beer. Ten to one it will be all right.
Every other housekeeper, at least, is a licensed taverner.
[Sidenote: _HOUSE HUNTING.—THE OLD SHIP-MASTER._]
We had great sport the first hour or two we were in town hunting for
lodgings. We were disposed to sleep under the very oldest English
architecture in which we could be comfortably accommodated. Many of
the places at which we applied were merely houses of refreshment, and
had no spare bedrooms. In one of these, “The Boot Inn,” we found an
old sea-captain, who, some twenty years ago, had traded to New York,
and enjoyed talking and making inquiries about persons he had met and
places he had visited. Fortunately we knew some of them, and so were
constrained to sit down to some bread and cheese and beer, and listen
to some tough yarns of Yellow Jack and Barbary pirates. At one end of
the kitchen was a table with benches on three sides of it, and a great
arm-chair on the other. Over the chair hung a union-jack, and before
it on the table was a strongly-bound book, which proved to be “The
Record of the Boot Inn Birthday Club.” The bond entered into by each
member on entering this association was, that he should treat the club
to plenty of good malt liquor on his every future birthday. There was
a constitution and many by-laws, the penalty for breaking which was
always to be paid in “beer for the club.”
At other inns we would be shown, by delightfully steep, narrow,
crooked, and every way possible inconvenient stairways, up through
low, dark spaces of inclined plane, into long, steep-roofed,
pigeon-house-like rooms, having an air as gloomy and mysterious as it
was hot and close. Then, upon our declining to avail ourselves of such
romantic and typhous accommodations, instead of being reconducted down
by the tortuous path of our ascent, we would be shown, through a back
door in the third story, out upon a passage that seemed to be also
used as a public street (footway), doors opening from it which were
evidently entrances to residences in the rear.
[Sidenote: _OLD ENGLISH INTERIOR._]
Finally we were suited; and now I am writing on an old oak table, with
spiral legs, sitting in an old oak chair, with an Elizabethan carved
back, my feet on an old oak floor (rather wavy), stout old oak beams
over my head, and low walls of old oak wainscot all around me. Resting
on an old oak bench by the window, is a young man with a broad-brimmed
felt hat slouched half over his face. Across the street, so near we
might jump into it if we were attacked from the rear, is a house with
the most grotesquely-carved and acutely-pointed gable possible to be
believed real, and not a pasteboard scene, with the date “1539” cut in
awkward figures over the cockloft window, high in the apex. For fifteen
minutes there has been a regular “_clink, clink_,” deadening all other
sounds but the clash of sabres against spurs, and distant bugle-calls,
as a body of horsemen are passing in compact columns through the narrow
street, from the castle, out by the north gate, towards _Rowton Moor_.
To be sure, it is a California and not a Cavalier sombrero that shades
my friend, and the men of war outside are but mild militiamen, carrying
percussion-lock carbines indeed, but who have fought for nothing so
valiantly as for the corn laws. But when shall I again get as near as
this to _Prince_ Charlie and the Ironsides? and shall I not make the
most of it? At least, there is no prompter’s bell, no carpenters in
their shirt-sleeves rushing in and sliding off the scenery. That 1539
over the way is TRUE; I can see the sun shine into the figures. Away,
then, with your 1850! I will drink only old wine—or better—_What ho! a
cup of sack!_ Shall I not take it easy in mine inn?
The house is full of most unexplainable passages and unaccountable
recesses, of great low rooms and little high rooms, with ceilings in
various angles to the walls, and the floor of every one at a different
elevation from every other, so that from the same landing you step up
into one and down into another, and so on. Back of a little kitchen
and big pantry, down stairs, we have another parlour. In it is a grand
old chimney, and opposite the fireplace a window, the only one in the
room. It is but three feet high, but, except the room occupied by a
glass _buffet_ in one corner and a turned-up round-table in the other,
reaches from wall to wall. To look out of it, you step on to a raised
platform, about three feet broad, in front of it, and on this is an
old, long, high-backed _settee_. I must confess that it is not the less
pleasant in the evening for an unantique gas-light.
As I lay in bed last night, I counted against the moon seventy-five
panes of glass in the single window of our sleeping apartment. The
largest of them was four by three, and the smallest three by one
inches. They are set in lead sashes, and the outer frame is of iron,
opening horizontally on hinges.
[Illustration: OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
(_Chester, 16th century_)]
[Sidenote: _OLD CARVINGS.—THE FATHER LAND._]
There are none but _timber houses_ all about us; the walls white
or yellow, and the timbers black. The roofs are often as steep as
forty-five degrees with the horizon, and the gables always front on
the street. If the house is large there will be several gables, and
each successive story juts out, overhanging the face of that below.
There is no finical verge-board, or flimsy “drapery” in the gable,
but the outermost rafter (a stout beam that you cannot expect to see
warped off or blown away) is boldly projected, and your attention
perhaps invited to it by ornamental carving. Porches, bow-windows,
dormers, galleries (in the rows), and all the prominent features of the
building are generally more or less rudely carved. One house near us is
completely covered with figures. C. says they represent Bible scenes.
There is one compartment which he supposes a tableau of the sacrifice
of Isaac, Abraham being represented, according to his _exegesis_, by a
bearded figure dressed in long flapped waistcoat and knee-breeches.
Another house has these words cut in the principal horizontal beam:
_God’s Providence is mine Inheritance_—1652. It is said the family
residing in it was the only one in the city that entirely escaped the
great plague of that year.
You may imagine how intensely interesting all this is. We cannot keep
still, but run about with a real boyish excitement. We feel indeed like
children that have come back to visit the paternal house, and who are
rummaging about in the garret among their father’s playthings, ever
and anon shouting, “See what I’ve found! see what I’ve found!” If we
had been brought here blindfolded from America, and were now, after
two days’ visit, sent back again, we should feel well repaid for the
long sea-passage. If we were to stay here a month, we should scarcely
enjoy less than we now do, rambling about among these relics of our old
England.[11]
[11] Some months later than this we were at a supper party, after
some old English ballads and songs had been sung, when one of the
company apologized for it, saying, “We forget our American friends.
It is selfish in us to sing only these national songs in which we are
peculiarly interested. Have you nothing American, now?” “Excuse me,
sir,” I replied, “those are our national songs as much as yours. You
forget that we are also countrymen of Will Shakspeare, and Robin Hood,
and Richard the Lion-hearted. Our mothers danced with your fathers
under that same ‘green-wood,’ and around the ‘May-pole.’ Our fathers
fought for their right in this land against Turk, Frenchman, Spaniard,
and Pretender. We have as much pride in Old England, gentlemen, as any
of you. We claim the right to make ourselves _at home_ on that ground
with you. You must not treat us as strangers.” “You are right; you are
welcome. Give us your hand. The old blood will tell!” And the whole
table rose with a hurrah, shaking our hands with a warmth that only
patriotic pride will excuse among Englishmen.
Going into a cook-shop for supper, the first afternoon we were in
Chester, we were shown through three apartments into a kitchen, and
from that into a long, narrow, irregularly-shaped room, with one little
window high above our heads, and twenty-seven old wood engravings in
frames about the walls. We had a very tolerable supper given us, and
were served by a six-foot-high Welsh girl that could understand but
little of our English. When we were ready to leave, a back door was
opened, and we were told that the first opening to the left would bring
us to the street. We found ourselves in one of the narrow covered
ways, and instead of turning off to the street as directed, kept on
in it to go where it should happen to lead. Sometimes wide, sometimes
narrow, running first, as it appeared, between a man’s kitchen and
his dining-room; then into a dust-yard; then suddenly narrowed, and
turned one side by a stable; then opening into a yard, across which a
woman over a wash-tub was scolding her husband, sitting with a baby
and smoking at a window; then through a blacksmith’s shop into a long,
dark, crooked, passage, like the gallery of a mine, at the other end of
which we found ourselves on a paved street not far from the cathedral.
[Sidenote: _THE CURFEW BELL._]
We entered the burying-ground, and seeing that a small door, that is
cut in the large door of the cathedral, was ajar, pushed it open and
went in. It was dark, silent, and chill. We felt strangely as we groped
our way over the unobstructed stone floor, and could make nothing of it
until our eyes, becoming adapted to the dimness, we discovered gilded
organ-pipes, and were going towards them, when a small door in front of
us was opened, and a man came out, saying impatiently, “Who _are_ you?
what do you want? Take off your hats.”
“We are strangers, looking at the cathedral.”
“Can’t see it, now; can’t see it, now. Service every day at four and
ten o’clock.”
As we were going out, a great bell began to toll. “What is that, sir?”
said I.
“What?”
“That bell tolling—what is it for?”
“Why, that’s the cuffew,” and he closed and bolted the door, while we
stood still without; and as the long waving boom of the bell pulsed
through us, looked wonderingly at each other, as if America and the
nineteenth century were a fading dream, slowly repeating, “The curfew;
the curfew.”
CHAPTER XV.
CHESTER MARKET.—THE TOWN COMMON.—RACE-COURSE.—THE YEOMANRY CAVALRY,
AND THE MILITIA OF ENGLAND.—PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE.—“MR. CHAIRMAN.”
The day after we came to Chester was market-day, and the streets were
busy at an early hour with people coming in from the country to sell
produce or purchase the supplies for their families for the coming
week. The quantity of butter exposed for sale was very large, and
the quality excellent. The fish-market also was finely supplied. The
dealing in both these articles was mostly done by women.[12]
[12] We noted the following as the common prices:—
Butchers’ meat, 10 to 14 cents per lb.
Best fresh butter in balls of 1½ lbs., 35 cents.
Salmon, fresh from the Dee, 35 cents per lb.
Turbot, 35 cents per lb.
Soles and other fish, 16 cents per lb.
[Sidenote: _MILITIA SYSTEM OF ENGLAND._]
After walking through the market we went to the Roodee, and there saw
the yeomanry reviewed. They wore a snug blue uniform, were armed with
sabres, carbines, and pistols, and were rather better mounted and
drilled than any of our mounted militia that I have seen. The active
commander seemed to be a regular martinet. If the lines got much out of
dress while on the trot, he would dash up, shaking his fist, and loudly
cursing the squadron at fault. I noticed, also, that when pleased he
sometimes addressed them in the ranks as “gentlemen.” He was probably
some old army officer, engaged to drill them.
A young man in the dress of an officer, but dismounted, said, in answer
to our inquiries, that their number was 800, in five companies. Most
of them were farmers, every farmer of a certain age in the county (as
we understood him) being obliged to serve three years, but allowed to
send a substitute if he chooses, and sometimes is represented by his
servant. They are out but once a year for training, and then for eight
days, and while engaged receive 75 cents a day. They can not be ordered
out of the country, and are never called into any active service,
except to quell riots.
I frequently asked afterwards for more information about the yeomanry,
but never of a person that seemed to know much about them. A man in the
ranks of the Denbighshire yeomanry told us the service was optional.
In some counties there is no such body, and the organization, laws,
and customs of it seem to vary in the different regiments. There is
a regular foot-militia organization throughout England (the “train
bands”), but none of them, I believe, have been paraded for many years.
According to a parliamentary return of 1838, there were then of the
mounted yeomanry, 251 troops and 13,594 privates; the annual expense of
maintaining them was $525,000. The enrolled militia of England in 1838
numbered 200,000 men. The officers of these forces, when in service,
_rank_ with those of the army of the same grade. A part of the uniform
and mountings of the yeomanry are paid for by the government, and some
small daily compensation is allowed the privates when in service. A
drill-sergeant and a trumpeter is also permanently attached to each
troop, with a salary from the state.
NAPIER mentions that the greater part of the 16,000 British troops
who gained the battle of Talavera were men drafted from the militia at
home, and that they had but very recently joined the army in Spain.
* * * * *
Coming up from the Roodee, we visited the castle. It is of no
importance in a military way, except as a depôt. There are 30,000
stand of arms, and a large quantity of gunpowder stored in it. It is
garrisoned by an Irish regiment at present, which, as well as the
yeomanry, has a very good band of music, by which the town benefits.
[Sidenote: _PUBLIC WASHHOUSE.—MODERATE DRINKER._]
We afterwards visited the public baths and wash-house. In its basement
there are twenty square tubs, each with hot and cold water cocks,
wash-board, and pounder, a drying-closet heated by steam to 212° F.,
&c. In the first story are the usual private baths, and a swimming
tank or public bath, having a constant influx of fresh water by a jet
from below, and an overflow. It is 45 by 36 feet, 2½ feet deep at one
end, 6 at the other, contains 36,000 gallons, and is furnished with
swings, diving-stage, life-buoys, &c. It was built by a committee of
the citizens, and bought by the town very soon after it went into
operation. The whole cost was $10,000, most of which was raised by a
stock subscription. The water is supplied from the canal, and is all
filtered—the cost of the filtering machine being $200. The principal
items of current expenses are fuel and salaries. The cost of coal (very
low here) is $5 a week. There are four persons constantly employed
in the establishment, viz., superintendent and wife, who are paid
$10 a week, and receive something besides as perquisites (supplying
bathing-dresses, for instance, at a small charge); the bath-attendant,
and the fireman, who each have $7.50 a week. Total salaries $25 a week.
The charges for the use of the clothes-washing conveniences is about
one cent an hour. For the baths it varies from two to twenty-five
cents, select hours being appointed for those who choose, by paying a
larger sum, to avoid a crowd. There are also commutations by the year
at lower rates: boys, for instance, have a yearly ticket for a little
over a dollar. During the first year it has something more than paid
expenses. The number of bathers the last week (in May) was over one
thousand. I mention these statistics, as this establishment is rather
smaller than most of the kind, and they may serve the projectors of a
similar one in some of our smaller cities.
* * * * *
We had had at breakfast the company of a little, fat dignified person,
whose talk much amused us by its likeness to that of some of Dickens’
characters. On returning to the inn at noon, we found sitting with
him a cadaverous-faced man, with long hair, and very seedy clothes,
who seemed from his expressions to be an artist. Beer had just been
brought into them as we entered, but the painter after taking a long
draught, mildly suggested that “something stronger might facilitate
business.” The fussy man replied that he never took any thing but malt
liquors before dinner. The artist said that he required something
more. “I haven’t had any thing but beer this morning, except a couple
of glasses of brandy, and a little go o’rum with a dab of butter and
sugar in it.” Here he looked at me with a smile and a nod, that invited
my good fellowship, and I ventured to ask how much beer he might have
had besides that. “Not more than half a dozen glasses, sir.” “Really,
I should have supposed that would be drink enough for half a day.”
“Not for a man like me; I have drank thirty-six glasses—half pints—of
strong Welsh ale in a day, and all the better of it.” The stout man
said he never drank over a dozen, or at the highest, fifteen, in a
day, and never, except in peculiar circumstances, took spirits before
dinner; after dinner he would go as far as any body. He often had to
preside at public dinners, and though of course, he then, for the sake
of example, had to drink more than any one else, he always kept on
his seat as long as there was any one to drink with him, “as you very
well know, sir,” he added, appealing to the artist. “Undoubtedly, Mr.
Chairman,” the latter replied, “_un_doubtedly, sir.”
CHAPTER XVI.
VISIT TO EATON HALL.—THE LARGEST ARCH IN THE WORLD.—THE OUTER
PARK.—BACKWOODS’ FARMING.—THE DEER PARK.—THE HALL.—THE PARTERRE.—
THE LAWN.—THE FRUIT GARDEN.—STABLES.
[Sidenote: _LANDSCAPE GARDENING._]
In the afternoon we walked to Eaton park.
Probably there is no object of art that Americans of cultivated
taste generally more long to see in Europe, than an English park.
What artist, so noble, has often been my thought, as he, who with
far-reaching conception of beauty and designing power, sketches the
outline, writes the colours, and directs the shadows of a picture so
great that Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the
work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.
Eaton hall and park is _one_ of the seats of the Marquis of
Westminster, a very wealthy nobleman, who has lately been named “Lord
High Chamberlain to her Majesty,” a kind of state-housekeeper or
steward, I take it—an office which Punch, and a common report of a
niggardly disposition in his private affairs, deems him particularly
appropriate to.
We left town by the new, or Grosvenor bridge—a simple, grand, and every
way excellent work, crossing the Dee by a single arch, which we are
told is the largest in the world. It is entirely free from decorative
ornament, and the effect of it, as seen looking from the river side,
is most imposing. I know of nothing in America to compare with it. It
was built by the marquis, whose family name is Grosvenor, at a cost of
$180,000 (£36,000). The designer was Thomas Harrison, an architect of
note, who formerly lived in Chester.[13]
[13] The main arch spans two hundred feet, and its height is forty
feet, and there two dry arches, each twenty feet wide and forty feet
high. From the surface of the water to the road is over sixty feet.
The parapet walls are three hundred and fifty feet long, with a
carriage-way and foot-path between, of thirty feet.
By the side of the road we found an oratory, or small chapel, building,
and gardeners laying out grounds for a rural cemetery. Beyond this we
came to the great castellated edifice that I have before spoken of as
the gateway to the park. Such we were told it was, and were therefore
surprised to find within only a long, straight road, with but tolerable
mowing lots alternating by the side of it, with thick plantations of
trees, no way differing from the twenty-year old natural wood of my
own farm, except that hollies, laurels, and our common dog-wood were
planted regularly along the edge. After a while we pushed into this
wood, to see if we could not scare up some of the deer. We soon saw
daylight on the outside, and about twelve rods from the road, came
to an open field, separated from the road only by a common Yankee
three-rail fence, which I had not expected to see in England; very poor
it was too, at that.
A stout boy, leaning heavily on the stilts, was ploughing the
stubble-ground (apparently a _summer fallow_). We jumped over and asked
what crop the ground was preparing for. The horses stopped of their own
accord when we spoke. The boy turned and sat upon the stilts-brace, and
then answered—“Erdnow.”
[Sidenote: _GENTLEMAN FARMING.—PARK SCENERY._]
The same answer, or some other sounds that we could not guess the
meaning of, followed several other questions. The plough had a wooden
beam, bound round with hoop iron. The horses, one black and the other
white, seemed to be worn-out hacks; the harness was mended with bits
of rope; the furrows were crooked and badly turned. Altogether, a
more unfarmer-like turn-out, and a worse piece of work I never saw in
our own backwoods. When we last saw the ploughman, he had taken off
his woollen cap and seemed about lighting a pipe, and the horses were
beginning to nibble at the stubble, which stuck up in tufts all over
the ploughed ground. In getting back to the road we crossed a low spot,
sinking ankle deep in mire, and noticed several trees not eight inches
thick, which showed signs of decay.
We tramped on for several miles through this tame scenery and most
ungentlemanly farming, until it became really tiresome. At length the
wood fell back, and the road was lined for some way with a double row
of fine elms. Still no deer. A little further, and we came to a cottage
most beautifully draped with ivy; passed through another gate. Ah! here
is the real park at last.
A gracefully, irregular, gently undulating surface of close-cropped
pasture land, reaching way off inimitably; dark green in colour;
very old, but not very large trees scattered singly and in groups—so
far apart as to throw long unbroken shadows across broad openings of
light, and leave the view in several directions unobstructed for a
long distance. Herds of fallow-deer, fawns, cattle, sheep, and lambs
quietly feeding near us, and moving slowly in masses at a distance; a
warm atmosphere, descending sun, and sublime shadows from fleecy clouds
transiently darkening in succession, sunny surface, cool woodside,
flocks and herds, and foliage.
The road ran on winding through this. We drew a long breath, and walked
slowly for a little way, then turned aside at the nearest tree, and lay
down to take it all in satisfactorily. Then we rose and went among
the deer. They were small and lean, all with their heads down feeding.
Among them was one pure white fawn. I believe none of them had antlers,
or more than mere prongs. They seemed to be quite as tame as the sheep;
but suddenly, as we came still nearer, all, as if one, raised high
their heads, and bounded off in a high springing gallop. After going
a few rods, one stopped short, and facing about, stood alone with
ears erect, and gleaming eyes, intent upon us. A few rods further the
whole herd stopped and stood in the same way, looking at us. One by
one the heads again dropped; a fawn stepped out from among them; the
one nearest us turned and trotted to it, and then all fell quietly to
feeding again.
The sheep were of a large, coarse-woolled variety, some of them nearly
as large, only not standing quite so high, as the deer—not handsome at
all (as sheep) even for a mutton breed; but in groups at a distance,
and against the shadows, far prettier than the deer. The cattle were
short horned, large, dapple skinned, sleek, and handsome, but not
remarkable.
We concluded that the sheep and cattle were of the most value for their
effect in the landscape; but it was a little exciting to us to watch
the deer, particularly as we would some times see them in a large herd
leisurely moving across an opening among the trees, a long way off, and
barely distinguishable; or still more when one, two, or three, which
had been separated from a nearer herd, suddenly started, and dashed
wildly by us, within pistol shot.
“I don’t think they are as large as our Maine fallow deer.”
“I wonder if they’d taste as good as they did _that night_.”
“Well, I reckon not—no hemlock to toast them over.”
“Or to sleep on afterwards, eh!”
“And no wolves to keep you awake.”
“No! How the bloody rascals did howl that night though, didn’t they?”
[Sidenote: _ETON HALL.—THE POINTED GOTHIC._]
Following the carriage road, we came near a mass of shrubbery, over and
beyond which the trees were closer and taller. It was separated from
the deer park by an iron fence. Passing this by another light gate, and
through a screen of thick underwood, we found ourselves close to the
entrance front of the Hall.
“It is considered the most splendid specimen of the pointed Gothic.
It consists of a centre and three stories, finished with octagonal
turrets, connected with the main part by lofty intermediate towers,
the whole enriched by buttresses, niches, and pinnacles, and adorned
with elaborately carved heraldic designs, fretwork, and foliage,
surmounted throughout by an enriched battlement.”
So much from the Guide Book. It is not my business to attempt a
criticism of “the finest specimen of the pointed Gothic” in England;
but I may honestly say that it did not, as a whole, produce the
expected effect of grandeur or sublimity upon us, without trying to
find reasons for the failure. Even when we came to look at it closely,
we found little to admire. There was no great simple beauty in it as a
mass, nor yet vigorous original character enough in the details to make
them an interesting study. The edifice is long and low, and covered
with an immense amount of meaningless decoration.
