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^^l i' FOUR MONTHS - /^^ 
 
 IN 
 
 NOETH AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY CHARLTON. 
 
 HEXHAM : 
 PRINTED AT THE COURANT OFFICE, BY J. CATHERALL A^^D CO. 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 The greater part of the following pages 
 originally appeared in five letters, addressed 
 to the Hexham Courayit newspaper, during my 
 stay last winter in America. The whole has 
 since been re-written, with many alterations and 
 additions. Having, from my boyhood, taken a 
 keen interest in all that regarded the North 
 American Continent, and especially the great 
 Republic within its limits, I may, perhaps, 
 without vanity, believe that when, at a period 
 beyond that of middle age, I approached its 
 shores on a first, and probably a last visit, I had 
 more knowledge of it than the majority of my 
 fellow-countrymen. 
 
 I have endeavoured to tell honestly what I 
 saw and heard> without seeking to flatter any 
 of the prejudices, social or political, which may 
 be found on either side of the Atlantic. 
 
 W. H. CHARLTON. 
 
 Heslejside, Nortlmmberland, 
 
 November, 1873. 
 
 280050 
 
.«*■ > 
 
I. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon of Saturday, the 
 28th of September, 1872, tliat our party of 
 three persons embarked at Liverpool, in the 
 Cunard Steamer "Russia," for New Yoik. 
 The weather, true to its almost continuous 
 character for nine months previously, was 
 rainy and stormy, and I believe the " Russia " 
 was the only vessel which left the Mersey 
 that evening. After a rough night the wind 
 moderated, and at daybreak the coast of Ire- 
 land was visible. At 4 p.m. on Sunday, 
 we lay-to off Queenstown to receive the 
 mails, when we had an opportunity of admiring 
 the fine harbour, and also of realising, through 
 an opera-glass, the unpleasant fact that nearly 
 all the corn appeared to be still in the fields, 
 and that much of it was even uncut. It was 
 late that night before we lost sight of the last 
 Irish lighthouse, near Cape Clear, and on the 
 following morning the '* Russia " was making 
 her way against a head wind, across the waters 
 of the broad Atlantic. We had nearly 200 
 .^ passengers on board (none in the steerage), and 
 
 '/■■ 
 
our party at the captain's table was a decidedly 
 agreeable one, including, as it did, a learned 
 professor, well known for his rambles amongst 
 the Alps ; a celebrated historian, who some 
 years since propounded a new and startling 
 view of the character of our King Henry 
 VIIL, and who has subsequently given a 
 series of lectures in New York, Boston, &c., 
 with the view of enlightening the citizens of 
 the United States as to the true state of the 
 relations between Great Britain and Ireland ; 
 and lastly a Scottish nobleman, well known as 
 a good sportsman and a fearless rider, but who 
 was now bound for Colorado, nearly 2000 
 miles in the interior of the North American 
 Continent, to. ascertain from personal observa- 
 tion, the truth respecting certain gold mines, 
 for the working of which a company had lately 
 been formed in Loudon.* 
 
 The weather, though not absolutely stormy, 
 was such as to confine the greater part of the 
 passengers, nine-tenths of whom were Ameri- 
 cans, to their berths till the following Sunday, 
 when daylight showed us the coast of New- 
 
 * Note.— There will probably bo no indiscretion in mention- 
 ing in connection with the above para^rapli, the h. iiies of 
 Professor Tyndall, Mr. James Anthony Froude, aud the 
 Marquis of Qncensbeiry, 
 
 
 U 
 
fouiidlautl, which we were told is uot ofteu to 
 be seeu ou account of the fogs which prevail 
 oil the banks, and of which we had experienced 
 a slight specimen for some hours ou the pre- 
 vious day. We saw no ice during the voyage, 
 but I believe it is very uncommon at this 
 season ; the same thing, however, took place 
 on our return voyage to Europe in February, 
 but at that time our course was along a lower 
 latitude than that followed by the " Russia." 
 
 The outline of Newfoundland struck me 
 as strongly resembling that of the Irish coast 
 we had last seeu. The weather was very 
 clear, the sea had moderated, and uU things 
 looked more cheerful ou board. On the 
 succeeding Monday and Tuesday we again lost 
 sight of land, but early on Wednesday morning 
 the highlands of New Jersey were in sight, 
 and the decks were soon crovvdel with excited 
 Americans, eager to point out to the stranger 
 the beauties of their native luud. These said 
 highlands are nothing more than a ridge of 
 hills 300 or 400 feet in height, and mostly 
 covered with wood, some of the trees of which 
 already exhibited the brilliant hues of an 
 ^ American autumn. The entrance to New 
 
 1 
 
York Bay remiiidcd mc a ^ooti deal of the Isle 
 of Wight and Southamptou water. We were 
 detained more than an hour off Staten Island 
 (which is pretty, and covered with villas), 
 by quarantine regulations, and finally reached 
 our dock in Jersey City, on the west side of 
 the Hudson or North River, about 11 a.m., 
 where I had the pleasure of being welcomed 
 by my son, and the amusement of being a 
 witness to the " interviewing " of our professor 
 and our historian in the national style, which has 
 been fully and accurately described by Dickens 
 in his " American Notes." The result of this 
 " interviewing '' was, of course, a minute 
 personal description of the above two eminent 
 individuals in the New york Herald of next 
 morning ! 
 