Such was our first impression, and we were greatly disappointed, you
may be sure. We admired it more afterwards on the other side, from the
middle of a great garden, where it seems to stand much higher, being
set up on terraces, and gaining much, I suspect, from the extension
of architectural character to the grounds in its front. Here we
acknowledged a good deal of magnificence in its effect. Still it seemed
as if it might have been obtained in some other style, with less
labour, and was much frittered away in the confusion of ornament.
This garden is a curiosity. It is in the geometrical style, and covers
eight acres, it is said, though it does not seem nearly that to the
eye. It is merely a succession of small arabesque figures of fine
grass or flower beds, set in hard, rolled, dark-coloured gravel. The
surface, dropping by long terraces from the steps of the hall to the
river, is otherwise only varied by stiff pyramidal yews and box, and
a few vases. On the whole, the effect of it in connection with the
house, and looking towards it, is good, more so than I should have
expected; and it falls so rapidly, that it affects the landscape seen
in this direction _from_ the house but very little. This is exquisitely
beautiful, looking across the Dee, over a lovely valley towards some
high, blue mountains. From other parts of the hall grand vistas open
through long avenues of elms, and there are some noble single trees
about the lawn.
This English elm is a much finer tree than I had been aware of—very
tall, yet with drooping limbs and fine thick foliage; not nearly as
fine as a single tree as our elm, but even more effective, I think, in
masses, because thicker and better filled out in its general outline.
The hall was undergoing extensive alterations and repairs; and all the
grounds immediately about it, except the terrace garden, were lumbered
up with brick and stone, and masons’ sheds, and in complete confusion.
Being Saturday, all the workmen had left, and it was long before we
could find any one about the house. We had got very thirsty, and
considering that such a place would not be left without any tenants,
determined to rouse them out and get a drink. After hammering for some
time at a door under the principal entrance, a woman came and opened it
a few inches, and learning our wish, brought us a glass of water, which
she passed out through the narrow opening, never showing her face. We
were amused at this, which she perceiving, told us the door was chained
and padlocked, so she could not open it wider.
[Sidenote: _BOX STABLES._]
Soon after, while looking for an entrance to the fruit garden, we met
a gamekeeper, who was followed by a pet cub fox. He very obligingly,
and with a gentlemanly manner showed us through such parts of the
establishment as he was able to. There was nothing remarkable in
the gardens or glass-houses, except some very large and wonderfully
well-trained fruit trees on walls. Every thing was neglected now,
however, and we did no more than glance at them. There were some new
stables nearly finished, the plans of which I studied with interest.
Each horse is to have a private box for himself. I do not recollect the
exact size, but it is at least twelve feet square on the floor, and
more than that high. In the ceiling is a ventilator, and in one corner
an iron rack for hay (much like a fire-grate), and there is probably
intended to be a small manger for fine and wet feed. There is a grating
for drainage in the floor, and, besides these, no other fixtures
whatever. The horse is to be left free within the walls.
CHAPTER XVII.
GAMEKEEPER.—GAME PRESERVES.—ECCLESTON, A PRETTY VILLAGE.—THE
SCHOOL-HOUSE.—DRAINING.—CHILDREN PLAYING.—THE RIVER-SIDE
WALK.—PLEASURE PARTIES.—A CONTRASTING GLIMPSE OF A SAD
HEART.—SATURDAY NIGHT.—BALLAD SINGER.—MENDICANTS.—ROW IN THE
TAP-ROOM.—WOMAN’S FEEBLENESS.—CHESTER BEER, AND BEER-DRINKING.
The gamekeeper advised us to return to Chester by another road, and
following his direction, we found a delightful path by the river side.
We had not gone far before we overtook another keeper carrying a gun.
It is hard for us to look upon wild game as property, and it seemed as
if the temptation to poach upon it must be often irresistible to a poor
man. It must have a bad effect upon the moral character of a community
for the law to deal with any man as a criminal for an act which in his
own conscience is not deemed sinful. Even this keeper seemed to look
upon poaching as not at all wrong—merely a trial of adroitness between
the poacher and himself, though it was plain that detection would place
the poacher among common swindlers and thieves, exclude him from the
society of the religious, and from reputable employment, and make the
future support of life by unlawful means almost a necessity. He said,
however, there was very little poaching in the neighbourhood. Most
of the farmers were allowed to shoot within certain limits, and the
labouring class were generally wanting in either the means or the pluck
to attempt it.
[Sidenote: _GAME PRESERVES._]
Evidently a man has a right to foster and increase the natural stock
of wild game upon his own land, that is, in a degree to domesticate
it; and the law should protect him in the enjoyment of the results of
the labour and pains he has taken for this purpose. The exceedingly
indefinite and undefinable character of such property, however, makes
the attempt to preserve it inexpedient, and often leads to injustice;
and when the preserve is sustained at the expense of very great injury
to more important means of sustaining human life in a half-starved
community, the poacher is more excusable than the proprietor.
That this is often the case in England I more than once saw evidence. A
picture, drawn by the agricultural correspondent of the _London Times_
of Nov. 11, 1851, represents a scene of this kind, more remarkable
however than any that came under my notice:
“At Stamford we passed into Northamptonshire, obtaining a glimpse of
the Marquis of Exeter’s finely wooded park and mansion of Burleigh.
This magnificent place, founded by Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Treasurer
Cecil, with its grand old trees and noble park, is just the place to
which a foreigner should be taken to give him an idea of the wealth of
our English nobility.
“The tenants on this estate are represented as being in the most
hopeless state of despondency on account of the present low prices
of agricultural produce, and as they were complaining vehemently,
the marquis offered to have the farms of any tenants who desired it
revalued. Only one on this great estate accepted the offer. There have
been no farms of any consequence yet given up, and for those which
do come into the market there are plenty of offerers, though men of
capital are becoming chary, and will only look at very desirable farms.
The estate is said to be low-rented. Small farmers, of whom there are
many, are suffering most severely, as they have not saved any thing in
good times to fall back upon now. Some of them are, indeed, greatly
reduced, and we heard of one who had applied to his parish for relief.
Others have sold every thing off their farms, and some, we were told,
had not even seed corn left with which to sow their fields.
“In a fine country, with a gently undulating surface and a soil dry
and easy of culture, laid into large fields moderately rented, one
is surprised to hear that there is so much complaint and so much
real suffering among the poorer class of farmers. It is only in part
accounted for by the devastation of game, which on this and some other
noblemen’s estates in North Northamptonshire is still most strictly
preserved. On the 24th of January last, seven guns, as we were told,
on the marquis’s estate killed 430 head of game, a most immoderate
quantity at such a late period of the season. The fields are all stuck
about with bushes to prevent the poachers netting; and the farmers feel
most severely the losses they sustain in order that their landlord and
his friends may not be deprived of their sport. The strict preservation
of game on this and some other estates in the northern parts of the
county was described to us in the bitterest terms, as ‘completely
eating up the tenant farmer, and against which no man can farm or
live upon the farm.’ It is ‘the last ounce that breaks the camel’s
back,’ and men who might have made a manful struggle against blighted
crops and low prices, are overborne by a burden which they feel to be
needlessly inflicted and of which they dare not openly complain.
“In consequence of the distress among the small farmers many of the
labourers would have been thrown out of employment had work not been
found for them by the marquis in stubbing and clearing woodland, which
will thus be reclaimed for cultivation. The improvement is expected
to be amply remunerative in the end, and it is one of the unlooked-for
results of free trade, which are to be met with in every part of the
country, that a landlord is compelled by circumstances, various in
kind, to improve the neglected portions of his estate, and which,
without such impelling cause, might have long lain unproductive. Every
such improvement is not merely an addition to the arable land of the
kingdom, but it becomes also an increased source of employment to the
labourer.”
I witnessed immense injury done to turnip crops by shooting over them
in Scotland. I was once visiting a farmer there, when for a whole half
day a “_gentleman_,” with three dogs, was trampling down his Swedes,
not once going out of the field. He was a stranger, and the farmer said
it would do no good to remonstrate; he would only be laughed at and
insulted.
We passed near a rookery, and the keeper was good enough to shoot
one of the rooks for us to look at. It was a shorter-winged and
rather heavier bird than our crow, with also a larger head and a
peculiar thick bill. At a distance the difference would not be readily
distinguished. The _caw_ was on a lower note, and more of a parrot
tone, much like the guttural croak of a fledgling crow. The keeper did
not confirm the farmer’s statement of their quality for the table. When
they were fat they made a tolerable pie only, he said, not as good
as pigeons. The rookery was, as we have often seen it described, a
collection of crows’-like nests among the tops of some large trees.
[Sidenote: _A PICTURESQUE VILLAGE._]
We turned off from the river a little ways to look at Eccleston, a kind
of pet village of the marquis, on the border of the park, and about the
prettiest we saw in England, though rather too evidently kept up for
show.
The cottages were nearly all of the timber and _noggin_ walls I have
described as common at Chester, covered with thick thatched roofs,
with frequent and different-sized dormers, often with bow-windows,
porches, well-houses, &c., of unpainted oak or of rustic work (boughs
of trees with the bark on), broad latticed windows opening on hinges,
a profusion of creeping vines on trellises, and often covering all the
walls and hanging down over the windows, little flower gardens full of
roses, and wallflowers, and violets, and mignonette, enclosed in front
by a closely-trimmed hedge of yew, holly, or hawthorn, sometimes of
both the latter together, and a nicely-sloped bank of turf between it
and the road.
A cut from a sketch I made of one of the largest houses will be found
on page 207. An intelligent labouring man talked with me while I was
drawing it, and said it was the residence of the schoolmaster, and the
village school was kept in it. The main part (which was covered with
our American ivy) was over three hundred years old; a part of the wing
was modern.
This labourer had been digging drains in the vicinity. He said the
practice was to make them from 18 to 36 inches deep, and from 5 to 7
yards apart, or “in the old _buts_”—“The _buts_?” “Ay, the buts.” He
meant what we sometimes call the “_’bouts_” (turnabouts?) or furrows
between the _lands_ in ploughing, which here are often kept unaltered
for generations for surface drainage, and, oddly enough, considering
the many manifest inconveniences of retaining them, as we were often
told, on account of the convenience of measuring or dividing fields by
them (as our farmers are often guided in their sowing by the _lands_,
and estimate areas by counting the panels of fence). Pipe-tiles, such
as are being now introduced with us, an inch or an inch and a half in
diameter (without collars), were laid in the drains to conduct the
water. The usual crop of potatoes in the vicinity he thought about
three _measures_ to a rood, or 225 bushels to an acre; of wheat, 30
bushels.
[Sidenote: _CHILDREN AT PLAY._]
We went into a stylish inn to get some refreshment, and while waiting
for it, watched some little girls playing in the street. They stood,
four, holding hands, dancing and singing round one (“Dobbin”) lying on
the ground:
Old Dobbin is dead,
Ay, ay;
Dobbin is dead,
He’s laid in his bed,
Ay, ay.
There let him lie,
Ay, ay;
Keep watch for his eye,
For if he gets up
He’ll eat us all UP—
and away they scampered and Dobbin after them. The one he first catches
lays down again for “Dobbin,” when it is repeated. (Shown in the cut
page 207.)
The church was a little one side of the village on an elevation, and
so hidden by trees that we could only see a square tower and vane.
Near it, we passed a neat stone building, which I thought probably the
parsonage, and pointing towards it soon after, asked a man if he knew
who lived in it. His reply was, “Why, there’s none but poor peoples’
houses there, sir!” The vicarage he showed us in another direction—a
fine house in spacious grounds.
From Eccleston we had a delightful walk in the evening to Chester.
There is a good foot-path for miles along the river bank, with gates or
stiles at all the fences that run down to it, and we met great numbers
of persons, who generally seemed walking for pleasure. There were
pleasure-boats, too, with parties of ladies under awnings, rowing up
and down the river, sometimes with music.
We were stopped by some labouring people going home, who asked us to
look after a poor woman we should see sitting by the water side over
the next stile, who, they feared, had been unfortunate, and was going
to drown herself. She had been there for an hour, and they had been for
some time trying to prevail on her to get up and go home, but she would
not reply to them. We found her as they had said—a very tall, thin
woman, without hat or cap on her head, sitting under the bank behind
some bushes, a little bundle in a handkerchief on her knees, her head
thrown forward, resting upon it, her hands clasped over her forehead,
and looking moodily into the dark stream. We drew back and sat on the
stile, where we could see if she stepped into the water. In a few
minutes she arose, and avoiding to turn her face towards us, walked
rapidly towards the town. We followed her until she was lost in a crowd
near the gate.
We found the streets within the walls all flaring with gas-light, and
crowded with hawkers and hucksters with donkey-carts, soldiers, and
policemen, and labouring men and women making purchases with their
week’s earnings, which it is a universal custom in England to have
paid on Saturday night. We heard a ballad-monger singing with a long,
drawling, nasal tone, on a high key, and listened for awhile to see
what he had. One after another he would hold them up by a gas-light,
and sing them. The greater number were protection songs, with “free
trade” and “ruin” oft repeated, and were the worst kind of doggerel.
One (sung to “Oh, Susannah!”) I recollect as follows:—
“Oh, poor farmers,
Don’t wait and cry in vain,
But be off to Californy,
If you cannot drive the _wain_.”
[Sidenote: _MENDICANTS._]
He read also choice scraps from confessions of murderers; parts of the
prayer-book travestied so as to tell against free-trade; and other such
literature. In another place we found a crowd about a man with a flute,
a woman with a hurdy-gurdy, and three little children singing what we
guessed must be Welsh songs—regular wails. The youngest was a boy, not
appearing to be over five years old, and was all but naked.
In front of our inn a man held in his arms a fine, well-dressed
little boy, and cried in a high, loud, measured, monotonous drawl,
continuously over and over—“His mother died in Carlisle we have
travelled twenty-seven miles to-day I have no money she left this boy
yesterday he walked eighteen miles I have no supper he is five years
old I have walked two hundred miles this is no deception I have seen
better days friends his feet are macerated I am in search of work I am
young and strong he cannot walk his mother died in Carlisle help me in
my lamentations I have but sixpence for myself and boy friends I am
compelled to beg I am young and strong his mother died in Carlisle I
am in search of work his feet are lacerated”—and so on. We watched him
from the rows perhaps two minutes, and saw seven persons drop coppers
into his hat: two little girls that a man was leading, a boy, a German
lace-pedler, a woman with a basket of linen on her head, another woman,
and a well-dressed gentleman.
The rest of the evening we sat round a bright coal fire, in what had
been the great fireplace of the long back parlour. We are the only
inmates of the inn except Mrs. Jones, the landlady, and her maid. About
eleven o’clock we were disturbed by some riotous men in the tap-room,
which is the other side of the big chimney. Mrs. Jones seemed trying to
prevail on them to leave the house, which they refused to do, singing
“We won’t go home till morning.” Mrs. Jones is a little, quiet, meek,
soft-spoken woman, and we were apprehensive for her safety. I was
about to go to her assistance, when the maid entered and said, “If you
please, sir, my mistress would like to see you.” I went hastily round
into the tap-room, and found two stout, dirty, drunken men, swinging
pewter mugs, and trying to sing “There was a jolly collier.” Mrs. Jones
stood between them. I pushed one of them aside, and asked her what she
wished me to do—expecting that she would want me to try to put him into
the street. The men made such a noise that I could not hear her mild
voice in reply, which, she perceiving, turned again and said, in a tone
that at once quelled them, “Stop your noise, you brutes!”—and then to
me, “will you please step into the kitchen, sir?” She only wished to
know what we would like to have for our breakfast and dinner, as the
shops would close soon, and, to-morrow being Sunday, they would not be
open before noon. You talk about woman’s feebleness!
The next morning, when we were going out, she came to unlock the door
of the passage or entry, and told us she was obliged by law to keep
it locked till two o’clock. At two o’clock we found it open, and
immediately after saw a man drinking beer in the tap-room again.
[Sidenote: _SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE INN._]
There is a continual and universal beer-drinking in Chester. Mrs. Jones
tells us that the quality of the beer made here has long been a matter
of town pride, though now there is very little brewed in families,
every one almost being supplied, at a great saving of trouble, from
the large breweries. She says there used to be a town law that whoever
brewed poor beer should be publicly ducked. Sunday night, young men
with their sweethearts and sisters, of very reputable appearance, and
quiet, decent behaviour, came into our back-parlour, and sitting by
the round-table ordered and drank each their glass or two of beer,
as in an American town they would take ice-cream. Now and then a few
remarks would be made about the sermon and who had been at church, or
about those who had been, or were soon going to be, married, or other
town gossip; but for the most, they would sit and drink their beer in
silence, perhaps embarrassed by our presence.
[Illustration: SKETCH IN CHESTER.]
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHARACTER OF THE WELSH.—THE CATHEDRAL: THE CLERGY, SERVICE, INTONING,
THE LUDICROUS AND THE SUBLIME.—A REVERIE.—A REVELATION.—THE
SERMON.—COMMUNIONS.—OTHER CHURCHES.—SUNDAY EVENING.—CHARACTER OF THE
TOWNSPEOPLE.
_Sunday, June 2d._
We were awakened this morning by a sweet chiming of the cathedral bells.
After breakfast, Mrs. Jones introduced us to a young female relative
who had come to visit her. She was intelligent and handsome, having a
beautifully clear though dark complexion, thick, dark hair, and large
swimming eyes. This style of beauty seems common hereabouts, and is
probably the Welsh type.
She lived among the mountains near Snowdon, and told us the country
there was bleak and sterile; agriculture confined mostly to grazing,
small patches only of potatoes and oats being cultivated. She spoke
highly of the character of the peasantry in many respects, but said
they had very strong prejudices, usually despising the English and
refusing to associate with them. Many of them could not speak English,
and those who could would often affect not to understand if they
were addressed by an Englishman. Among themselves they were very
neighbourly, clannish, honest, and generous, but strangers they would
impose upon most shamelessly. She had known very few to emigrate,
and those that did usually went to Australia, she thought. In her
neighbourhood they were mostly dissenters; Methodists, and Baptists,
and with the exception of deceit to strangers, were of good moral
character, much better than the English labourers. They had, however,
many traditional superstitions.
[Sidenote: _THE CATHEDRAL. OLD MASONRY._]
We attended service in the morning at the cathedral. Its outline upon
the ground is, with some irregularities, in the form of a cross. Its
great breadths and lengths, the comparative lowness and depth of its
walls, strengthened by thick, rude buttresses, and its short square
massive tower, together with its general time-worn aspect, impressed
me much as an expression of enduring, self-sustaining age. Like the
stalwart trunk of a very old oak, stripped by the tempests of much
of the burden of its over-luxuriant youth, its settled, compact,
ungarnished grandeur, was vastly more imposing than the feeble grace
and pliant luxuriance of more succulent structures. The raggedness
of outline, the wrinkles and furrows and scars upon the face of all
the old masonry, are very remarkable. The mortar has all fallen from
the outside, and the edges of the stones are worn off deeply, but
irregularly, as they vary in texture or are differently exposed. The
effect of rain and snow and frost, and mossy vegetation and coal smoke,
for six hundred years upon the surface, I know of no building in
America that would give you an idea of. The material of construction is
a brown stone, originally lighter than our Portland sandstone, but now
darker than I have ever seen that become. It has had various repairs
at long intervals of time, and is consequently in various stages
of approach to ruin—some small parts, not noticeable in a cursory
view, being in complete and irreparable demolishment, and others but
yesterday restored to their original lines and angles, with clean-cut,
bright-coloured stone and mortar—bad blotches, but fortunately not
prominent.
It was once connected with an abbey, and other religious houses that
stood near it, and by a long under-ground passage with the nunnery at
the other side of the town. Think of the poor girls walking with a
wailing chant, through that mile of darkness, to assist in the morning
service at the cathedral.
Our approach to it this morning was by a something less gloomy and
tedious way. We were accidentally in an alley in the vicinity, when
we saw a gentleman in a white gown, and a square or university cap on
his head, with a lady on his arm, enter an old, arched, and groined
passage. We followed him adventurously, not being sure that it was
not the entrance to his residence. After passing to the rear of the
block of buildings that fronted on the alley, we found ourselves in
a kind of gallery or covered promenade attached to the cathedral.
(The cloisters.) From this we passed into the _nave_ (or long arm
of the cross). Its length, its broad, flat stone floor, entirely
free from obstruction, except by a row of thick clustered columns
near the sides, and the great height and darkness of its oak-ceiled
roof, produced a sensation entirely new to us, from architecture. Its
dignity was increased by a general dimness, and by the breadth of the
softened, coloured light, that flowed in one sheet through a very large
stained-glass window at one end. In the end opposite this were wide
piers that support the tower, and between the two central of these were
the gilded organ-pipes that we had seen in our nocturnal visit.
[Sidenote: _A CLERICAL AND LAY PROCESSION_]
Under these was an arched door, on each side of which stood about
thirty boys, from ten to fifteen years old, dressed in white robes;
the “singing boys” or “choristers.” Walking leisurely up and down the
otherwise vacant floor of the nave were “my Lord Bishop of Bath and
Wells” (I believe that is the title), the dean and canons, &c. A lot
of ecclesiastical dignitaries, whose very titles were all strange to
me; but altogether forming, what Mrs. Jones said we should see, “a very
pretty pack of priests.” The bishop was a thin man, with a mean face
and crisp hair, brushed back from his forehead; dressed in a black
gown with white lawn sleeves, and a cap on his head. The dean, a burly
red-faced man, strikingly contrasting with the bishop, particularly
when they laughed, in white gown with a sort of bag of scarlet silk,
perhaps a degenerate cowl, tied around his neck, and dangling by
strings down his back. The others had something of the same sort, of
different colours. We were told afterwards, that these were university
badges, and that the colour was a mark of rank, not in university
honours, but in the scale of society—as nobleman or commoner—(a pretty
thing to carry into the worship of the Father, is it not?) The others
were in black.
We walked about for a few minutes outside the columns, reading the
inscriptions on the stones of the floor, which showed that they covered
vaults for the dead, and looking at the tablets and monumental effigies
that were attached to the walls and columns. They were mostly of
elaborate heraldic design, many with military insignia, and nearly all
excessively ugly, and entirely inappropriate to a place of religious
meditation and worship.
After a while the great bell ceased tolling, and some men in black
serge loose gowns, two bearing maces of steel with silver cups on the
ends, the rest carrying black rods, entered and saluted the bishop. A
procession then formed, headed by the boys, in double file, followed
by the bishop, dean, subdean, canons major and minor, archdeacon,
prebendaries, &c., and closed by three Yankees in plain clothes; passed
between the vergers, who bowed reverently and presented arms, through
the door under the organ into the _choir_—a part of the edifice (in
the centre of the cross) which is fitted up inconveniently for public
worship.
It is a small, narrow apartment, having galleries, the occupants of
which are hidden behind a beautiful open-work carved wood screen, and
furnished below with three or four tiers of pews (_slips_), and a few
benches. Under the organ loft were elevated armed seats, which were
occupied indiscriminately by the unofficiating clergy and military
officers in uniform: the governor of the castle; Lord Grosvenor (as
“colonel of the militia,”) Lord de Tapley, and others. Stationing
soldiers among the canons, it struck us, was well enough for a joke,
but as part of a display of worshipping the God of peace, very
objectionable. It is one of those incongruities that a state church
must be constantly subject to.[14]
[14] I remember when I was a child, seeing on the Sunday preceding
the first Monday in May—the annual _training day_—in one of the most
old-fashioned villages in Connecticut, the officers of the militia come
into the meeting-house in their uniforms. The leader of the choir was
a corporal, and the red stripes on his pantaloons, the red facings and
bell-buttons of his coat, as he stood up alone, and pitched the psalm
tunes, was impressed irretrievably on my mind.
Half way between these elevated seats and the chancel was the reading
desk and pulpit, and on each side of this the choristers were seated.
Several persons rose to offer us their seats as we approached them, and
when we were seated, placed prayer-books before us. The pews were all
furnished with foot-stools, or hassocks, of straw rope made up like a
straw bee-hive.
[Sidenote: _INTONING A DEVOUT EXPRESSION._]
Much of the service which in our churches is read, was sung, or, as
they say, _intoned_. Intoning is what in school-children is called
“_sing-song_” reading, only the _worst kind_, or most exaggerated
sing-songing. I had never heard it before in religious service, except
in a mitigated way from some of the old-fashioned Quaker and Methodist
female exhorters, and I was surprised to hear it among the higher
class of English clergy, and for a time perplexed to account for it.
But I at length remembered that nearly all men in reading Scripture,
or in oral prayer, or in almost any public religious exercises, use
a very different tone and mode of utterance from that which is usual
or natural with them, either in conversation or in ordinary reading.
And this is more noticeable in persons of uncultivated minds; so it
is probably an impulse to distinguish and disassociate religious
exercises from the common duties of life, that induces it. The effect
is, that the reading of the Bible, for instance, instead of being
a study of truth, or an excitement to devotion and duty, as the
individual may intend, becomes an _act of praise_ or prayer—the real,
unconscious purpose of the reader, finding expression in his tone
and manner. So we may often hear the most arrant nonsense in oral
prayers; a stringing together of scriptural phrases and devout words
in confusing and contradicting sentences, while the tone and gesture
and the whole manner of the devotee show that he is most sincerely,
feelingly, enthusiastically in earnest supplication. What for? Not for
that which his words express, for they may express nonsense or utter
blasphemy. It is simply an expression or manifestation by the _act_ of
uttering words in a supplicating tone, of the sense of dependence on
a superior Being—of love, of gratitude, and of reverence. David did
the same thing by dancing and playing upon the harp. It is done now,
as it seems to us, more solemnly, by the playing upon church organs.
It is done by monuments, as in the decorations of churches. It is done
by the Catholics, in listening and responding to prayers in a language
which they don’t pretend to understand, and in mechanically repeating
others, the number of them counted by beads, measuring the importance
or intensity of their purpose. It is done by abstaining from meat on
Friday, and by confession to one another, in the form prescribed by
their church government. It is done by the Japanese, in twirling a
teetotum; by the Chinese, in burning Joss-sticks; by the Fakirs, in
standing on one leg; by the Methodists, in groans and inarticulate
cries; by the Shakers, in their dance; by the Baptists, in ice-water
immersions; by Churchmen, in kneeling; by Presbyterians, in standing;
by New-Englanders, in eating a cold dinner and regularly going to
meeting on Sunday; by the English, in feasting, and the Germans, in
social intercourse on that day as well as by more distinctly devout
exercises.
It was plain to me that the tone of the reader was meant to
express—“Note ye that this reading is no common reading, but is the
word derived from God, not now repeated for your instruction, plainly
and with its true emphasis, but markedly otherwise, that we may show
our faith in its sacred character, and through it acknowledge our God—I
by repeating its words as men do not those of another book—you by your
presence and reverent silence while I do so.”
It was evident, too, by the occasional difficulties and consequent
embarrassment and confusion of our reader, causing blushing and
stammering, that it was not with him a natural expression of this
purpose as was the nasal tone of the Puritan, but a studied form, which
had originated in some person more musically constituted.
[Sidenote: _THE COMICALITIES OF THE CATHEDRAL._]
Whether I was right with regard to the theory or not, there was no
doubt that practically such was the operation of much of the service.
The portion of the Old Testament read was one of those tedious
genealogical registers that nobody but an antiquary or a blood nobleman
would pretend to be interested in. The psalm, one of the most fearful
of David’s songs of vengeance and imprecation, alternately sung by
the choristers and intoned by the reader, one often running into the
other with most unpleasant discord. The same with the Litany. Even the
prayers could with difficulty be understood, owing partly to echoes, in
which all distinctness was lost.
Despairing of being assisted by the words of the service, therefore, I
endeavoured to “work up” in myself the solemnity and awe that seemed
due to the place and the occasion by appropriate reflections. Under
this vaulted ceiling, what holy thoughts, what heavenly aspirations
have been kindled—what true praise of noble resolution has, like
unconscious incense, grateful to God, ascended from these seats. On
these venerable walls, for hundreds of years, have the eyes of good
men rested, as from their firm and untottering consistency they gained
new strength and courage to fight the good fight,—and again I raised
_my_ eyes to catch communion with them. They fell upon a most infamous
countenance, like to the representations of Falstaff’s,—a man with one
eye closed and his tongue tucked out the side of his mouth,—his body
tied up in a sack, his knees being brought up each side of his chin to
make a snugger bundle. I turned away from it immediately; but there was
another face in most doleful grimace, as if a man that had been buried
alive had suddenly thrust his head out of his coffin, and was greatly
perplexed and dismayed at his situation. Again I turned my eyes—they
fell upon the face of a woman under the influence of an emetic—again
upon a woman with the grin of drunkenness. Everywhere that any thing
like a _knob_ would be appropriate to the architecture were faces
sculptured on the walls that would be a fortune in a comic almanac.
I closed my eyes again, and tried to bring my mind to a reverent mood,
but the more I tried the more difficult I found it. My imagination was
taken possession of by the funny things, and refused to search out
the sublime. Not but that the sublime, the grand, and the awful were
not apparent also, all over and around—ay, and consciously within me;
but, like a stubborn child, my mind would resist force. I gave it up,
envying those who would have been so naturally elevated by all these
incitements and aids to devotion.
I could not understand a sentence of the service, but sat, and rose,
and kneeled, thus only being able to join in the prayer, and praise,
and communion of the congregation.
Soon my thoughts, now wandering freely, fell to moving in those
directions of reverie that I have found they are apt to take when I
am hearing what those who listen with critical ear shall call fine
music: doubtless it is the best and truest that can effect this;
though when I listen attentively and try to appreciate it, my opinion
would only be laughed at by them. I had been wandering in a deep, sad
day-dream, far away, beyond the ocean—beyond the earth ... dark—lost
to remembrance—when I was of a sudden brought back and awakened again
in the dim old cathedral with such emotion, as if from eternity and
infinity, I was remanded to mysterious identity and sense of time,
that I choked and throbbed; and then, as the richest, deepest melody I
must ever have heard passed away, softly swelling through the vaulted
ceiling, caught up tenderly by mild echoes in the nave, and again and
again faintly returning from its deepest distances, I kneeled and bowed
my head with the worshippers around me, acknowledging in all my heart
the beauty and sublimity of the place and the services.[15]
[15] I try in vain to express a sensation, which I have many times in
my life experienced, and which, I presume, is common to other men, that
forces on me a belief, strong at the time as knowledge, of immortality
and eternity, both backward and forward, vastly stronger than all
arguments can effect.
[Sidenote: _SERMON ON MODERN PHARISEEISM._]
The sermon was from an elderly man, with a voice slightly broken,
and an impressive manner, whom we were afterwards told was Canon
Slade, a somewhat distinguished divine. It was one of the best, plain,
practical, Christ-like discourses I ever heard from a pulpit. It was
delivered with emphasis and animation, in a natural, sometimes almost
conversational tone, directly to _individuals_, high and low, then and
there present, and of course was listened to with respectful attention.
The main drift of it was to enforce the idea, that a knowledge of
the truth of God was never to be arrived at by mere learning and dry
study; that these were sometimes rather encumbrances; that love was of
more value than learning. He had been describing the Pharisees of old,
and concluded by saying, that the Pharisees, satisfied with their own
notions, and scorning new light, were not scarce in our day. “There are
some of them in our Church of England: would that there were fewer;
that there were less parade and more reality of heavenly knowledge.”
He made but little use of his notes, and pronounced an extemporaneous
prayer at the conclusion with extreme solemnity.
I remained in company with a large proportion of the women present,
and half a dozen men, at the communion service. The Church of England
service, which has always seemed to me more effective than most others
to the practical end of the ceremony, never was so solemn, impressive,
and affecting. It was administered by the bishop, unassisted, with
great feeling and simplicity. There was not the least unnecessary
parade or affectation of sanctity; but a low, earnest voice, and a
quiet, unprofessional manner that betokened a sense of the common
brotherhood of us all united by God in Christ. The singing was
“congregational,” the choristers having left, and without assistance
from the organ.
A considerable proportion of the congregation were servants in livery;
and besides these and the soldiers and clergy, the men present were
generally plainly, and many shabbily, dressed. The women, many of them,
seemed of a higher class, but were also simply dressed, generally in
dark calicoes.
In the south transept (or short arm of the cross) of the cathedral
another congregation were assembling as I came out. I followed in
a company of boys, marching like soldiers, dressed in long-skirted
blue coats, long waistcoats, breeches, and stockings, and with the
clerical _bands_ from their cravats. Within were several other such
companies—boys and girls in uniform, from charity schools, I suppose.
The girls were dressed in the fashion of Goody-Two-Shoes, with
high-backed white caps, and white “pinafores” over blue check gowns.
This transept is a large place of worship in itself, though but a small
part of the cathedral, and is occupied by the parish of St. Oswald,
morning and evening service being held in it immediately after that of
the cathedral church. On the doors were notices, posted in placards,
addressed to persons in certain circumstances, among others, to all who
used hair-powder, to give notice to the appointed officers that they
might be rightfully taxed.
In the afternoon we visited a Sunday-school of the Unitarians, where
we saw about sixty well-behaved children,—the exercises, much the same
as in ours. Afterwards we heard a sensible sermon, on faith and works,
in the Independent chapel. The clergyman, who has been a missionary in
the East, and has also travelled in America, was good enough to call on
us and invite us to his house the next day. The congregation seemed to
be of a higher grade than _most_ of that we had seen at the cathedral,
more intelligent and animated, and more carefully dressed, yet very
much plainer, more modestly and becomingly, and far less expensively
than you could often see any congregation with us.
[Sidenote: _SUNDAY EVENING RECREATION._]
We had a delightful walk, later in the afternoon, on the walls, where
we met a very large number of apparently very happy people. I never
saw so many neat, quiet, ungenteel, happy, and healthy-looking women,
all in plain clean dresses, and conversing in mild, pleasant tones;
squads of children, too, all dressed ridiculously, bright and clean
and stiff, not a dirty one among them, and as well behaved as dolls,
most comically sober and stately. The walls form a good promenade,
elevated and dry. The landscape view across the river, in the sunset
haze, seemed in communion with the minds of the people, tranquil and
loving. An hour later, and we found the streets lighted up and almost
as crowded as on Saturday night, yet very quiet, and no impudence,
blackguardism, or indecency shown us. On the whole, spite of the
universal beer-drinking, we received a high opinion of the character of
Chester people, quite as high, as respects morality and courtesy, as a
stranger passing a Sunday in a New England town of the same size would
be likely to obtain of it.
CHAPTER XIX.
CLANDESTINE ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES.—A VISIT TO THE MARQUIS OF
WESTMINSTER’S STUD.—STABLE MATTERS.
_Monday, June 3d._
Early in the morning we visited the old church of St. John’s, and
afterwards several curious places, relics of Romans, Saxons, and
Normans, in the suburbs—after all, nothing so interesting to me as
the commonest relics of Englishmen but two or three centuries old. As
we returned through the town at seven, the early risers seemed to be
just getting up. Passing the cathedral as the bell tolled for morning
prayer, we turned in. There are services every day at 7, 11, and 3
o’clock. The service was performed in the Lady Chapel, which we did not
enter. The attendance must have been rather meagre, as we saw no one
going to it but two ladies with an old man-servant. We remained some
time hunting on tip-toe for traces of the _Norman transition_ in the
architecture, and found we had had already practice enough to readily
detect it in various parts. Stealing softly into the choir, from which
the Lady Chapel opens, we examined the bishop’s throne. It is adorned
with many figures of saints and angels, kings and queens, and having
been once broken to pieces, in the repairs upon it the old heads were
generally put on young shoulders, and _vice versa_, producing in
some instances a very ludicrous effect, particularly where the men’s
heads, beards and all, are set on female bodies. We then got out into
the _cloisters_, and from them into the chapter-house, in which the
heavy-groined arches, simple, and without the slightest ornament, have
a grand effect. The date is about 1190. We saw here some very strongly
_marked_ faces which in stone represent certain Norman abbots whose
graves were under us.
[Sidenote: _ELECTION ROWS.—AMERICAN BOOKS._]
Without the cathedral yard, the ruins of the old abbey appear
frequently among the houses, the old black oak timber and brick work
of the time of Cromwell, mingling picturesquely with the water-worn
carvings of the older, old masonry. This morning we saw a stout, round,
old Saxon arch giving protection to a fire-engine, which brought to
mind the improbability of the present race of New-Yorkers sending
down to posterity such memorials of itself. Well, it will send better
perhaps, and more lasting than in stones—or stocks.
On the town-hall is a large statue, said to be of Queen Anne, but so
battered and chipped, that it might stand for any body else, in a
long dress. The hands and nose, and all the regalia are knocked off.
And how, do you suppose? By the _super_-sovereign people in election
demonstrations. Thank God, we may yet boast, that in our thoroughly
democratic elections, where the whole national policy is turning, and
the most important private and local interests are at issue, we leave
no such memorials of our time. (I beg pardon of the “bloody Sixth.”)
Going into a book-shop for a direction, we saw Emerson’s
“Representative Men,” and Irving’s “Sketch-Book,” on the counter, with
newspapers and railway guides, and the proprietor told us he had sold a
great many of them.
We passed through a crockery shop to see a Roman bath, which had been
discovered in excavating a cellar in the rear of it. Such things are
being every year brought to light.
After breakfast we once more took our knapsacks, and left Chester by
the foot-path on the bank of the Dee.
[Sidenote: _THE ETON STUD._]
The Marquis of Westminster owns some of the finest horses in the
kingdom; in passing through Eccleston, we asked a man if he could
direct us where we could see some of them. He informed us that he was
head groom of the stud to the marquis, and he would take pleasure in
showing it to us. He took us first to _the paddocks_, which are fields
of from two to five acres, enclosed by stone walls, ten feet high, some
of them with sheds and stables attached, and some without. In these
were thirty or forty of the highest bred, and most valuable mares and
fillies in the world. Unfortunately I am not a horse-_man_, and cannot
attempt to describe them particularly. It needed but a glance, however,
to show us that they were almost any of them far the most beautiful
animals we had ever seen. The groom, whose name is Nutting, and whose
acquaintance I recommend every traveller this way to endeavour to
make, was exceedingly obliging, not only taking us into every paddock
and stable, and giving us an account of the pedigree, history, and
performances of every horse, but calling our attention to the _points_,
all the peculiarities of form which distinguished each individual. It
was evident his heart was in his business, and that his regard was
appreciated, for as soon as he unlocked the gate, and showed himself
within the enclosure, some of the older mares would trot up to be
caressed with the most animated, intelligent, and gratified expression.
The most celebrated among them was _Bee’s-wing_. She is seventeen years
old, and very large, but most perfect in form; I should think better
than her daughter, _Queen-Bee_, who is lighter and more delicate. The
extraordinary beauty of “Ghuznee” and “Crucifix,” both distinguished
on the turf, was also obvious. These, I think, do not belong to the
marquis. In one of the paddocks were a number of foals, pretty, agile,
fawn-like creatures. They came around us dancing and capering, catching
our knapsacks with their teeth, then springing off, and coming back
again, like dogs at play. The mares, fillies, and colts were all of
dark bay colour, but one, which was dark iron-grey, nearly black.
Just as we left the colts, a great cart-horse, belonging to the
marquis, was passing on the road. The contrast was wonderful. He was
_seventeen hands and one inch_ high (within a trifle, six feet), and
putting both my thumbs to the smallest part of his leg, I could not
make my fingers meet around it.
From the paddocks we went to the stables to see the stallions.
They were all loose boxes (no stalls), thirteen feet by sixteen,
some with rack and manger across the side, some with the same in a
corner. Touchstone is a magnificent creature, beyond conception. It
is impossible to imagine such high _condition_, indicated not less
in the happy and spirited expression and action, than in the bright,
smooth, supple, and elastic _feel_ of his skin. I never saw any thing
to equal it in America; and it was nearly as remarkable in the mares.
Five thousand guineas (over $25,000) have been offered and refused
for Touchstone.[16] _Springy-Jack_ is a younger stallion; by Nutting
esteemed even higher than Touchstone. Nothing in the world of animal
life can be finer than the muscular development of his neck. Touchstone
is a little coarse in the withers. They were intending to put him in
pasture the next week, and in preparation for it, he had some fresh
grass mixed with hay to eat. He stood in a deep bed of straw, and was
not curried—groomed merely with a cloth, yet he was so clean, that it
would not have soiled a white linen handkerchief to have been rubbed
upon him.
[16] Mares are sent here from all parts of the kingdom, to be served by
_Touchstone_, perhaps the most esteemed stock-getter in England. He is
allowed forty in a year, and the charge is $160 to $200, and $2.25 a
week for pasture.
In the granary we saw some very plump and bright Scotch oats. They
were bought for 42 lbs. to the bushel, but would overweigh that. The
common feed was oat and bean meal mixed with cut hay. The hay was cut
very fine (not more than ⅛ inch lengths) by a hand machine. I believe,
cut as it usually is by our machines (½ inch to 1 inch), it is more
thoroughly digested. I use Sinclair’s, of Baltimore, which is intended
for corn-stalks, driven by horse-power, and cuts hay and straw from one
to three inches, which I prefer to the finer.[17] The machine here cost
£6 ($30), and was in no way superior, that I could see, to Ruggles’, of
Boston, which is sold at half that price.
[17] I do not wish to recommend this machine for hay and straw, which
it does not cut as rapidly as some others, but for stalks it cannot be
surpassed—cutting and _splitting_ them in small dice.
The farm buildings were not fine or in good order, manure wasting, old
carts and broken implements thrown carelessly about, and nothing neat.
Nor were the cattle remarkable—most of them below the average that we
have seen on the road-side. It is evident the marquis is more of a
horse-jockey than a farmer.
The groom’s house, which we entered, was very neat and handsomely built
of stone. All the cottages hereabout are floored with tiles, nine
inches square. They vary in colour, but are most commonly light brown.
Nutting showed us a cow of his own, which I took to be a direct cross
of Devon and Ayrshire, and which had as fine points for a milker as I
ever saw in any thing. She was very large, red and white, and a good
feeler. He assured us she was giving now on pasture feed thirty-two
quarts a day.
[Sidenote: _DUTCH BARNS.—A POLITE GROOM._]
The hay was partly stored under slate roofs, supported by four
strong stone columns, the sides open. This plan differs from the hay
_barracks_, common where the Dutch settled in America, in which the
roof, thatched or boarded, is attached to posts in such a way that it
can be easily set up or down, and adjusted to the quantity of hay under
it. These erections are here called Dutch barns. Nutting thought hay
was preserved in them better than in any way he knew, and this has been
my opinion of that from our _barracks_. Close barns he particularly
objected to. Probably hay suffers more in them here than it does in
America.
After showing us all about the farmery, he walked on with us to a shady
pasture by the river side, where was a herd of fine mares. We sat here
under an old elm for some time, looking at them as they clustered
around us, and talking with him about the agriculture of the district.
He was so easily good-natured, and conversed so freely, asking as
well as answering questions, that we were greatly puzzled to tell
whether he expected a fee, or would be offended by our offering it. At
length, when he was about to leave, we frankly stated our difficulty,
explaining that we were foreigners, and not familiar with the English
customs on such occasions. He answered pleasantly, that he was always
glad of a chance to converse with gentlemen on such subjects as we
appeared to be interested in; if they liked to give him something he
did not refuse it, but he did not wish any thing from us. We assured
him that we were much indebted to him, and begged that he would not
make an exception of us, handing him a half crown, which he dropped
into his pocket without looking at it or thanking us, but politely
replying that he considered himself fortunate in having met us. He then
said he would walk on a little further to direct us on a path much
pleasanter than the regular travel, and from which we might see one
of the best dairy farms in the country, with an excellent herd of one
hundred and fifty cows. The path would run through the park, and was
not public, but if we would mention his name at the lodges they would
let us pass.
We soon came in sight of the cows. They were large, half-bred
Ayrshires, which seem to be the favourite dairy stock throughout the
country. Pure-bred stock of any breed were not in favour, but the
Ayrshire blood was most valued.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE DISTRICT AND ENGLISH HUSBANDRY UPON HEAVY
SOILS.—PASTURES.—THEIR PERMANENCE.—THE USE OF BONES AS A MANURE IN
CHESHIRE.—A VALUABLE REMARK TO OWNERS OF IMPROVED NEAT STOCK.—BREEDS
OF DAIRY STOCK.—HORSES.