 The docks of Jersey City and New York 
 are disgracefully bad, and form a striking 
 contrast to those of Liverpool. After passing 
 our baggage through the Custom House, a 
 rather tedious operation, as Protectionist duties 
 are stringent enough in this so-called " land of 
 liberty," we drove into the steam-ferry, which 
 is in reality a flying bridge, and were speedily 
 across the Hudson, and deposited at the 
 
 u 
 
 IS 
 
5 
 
 «'• 
 
 4N 
 
 Brevoort House iu Fifth Aveuue, a large hotel 
 couducted iu what is here termed the European 
 style ; the usual plan iu America beiug for 
 each guest to pay a fixed sum daily for his 
 board aud lodging, and this whether he takes 
 his meals iu the house or not. The Brevoort 
 House, though very expensive, enjoys deser- 
 vedly the reputation of having the best cuisine 
 in the United States, and is, moreover, much 
 quieter than most of the great hotels in the 
 city. 
 
 New York has been called the most 
 American city in the United States. I can 
 only say, that one moment I was reminded of 
 England, and in the next of France. The 
 private houses are, however, almost all built 
 in the English style, with the differences 
 of the front door being reached from the 
 street by a flight of eight or ten steps, aud 
 that of the drawing and dining rooms being 
 almost invariably on the ground floor, and open- 
 ing into one another. 
 
 The afternoon being fine, we took a drive 
 round the Central Park, a space of about one 
 thousand acres, in what will probably, by the 
 end of this century, be the middle of the city of 
 
i' 
 
 6 
 
 New York. The park has been laid out with 
 great skill in landscape gardening, the artist 
 having ably availed himself of the natural rock 
 which comes frequently to the surface, and 
 created one or two beautiful sheets of water. 
 The trees, from not having been planted more 
 than twenty years, are still rather small ; but ^ 
 
 the park is kept in admirable order, and inter- 
 sected by excellent roads and walks, while the 
 roadway of most of the streets of New York, 
 and indeed of most of the American and Cana- 
 dian cities that I have seen, is execrable and 
 filthy. I could not help remarking the light- 
 ness and elegance of the American carriages of 
 all descriptions, and cannot understand why we - 
 in England have never adopted a style of car- 
 riage building, w' ich seems to be as strong as 
 ours, and would certainly be the saving of a 
 great deal of useless labour to our horses. After 
 a stay of two days in New York, and having 
 experienced a specimen of its climate, the 
 thermometer having fallen nearly thirty degrees 
 in the space of four or five hours, and the ' ^ 
 
 weather having become bitterly cold, we in- 
 tended to avail ourselves of the steamer to as- 
 cend the Hudson for one hundred miles, to the 
 
 j» 
 
,,ji !»»» 'j-r- 
 
 ;■ 'I ' 
 
 ^ 
 
 «^ 
 
 residence of Mr. L , whose hospitable invita- 
 tion to pass a few days with him we had ac- 
 cepted. To our great surprise, however, we 
 found that the steamer had made its last trip 
 for the season on the previous day, October 
 10th, so that nothing was left but to take the 
 railroad, which follows the east bank of the 
 
 riverpretty closely all the way. Mr L kindly 
 
 accompanied us, and pointed out the many ob- 
 jects of interest, both historical and picturesque, 
 through which we travelled. It is difficult to speak 
 in too high terms of the beauties of the majestic 
 Hudson. Some idea of it may be formed if 
 we could imagine our Lake of Windermere to 
 be one hundred miles long, and bordered at two 
 or three points by higher mountains than 
 those it possesses ; these American mountains 
 being generally covered with wood to their very 
 tops. The Hudson, up to Albany, one hun- 
 dred and fifty miles from New York, varies 
 from four miles to one in width, is generally 
 deep, and enlivened by the white sails of the 
 most graceful craft I ever saw. At about 
 forty miles from New York we passed the cele- 
 brated military academy of West Point, which 
 is on the west side of the river, and is reached 
 
8 
 
 by a ferry. Tlie situation is so grauJ and 
 
 beautiful that I could not help agreeing with 
 
 Mr Anthony Trollope in thinking it a pity that 
 
 it should be monopolized by a military school 
 
 and a temperance hotel. At Tivoli depot (pro- ^ 
 
 nounced " deepo," such being the name given 
 
 to all railway stations in the States and f 
 
 Canada), we left the train and soon reached the 
 
 house of Mr L , which is beautifully 
 
 situated some hundred feet above the river, 
 and nearly opposite the noble Catskill moun- 
 tains, the locality in which Washington Irving 
 has placed his well-known story of Rip Van 
 Winkle. 
 