[Sidenote: _SOIL AND CLIMATE IN CHEESE-MAKING._]
The soil of a considerable part of this county being a tenacious clay,
favourable to the growth of grasses, and difficult of tillage, its
inhabitants are naturally dairy-men, and it has been particularly
distinguished for many centuries for its manufacture of cheese. Its
distinction in this respect does not appear to be the result of
remarkable skill or peculiar dairy processes, but is probably due to
the particular varieties of herbage, to the natural productions of
which, the properties of its soil, and perhaps of its climate, are
peculiarly favourable.[18]
[18] The best cheese is made on cold, stiff, clay-soils (but not on the
purest clays), and from the most _natural_ herbage, even from _weedy_,
sterile pastures; but much the largest quantity is made from an equal
extent of more moderately tenacious and drained or permeable soils
spontaneously producing close, luxuriant, fine (not rank) grasses and
white clover.
The grounds for this conclusion are the general value placed by the
farmers upon their old pastures, where the natural assortment of
herbage may be considered to have entirely obtained and taken the place
of the limited number of varieties which are artificially sowed, the
fact that the butter of the district is not, as a general rule, highly
esteemed, and that I cannot learn that the process of cheese-making
differs any more from that of other districts in England or the United
States, than between different dairies producing cheese of equal value
in this district itself.
It is by no means to be inferred, however, that the quality of cheese
is not affected by the process of manufacture. There is no doubt that
the skill and nicety of a superior dairy-maid will produce cheese of
a superior quality on a farm of poor herbage, while an ignorant and
careless one will make only an inferior description, no matter what the
natural advantages may be. The best cheese made in the United States is
quite equal to the best I have tasted here, but the average quality is
by no means equal to the average quality of Cheshire cheese.
[Sidenote: _THE CHEESE-MAKING PROCESS._]
Superiority in the manufacture seems not to depend, however, upon
any describable peculiarities of the process, which differs in no
essential particular from that common in our dairies. Excellence is
well understood to depend greatly upon extreme cleanliness in all the
implements employed, and upon the purity and moderate temperature of
the atmosphere. Means to secure the latter are used much the same
as with us. Stoves and hot-water pipes are sometimes employed in
the cheese-room; and I may mention that where this is in a detached
building of one story, it is considered essential that it should have
a thatched roof. In some cases where the roof has been slated, it has
been found necessary in the warmest weather to remove the cheese to the
cellar of the farm-house. Plank shelves are more generally used, and
are esteemed better than stone.
Not only is there no uniformity in the methods of the different dairies
to distinguish them from those of the United States, but rarely in
any single dairy are there any exact rules with regard to the time to
be employed in any parts of the process, or as to the temperature or
the measure of any ingredients. Thus the degree of heat at setting the
milk, although the skill to _feel_ when it is right is deemed highly
important, is almost never measured, even in the best dairies. The
quantity of rennet is guessed at, and its strength not exactly known.
The quantity of salt used is undefined, and the time for _sweating_ or
curing of the cheese, when made, is left to be accidental.
With regard to some of these points, however, it has been found (as
reported to the Royal Agricultural Society) that in some of the best
dairies the milk, when judged to be of the right temperature for
coagulating, was by the thermometer at 82° F. (variations from 76° to
88°). From four to sixteen square inches of rennet skin in a pint of
water (generally four square inches) were used to make the cheese from
fifty gallons of milk, and 1 lb. to 1 lb. 4 ounces salt to the same
quantity. It is thought that the best cheese is made with less salt
than this. The heat of the milk-room was found to vary from 64° to 78°
in August, and it was thought desirable that it should be cooler than
this. The reporter thought that a temperature of 50° would be most
approved throughout the year. I never saw or heard of ice being used in
any way in a Cheshire dairy.
Some of the best dairy-maids claim to have _secrets_ by which they are
enabled to surpass others, but it is certain that they do not lessen
the necessity for extreme cleanliness, nicety, and close observation
and judgment, and that with this, in addition to what is everywhere
known and practised, there is no mystery necessary to produce the
best.[19]
[19] “A cheese dairy is a manufactory—a workshop—and is, in truth, a
place of hard work. That studied _outward neatness_ which is to be
seen in the show dairies of different districts may be in character
where butter is the only object, but would be superfluous in a cheese
dairy. If the room, the utensils, the dairy-woman and her assistants
be sufficiently _clean_ to give perfect sweetness to the produce,
no matter for the _colour_ or the _arrangement_. The scouring-wisp
gives an _outward fairness_, but is frequently an enemy to _real
cleanliness_.”—MARSHALL’S VALE OF GLOUCESTER. Besides the means of
securing this _inner_ cleanliness, sweetness, and purity, which must
be of the air too, as well as of the utensils, &c., it is probable
that the dairy-maids’ _secrets_ are in a knowledge of the best
_temperature_, particularly of that at which the milk should be curdled.
The Cheshire cheese in market always has an unnaturally deep, yellow
colour, though of late less so than formerly. It is given by the
addition of “colouring” to the milk immediately before the rennet steep
is applied. This “colouring” is manufactured and sold at the shops for
the purpose. It is an imitation of annatto, formed chiefly of a small
quantity of real annatto mixed with tumeric and soft soap. I think it
is never used in sufficient quantity to affect the flavour at all, but
I observe that the farmers and people in the country prefer cheese for
their own use that is not coloured.
[Sidenote: _MILKING.—PASTURES.—BONES._]
_Whey Butter._ It is common in Cheshire to make butter from the whey.
It will probably surprise many to learn that there is any cream left in
whey; but _there_ undoubtedly is, and _it_ may be extracted by the same
means as from milk. The only difference in the process is, that it is
_set_ in large tubs, instead of small pans, and that the whey is drawn
off by a faucet from the bottom after the cream has risen. If allowed
to remain too long it will give a disagreeable flavour to the cream.
One hundred gallons of milk will give ninety of whey, which will give
ten or twelve gallons of cream, which will make three or four pounds
of butter. So that besides the cheese, twenty to twenty-five pounds of
butter are made in a year from the milk of each cow, an item of some
value in a large dairy. The butter is of second-rate quality, but not
bad—worth perhaps three cents a pound less than milk butter.
The farms in the country over which we walked in Cheshire were
generally small, less, I should think, than one hundred acres.
Frequently the farmer’s family supplied all the labour upon
them,—himself and his sons in the field, and his wife and daughters in
the dairy,—except that in the harvest month one or two Irish reapers
would be employed. The cows, in the summer, are kept during the day
in distant pastures, and always at night in a home lot. During the
cheese-making season, which on these small farms is from the first of
May till November, they are driven home and fastened in _shippens_, or
sheds, between five and six o’clock, morning and night, and then milked
by the girls, sometimes assisted by the men. On a farm of one hundred
acres, fifteen to twenty cows are kept, and three persons are about
an hour in milking them. From twenty to thirty gallons of milk (say
six quarts from each cow) is expected to be obtained on an average,
and about one pound of dried cheese from a gallon of milk. From two to
five cwt. (of 112 lbs.) of cheese may be made from the milk of each cow
during the year. Three cwt. is thought a fair return on the best farms.
In a moderately dry and temperate summer, more cheese is made than in
one which is very wet.
The pastures are generally looked upon as permanent, the night pastures
are sometimes absolutely so, as it is supposed that they have not
generally been broken up for many hundred years. During the last ten
years the pasture lands have been very greatly, and, as they tell me,
almost incredibly improved by the use of bone dust. It is applied in
the quantity of from twenty to forty cwt. on an acre as top-dressing,
and I was told that pastures on which it had been applied at the rate
of a ton to an acre, eight or nine years ago, had continued as good (or
able on an average of the years to bear as many cows) as similar land
top-dressed with farm-yard dung every two years, probably at the rate
of thirty cubic yards to an acre. There seems to be no doubt at all
that land to which _inch_ bones were applied ten years ago are yet much
the better for it. They are usually applied in April, and the ground
is lightly pastured, or perhaps not at all until the following year.
The effect, the farmers say, is not merely to make the growth stronger,
but to make it sweeter; the cattle will even eat the weeds which before
they would not taste of. However, in poor land especially, it is
found to encourage the growth of the more valuable grasses more than
that of the weeds, so that the latter are crowded out, and a clean,
thick, close turf is formed. If the ground has been drained, all these
improvements are much accelerated and increased. Upon newly _laid down_
lands, however, the effect is not so great; it is especially on old
pastures (from which the extraction of the phosphates in the milk has
been going on for ages sometimes, uninterruptedly) that the improvement
is most magical. The productive value of such lands is very frequently
known to have been doubled by the first dressing of bones.
Both boiled and raw bones are used, and though there is a general
belief that the latter are more valuable, I do not hear of any
experience that has shown it; on the contrary, I am told of one field
which was dressed on different sides equally with each sort, and now,
several years after, no difference has been observed in their effect.
A comparison must, of course, be made by measure, as boiled bones are
generally bought wet, and overweigh equal bulks of raw about 25 per
cent. Dry bone-dust weighs from 45 to 50 lbs. to a bushel.
I have not heard of _super-phosphate of lime_, or bones dissolved in
sulphuric acid, being used as a top-dressing for pastures.
[Sidenote: _IMPROVED DAIRY STOCK._]
I quote the following from the journal of the Royal Agricultural
Society, as a mark of deep significance to American farmers, beyond
its proof of the value of bones:—“Before bones came into use in this
country, the farmers made a point of selecting a _hardy_ and _inferior_
description of stock for their clay lands, farmers finding that _large,
well-bred cows did not at all answer upon them_; but now they find”
(_in improved pasture_) “that the best of stock find ample support, not
only to supply the cheese-tub freely, but also to _do justice to their
lineage_, by retaining, if not improving, their size and symmetry, so
that the farmer has not only the advantage of making considerably more
cheese, but also of making more money by his turn of stock.”
I cannot now ascertain the amount of bones annually exported from the
United States to England, but it must be very great, as I know one
bone-miller, near New York, that has a standing order to ship all he
can furnish at a certain price, and who last year thus disposed of
80,000 bushels.
_Breeds of Dairy Stock._—I have already described most of the dairy
stock that we have observed along the road. We have seen scarcely any
pure bred stock of any kind. Ayrshire blood seems to predominate and
be most in favour on the best farms. The points of the short-horns
are also common, and in the south we saw some Herefords. The best
milkers seemed to be a mixed blood of Ayrshires and some other large
and long-horned cattle with a smaller red and black breed, probably
Welsh. I incline to think that experience has taught the dairy-men to
prefer half or quarter bred stock to full bloods of any breed. For
beef-making it is otherwise. I have seen no working oxen. Horses are
the only beasts of draught on the farms; they vary greatly in quality,
but are generally stout, heavy, hardy, and very powerful. On a farm of
one hundred acres, three will be kept, sometimes four, and at about
that rate on the larger farms, with an additional saddle-horse or two
for his own use, if the farmer can afford it. Farmers generally raise
their own cows, choosing heifer calves from their best milker for the
purpose. Cattle are not commonly reared for sale here. Few sheep are
raised, but many are brought lean from Wales and Ireland, and fatted
here.
CHAPTER XXI.
TILLAGE.—SIZE OF FARMS.—CONDITION OF
LABOURERS.—FENCES.—HEDGES.—SURFACE DRAINAGE.—UNDER DRAINAGE.—VALUABLE
IMPLEMENTS FOR STIFF SOILS, NOT USED IN THE UNITED STATES.
[Sidenote: _GENERAL AGRICULTURAL CHARACTER._]
I should think that more than three-quarters of the land we have seen
was in grass and pasture. I suppose that it would be more productive
of human food, and support a much larger population, if it were
cultivated; but the farmers being generally men of small means, barely
making a living, are indisposed to take the trouble to break up and
till the tough sward and stiff soil from which, while it is in pasture,
they are always sure to realize a certain product of cheese without
any severe labour. The cultivation is not, either, very thorough,
because the strongest and most efficient implements and great brute
forces are needed to effectually act upon such a soil. Accordingly
we have observed on the large farms, where the extent of ground to
be, of necessity, cultivated, warranted the purchase of clod-crushers
and other strong and expensive implements, and made it necessary to
employ a considerable number of labourers, the proportion of land under
tillage was more extensive, and much more thorough work was made with
it.
I wish I could say that the condition of the labourers appeared to
be elevated with that of agriculture, by the leasing of the land
in larger tracts, and to men of larger capital. It is true that the
tendency is to increase the rate of wages and give employment to more
hands, but it is also evident that by the engrossment of several small
farms in one large one, a number of persons must be reduced from
the comparatively independent position of small farmers to that of
labourers, and I cannot see that for this there is any compensating
moral advantage.
[Sidenote: _HEDGES.—THOROUGH DRAINAGE._]
Another evil of the small farms (not exclusively, however), is
the quantity of land injured or withdrawn from cultivation by the
fences. These are almost universally hedges, and not only are they
left untrimmed and straggling, thereby shading and feeding upon the
adjoining land, but a great many large trees have been allowed to
grow up in them, of course to the injury of any crops under their
branches. These are sometimes kept low, the limbs being trimmed off
for firewood (in which case they are called _pollards_), or are left
to grow naturally. In the latter case, of course, they add exceedingly
to the beauty of the landscape, and eventually become of value for
timber; but high as this is here, I cannot at all believe it will ever
compensate for the loss occasioned to the farm-crops. Where every five
or ten acres is surrounded by a hedge and ditch, the damage done cannot
be slight. By way of improvement we have seen where lately some hedges
have been grubbed up, two old fields being thrown together. We have
also seen a few wire fences in use. These latter were very slightly set
up, and could hardly be intended for permanence. We have also seen some
fine, low, narrow hedges, taking up but little room, and casting but
little shade. When a hedge is thus well made and kept, I am inclined to
esteem it the most economical fence. The yearly expense of trimming it
is but trifling (less than one cent a rod), and it is a perfect barrier
to every thing larger than a sparrow. I should add that the farmers
seem to set much value upon the shelter from cold winds which the
hedges afford.
_Drainage._—The need of thorough draining is nowhere so obvious as
upon clay soils with stiff sub-soils. There will be but a few weeks
in a year when such soils are not too wet and mortary, or too dry
and bricky, to be ploughed or tilled in any way to advantage. In the
spring, it is difficult to cart over them, and in the summer, if the
heat is severe and long-continued, without copious rain, the crops upon
them actually dwindle and suffer more than upon the driest sandy loams.
To get rid of the surface water, the greater part of the cultivated
land of Cheshire (and, I may add, of all the heavy land of England)
was, ages ago, ploughed into beds or “_butts_” (’bouts). These are
commonly from five to seven yards wide, with a rise, from the furrows
(called the “reins”) to the crown, of three or four inches in a yard.
The course of the butts is with the slope of the ground; a cross butt
and rein, or a wide, open ditch by the side of the hedge, at the foot
of the field, conducting off the water which has collected from its
whole surface. When the land is broken up for tillage, and often even
after thorough under-drainage, these butts are still sacredly regarded
and preserved.
Thorough under-draining, by which all the water is collected after
filtering through the soil to some depth, was introduced here as
an agricultural improvement within the last eight years. The great
profit of the process upon the stiff soil was so manifest that it was
very soon generally followed. The landlords commonly furnished their
tenants with tile for the purpose, and the latter very willingly
were at the expense of digging the drains and laying them. Wishing,
however, to do their share of the improvement at the least cost, the
tenants have been too often accustomed to make the drains in a very
inefficient manner, being guided as to distance by the old reins, and
laying their tile under these, often less than eighteen inches from
the surface. The action of the drains was thus often imperfect. It is
now customary for the landlords, when they furnish tile, to stipulate
the depth at which they shall be laid. They sometimes also lay out
the courses and distances of the drains. The Marquis of Westminster
employs an engineer, who appoints foremen, and, to a certain extent,
suitably-trained labourers, to secure the drainage of his tenant-lands
in the most lastingly economical and beneficial manner. Last winter he
had two hundred men so employed, in addition to the labour furnished by
the tenants themselves, and over one million tiles were laid by them.
I heard nowhere any thing but gratification and satisfaction expressed
with the operation of the thorough-drains.
[Sidenote: _IMPLEMENTS FOR STIFF SOILS._]
_Implements._—After breaking up the sward of these heavy lands with
a deep, narrow, furrow-slicing plough, a most admirable instrument,
quite commonly in use and everywhere spoken well of, for crushing and
pulverizing the soil in a much more effectual and rapid manner than the
harrow, is
[Illustration: CROSSKILL’S PATENT CLOD-CRUSHER ROLLER.]
“This implement,” according to the inventor’s advertisement, “consists
of twenty-three roller parts, with serrated and uneven surfaces, placed
upon a round axle, six feet wide by two and a half feet in diameter.
The roller-parts act independent of each other upon the axle, thus
producing a self-cleaning movement. Of course the roller must only be
used when the land is so dry as not to stick.
“The following are the various uses to which this implement is applied:
“1.—For rolling corn as soon as sown upon light lands; also upon strong
lands, that are cloddy, before harrowing.
“2.—For rolling wheats upon light lands in the spring, after frosts and
winds have left the plants bare.
“3.—For stopping the ravages of the wire-worm and grub.
“4.—For crushing clods after turnip crops, to sow barley.
“5.—For rolling barley, oats, &c., when the plants are three inches out
of the ground, before sowing clover, &c.
“6.—For rolling turnips in the rough leaf before hoeing, where the
plants are attacked by wire-worm.
“7.—For rolling grass lands and mossy lands after compost.
“8.—For rolling between the rows of potatoes, when the plants are
several inches out of the ground.
“Cash prices, with travelling wheels complete, 6 feet 6 inches, £21; 6
feet, £19 10_s._; 5 feet 6 inches, £18.”
For still more deeply stirring, and for bringing weeds to the surface
of soil recently ploughed, a great variety of instruments entirely
unknown in America are in common use here. They all consist of sets of
tines, or teeth, placed between a pair of wheels, and so attached to
them that, by means of a lever, having the axletree of the wheels for
a fulcrum, the depth to which they shall penetrate is regulated, and
they may at any time be raised entirely above the surface, dropping
and relieving themselves from the weeds and roots which they have
collected. Thus they may be described as combining the action of the
harrow, the cultivator, and the horse-rake. (The wire-tooth horse-rake
is used as an instrument of tillage by Judge Van Bergen, at Coxsackie,
N. Y.) They are designated variously by different manufacturers, as
grubbers, scarifiers, extirpators, harrows, and cultivators. The “ULEY
CULTIVATOR,” of which a cut is appended, is one of the simplest and
most efficient. In this the tines are raised by turning a crank, each
complete turn of which raises or depresses them one inch. The depth
to which they are penetrating at any time, is marked by a dial near
the handle of the crank. Something of the kind more effectual than any
thing we yet have, is much needed to be introduced with us. Clean and
thorough culture of stiff clay soils can hardly be performed without it.
[Illustration: THE ULEY CULTIVATOR]
I should remark of English agricultural implements in general, that
they seem to me very unnecessarily cumbrous and complicated.
I have lately had in use on my farm, a plough furnished me by A. B.
Allen & Co., of New York (“Ruggle’s Deep Tiller”), which, I think, has
all the advantages of the best English ploughs, with much less weight,
and which is sold at half their cost.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE GENERAL CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE.—ROTATION OF
CROPS.—PRODUCTIVENESS.—SEEDING DOWN TO GRASS.—COMPARISON OF ENGLISH
AND AMERICAN PRACTICE.—PRACTICAL REMARKS.—RYE-GRASS, CLOVER.—BIENNIAL
GRASSES.—GUANO.—LIME.—THE CONDITION OF LABOURERS, WAGES,
ETC.—DAIRY-MAIDS.—ALLOWANCE OF BEER.
[Sidenote: _ENGLAND, A LANDSCAPE GARDEN._]
I must say that, on the whole, the agriculture of Cheshire, as the
first sample of that of England which is presented to me, is far below
my expectations. There are sufficient reasons to expect that we shall
find other parts much superior to it; but what we have seen quite
disposes of the common picture which our railroad and stage-coach
travellers are in the habit of giving to our imagination, by saying
that “all England is like a garden.” Meaning only a “landscape
garden,” a beautiful and harmonious combination of hill and dale, with
the richest masses of trees, and groups and lines of shrubbery, the
greenest turf and most picturesque buildings, it might be appropriately
said of many parts, particularly in the south of the county. But, with
reference to cultivation, and the productiveness of the land, it might
be quite as truly applied to some small districts of our own country as
to this part of England.
In commencing the cultivation of land that has been in grass, the
first crop is usually oats, and the most approved practice upon the
stiff soils seems to be, to plough deeply in the fall or winter, and
in the spring to prepare the ground with some strong implement of the
cultivator sort. Oats are sowed much thicker than is usual with us. I
hear of six bushels to the acre; but with regard to this there is much
difference of opinion. The crop of oats is not often large (from thirty
to forty bushels from an acre is common); but oats seldom make a large
crop upon clay soils. The next year the ground will be summer-fallowed,
or, by the more enterprising farmers, cropped with turnips, beets, or
with potatoes. The potatoes are sold, the turnips and beets fed to
the cows during the winter. On the poorer farms, the cows get little
but hay from December to April; and cheese-making is given up during
the winter. Others, by the help of turnips, beets, and linseed cake,
keep a constant flow of milk, and cheese-making is never interrupted.
(Of course the milking of each cow is interrupted for a while at her
calving time, which they try to have in March.)
The crop after roots is commonly barley; after fallow, wheat, of which
twenty-five to thirty bushels is a common crop, and forty not uncommon.
After wheat, oats again, and perhaps after the oats another crop of
wheat; if so, the land is manured with bones or boughten manure, and
sometimes limed at the rate, say of four tons to the acre of stone lime.
[Sidenote: _QUANTITY OF GRASS SEED TO AN ACRE._]
_Grass._—With the last crop of oats or wheat, clover and grass
seeds are sowed. Grass was thought to come better after wheat upon
under-drained land. The best farmers sow a very great variety and
large measure of grass seeds; the poorer ones are often content with
what they can find under their hay bays, sowing it, weeds and all,
purchasing only clover seed.
The quantity of grass seeds sowed is always much greater here than in
America. I should think it was commonly from a bushel to three bushels
on an acre; rarely less than one, or more than three. I do not think
more than one quarter of a bushel, or perhaps half a bushel of the
lighter seeds, is often sowed in the United States. I should attribute
the more general evenness and closeness of the English meadows in a
great degree to this, though, doubtless, much is due to the moister
climate. Land intended for permanent pasture receives much more seed,
and a larger variety, than that which is intended to be mown only for
a few years, and then be brought to tillage again. Of the good policy
of the English practice for pastures (and the same applies to lawns
and public greens) I have no doubt. Among the great variety of grasses
in an English meadow, there will be one that springs up and grows
strongly, furnishing a wholesome and delicious bite to the cattle, as
early after the first warm breath of spring as the ground will be dry
enough to bear a hoof (and on drained lands it is rarely not so). This
will be succeeded by others, and in May by others; and in July, those
natural to the driest and warmest soils will be in perfection; and so
through the year there is a constantly renewing perfection. A ranker
sward, and one that would for a season support more cattle, I think
would be obtained from sowing a smaller quantity and less variety of
seed.
I am not prepared to recommend the English practice for mowing lands.
To obtain the largest quantity of grass hay from an acre, without
regard to quality, plough deep, manure deep, and sow one variety of
seed in such quantity that when it comes up it will speedily _tiller_,
and occupy the whole ground, yet not stand so closely as to greatly
crowd and compress the stools, thereby _dwarfing_ the reeds from their
natural size, and obstructing the flow of sap in their vessels. Cut it
when it has attained to its greatest size, while it is yet entirely
succulent, just at the time that the _blood_ of the plant begins to be
drawn up into the forming seed, and the bottom dries into such tough,
close, ligneous fibre that nourishment can no longer ascend from
the root. The right quantity of seed for this will vary in different
soils—a very rich, deep soil needing less than a more sterile one,
because in the latter the roots cannot extend far enough to collect the
requisite food and drink to make a large, strong, open stool, and more
herbage will grow upon the same space by having the stools stand closer.
In some degree proportionately to the closeness of the fibre and the
fineness of the grass, will be its nourishing quality, so that ninety
pounds of fine, close-grown hay, from a thick-seeded meadow, may be of
equal value with a hundred pounds of a coarser, ranker quality. But the
nourishment is by no means in the inverse ratio of size; so that for
all ordinary purposes, with all the usual hay-grasses, the farmer will
find his profit in studying to obtain the largest burthen of grass. For
this end, I am inclined to think English farmers often sow too much
seed, Americans not enough. It seems, however, to be the best farmers
in other respects that sow the most seed in England.
There is one consideration that I have omitted to mention against the
common practice on American farms, where hay is an important staple
crop: it is generally an object to retain a clean sward of grass as
long as possible, without the necessity of breaking up, from the grass
having _run out_, that is, given place to weeds, or to finer and less
profitable grasses. Where the seed has been thickly sown, the grass
takes more entire possession of the surface, and retains it longer. The
thicker grass seed is sown, therefore, other things being equal, the
longer it will _lay_.
[Sidenote: _RYE-GRASS AND TIMOTHY._]
I have known, in a district where it was the custom to sow four to
eight quarts of timothy seed, on two occasions, twenty quarts sowed.
The result was a finer grass in both cases; in one it was thought the
crop was much larger, and in the other that it was somewhat smaller,
than where ten quarts was sowed alongside. The probability is, that in
an average of ten years it will prove the larger crop on the thickest
sown, in both fields.
The commonest grass seed sowed in England, what may be called the
staple grass, is rye-grass, or ray-grass (perennial). It is a much
smaller, closer-growing grass than our timothy; I think it has
a sweeter taste, is probably, bulk for bulk, considerably more
nutritious, and perhaps so pound for pound; but I think more fat and
muscle can be made from an acre, if sowed with timothy, than with
rye-grass. A valuable quality of rye-grass is its early spring growth.
A field of rye-grass will be up some inches, offering a tempting bite
to cattle, before a field of other grasses will begin to show a green
surface. I believe that it ripens earlier, too, than timothy, and is
better for mowing-ground on that account, to be sown with clover, which
is much injured by over-ripeness, if not cut till timothy is in its
best state to make hay. I have seen no timothy in England, but I know
it is sometimes sowed.
Rye-grass has stood at the head of the mowing grasses in some parts
of England for centuries. In districts of light and dry soil, it is
least in favour than elsewhere, but I judge becomes of more value
with the improvement of husbandry generally. Marshall (1796), writing
from Gloucestershire, speaks of the general strong prejudice of
the farmers against ray-grass, which he calls his favourite grass,
“smothering every thing and impoverishing the soil, until it will grow
nothing!” they say; and arguing against them, he makes an observation
of value with reference to the question of quantity of seed. “If
_real_ ray-grass has ever been tried alone, and without success, it
has probably risen from too great a quantity having been sown. Be it
ray-grass or rubbish, I understand seldom less than a sackful” (three
heaped bushels) “an acre is thrown on, whereas _one gallon_ an acre of
_clean-winnowed real ray-grass seed_ is abundantly sufficient on such
soil as the vale in general is covered with.” The soil is “a rich, deep
loam.”
Clover (red and Dutch) is more sowed here for hay than with us, though
it is much more difficult to make good hay of it in this climate. It
is sowed in the spring, as with us, perhaps 20 lbs. to the acre. We
commonly sow 5 to 10 lbs. Arthur Young tried about a dozen experiments
to ascertain the most profitable quantity of clover seed to sow, and
concluded his record of them as follows:
“The more seed, as far as 20 lbs. per acre, undoubtedly the better.
This is a plain fact, contradicted by no part of the experiments; and
the great inferiority of 5 to 7 lbs. shows equally clear that such
portion of seed is too small for an acre. Where land is well manured,
less seed is required; 12½ lbs. seems the proper quantity” (on very
rich, gravelly soil.)
A bushel of clover seed weighs 60 to 64 lbs.
In ground intended for mowing but one or two years, biennial varieties
of the rye-grass are sown, which are of stronger growth than the
perennial. They are also sowed sometimes with permanent grasses,
giving, on a deep, rich soil, a heavier burthen of grass the first year
of cutting than these would do. For this purpose, I have thought it
might be well to sow the biennial or sub-perennial rye-grass seed with
timothy, which does not usually yield a fair crop at its first cutting,
and have twice attempted to make trial of the Italian rye-grass, but in
both cases the seeds that I had procured failed of germination.
I shall have occasion hereafter to notice several species of herbage
that are much valued in England, that have not been generally
introduced in the United States.[20]
[20] Fifteen or twenty varieties of grass seeds are sowed together, and
the expense for seed in laying down for pasture is often ten or twelve
dollars an acre.
[Sidenote: _TOP-DRESSING.—GUANO.—WAGES._]
The grass is mowed for hay for a longer or shorter course of years;
sometimes broken up after one or two seasons, sometimes becoming
permanent or perennial pasture, and so running on indefinitely; and
sometimes being mowed for a number of years. One field I saw that had
been mowed eight years, and having received a dressing of 30 cwt.
of bones, promised fair yet to bear heavy swaths. Mowing lands are
usually top-dressed at the end of the second year, and afterwards every
second or third year. All the homestead dung is commonly reserved for
this purpose, and all other manure is purchased from the towns. Guano
for turnips and wheat is coming into general use; some think very
profitably, others have been disappointed. For wheat, it is applied at
the seed sowing, and sometimes again as a top dressing in the spring;
but in a dry season it is thought that this second application has
done more harm than good. Guano has been a good deal tried as a top
dressing for pastures, and it has been said to improve the quality of
cheese when so used. The immediate effect upon grass, when applied
in the spring, is always very advantageous; but later in the summer,
particularly if the season is dry, the good effect disappears, and
sometimes the result is unfavourable.
Of course the round of crop varies according to every farmer’s notion.
What I have described is as common as any, though not probably among
the best farmers. Another crop is beans, which is introduced between
either of those I have mentioned, sometimes at the head. Not uncommonly
the first crop is wheat, the ground having been summer fallowed. Wheat
is drilled or sowed broad-cast; most commonly sowed in this county,
and is either ploughed or harrowed in, opinions varying as to which
is best. My own experience on a stiff soil is decidedly in favour of
ploughing in.
_Labourers._—Wages, as they have been reported to me, vary much,
and unaccountably. I should think the average for able-bodied men as
day-labourers, working and receiving pay only in days that commence
fair, was $2.25 a week, perhaps averaging thirty-three cents a day.
The rent of a labourer’s cottage, with a bit of garden attached (less
than a quarter of an acre), is from $15 to $25. In addition they have
sometimes a few perquisites from the farmers who regularly employ them.
A great many labourers in winter are without work, and wages are then a
trifle less than I have mentioned, as in harvest time they are also a
trifle more. The reader will understand that out of this thirty-three
cents, which I have supposed to be the average receipts of a labourer
per day, he has to pay his rent, and provide food and raiment for
his family. Of course his diet cannot be very sumptuous (the cost of
provisions being, perhaps, ten per cent. higher than with us), but I
have not learned particulars.
The wages of farm servants, hired by the month or year, and boarded in
the family, are for men, from $45 to $65 a year; for boys, $15 to $25;
maid-servants, $30 to $40; dairy-maids, greatly varying, say from $50
to $100.
It is customary to give all labourers and servants a certain allowance
of beer besides their wages. It is served out several times a day,
and may be supposed to cost, on an average, ten cents a day for each
person. One farmer estimated it at twice that.
CHAPTER XXIII.
REMARKS ON THE CULTIVATION OF BEET AND MANGEL-WURZEL.
[Sidenote: _EXTENSIVE CULTIVATION OF THE BEET._]
I found the best farmers in all the south of England, and throughout
Ireland, where the soils were at all stiff, increasing their crops
of these roots. For the production of milk they are, undoubtedly, a
more valuable crop than turnips or ruta bagas, though it is asserted
that the milk is more thin and watery. Some thought them equal, and
even superior, weight for weight, for fattening cattle. I think it is
certain that in such soils a larger amount of nutriment can be obtained
from a crop of them on an equal measure of ground. Donaldson says the
beet yields a larger weight per acre, both in roots and leaves, than
any other root crop known. I have heard of crops of from fifteen to
thirty-five tons an acre; and in one instance, near New York, at the
rate of forty-four tons an acre, from one quarter of an acre. Chemical
analyses and practical experiments in feeding, to ascertain their value
as compared with other roots, or with hay, differ so very greatly,
that nothing can be said with any certainty about it. The climate of
the United States, like that of France, is much better adapted to the
beet, and much less favourable to the ruta baga, than that of England.
The beet is much less liable to be injured by insects or worms than the
turnip or ruta baga, though I incline to think the latter is much more
favoured with us than in England in this respect.
The ground for beet crops is prepared the same as for turnips; that
is, it is finely and deeply tilled (and there is no crop which will
better show the value of draining and subsoil ploughing), and manured
with well-decomposed dung, compost, bones, or guano, in drills from
twenty-seven inches to three feet apart. The seed is usually prepared
by steeping for from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and is then
rolled in lime. As rapidly as possible after the manure is deposited,
it is covered with soil and the seed dropped, sometimes being drilled
like turnip seed, but more commonly dibbled. There are two simple
machines used here for dibbling. Whatever way the seed is planted, it
must be expected that a large part will fail to germinate.
I have found dibbling by hand not very tedious, as follows: One man
making holes an inch deep, and six or eight inches apart, with a round
stick an inch in diameter, another following and dropping three seeds
in a hole, and a third covering by a single stroke, and pressing, with
a hoe. I have obtained a large crop planting so late as the middle of
July, in the climate of New York.
A rapid early growth of the plant is important. When the weeds come up,
the horse-hoe or cultivator is run through, and as often afterwards as
there is need, while the size of the beets will permit it, they are
horse and hand hoed. It is found that earthing-up with a plough is
injurious. When two or three inches high, the plants are thinned to
twelve inches apart. When two or three plants come up in a bunch, one
only of them must be left. It will wilt down flat upon the ground at
first, but soon recovers.
[Sidenote: _A HINT TO AMATEUR FARMERS._]
The outer leaves begin to dry and decay early in the fall, and may
then be plucked and fed to cows with profit, and without retarding
the continued growth of the root. The root may be pulled by hand,
and is harvested more readily than any other. It will keep (at New
York) in the open air, in stacks four feet wide and high, covered with
straw and six inches of earth, a small hole being left in the top for
ventilation, until April, and is then of great value to new milch-cows
and ewes with lamb.
I particularly recommend the cultivation of the sugar and mangel-wurzel
beets to cottage-farming gentlemen, who wish to keep a small dairy with
a limited extent of land.
CHAPTER XXIV.
DELIGHTFUL WALK BY THE DEE BANKS, AND THROUGH EATON PARK.—WREXHAM.—A
FAIR.—MAIDS BY A FOUNTAIN.—THE CHURCH.—JACKDAWS.—THE TAP-ROOM AND
TAP-ROOM TALK.—POLITICAL DEADNESS OF THE LABOURING CLASS.—A METHODIST
BAGMAN.
Following Nutting’s directions, we had a most delightful walk along the
river bank and under some noble trees, then through thick woods and
over a bit of low, rushy land, where some Irishmen were opening drains,
and out at length into the private park-road; a pleasant avenue, which
we followed some miles. The park here was well stocked with game;
rabbits were constantly leaping out before us, and we frequently
started partridges and pheasants from a cover of laurels, holly, and
hawthorn with which the road was lined.
We came out at Pulford, when we lunched at the Post Office Inn, and
thence walked by an interesting road, through a village of model
cottages not very pretty; over a long hill, from the top of which
a grand view back; and by a park that formerly belonged to Judge
Jeffreys, of infamous memory, to Wrexham.
[Sidenote: _WREXHAM JACKDAWS._]
Wrexham is a queer, dirty, higglety-piggelty kind of town, said to be
the largest in Wales (it is about as large as Northampton). It was
the latter part of a fair-day, and there had been a mustering of the
yeomanry of the shire, so that the streets were crowded as we entered.
In the balcony of an hotel in the market-place a military band was
playing to a mass of up-turned, gaping faces, through which we worked
our way. The inns were generally full of guzzling troopers, dressed in
a very ugly fashion, but we finally found one; some colour of the bear
family, blue, I believe, which seemed tolerably quiet, where we stopped
for the night.
After dining and resting awhile, we took a walk about the town. Most
of the houses out of the market-place are very mean and low, the walls
plastered with mud, and whitewashed, and the roofs thatched. Noticing
a kind of grotto in a back street about which a pretty group of girls,
in short blue dresses, engaged in lively talk, were standing with
pitchers, we approached it. We came close upon them before they noticed
us, but, instead of showing any timidity, they glanced at our hats and
laughed clear and heartily, looking us boldly in the face. Catching one
alone, however, as we descended to the fountain, and asking her to let
us take her mug to drink from, she handed it to us, blushing deeply,
and said nothing, so we were glad to leave quickly to relieve her.
There was a spring and pool of remarkably clear, cool water, within
the grotto, from which all the neighbourhood seem to be supplied. Our
California hats attracted more attention at Wrexham than anywhere else
in Europe, but we met with no incivility or impertinence beyond a smile
or laugh.
The church at Wrexham is curious, from the multitude of grotesque faces
and figures carved upon it. It is a large and fine structure, and the
tower is particularly beautiful, as seen from the village. There were
jackdaws’ nests in it, and a flock of these birds, the first we have
seen, were hovering and screeching around them. They are of the crow
tribe, black, and somewhat larger than a blue-jay.
Returning to our inn we found in the parlour a couple of lisping
clerks, who were sipping wine in a genteel way, and trying to say smart
things while they ogled the landlady’s daughter. Retreating from their
twaddle, I called for a pipe and mug of ale, and joined the circle in
the tap-room. There was a tall, scarlet-coated fellow who told me he
was a sergeant in the Queen’s guards recruiting here; an older man who
had been a soldier, and had served in Canada and China; a half-tipsy
miller with a pleasant-speaking, good-natured wife trying to coax him
to come home, and half a dozen more countrymen, all muddling themselves
with beer and tobacco.
[Sidenote: _TAP-ROOM POLITICS._]
The conversation was running on politics, and was not at all
interrupted by my entrance; on the contrary, I thought the old soldier
was glad of a stranger to show himself off before. He was the orator
of the night, and the others did little but express assent to his
sentiments, except the miller, who every few moments interrupted
him with a plain and emphatic contradiction. The sergeant said very
little either way except he was appealed to, to substantiate some
assertion, “_as a military man_,” but leaned on the bar, drinking hot
gin-and-water, and whispering with the bar-maid.
There was news that the French minister had taken diplomatic offence
and demanded his passports, and war was threatened. War there certainly
would be, according to the ex-soldier, and a terrible time was coming
with it. England was going to be whipped-out most certainly—it was
inevitable. Every body assented—it was “inevitable”—except the miller,
who said it was fol-de-rol. “Why,” continued the ex-soldier, “isn’t
every country in Europe against England?—don’t they all hate her? and
isn’t every Frenchman a soldier?” Then he described the inefficient
state of the national defences, and showed how easy it would be for
a fleet of steamers, some dark night the next week, to land an army
somewhere on the coast of Wales, and before they heard of it, it might
be right there amongst them! He would like to know what there was
to oppose them. The miller said there was—“gammon.” The sergeant, on
being asked, admitted that he was not aware of any respectable force
stationed in that vicinity, and the miller told him he was a “traitor
then.” Ex-soldier said miller knew nothing about war, any way, and
the company unanimously acquiesced. Ex-soldier then resumed his
speech—asked if government would dare to give arms to the people, and
pictured an immense army of Chartists arising in the night, and with
firebrands and Frenchmen, sweeping the government, queen and all, out
of the land, and establishing a republican kingdom, where the poor man
was as good as the rich. The company all thought it very probable,
and each added something to make the picture more vivid. A coarse
joke about the queen’s bundling off with her children produced much
laughter; and the hope that the parsons and lawyers would have to go to
work for a living, was much applauded.
It was strange what a complete indifference they all seemed to have
about it, as if they would be mere spectators, _outsiders_, and not,
in any way, personally interested. They spoke of the Government and
the Chartists, and the landlords and the farmers, but not a word of
themselves.
Late in the evening there was some most doleful singing, and a woman
came in and performed some sleight-of-hand tricks, every one giving
her a penny when she had concluded. We were obliged to sleep two in a
bed, one of us with a Methodist young man, who travelled to make sales
of tea among country grocers and innkeepers, for a Liverpool house. He
said that what we had seen in the tap-room would give us a very good
notion of the character of a large part of the labouring class about
here. He thought their moral condition most deplorable, and laid it
much to the small quantity and bad quality of the spiritual food that
was provided for them. He seemed well informed about America, and,
excepting for slavery and steamboat explosions, greatly to admire our
country. He had some idea of going to it, and said his present business
was exceedingly disagreeable, as it compelled him to be so much at
inns, where he rarely found any one with whom he could pleasantly
associate.
CHAPTER XXV.
MORNING WALK THROUGH A COAL DISTRICT.—RUABON.—AN OPTIMIST WITH
A WELSH WIFE.—GRAVEYARD NOTES.—A STAGE-WAGON.—TAXES.—WYNSTAY
PARK.—THOROUGH DRAINING.—A GLIMPSE OF COTTAGE LIFE.—“SIR WATKINS
WILLIAMS WYN.”
_June 4th._
[Sidenote: _COAL DISTRICT.—AN OPTIMIST._]
The most agreeable chimes, from the church tower, we had ever heard,
awoke us this morning at three o’clock. It is light enough here at that
time to read or write, and the twilight at evening does not seem to be
over at half-past ten. I felt very stiff and sore, but arose and wrote
till half-past six, when we got the bar-maid up, paid our bill (we were
charged only sixpence a piece for our lodging), and were let out into
the street; no signs that any one else in the town was yet stirring.
Our road ran through a coal district, tall chimneys throwing out long
black clouds of smoke, and pump-levers working along the hill-tops; the
road darkened with cinders; sooty men coming home from the night-work
to low, dirty, thatched cottages—the least interesting and poorest
farmed country we had yet travelled over. After walking six miles, we
stopped at the Talbot Inn, Ruabon, to breakfast.
In the tap-room, over his beer, was a middle-aged man, a currier
by trade, who told us he had come hither nine years ago from
Staffordshire, had married a nice Welsh girl, and settled himself very
comfortably. He said wages were good here, and it did not cost so much
to live as it used to. He had a cottage in the village; the landlord,
Sir Watkins Wyn, was an excellent man, and his agent was very kind to
poor people. He did not see any need of grumbling, and, for his part,
thought the world a pretty fair world.
After a good breakfast in a room adorned with sporting pictures and a
likeness of Sir Watkins Wyn, I returned to talk with him. When he had
work, his wages were six dollars a week, but just now he was out of
work. The rent of his cottage and four roods of land was one hundred
and twenty dollars, and Sir Watkins paid the poor-rates. Sir Watkins
was not very generally liked by his tenants, because he was not so
liberal with them as his father; but his father had been extravagant,
and run the estate deeply in debt, and he had need to be more
particular: and he was sure he was always very easy with poor folks. He
had had a deduction made on his rent more than once when the times were
hard with him, and this year the farmers all were allowed ten per cent.
of their rents because corn is so low.
I had told him I was from America, and he was asking me some questions
about it, when he suddenly stopped, fidgeted about a moment, and then,
looking at a woman coming across the street, said, with a laughing,
swaggering air, “There’s my wife coming; now you’ll see a specimen of a
Welsh girl!” His wife, a stout, hard-looking woman, walked briskly in,
stood up straight before him, folded her arms, and, in a deep, quiet,
determined way, gave him a regular _Caudling_. He tried for a while
to make a joke of it, and to appease her. “Come now, missus, don’t be
hard upon un’; sit ye down now, and take a pint; these gentlemen be
from Ameriky, and I talks with ’um about going there. Come now, how’d
thee like to go to Ameriky?” As we were thus introduced, she glanced
fiercely at us, and we retreated at once without the door. He tried
for a moment longer to brave her, and called loudly for another mug of
ale. She turned her head to the bar-maid, and said, “You’ll get no more
ale!” and the bar-maid minded her.
She said he had been there before, this morning, and when he began
drinking in the morning it was always the last of him for the day. He
whimpered out that he had come home and breakfast wasn’t ready, and he
hadn’t any thing else to do but to come back here. It _was_ ready, she
said, and he might have been looking for some work, and so on. In a few
minutes they went off arm in arm.
[Sidenote: _FREIGHT WAGONS._]
Opposite the inn was an old church and a graveyard. There were more
monkey-faces on the church, and two effigies in stone, of knights—the
forms of their bodies with shields, barely distinguishable, and their
faces entirely effaced. Many of the gravestones had inscriptions in
Welsh, and both here and at Wrexham I noticed the business of the
deceased person was given, as _John Johnes, Wheelright_; _William
Lloyd, Tanner_, _&c._ On a flat stone near the church, the following
was inscribed (letter for letter), probably by a Welsh stone-cutter
following an English order, given verbally—“_This his the end of the
vault._”
Returning from the church, we found the currier again drinking beer in
the tap-room, with a number of other men, a drunken set, that probably
had come passengers by a stage wagon that stood in the road. This was
an immense vehicle, of pre-railroad origin, like our Pennsylvania
wagons, but heavier and higher. It had a heavy freight of barrels,
cases, and small parcels, on the top of which, under the canvass hooped
cover, a few passengers were cheaply accommodated, there being a ladder
in the rear for them to ascend by. Behind one of the hind-wheels was a
roller, attached by chains on either side the wheel to the axle-tree,
so that if the wagon fell back any, it scotched it—a good idea for
heavy loads in a hilly country. There were six stout cart-horses to
draw it, and all in a line, the wheeler being in shafts. The driver
said he had a load of eight or ten tons, and drove three miles an hour
with it. He paid about sixteen dollars a year taxes for his horses,
and two dollars for a very ugly bull-dog that stood guard over the
establishment for more than an hour while he was refreshing himself in
the inn. At length we saw the whole company come out, and the wagon
started again, all very jolly; the currier and another man, with their
hands on each other’s shoulders, staggered across the street, singing
“Oh, Susannah!” At the churchyard gate both fell, rolled over and
embraced each other, once or twice tried ineffectually to get up, and
then both went to sleep there on the ground. No wonder the specimen
Welsh girl had a hard look.
[Illustration: THE STAGE WAGON]
After finishing our letters to send by the steamer, we visited Wynstay
Park. It is much more picturesque than Eaton, the ground being
diversified and the trees larger. The deer also were larger; a servant
told us there were fifteen hundred of them. The hall, which is a plain
building, was undergoing repairs.
We separated here for a few days, my friends wishing to see more
of Welsh scenery, and going to the vale of Llangollen (pronounced
Langothlan), while I had a letter I wished to deliver in another
direction.
[Sidenote: _THOROUGH DRAINING._]
The park was covered with lines of recently-made under-drains, and
I hunted over it in hopes to find men at work, that I might see the
manner in which they were constructed. Going to a pretty checkered
timber-house to make inquiries, I was so fortunate as to meet the
foreman of the draining operations, Mr. Green, an intelligent
Warwickshire man, who obligingly took me to a field a mile or two
distant, where he had thirty men at work. The soil was a gravelly
loam, with a little heavier subsoil. The drains were laid twenty-seven
feet apart, and dug three feet deep (ordinarily), and one foot wide
from top to bottom; in the middle of the bottom a groove was cut for
the pipe, so the top of it would be three feet from the surface. No
narrow tools were used, except to cut the grooves for the pipe. The
foreman said that though a man could work to much better advantage in a
wider-mouthed drain, the extra dirt to be moved compensated for it, and
made this plan the cheapest.
I thought then, and since, until I came to try it in gravelly and stony
land, that the work might be done much more rapidly with the long,
narrow tools described by Mr. Delafield,[21] making the bottom of the
drain only of the width of the pipe intended to be laid; but I find
these can only be used to advantage in free ground. The method here
described is probably the best for draining soils, where many stones
larger than a hen’s egg are to be met with.
[21] _Transactions N. Y. State Agricultural Soc._, 1848, p. 232.
Cylindrical pipes, of either one or one and a half inch bore, were
laid in the grooves at the bottom of the drain; _collars_, connecting
them, were only used in the loosest soils. The _mains_ were laid one
foot deeper than the collecting drains, and the pipes in them were from
two to six inches bore. No series of drains were run more than seventy
yards in length without a main, and all the mains emptied into an open
ditch at the lowest side of the field, which was made deep enough to
allow of a drop of one foot from the mouths of the pipes. Where such a
ditch was likely to _gully_, the sides were sloped and turfed.
I will hereafter give a chapter on the process of thorough draining
in its most approved British methods, with estimates of cost, and a
discussion of how far it may be profitably employed in the United
States. For Great Britain, it is the most important agricultural
improvement ever made, and it is hardly absurd to assert that its
general introduction during the last ten years has saved England from
a revolution; certainly it is of the greatest political and social
consequence to her; I trust, therefore, even my non-agricultural
readers will have some interest in the subject.
The wages of the men employed at this work averaged $2.25 a week; boys,
16 cents a day.
[Sidenote: _THE GOOD LANDLORD._]
Mr. Green sent a lad to guide me across the park to the road I wished
to take—a remarkably bright, amiable boy, with whom I had a pleasant
talk as he led me on by the most charming way, among the old oaks, and
through herds of deer. He could read and write, and knew something
of geography and arithmetic, having been instructed by the curate
of Ruabon, whom he seemed to have much loved. (I think he had died
lately.) He also spoke kindly of Sir Watkins and his lady, to whom his
father was shepherd, and said that all their servants and poor people
were much attached to them. Passing near the hall, I asked for some
water, and he took me into one of the servants’ cottages to get it.
There was an old woman rocking a cradle, and a young woman ironing
linen, both very neatly dressed, the furniture plain and meagre, but
every thing clean, and an appearance of a good deal of comfort about
the room.
While the repairs were being made upon the hall, the family lived
in a cottage completely embowered among trees and shrubs, which we
afterwards passed, and I had the honour of catching a glimpse, through
the foliage, of a form in a grey coat, which, I was assured, was the
good Sir Watkins himself.
Soon after leaving the park, I crossed the Esk by a very high stone
arch, built “by Sir Watkins,” as some ragged boys and girls, who were
employed in collecting for manure the horsedung that dropped upon the
road, informed me, and this was the last I heard of Sir Watkins.
CHAPTER XXVI.
STONE HOUSES.—IVY.—VIRGINIA CREEPER.—A VISIT TO A WELSH
HORSE-FAIR.—ENGLISH VEHICLES.—AGRICULTURAL NOTES.—HORSES.—BREEDS
OF CATTLE.—HEREFORDS, WELSH, AND SMUTTY PATES.—CHARACTER OF THE
PEOPLE.—DRESS.—POWIS PARK.
_Shrewsbury, June 7th._
I have been visiting a gentleman to whom I was introduced by Prof.
Norton. His residence is on the east border of Wales, amidst very
beautiful scenery of round-topped hills, and deep, verdant, genial
dells. He has the superintendence of a large number of mines of coal
and metals, and of several agricultural estates, the extent of which
may be imagined from the fact, that he is preparing to thorough-drain
5000 acres next winter. He is building a tilery, and will employ seven
engineers, each with two foremen to oversee the workmen. The cost, it
is estimated, will be from $23 to $25 an acre; drains, seventeen feet
apart and three feet deep.
[Sidenote: _STONE BUILDINGS.—IVY._]
The house is of stone, and is covered with ivy, which I mention that I
may contradict a common report that ivy upon the wall of a house makes
it damp. The contrary, I have no doubt, is the fact. The ivy-leaves
fall one over another, shedding off the rain like shingles; and it is
well ascertained that in a long storm the inside walls of a house, or
of those rooms in it which are protected by the ivy, are much less damp
than those not so shielded. It is also generally supposed in America
that stone houses are much damper than wood. This _may be_ so with
some kinds of porous stone, but I can testify from my own experience
that it is not so with others. A slight _furring out_ on the inside,
and lath and plaster, will in all cases remove this objection to any
stone. A good stone house is warmer in winter, cooler in summer,[22]
equally dry and healthful, and, if built in convenient and appropriate
style, every way much more satisfactory and comfortable than our
common, slight-framed buildings. As for the ivy, I think it is one of
the most beautiful things God has given us, and the man who can and
does not let it beautify his habitation, is sinfully ungrateful. It is
perfectly hardy, and grows luxuriously on the north side of a house or
wall in the climate of New York. (My experience is with the Irish ivy.)
[22] In a late rapid change of weather, the thermometer on the outside
of my house rose in 18 hours from 19° to 35°, while that within the
walls remained stationary at 20°, not rising even one degree!
[Illustration: OLD ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
(_the village schoolmaster’s cottage_)]
The cut represents the schoolmaster’s house at Eccleston, and is
inserted here to show the great beauty given by the creeper to that
part of the house which it has grown upon, contrasted, as it is, with
the bare wall of the modern addition. The vine, in this case, is our
Virginian creeper (_ampelopsis quinquefolia_, the common five-leaved
vine of our fences—not the _poison ivy_), a very beautiful plant
certainly, and growing more rapidly than the European ivy, but having
this immeasurable disadvantage, that it is not _evergreen_.
The day after I reached here, my host had occasion to go to a
horse-fair at Welsh Pool, a place some twenty miles distant, and
invited me to accompany him. We went in a dog-cart, a kind of heavy
gig, which here takes the place of our light boat-wagon. It is a box
(large enough to hold a dog or two in driving to sporting ground), hung
low, between two small, heavy wheels, with a seat on the top of it for
two, looking forward, and sometimes another in which two more can sit
looking backward. On the back, to exempt it from the tax upon more
luxurious vehicles, is painted the owner’s name, business, and place of
residence, thus: “John Brown, Farmer, Owestry, Shrops.” All the humbler
class of carriages are thus marked here, including farm-carts.
The landscapes were agreeable in the country we passed through, but the
farming in much of it no better than in some parts of the Connecticut
valley. Coarse, rushy grass, indicating the need of draining, grew in
much of the meadow land, as I think it does to the exclusion of more
valuable grasses in land that is ordinarily dryer than such as would
spontaneously produce it in America. The buildings along the road were
such as I have previously described; but I saw one old shackling board
barn which, but for its thatched roof, would have looked very home-like.
[Sidenote: _WELSH CHARACTER.—RUSTIC DRESS._]
Welsh Pool is a small compact town (population 5,000) with a
market-house, and a single small church, on the tower of which a
union-jack was hoisted, and within which there is a peal of three
bells, that continually, all day long, did ring most unmusically; there
were booths in the main street, in which women sold dry goods, hosiery,
pottery, &c. In another street horses were paraded, and in other places
cows and swine.
There was present a considerable crowd of the country people, which
I observed carefully. I verily believe if five hundred of the common
class of farmers and farm-labouring men, such as would have come
together on similar business—say from all parts of Litchfield county
in Connecticut—had been introduced among them, I should not have known
it, except from some peculiarities of dress. I think our farmers, and
particularly our labourers, would have been dressed up a little nearer
the town fashions, and would have seemed a little more wide awake,
perhaps, and that’s all. I not only saw no drunkenness, except a very
few solitary cases late in the day, no rioting, though there were some
policemen present, but no _gayety_; every body wore a sober business
face, very New England like.
The small farmers and labouring men all wore leggins, buttoning
from the knee to the ankle; heavy hob-nailed shoes; little, low,
narrow-brimmed, round-topped felt hats, and frocks of linen, blue or
white in colour, the skirts reaching below the knee, very short waists,
a kind of broad epaulette, or cape, gathered in, boddice fashion,
before and behind, loose shirt-like sleeves, and the whole profusely
covered with needle-work. I suppose this is the original _smock-frock_.
An uglier garment could not well be contrived, for it makes every
man who wears it appear to have a spare, pinched-up, narrow-chested,
hump-backed figure. The women generally wore printed calico jackets,
gathered at the waist, with a few inches only of skirt, and blue or
grey worsted stuff petticoats, falling to within a few inches of the
ankle—a picturesque, comfortable, and serviceable habit, making them
appear more as if they were accustomed to walk and to work, and were
not ashamed of it, than women generally do. Most incongruously, as a
topping off to this sensible costume, a number of women had crowded
their heads into that _ultima thule_ of absurd invention, a stiff,
narrow-brimmed, high-crowned, cylindrical fur hat. What they did with
their hair, and how they managed to keep the thing on their heads, I
cannot explain. I assert that they did do it, notwithstanding something
of a breeze, as well as the most practised man, and without showing
evidence of any particular suffering.
There were, perhaps, a hundred horses offered for sale; among them one
pair only of fine carriage-horses, one large and fine thorough bred
cart-horse, and a few pretty ponies. All the rest were very ordinary
stout working-horses, much like our Pennsylvania horses. The average
price of them was but a trifle over $100, about what they would bring
at New York.
There were still fewer cattle, and they were all comprised in three
breeds and their intermixtures: first, Hereford, which predominated;
second, Welsh, small, low, black beasts, with large heads and white
faces, black muzzles and long spreading horns; third, _Smutty pates_,
an old Welsh breed hardly to be found in purity now. They are longer
and somewhat larger than Devons, a little lighter red in colour,
with invariably black or brindle faces. They were generally in fair
condition, tolerable _feelers_, and would cut up particularly heavy in
their hind quarters. A Smithfield man told me that he thought a cross
of this breed with the Hereford made the best beef in the world.
[Sidenote: _A REPULSE.—THE MASTIFF._]
After dining with a number of gentlemen, most of whom had come from
a distance to attend the fair, I took a walk out into the country
about the town. The only object of interest that I remember was “Powis
Castle,” the seat of a nobleman, finely situated in a picturesque,
mountain-side park. The castle itself is upon a spur of the mountain
and is entirely hidden among fine evergreen trees. I had toiled up to
within about ten feet of the edge of the plateau upon which it stands,
when I heard a low deep growl, and looking up saw above me a great dog
asking me, with bristling back, curling fangs, and fierce grinning
teeth, what business I had to be there. Considering that I had no
right to be visiting the residence of a gentleman who was a stranger
to me unless I had some business with him, and concluding upon short
reflection that indeed I had none, I determined upon a retrograde
movement, and taking care not to attempt even to apologize to his
dogship for the intrusion until I had brought a few trees between us,
I found that he _backed down_ just about as fast as I did, so that
at a distance of half a dozen rods he appeared a handsome, smooth,
generous-natured mastiff, and I began to consider whether the earl
would not probably be pleased to have an intelligent stranger see the
beauty of his castle; but the moment I stopped, the dog’s lips began
to part and his back to rise again, and I concluded that whatever the
earl’s wishes might be, I could not make it convenient just then to
accommodate him in that way, and returned forthwith to the village.
The true mastiff is a somewhat rare dog in England, and I don’t think
that I ever saw one in America. He is very large and powerful, and
smooth haired.
CHAPTER XXVII.
ENGLISH VEHICLES.—A FEUDAL CASTLE AND MODERN ARISTOCRATIC
MANSION.—ARISTOCRACY IN 1850.—PRIMOGENITURE.—DEMOCRATIC TENDENCY
OF POLITICAL SENTIMENTS.—DISPOSITION TOWARDS THE UNITED
STATES.—COMBATIVENESS.—SLAVERY.
J. and C., after a tramp among the mountains of Wales, which they have
much enjoyed, reached the village nearest to where I was visiting last
night. This morning a party was made with us to visit —— Castle. We
were driven in a “Welsh car,” which is much the same kind of vehicle as
the two-wheeled hackney cabs that a few years ago filled the streets of
New York, and then suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Two-wheeled
vehicles are “all the go” in England. They are excessively heavy and
cumbrous compared with ours, the wheels much less in diameter, and they
must run much harder, and yet, over these magnificent roads, they can
load them much more heavily.
The castle is on high ground, in the midst of the finest park and
largest trees we have seen. The moat is filled up, and there are a few
large modern windows in the upper part, otherwise it differs but little
probably from what it appeared in the time of the crusaders. The whole
structure is in the form of a square on the ground, with four low round
towers at the corners, and a spacious court-yard in the centre. The
entrance is by a great arched gateway, over which the old _portcullis_
still hangs.
[Sidenote: _ARISTOCRATIC LUXURY._]
We were kindly shown through all its parts, including much not
ordinarily exhibited to strangers, and I confess that I was not more
interested in those parts which were its peculiar features as a feudal
stronghold, than in those that displayed the sumptuous taste, luxury,
and splendour of a modern aristocratic mansion. The state apartments
were truly palatial, and their garniture of paintings, sculpture,
bijoutry, furniture, and upholstery, magnificent and delightful to the
eye, beyond any conception I had previously had of such things. Let
no one say it will be soon reproduced, if it is not already excelled,
in the mansions of our merchant-princes in America. Excelled it may
be, but no such effect can be reproduced or furnished at once to the
order of taste and wealth, for it is the result of generations of
taste and wealth. There was in all, never a marvellous thing, or one
that demanded especial attention, or that proclaimed in itself great
costliness; and while nothing seemed new, though much was modern, most
of the old things were of such materials, and so fashioned, that age
was of no account, and not a word was said by them of fleeting time.
The tone of all—yes, the _tone_—musical to all who entered, was, Be
quiet and comfortable, move slowly and enjoy what is nearest to you
without straining your eyes or your admiration;—nothing to excite
curiosity or astonishment, only quiet esthetic contemplation and calm
satisfaction.
I liked it, liked to be in it, and thought that if I had come honestly
to the inheritance of it, I could abandon myself to a few months living
in the way of it with a good deal of heart. But in the first breath of
this day-dreaming I was interrupted by the question, Is it right and
best that this should be for the few, the very few of us, when for many
of the rest of us there must be but bare walls, tile floors and every
thing besides harshly screaming, scrabble for life? This question,
again, was immediately shoved aside unanswered by another, whether in
this nineteenth century of the carpenter’s son, and first of vulgar,
whistling, snorting, roaring locomotives, new-world steamers, and
submarine electric telegraphs; penny newspapers, state free-schools,
and mechanic’s lyceums, this still soft atmosphere of elegant longevity
was exactly the most favourable for the production of thorough, sound,
influential manhood, and especially for the growth of the right sort of
legislators and lawgivers for the people.
It seems certainly that it would be hard for a man whose mind has been
mainly formed and habited in the midst of this abundance of quiet,
and beauty, and pleasantness, to rightly understand and judiciously
work for the wants of those whose “native air” is as different from
this as is that of another planet. Especially hard must it be to look
with perfect honesty and appreciating candour upon principles, ideas,
measures that are utterly discordant with, and threaten to interrupt,
this costly nursery song to which his philosophy, religion, and habits
have been studiously harmonized.
Hard, by the way, very hard sometimes, must be the trial of a younger
son in one of these families. One son only is the real son, to
sympathize with and make his own, his father’s interests, arrangements,
and hopes; the others are but hangers-on for a time, and while so must
grow accustomed to all this beauty and splendour—must be _enhomed_ to
it, and then they are thrust out and return only as inferiors or as
guests.
[Sidenote: _DEMOCRATIC TENDENCY._]
Strange! I find this monstrous primogeniture seems natural and
Heaven-inspired law to Englishmen. I can conceive how, in its
origin, it might have been so—in the patriarchal state, where it was
the general direction of the common inheritance, rather than the
inheritance itself, that was taken by the eldest of each succeeding
generation; but in modern civilized society, with its constant
re-familization, and in England especially, where immediate isolated
domiciliation of every newly-wedded pair is deemed essential to harmony
and happiness, it seems to me more naturally abhorrent and wrong than
polygamy or chattel-slavery.
Doubtless, if you take it up as a matter to be reasoned upon, there
is much to be said for it, as there is for slavery, or, among the
Turks, for extra wiveing, I suppose;—and first, I fully appreciate
that without it, could in no way be sustained such noble buildings
and grounds—national banner-bearers of dignity—schools of art and
systematic encouragement of art, and perhaps I should add, systematic,
enterprising agricultural improvements, such as this of five thousand
acres thorough-drained _in the best manner_, by the conviction of its
profit in one man’s brain instead of fifty men’s, as it must be with
us. And finally, it may be that for some few, there is sustained by it
a local home, a family nucleus, more permanently than it can be with us.
But there is every thing to be said against it, too, that there is
against an aristocratical government and society, for the customs
of primogeniture and entail are in fact the basis of aristocracy.
And between an aristocratical government and society, with all its
dignities, and amenities, and refinements, and a democracy with all
its dangers, and annoyances, and humiliations, I do not believe that
any man that has had fair observation of our two countries, and who
is not utterly faithless in God and man, a thorough coward, or whose
judgment is not shamefully warped by prejudice, habit, or selfishness,
can hesitate a moment. I think that few Englishmen, few even of the
English nobility, and no English statesman, would advise us to return
to their system. I think that most of them would be sorry to believe
that England herself would fail of being a democratic nation a hundred
years hence.
* * * * *
This opinion has been strengthened by the further acquaintance I have
had with Englishmen. I have little doubt that the majority of those
who ultimately control the British government, do wish and purpose, as
fast as it may be expedient, to extend the elective franchise until it
shall become universal male adult suffrage. That they do not do this as
fast as _we_ should think expedient, is probably to be explained by the
fact that they have not yet experienced, and cannot see with sufficient
faith, how very rapidly, in God’s providence, the self-governing
strength and discernment of a man is stimulated and increased by the
freedom to exercise it. And yet one would think that it was on this
that they depended alone, so entirely indifferent are they in general
to the educational preparation of their subject class to enter the
sovereign class.
It may be proper for me here to record my observation of the general
disposition of the English people towards our nation, which I confess
I did not find to be exactly what I had anticipated, and which I think
must be generally much misconceived in the United States.
[Sidenote: _FEELING TOWARDS THE UNITED STATES._]
There is a certain class of the English, conservative whigs more than
tories, as I met them, that look upon the United States people as a
nation of vulgar, blustering, impertinent, rowdy radicals; very much as
a certain set with us look upon the young mechanics and butcher-boys of
the town—troublesome, dangerous, and very “low,” but who are necessary
to put out fires, and whose votes are of value at elections, and whom
it therefore _pays_ to make some occasional show of respect to, and it
is best to keep on civil terms with. A considerable number of snobbish,
pretending, awkwardly positioned, sub-aristocratic, super-sensible
people, that swear by the Times, and have taken their cue from
Trollope, follow in their wake. But the great mass of the educated
classes regard us very differently; not with unqualified respect and
unalloyed admiration, but much as we of the Atlantic States regard our
own California—a wild, dare-devil, younger brother, with some most
dangerous and reprehensible habits, and some most noble qualities, a
capital fellow, in fact, if he would but have done sowing his wild oats.
This may be well enough understood in the United States, but further,
there is not in the English people, so far as I have seen them, rich
or poor, learned or ignorant, high or low, the slighest soreness or
rancorous feeling on account of our separation from them, or our war
of separation. Of our success as a republic many of their aristocratic
politicians are no doubt jealous; and many having naval and military
tastes, do not feel quite satisfied to hear our everlasting boasting
about the last war, and would like to have another round or two with us
to satisfy themselves that they know how to fight a ship, if they don’t
know how to build her, as well as we. There is also a party of “aged
women of both sexes,” that worship the ghost of that old fool, “the
good king George,” who, I suppose, look upon us with unaffected horror,
as they do equally upon their own dissenters and liberals. Yet it never
happened to me, though I met and conversed freely with all classes,
except the noble, while I was in England, to encounter the first man
who did not think that we did exactly right, or who was sorry that we
succeeded as we did in declaring and maintaining our independence.
The truth is that, _at that time_, the great mass of thinking men in
England were much of that opinion. Our war was with king George and his
cabinet, not with the people of England, and if they did reluctantly
sustain the foolish measures of the king, it was precisely as our
Whigs, who were opposed to the measures that led to the war with
Mexico, sustained, with money and with blood, that war when it did
come. It is a remarkable thing, that I have noticed that there are many
men in England who were born at the time of, or shortly subsequent to
our revolutionary war, who are named after the American heroes of that
war, Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.
This and other circumstances, early in my visit to England, made me
reflect that the hostile feeling of the people had never been deeply
engaged against us, while it soon became also evident that very much
less of so much hostility as they once had towards us, had descended to
the present, than we are in the habit of calculating for.
The reason of the great difference in this respect of the _popular
feeling_ in the two countries is evident, though it often extremely
puzzles and offends a liberal Englishman who has been in the habit of
looking with the greatest feeling of fraternity towards the people of
the United States, to find himself when he comes among them expected in
all his opinions and feelings to be either a traitor to his own country
or an enemy of ours. It is easily explained however.
[Sidenote: _THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION._]
There is a love of hostility in our nature that wants some object to
direct itself towards. Seventy years ago, and forty years ago, that
object to us as a nation was the kingdom of Great Britain. No other
object until within a few years has been offered to us to weaken that
traditional hostility. All our military and naval glory, the most
blazing, though by no means the most valuable, jewels of our national
pride, have been our victories in war with Great Britain. Almost our
only national holidays have been in a great part exultations over
our successful hostilities with Great Britain. “The enemy” and “the
British,” came to me from my fighting grandfather as synonymous terms.
When I was a child I never saw an Englishman but I was on my guard
against him as a spy, and would look behind the fences to see that
there was no ambuscade of red-coats. I made secret coverts about the
house, so that when they came to sack and burn it, and take our women
and children and household goods into captivity, I could lay in wait
to rescue them. In our school-boy games the beaten party was always
called “British” (the term “_Britisher_,” I never saw except in a
British book or heard except in England). If a law was odious it was
termed a British law; if a man was odious he was called an “old Tory;”
and it has been with us a common piece of blackguardism till within a
short time, if not now, to speak of those of an opposing party as under
British influence.
The war had been with us a war of the people; not a woman as she sipped
her tea but imbibed hatred to the taxing British, and suckled her
offspring with its nourishment; not a man of spunk in the country but
was hand to hand fighting with the British, and teaching his sons never
to yield to them.
In England, on the other hand, comparatively few of the people knew or
cared at all about the war; even the soldiers engaged in it were in
considerable numbers mere hirelings from another people, whom the true
English would have rather seen whipped than not, so far as they had
any _national_ feeling about it. Their hostile feeling was even then
more directed towards France than towards America; and now, I do not
believe there is one in a thousand of the people of England that has
the slightest feeling of hostility towards us, descending or inherited,
from that time. It was much so again in the later war. England was at
war with half the world in those days, and if a general disposition
of enmity towards us had been at all aroused in the course of it, all
recollection of it was lost in the fiercer wars with other nations
that immediately followed. I doubt if one-half the voters of England
could tell the name of a single ship engaged in the war of 1812;
whether it was General Hull or Commodore Hull that was heroized in it;
whether, in the assault upon New Orleans or Washington, it was that
their forces were successful; or whether, finally, they carried or lost
the diplomatic point for which their soldiers and sailors had been set
to fighting.
Even if the people of England could remember us equally among other
important nations as their enemy, it would be a very different feeling
towards us that it would lead to, from the remembrance of us as their
_old and only_ enemy; so that not only was our original share of the
hostile feeling of the people of England a very small one, being
principally confined to the king and his sycophants, and the idolaters
of the divine right, but the pugnacious element in the nature of an
Englishman, of our day, is directed by much more vivid remembrances
towards France, or Spain, or Germany, than towards us.
[Sidenote: _THE RADICALS AND SLAVERY._]
Nothing can be more friendly than the general disposition of the
English people at present towards us. The liberals, especially,
have great respect for us, and look upon us as their allies against
the world of injustice, oppression, and bigotry. (Just now the
free-traders, however, seem to be a little miffed with us because we
have not gone over _stock and fluke_ all at once to perfect reciprocity
with them, and the Tories are consequently our greatest flatterers.)
The uneducated, common people in general know no difference between
America and Russia, but the more intelligent of the working classes are
often very fairly informed with regard to our country, and are our most
sincere admirers and friends. All the more sober and religious people
have a great horror of our slavery and of the occasional Lynch-law
performances on our western border, of which they always get the first
and darkest reports, and none of the corrections and extenuating
circumstances that come in later and cooler despatches. On slavery they
are usually greatly misinformed, and view it only as an unmitigated and
wholly inexcusable wrong, injustice, and barbarous tyranny for which
all Americans are equally responsible, and all equally condemnable, and
with regard to which all are to be held responsible, and everlastingly
to be scolded at (except a few martyrs, called abolitionists, that
obtain a precarious livelihood through their contributions). The
Chartists and Radicals, too, are generally _down_ very hard upon an
American about slavery, and are commonly grossly misinformed about
it. I wish our Southern brethren would send a few lecturers upon the
subject to England; the abolitionists have it all their own way there
now, and take advantage of it to give the ignorant people ideas about
our country which it is very desirable should be contradicted. I wish
especially that they could make them comprehend how it is that we at
the north have nothing to do with their peculiar institution, and are
not to be expected to carry pistols and bowie-knives and fight every
body that chooses to attack it all over the world. This is no more nor
less than a great many people in some parts of England seem to expect,
when they are told that one is an American, and it comes sometimes to
be a regular bore to a traveller to have to disappoint them. There
is, in truth, a hundred times more hard feeling in England towards
America from this cause, than from all others, and it is unfortunately
strongest with the most earnestly republican and radically democratic
of her citizens.
Within this year or two there has been much more interest with
regard to America among all classes in England than previously, more
hope and more fear of us than ever before. The works of our best
authors—Irving, Emerson, Bancroft, Bryant, Channing, Cooper, Hawthorne,
and Whittier—are, many of them, as well known and as generally read
in England as in America. The introduction of American provisions,
cutting under the native products, has brought even the farmers to
scowlingly glance at us, and as, just at this time, most of them are
forced to be thinking of emigration for themselves or their children,
they are generally disposed to honestly inquire about us. Among
all making inquiries of me, I never found one to whom our form of
government was an objection. Finally, the present of food which, in
the famine, we sent to Ireland—a most mean portion out of our plenty
and superabundance to dole out to an actual STARVING neighbour, a most
unworthy expression of our Christian charity and brotherly regard for
her, it has always seemed to me, but such as it was—obtained for us not
only in Ireland, but all through Great Britain, a strange degree of a
sort of affectionate respect, not altogether unmingled with jealousy
and soreness because they cannot pay it back.
Altogether, considering the exceedingly queer company English
travellers seem usually to keep when in the United States, and the
atrocious caricatures in which, with few exceptions, they have
represented our manners and customs to their countrymen, I was
surprised at the general respect and the degree of correct appreciation
of us that I commonly found. There is no country not covered by a
British flag in the world, that the British of 1850 have any thing like
the degree of sympathy with, and affection for, that they have for the
United States.
On the other hand, it is happily evident, that since our war with
Mexico has given us a new military glory, it has also diverted our
national combativeness, in a degree, from our old enemy, and that since
the English liberals in so many ways, if not very valuable, at least
as much so as ours, have shown their sympathy and desire to assist our
common brethren struggling for freedom on the Continent; since the
lynching of the Butcher of Austria by the beer-men of Bankside, and the
general exultation of the British people over it; since the general
intercommunication between the countries has been made so much more
frequent and speedy, and cheaper than it used to be, the disposition of
our people towards the British has been much less suspicious, guarded,
and quarrelsome than it very naturally, if not very reasonably, was,
until within a few years.
[Sidenote: _OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE._]
God grant that every tie grow constantly tighter that binds us together
to peace, and to mutual assistance and co-labour—for justice, for
freedom, for the salvation of the world. If there is any body who does
not heartily say Amen to this, I commend him to Elihu Burritt; and all
who do, I call upon, from him, to go to work for OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE—so
shall our prayer not fail. (_See Appendix, B._)
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PAINTINGS.—CROMWELL.—PASTORAL SHIPS.—FAMILY PORTRAITS AND DISTANT
RELATIONS.—FAMILY APARTMENTS.—PERSONAL CLEANLINESS.—THE WREKIN.
The pictures which most interested me were portraits of Cromwell and
Charles, one of Rubens, two of very beautiful women of the family, by
Sir Peter Lely, a female face by Carlo Dolci, and two or three little
things by Rubens. The portrait of Cromwell appears as if he might have
sat for it, as, if I remember rightly, is asserted. It looks like one’s
idea of him, but not in the best light of his character—a melancholy,
sour, deep, stern face.
There is a large landscape representing a brook tumbling over a rock
into the sea, on which is a fleet of shipping. The story is, that
it was painted by a French artist on a visit here, and when first
exhibited had, in place of the sea, a broad meadow through which the
brook meandered. Lady —— suggested that a few sheep on the broad
green ground of the meadow would be a pleasing addition. “Sheeps! mi
lady?” said the chagrined artist, “suppose you better like it with
sheeps, I shall make de sheeps;” and so he painted a blue sea over the
green meadow, and abruptly embouched his brook into it, that he might
appropriately gratify Lady ——’s maritime penchant.
[Sidenote: _INTERIOR DECORATIONS._]
Among the family portraits one was shown having a title that sounded
familiarly to us, and after a moment’s thought we both remembered
it to be that of the single nobleman whom an antiquarian friend had
informed us that our family had been, long before its emigration with
the Plymouth Pilgrims, by marriage connected with. If it had been a
Scotch castle, we might perhaps have felt ourselves a good deal more
at home in consequence. It was an odd coincidence, and made us realize
the relationship of our democracy even to aristocratic England quite
vividly.[23]
[23] In speaking of our relationship as a nation to England, I do not
mean to ignore our relationship also to other nations. I think Mr.
Robinson has very conclusively proved that, taking the people of the
United States altogether, the majority are by no means of Anglo-Saxon
origin.
In consideration of this I think I may say a few words of the private
apartments of the family, through nearly all which, apparently,
we were shown. They were comparatively small, not larger, or more
numerous, or probably as _expensively_ furnished as those of many of
our wealthy New York mercantile families; but some of them were very
delightful, and would be most tempting of covetousness to a man of
domestic tastes or to a lover of art or of literary ease. Generally
there was most exquisite taste evident in colours and arrangements and
forms of furniture, and there were proofs of high artistic skill in
some members of the family, as well as a general love and appreciation
of the beautiful and the excellent. Some of the rooms were painted
in very high colours, deep blue and scarlet and gold, and in bizarre
figures and lines. I hardly could tell how it would please me if I
were accustomed to it, but I did not much admire it at first sight; it
did not seem English or home-like. It is just the thing for New York
though, and I have no doubt you’ll soon see the fashion introduced
there, and dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, counting-rooms, and steamboat
state-rooms all equally flaring.
The bed-chambers and dressing-rooms were furnished to look exceedingly
cosy and comfortable, but there was nothing very remarkable about them,
except, perhaps, the immense preparation made for washing the person.
I confess if I had been quartered in one of them, I should have needed
all my Yankee capabilities to guess in what way I could make a good use
of it all.
There is a story told of two members of our legislature that came
together from “the rural districts,” and were fellow-lodgers. One of
them was rather mortified by the rough appearance of his companion who
was of the “bone-and-sinew” sort, and by way of opening a conversation
in which he could give him a few hints, complained of the necessity
which a Representative was under to pay so much for “washing.” “How
often do you shift?” said the Hon. Simon Pure. “Why, of course I have
to change my linen every day,” he answered. “You do?” responded his
unabashed friend. “Why, what an awful dirty man you must be! I can
always make mine last a week.”
Among the other bedrooms there were two with their beds which had been
occupied by kings. I do not recollect any thing peculiar in their
appearance.
The ball-room, or ancient banqueting-room, was a grand hall (120 feet
long, I should think), with a good deal of interesting old furniture,
armour, relics, &c. It also contained billiard-tables, and other
conveniences for in-door exercise. A secret door, cut through the
old oak wainscot which lined its wall, admitted us to the private
apartments.
[Sidenote: _A BORDER FORTRESS._]
We peeped into a kind of broad well into which prisoners used to be
lowered like butter for safe keeping, and ascended to the battlements
of one of the towers, from which there is a very extensive and
beautiful view, extending it is said into sixteen counties. A gauzy
blue swelling on the horizon was pointed to as the _Wrekin_, a high
mountain—the highest in midland England; hence the generous old toast,
“To all around the Wrekin.” We were let out through a narrow postern,
which gave us an opportunity to see the thickness of the wall: it was
ten feet, and in some parts it was said to be sixteen,—of solid stone
and mortar. The castle was a border fortress of Wales, on the dyke
or ancient military wall between that country and England, remains
of which can be seen running each way from it. It has withstood many
sieges, the last by Cromwell, the effect of whose artillery upon it is
largely manifest within the court. A decree of the long parliament is
on record ordering it to be razed to the ground.
CHAPTER XXIX.
VISIT TO A FARM.—FARM-HOUSE AND FARMERY.—FATTING
CATTLE.—SHEEP.—VETCHES.—STOCK YARD.—STEAM THRESHING.—TURNIP
SOWING.—EXCELLENT WORK.—TRAM ROAD.—WAGES.
In the afternoon we were taken to visit a farmer who was considered
about the best in the district (Shropshire). The house was in the
middle of a farm of three hundred acres, and was approached by a narrow
lane; there were no _grounds_ but a little court-yard, with a few trees
in it, in front of the house, which was a snug, two-story, plain brick
building.
On entering, we found the farmer, a stout elderly man, sitting alone
at a dinner-table, on which were dishes of fruit and decanters. He
insisted on our joining him, and we were obliged to sit some time with
him over his wine while he talked of free-trade and questioned us how
low we could afford to send wheat from America, and how large the
supply was likely to be.
[Sidenote: _A SHROPSHIRE FARMERY._]
He then led us into the farmery, which was close by the house, the rear
door almost opening into a cattle yard. I mention this as it would be
considered extraordinary for an American gentleman who could afford
wines at his dinner, to be content with such an arrangement. There
was not the least attempt at ornament anywhere to be seen, beyond the
few trees and rose-bushes in the enclosure of a rod or two, in front
of the house: not the least regard had been had to beauty except the
beauty of fitness, but every thing was neat, useful, well ordered,
and thoroughly made of the best material—the barns, stables, and
out-buildings of hewn stone, with slated roofs, grout floors, and iron
fixtures. The cattle stables were roomy, well ventilated and drained,
their mangers of stone and iron; fastenings, sliding chains; food,
fresh-cut vetches, and the cattle standing knee deep in straw.
The fatting cattle were the finest lot I ever saw, notwithstanding
the forty finest cows that had been wintered had been sold within a
fortnight. These forty had been fattened on ruta baga and oil-cake, and
their _average_ weight was over 10 cwt., some of them weighing over 12
cwt. They were mostly short-horns. Those remaining were mostly Hereford
bullocks.
Sheep were fatting on a field of heavy vetches: Cheviots and
Leicesters, and crosses of these breeds.
The VETCH is a plant in appearance something like a dwarf pea; it is
sown in the autumn upon wheat stubble, grows very rapidly, and at this
season gives a fine supply of green food, when it is very valuable. It
requires a rich, clean soil, but grows well on clay lands. I think it
has not been found to succeed well in the United States.
In the rear of the barns was a yard half filled with very large and
beautifully made-up stacks of hay, wheat, oats, and peas. The hay was
of rye-grass, a much finer (smaller) sort than our timothy. The peas
were thatched with wheat-straw. The grain stacks were very beautiful,
several of them had stood three years, and could not be distinguished
from those made last year. The butts of the straw had been all turned
over at regular distances, those of one tier to the top of that below
it, and driven in, so the stack appeared precisely as if it had been
_served_ with straw-rope, and I supposed that it had been, until I was
told. The threshing of the farm is done by steam, the engine being in
the stack-yard, the furnace under-ground, and the smoke and sparks
being carried off by a subterranean flue to a tall chimney a hundred
yards distant. (I have seen a hundred steam-engines in stackyards
since, without this precaution, and never heard of a fire occasioned by
the practice.)
The grain on the farm had all been sowed in drills. The proprietor said
that if he could be sure of having the seed perfectly distributed,
he should prefer broad-cast sowing (i. e., as well as a first-rate
sower could distribute it in a perfectly calm day). The wheat was the
strongest we have yet seen, and of remarkably equal height, and uniform
dark colour. The ground was almost wholly free from weeds, and the
wheat was not expected to be hoed.
We found fourteen men engaged in preparing a field for turnips: opening
drills with plough, carting dung, which had been heaped up, turned,
and made fine, distributing it along the drills, ploughs covering it
immediately, and forming ridges 27 inches apart over it; after all,
a peculiar iron-roller, formed so as to fit the ridges and furrows,
followed, leaving the field precisely like a fluted collar. The ridges
were as straight as the lines of a printed page; and any inequality, to
the height of half an inch, was removed by the equal pressing of the
roller. A more perfect piece of work could not be conceived of. Seed (3
lbs. to the acre) will be sown immediately on the ridges, by a machine
opening, dropping, closing, and rolling six drills at once. The field
is thorough-drained (as is all the farm, three feet deep) and subsoil
ploughed.
[Sidenote: _FARM-ROAD.—WAGES._]
I saw no farming that pleased me better than this in all England. It
was no gentleman or school farming, but was directed by an old man, all
his life a farmer, on a leased farm, without the least thought of taste
or fancy to be gratified, but with an eye single to quick profit; with
a prejudice against “high farming,” indeed, because it is advised by
the free-traders as a remedy for low prices. He declared no money was
to be made by farming: do his best, he could not pay his rent and leave
himself a profit under the present prices. He had been holding on to
his wheat for three years in hopes of a rise, but now despaired of it,
except the protective policy was returned to.
There was a coal mine and lime-kiln on the farm, and a tram-road from
it to the railroad about two miles distant. A tram-road is a narrow
track of wooden rails, on which cars are moved by stationary power or
horses. On extensive farms they might be advantageously made use of.
A road running through the barns and out-buildings of a farmstead, on
which straw, feed, dung, &c., could be easily moved by hand, would cost
but little, and often afford a great saving of labour.
The fences were all of hawthorn, low, and close-trimmed.
The farm servants had from $65 to $75 a year and their board. (The very
next day a man told me he paid just half these sums.) Day-labourers
from $2 to $2.50 a week (fair weather) and board themselves. A boy just
over fourteen years old (under which age it is by law forbidden) told
me he worked in the coal mines for sixteen cents a day.
CHAPTER XXX.
VISIT TO TWO ENGLISH COMMON SCHOOLS.
In compliance with our desire to visit an English common school, we
were driven from the castle to a village in the vicinity, in which was
a school for boys under the guidance of the British Foreign Society,
and one for girls under the control of the National, or State Church,
Society. The school-house of the former was a simple but tasteful stone
building, standing a little one side, but not fenced off, from the
principal street, with a few large trees and a playground about it. The
interior was all in one room, except a small vestibule. It was well
lighted, the walls were plastered and whitewashed, and had mottoes,
texts of Scripture, tables, charts, &c., hung upon them; there was
no ceiling, but the rafters of the roof, which was high-peaked, were
exposed; the floor was of stone. There were long desks and benches
all around against the wall, and others, the form of which I do not
remember, filling up the most of the body. The house and furniture was
much too small and scanty for the number of scholars present, and the
labour of the teacher must have been very arduous.
[Sidenote: _COMMON SCHOOLS._]
The boys all rose as we entered, and remained standing during our
visit, a request from us that they might be seated not being regarded.
Classes in arithmetic, geography, and spelling were examined before us.
The absence of all embarrassment, and the promptness and confidence of
the scholars in replying to our questions was remarkable. In mental
arithmetic great proficiency was shown in complicate reductions of
sterling money. In geography their knowledge of America was limited
to the more important points of information, but so far as it went
was very accurate and ready. With regard to Great Britain, their
information was very minute. The boys were particularly bright,
ready-witted, and well-behaved, and surprisingly free from all
excitement or embarrassment before strangers.
The schoolmaster was also parish-clerk, and his pay from the two
offices was about $500 a year.[24] I judged that he had intended to
make teaching his business for life, and had thoroughly prepared
and accomplished himself for it. His manner to us, and two or three
incidents which it would be impossible to relate, gave me the
impression that his position in society was far from being a pleasant,
or what we should deem a proper one for a teacher.
[24] Advertisements for common-school teachers, “capable to instruct
in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of the Christian
religion,” appear in the Times, offering salaries of from $150 to $800,
with lodging and board.
The “National School” for girls was a building of more highly finished
architectural character, and had a dwelling for the schoolmistress
attached to it. The whole school was engaged in sewing when we entered,
the mistress, assisted by some of the older scholars, going from one
to another, giving instructions and examining the work. It was not
interrupted by our entrance, though the girls all rose, curtseyed, and
continued standing. There were one hundred and thirty present in a
room about twelve yards by six in area. The girls were neatly, though
exceedingly plainly, dressed, and were generally very pleasing in their
appearance. They seemed well instructed, and without the least want of
desirable modesty, showed much more presence of mind, and answered
our questions with more promptness and distinctness than any school of
girls I ever visited before.
Both schools are conducted on the Lancasterian plan.[25]
[25] I propose, in some future letter, to give a general account of the
English common schools.
APPENDIX A.
We were leaning over the gunwale, where I had been watching the
curious, nebulous-like life that was revealed in the sea-fire splashing
from the ship’s sides, and our conversation turning upon this, we
talked of a number of marine mysteries. He believed that there was a
large class of animated nature fitted to exist only in dense waters
at the depths of the ocean, and which only appeared on the surface
when in a diseased state. He had great confidence that such must be
the case, and he cited several cases, known to naturalists, where
nature has very peculiarly fitted animals and vegetables to enjoy life
under circumstances in which nothing could exist of the more ordinary
organisms. I remarked that there was a wonderful connection and fitting
together of one thing to another, through the whole of nature, as if it
were all designed together, and every part contrived with reference to
all the rest; to which he assented.
“And does not that irresistibly impress you with the idea of a
reasoning mind having constructed it for certain purposes of his own,
to which purposes all this working together must have reference?”
“Humph! Suppose it does. Say every thing must have a cause, and call
the cause of the world, God, if you like. What do they stop there for?
I want to know what’s the cause of God; what is God’s God. You see, you
must back up farther for that cause.”
“But we can take one step. Suppose we do take that, and see what we can
make of it first. There must be, or there seems likely to have been, a
constructing mind—a will—above us—”
“An imaginary something that put the world together. Well, suppose
there is.”
“That put our minds and bodies together, that made us with our own
peculiar characters and wills, distinct apparently from each other’s
and from His.”
“Well, well!—that created us. Suppose he did; what’s the good of saying
that, if you don’t know any thing more. What did he create us for?—what
is he going to make of us?—what’s the will he put into my body going
to do for him?—what did he want to make me so for, and you a different
way, and a hog in another way for? My will _is_ independent of his; I
know nothing about his will, and I have nothing to do with him. I can
talk to you, and you talk back, and I can see you, and I know you; but
him, supposing there is such a being, I know nothing about, and what’s
the use, like a fool, of talking of him by name as if I did?”
“My dear fellow, how do I know there’s such a place as Liverpool? I
never have seen it any more than I have God. From the evidence of my
senses I know nothing of it; and yet I am fool enough (if you please
to call me so) to come aboard this ship with provisions for sixty
days, calculating that in that time I shall be carried to an imaginary
something which I talk about by the name of Liverpool.”
“I reckon you will in twenty if this wind holds.”
“I think it likely, but what do I know about it?—actually nothing,
except that you and others tell me you have been there, and that the
ship will go there, and I have faith enough in your word, and the
promises of the captain, to put but here where I have never been
before, and don’t know from any thing I can see, any more than a fool,
where or what it is I am being taken to. Now, though I never saw this
being with the creating will, which we will call God, I can tell you
something more about him, not that I actually know, only I have heard—”
“Heard! heard! how?”
“Why, people tell me and I’ve read, just as I have read travellers’
accounts of Liverpool, that there was a man once that professed to know
all about it,—in fact, that he made it all himself—”
“Made it himself, a man! I thought we agreed to call the maker of it,
God.”
“Very well; out of this form of a man, for so it is described, there
expressed itself—a mind, declaring itself to be the same mind that
made the world; and that it had entered that form that it might tell
us in the language, not only of the lips and tongue and breath, but in
all the language of all the members in all the actions of a man, what
he thought it desirable for us to know about him,—the God; about his
purposes in creating the world and us, and what now he wanted of us.
Something of this he said in words, Hebrew words, which some of the
people translated into Greek, and they have been again turned into
English, and in this way I have read considerable of it; but more he
told in the actions of the life of that man. If a stranger comes to me,
and says that he loves me, I don’t well know what he means, for there’s
all sorts of love, and some of it not worth many thanks. I should be
still more uncertain if he spake in the Chinese tongue, and it had to
be carried through Portuguese into English; but if I had been detected
in some disgraceful crime, and every body scorned and hissed at me,
and a man should come, alone of all a crowd, and lift me out of the
dust where I lay in expectation of death, and cheer me with hopeful
and encouraging words, I should not need to be told that he loved me,
to be grateful to him; and if you were an Indian, and it was told to
you in Choctaw, you’d understand it exactly as I would, and have no
mistake and no doubt about what he meant. Now supposing the great power
and wisdom that contrived and executed this world, and all we know of
material things, was showing itself in that man that so pretended,
and we have a reliable account of the way he lived, we can infer what
at least is the general character and tendency of his motives and
purposes, and judge pretty well what he wants of us.”
“But is it not altogether more likely a man making such pretensions,
was an impostor?”
“We must judge of that too by his character as displayed otherwise than
in professions. Now what do we find? An earnest, serious man, seemingly
living only to do and be good; subduing extraordinary temptations of
passion and ambition; helping and healing the sick, and the crippled,
and the outcast, in season and out of season; speaking his mind truly
and freely, no matter who he hits; persevering in what he thinks is
right, and just, and merciful, though it is disreputable and directly
in the teeth of the prevailing standard of morals; sticking to it,
though he is misunderstood, reproached, and forsaken for it, as a
wilful, stubborn fanatic, by his friends, and it destroys his influence
over all the respectable part of the community.”
“Good for him, by jingo! They didn’t _excommunicate_ him, did they? If
it had been in the United States or in England, they would have said he
was damned, body and soul, past recovery, and utterly unworthy of the
means of grace!”
“They said the devil was in him and turned him out of the synagogue,
which is much the same, I take it.”
“Right—I never thought of that; he must have been a true honest man.”
“Just such a man as you would like to be yourself Mr. C., only a
great deal more so—a thorough-going brave man of the people, an
out-and-out democrat, fraternizing with the very lowest classes, and
seeing and trying all sorts of life. More than that, sir, he could
endure misrepresentation and the ingratitude and unfaithfulness of
friends without impatience; and finally, to realize his purpose more
effectually, he could suffer without wavering the severest mental
and bodily agony, and at length could die, without the least stain
of inconsistency on his noble, manly character, not as you might be
willing to on the barricades, but alone, and by slow process of law.”
“All right, sir, and a true man, call him what you will.”
“A true man, sir, and no time-server, and now, what taught he? That
goodness, truth, and love, and happiness are one and inseparable.
Further, that all the good in the universe is a commonwealth (kingdom
of God), and that one’s enjoyment of it cannot be separate from
another’s. He always seemed to think every body else’s good just as
much his business as his own, and taught his followers to find their
happiness in that of others; always to do that for others which they
would have done for themselves.”
“And that’s just what they don’t do.”
“They don’t pretend they do, but they believe it’s the right plan, and
they wish to and try to, and they say he never did any other way. His
whole life, as it is described to us, does seem to be in accordance
with the idea, and if no other man’s ever was, so much the better for
him. Perfect love always guiding him, entire annihilation of self,
selfish purpose all merged in desire for the general good of mankind.”
“A very nice model of a man, no doubt, _if_——one must believe the
story; but you see I don’t.” Here he went off into a long and laboured
attack upon the Bible as being called an infallible guide, and upon
the theory of plenary inspiration. If it teaches one thousand men one
doctrine, and one thousand other men, of an average equal capacity,
directly the opposite doctrine, he would like to know what it
infallibly guided to—and so on: some few of his points being fair and
reasonable, some of them utterly absurd, and the greater part of his
argument mere narrow-minded cavilling and play upon words. I attempted
very little reply, as it was evident he was perfectly at home on the
subject, and would sail tack for tack with me all night, if he lost
confidence in his opinions on one gaining more on another. At length
he fell into a fierce tirade upon the character of the Apostles. He
thought them cunning, selfish plotters, “the same as their descendants,
our reverend aristocrats, that cannot find any better way of living
than by pulling wool over the poor workies’ eyes, while they draw fat
salaries from their pockets.”
“A nice, lazy, comfortable sort of life they seem to have had of it,
don’t they?” I answered. “A jolly life, to be sure, loafing about
with their fat salaries. You remember what Dr. Paul’s was: ‘Of the
Jews five times forty stripes save one, thrice beaten with rods, once
stoned, shipwrecked, &c., weariness, painfulness, &c., &c.’—So runs his
receipt! very _fat_, all that, isn’t it? Now, are you not ashamed of
yourself? Talk about ‘aristocratic parsons!’ Every one of them started
a working man—not one even of the _bourgeoisie_ among them, unless it
was that same Paul, and he had his trade, and worked honestly at it
to pay his travelling expenses. You call them aristocratic. What do
you mean! Why, sir, they were democratic socialists, and the worst
sort, ‘having all things in common,’ the record of their acts says.
And they seem to have had a sufficiently generous spirit to make the
idea _work_, while all your modern communists only make themselves
ridiculous whenever they attempt it.”
He laughed aloud, and said that he wouldn’t say another word against
the Apostles, if I would admit that they were socialists. They
certainly were not aristocrats. “But,” he complained, “that does not
make them infallible guides, by a long shot. I want you to answer my
arguments against the infallibility of the Bible, if you can.”
“I don’t wish to,” I said; “it is not at all necessary. Suppose
you can detect a few inconsistencies, misquotations, and puzzling
expressions in the New Testament. The books have come a long journey
between them and us, and have passed through various hands. Wouldn’t
it be strange if there were not some things knocked out of them and
a few tacked on? You know there are three biographies of Christ,
written by different persons, among whom you cannot find any evidence
of conspiracy or collusion, while there is much to the contrary. Yet
are they not consistent in every essential particular? I think they
are; and I am convinced the writers meant to give an honest, fair,
and correct account of what _He_ said and did within their personal
knowledge. Now, when they report, as each of them frequently do, that
he took upon himself the authority and omniscience proper only to God,
in instructing and governing them; when they make him declare that in
that life of his flesh was the Spirit of God manifest, they must have
so understood him. He probably meant them to, and as he was a wise,
good, and true man, we can have reasonable faith that, in some fair and
honest understanding of the words, it was so. What if there is room for
some difference of opinion, as to the _precise_ meaning of language, so
written in a narrative, two or three times translated, and that through
heathen tongues, and God only knows how many times copied by humanly
imperfect hands. I am willing you should understand it as seems, on
the whole and in sincerity, most natural to you. I say that I do not
believe it will make any very essential difference in your idea of
God, but that you will still see him, through Christ, a God of eternal
Truth, Justice, Love—a Father worthy of your deepest reverence and
affection.”
“Suppose I did; and when you’ve done and said all, what good is it? But
I tell you, you don’t convince me of the inspiration of the Bible.”
“I don’t now undertake to convince you of it. If it does not appear
evident to you on the face of it that it is an inspired production, I
don’t think I can bring you to it by argument. All I ask of you now
is to look upon those three men, Matthew, Luke, and John, simply as
honest biographers. Suppose Hume, Gibbon, or Jared Sparks had described
such a character, made such a character to appear in the life of some
historical personage with regard to whom they had had facilities to be
particularly well informed, would you not respect, honor, love—yes, and
worship—”
“No, no! I’d worship nothing human.”
“But you would worship divine qualities, and, so far as these go to
make up the character of a man, you would worship them in him—”
“Yes, the divine qualities, not the human.”
“Not the human—purely human; nobody asks you to. But here is a man who,
in all his actions for thirty years, you cannot suppose to have been
governed by any motives inconsistent with justice, magnanimity, and
benevolence. His life is described with a good deal of minute detail,
but you cannot find that he ever said, or thought, or did a single
mean, unmanly, ungentlemanly thing. A man who avoided kingly honors;
who did not labor for riches; who neither sought nor avoided the
luxuries of life; who endured to be forsaken of his friends; who put
up with contempt, reproach, and ridicule; who was always going about
doing good, without either ostentation or secrecy—a man so great and
true, as he appears among the pettifogging saints of the day, in the
case of the adulterous woman, or at the picking of corn on the Sabbath,
or in his ideas of morality as brought out in his sermon on the mount,
so simple, so grand, so truly divine—do you think, can you think—that
such a man would be mean enough and wicked enough to declare a most
monstrous falsehood, and stick to it all his life, suffer all sorts of
shame, and finally die ignominiously rather than give it up? No, sir;
that man was no impostor!... Nor is there any thing that looks like
the fanatic or crazy man about him either. Yet he plainly thought, and
had some good reason for thinking, that in all his peculiar character
he was exhibiting the peculiar qualities of God. And were not those
qualities such as are consistent with the highest wisdom that we can
conceive of? And what _good_, you were asking, does it do us to believe
in them? If you had never seen your father, but your elder brother
should say: ‘Father is like me in all that you like in me, in all that
you love me for’—you would not need to see your father face to face,
but would love him, and would lovingly respond to his will, and when he
sent for you to come home, you would look forward to meeting him, not
with dread, but with a joyful trust. If you can have as much faith in
the word of that noble man as I have in yours and the captain’s about
this ship’s going towards Liverpool, you will love and worship him, and
strive to be like him.”
“Christ said he _was_ God, which is nonsense, and I don’t swallow it.”
“Look here! When I tell you that I am a man, what do I mean? A man
has two legs, two arms, and two eyes; suppose I had but one leg, one
arm, and one eye, would it be nonsense to call me a man? Or suppose
that I had twelve fingers instead of ten, or my body all covered with
hair, would it be nonsense to call me a man because I had more than
the ordinary qualities of a man? I might call myself a hirsute, but I
should still be a man.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Why, I mean that because Jesus Christ asserted himself to be God it
does not follow that he asserted himself nothing but God, or even that
he exhibited the whole of God, but that he spoke in the name of God,
with the authority of God, that the word of God was spoken in him. It
is absurd for us, and evidently was never intended that we should, take
the exact weight and measure of the words of his familiar conversation,
and reduce it to the English standard, from the simple narratives of
Hebrews writing in the Greek tongue. You can understand it so as to
make it nonsense if you are determined to, but that’s your nonsense and
not Christ’s. There is plenty of room to fight over it if you like,
but was that what it was intended for? You may understand it somewhat
differently from me, but _practically_, if you believe it at all, will
the difference in our understanding of it make an essential difference
in our lives? I believe that Channing and Calvin, standing at two
opposite theoretical extremes with regard to this, both showed in their
characters the influence of a common faith in the divinity of Christ.”
“You do? You don’t suppose Channing believed in the divinity of Christ?
You ought to know better than that.”
“He might not express his belief in that way, because that mind had
got to be employed technically to denote a different view from his,
but plainly it was the God revealed in Christ to whose service he gave
his life. You must remember that language is a human and exceedingly
imperfect and inefficient means of conveying thought. Neither Calvin
nor Channing believed that in Christ was the whole of God concentrated
and made manifest to us, or that God was and could be revealed to us in
no other way; but both believed that in Christ God was speaking, that
in Christ’s life, far more truly and distinctly than in any other, was
uttered the true and eternal and soul-saving word of God. ‘In truth, in
love, in all that deserves your love, your gratitude, your adoration,
and whole-hearted devotion, I AM.’”
We were both silent for a few moments, and then he laughed.
“What’s the matter?” said I.
“I am afraid you are getting into the bond of iniquity; don’t you know
that’s very dangerous the way you talk. ’Tisn’t orthodox by a long
shot.”
“I’ve no particular passion for being called orthodox,” I replied.
“You haven’t, eh? What is your religion then?”
“That of Christ, I wish it to be.”
“No, but what do you believe in?”
“The God revealed in Christ.”
“Pshaw! What sect—what church do you run with?”
“None of your business—that is, the question’s not in order.”
“But, good heavens, man! I want to know what you pretend to believe.
What do you want to have me believe? Was he very God of very God, all
God and all man, or only half God and half man, or a whole man and no
God, only an extra-inspired prophet, or what? There’s no use talking
with you till I know where you stand.”
“What do you want to bother with such nonsense for? Christians
themselves don’t agree about those matters. I won’t answer you. You
admitted that you had seen enough in the ordinary works of God to
impress you with the belief of a designing wisdom above us, and you
asked me how any one could know any more than that. Now I tell you:
Look to Christ, his most perfect work. Believe, if you like, that in
him—his life—God is manifest only in the same way that he is in all
the works of his hand, as you would be in yours, as Powers is in the
Greek Slave, and Bell and Brown are in this ship, only he must be
peculiarly manifest in man (created in his image), and most distinctly
and obviously manifest in the man most perfect and altogether lovely,
the express image of his person. Mustn’t he? Take him as a sheer man,
if you will, not even a prophet, simply a wise man—the wisest and best
man. Must not his pure heart, his self-forgetful spirit, his wisdom who
spake as never man else spake, have attained to the best and truest
idea of God? Must not that be, in the first place, the most reasonable
relation for us to assume towards God—that in which he placed himself—a
son to a loving, personally-interested father—a Father whose almighty
power moves only in love? If that’s the utmost you can make out of
the life of Christ, why, take that; don’t lose so much good of it
because others can take more. But if you can take more than that, and
it’s better for you to call him—what is it you say? ‘very God of very
God?’—not merely seen as manifested in the man Christ, but peculiarly,
indescribably, incomprehensibly, and contradictorily both God and man
and neither man or God—have it so, and welcome. Describe him in Latin,
or Hebrew-Greek, if you like it better than plain English. It may seem
one thing in the dim, religious light of worship, and another in the
flickering lamplight of study, but you will find both the same in the
clear daylight of life. After all, it is the Word that is wanted, and
not the image through which it is spoken. Look at Christ in whatever
way you can read that Word with the most faith. I care not in what
language you receive it, so you can translate it into love, joy, faith,
long-suffering, goodness, peace, meekness, and temperance (the fruits
of the Spirit).” He was laughing again and I asked, “What is there
ridiculous about this, Mr. C.?”
“Why, I don’t know as there’s any thing—don’t know as I can object to
it, only—eh, ha! ha!”
“Only what?”
“Don’t you think if your minister heard you talking so, he’d
be—rather—hauling you over the coals, eh?”
“My minister! What under the sun has my minister got to do with it? I
am not a Roman Catholic.”
“What the devil are you, any how?”
“I’ve told you.”
“Well, you arn’t what I call a Christian. What do you call me an
infidel for?”
“I never called you an infidel; infidel means unfaithful. God only
knows whether you are unfaithful to your light or not. That’s none of
_my_ business.”
“Well, but now do you believe in fore-ordination and total depravity?
Do you hold to salvation by grace?”
“I believe, certainly, that if a man is not saved it is because, as
Christ said, he ‘_would not_.’ I believe that every man shall be judged
according to his works, and so did Christ—”
“Ah, then you don’t go those doctrines. Now—”
“I don’t want to discuss them with you.”
“Why, you can’t believe them—it’s inconsistent.”
“I don’t much think it is, but if it was—”
“What’s that striking—eight bells? I declare it’s twelve o’clock.”
“Wait a bit, let me tell you a story, and then we will turn in. I
once fell in with an old Quaker. He was the first one I ever met to
converse with: a simple-hearted, honest man, and I was glad of a chance
to talk with him about his society. He finally spoke of some of their
doctrines, and defended them in a sensible, manly way that I liked.
He took up a Bible and showed me how some idea of his that I doubted
about was sustained in it. I turned over a leaf or two further, and
showed him another passage that I thought pretty flatly opposed his
understanding of the verse he had brought as proof, and said, ‘What
do you make of that?’ He looked at it a moment, read each side of it,
didn’t say any thing, shook his head, and sighed, and I began to feel
ashamed of myself for troubling him with it. At length his face lighted
up, and he turned to me with a beautiful smile and said softly, ‘I can
see the truth the Lord testified to in the verse I showed thee, but for
this I have not yet sight enough. If thee cannot yet see the truth that
cometh to me from the verse I showed thee, wilt thee not be content to
also wait for thy light?’ Now, Mr. C., I advise you to take what truth
you can find; and if other people profess to believe what seems to you
absurdities, don’t be so sorry for them as not to let them enjoy the
benefit of what light they have got; don’t yourself be so foolish as
to shut your eyes to what of God’s word is plainly enough set before
you in Christ, because you have not turned over the next page and
can’t see through the whole book at once. I don’t want you to try to
force upon yourself any belief that is unnatural, and which honestly
appears illogical to you. No kind of heresy is so bad as hypocrisy.
I think those Christians were exceedingly wrong that felt that the
sacredness and chief power of their religion consisted so much in the
doctrines which they had agreed together to stand by, that they must
summarily exclude you from their fellowship when you began to question
the soundness of them. On the other hand, I must tell you that I think
you are equally wrong to hold them and their opinions in contempt, and
to have such entire confidence, as you seem to, that you are yourself
right. The fact that so many men differ with you, whom you cannot help
respecting as having equal powers of mind and equally good spirit with
yourself, should at least make you hold your opinions with humility.”
“Well! Now let’s go and see them heave the log. She’s going a bit
faster; the fog isn’t so thick as ’twas either. Hallo! there’s that old
Irishwoman again. She always gets in behind the harness cask to say her
prayers. You will hear her muttering there for two or three hours every
night.”
“She must have strong faith.”
“Faith in the devil! Fear and ignorance, I call it. She’s a good old
thing though, I must say. She takes care of that sick woman’s child as
if it were her own; and last night she asked the doctor to let her darn
his stockings, and he did, the conceited old dandy.”
“She has a good deal of true religion, then, for all her ignorance and
fear.”
“Then it’s true religion to believe in the Pope and the Virgin Mary!”
“Oh no! oh no! ‘True religion before God is this: to visit the widows
and fatherless in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted in
the world.’ Yet it may be worth your while, Mr. C., to consider whether
she would have been as likely to pity that sick mother, and take care
of her child, if she hadn’t been in the habit of praying in this way
every night, although in her ignorance she addresses the mother of
Christ instead of the Father. Good-night.”
APPENDIX B.
The chapter on the disposition of the people of England towards the
United States was written before, and not in anticipation of the
coming of Kossuth to this country. The general discussion of the
subject which that event has occasioned makes it proper for me to
mention this. Opinions opposing the views I have presented having
been expressed by several persons in honorable positions, for one at
least of whom I entertain the highest respect, I wish to repeat that,
during five months that I travelled in Great Britain, in almost every
day of which time I heard the United States talked about with every
appearance of candor and honesty, I do not recollect ever to have heard
any expression of hostile feeling (except from a few physical-force
Chartists, with regard to slavery) towards our government or our
people, and only from a few stanch church-and-state men against our
principles of government. Perhaps the highest eulogy on Washington
ever put in words was written by Lord Brougham. The Duke of Wellington
lately took part in a banquet in honour of American independence. I
myself attended a Fourth-of-July dinner in an old palace of George
III., and saw there a member of Parliament, and other distinguished
Englishmen, drink to the memory of Washington, and in honour of the
day. Having observed that Mr. Howard was threatened with a mob, for
keeping an English ensign flying from a corner of the Irving House, I
will add that I more than once saw the American ensign so displayed in
England, without exciting remark; and I know one gentleman living in
the country who regularly sets it over his house on the Fourth of July,
and salutes it with gun-firing and festivities, so that the day is well
known, and kindly regarded by all his neighbours, as “the American
holiday.”
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