 When I say that our reception was of the 
 most cordial and hospitable description, I need 
 only add that our host and his charming family 
 were Americans, and among the few remain- 
 ing representatives of the old landed aristocracy 
 of the State of New York. 
 
 The woods here were in all their autumnal 
 beauty, which was astonishing to our European 
 eyes, though we were told that the abundance 
 of rain, and the absence of frost, had rendered 
 the colours of the "Fall" less bright than 
 usual. But, however that may have been, such 
 
 «l 
 
i 
 
 f 
 
 ^ 
 
 deep scarlet, bright orange, rich brown, bronze, 
 &c., among the fadiug leaves I never saw be- 
 fore. It was rather strange, however, to hear 
 our kind friends, who were living in the lati- 
 tude of Southern Italy, talking at this season, of 
 nightly fros<^^s, and anticipating the possible 
 speedy destruction of their heliotropes and 
 dahlias ! On October 16th, we took a regretful 
 leave of Mr L and his family, and pro- 
 ceeded by train, via Albany, to Niagara Falls, 
 a village on the American side of the mighty 
 cataract. 
 
 Our route lay at first, as before, on the left 
 bank of the Hudson, till we reached Albany, 
 a rather quaint-looking town, and the capital 
 of the JState of New York. Here we crossed the 
 river by a long bridge, and entered the valley of 
 the Mohawk, some parts of which strongly re- 
 minded my fellow-travellers and myself of the 
 Tyne in the neighbourhood of Hexham. The 
 nomenclature of stations on the line was most 
 amusing, " Rome," " Utica," and '' Syracuse," 
 being mixed up with " Oneida," " Onondaga," 
 and *• Chittenango," the last three being 
 names of Indian origin. The Erie 
 Canal, made about fifty years ago, before the 
 
01 
 
 10 
 
 clays of railroads, autl remarkable as the first 
 attempt to place the vast districts around the 
 Great Lakes in easy communication with the 
 Eastern States of the Union, was visible for 
 many miles on our left, on the opposite bank of 
 the Mohawk river. 
 
 After a rather tedious journey of three 
 hundred and fifty miles in fourteen hours, which 
 is, I believe, rather above the average rate of 
 speed of an American express train, we reached 
 Cataract House, and rushed down to see the 
 rapids, by the light of a moon as bright as that 
 of Italy. It was a glorious sight, and only less 
 impressive than that of the great Falls them- 
 selves, which we thoroughly inspected on the 
 following day, when we drove along the banks 
 of the Niagara river as far as the whirlpool, 
 then returned and crossed the suspension bridge 
 to Clifton House on the Canada side, went be- 
 hind the Horse Shoe Fall to Termination Rock, 
 (an adventure unattended by any danger except 
 that of a wetting, against which you are pro- 
 tected by a waterproof suit) ; and finally 
 rambled about the beautiful Goat Island, a 
 visit to which is really worth the 50 cents — 2s. 
 per head — which is demanded at the bridge, 
 
(t« 
 
 11 
 
 built across the rapids, and connecting the 
 island with the village of the Falls. On the 
 following morning, the 17th, my son left us to 
 return to his duties at Washington, and we 
 took the railway to Lewiston, near the mouth 
 of the Niagara river, and opposite to Queens- 
 town, where, in the war of sixty years since, 
 General Brock inflicted a crushing defeat upon 
 the Americans who had invaded Canada at that 
 point. Brock himself fell in the battle, but the 
 whole American army which had crossed the 
 river (for incredible as it may seem, the New 
 York Militia refused to do so, on the plea that 
 they were not bound to serve out of their 
 State ! ! )* were forced to surrender as prisoners 
 of war. Brock's second monument, the first 
 having been blown up by a contemptible 
 scoundrel in 1840, rises in the shape of a tall 
 and handsome column on the heights, and maybe 
 seen from a distance of many miles. 
 
 At Lewiston, we found the steamer, 
 which soon took us out of the river into 
 Lake Ontario, which we crossed to Toronto, 
 (forty-two miles), arriving in a truly 
 
 * NOTE.— Soe LoFsing's History of tlie War of 1812. The 
 author, an American, makes some severe remarks on the 
 •* cowardice" of the militia on this occasion. ^* -: 
 
12 
 
 British rain and fog, but having the good 
 fortune to find there the Governor-General of 
 The Donainiou, the Earl of DufFerin, and his 
 Countess, to each of whom we had letters of in- 
 troduction, and to whom we were indebted for a 
 very pleasant evening on the day of our arrival. 
 Lord and Lady I >ufFerin are deservedly popular 
 throughout Canada, and are, in every respect, 
 representatives of his country of whom au 
 Englishman may feel proud. 
 
 II. 
 
 Toronto, the capital of the Province of On- 
 tario, in the Dominion of Canada, is a large 
 and thriving place, built in the ""ual American 
 style, with wide, ill-kept streets, crossing each 
 other at right angles, and planted at the sides 
 with trees. The town stands upon what is 
 nearly a dead flat, for it is not on the shores of 
 the great lakes of North America, that we 
 must look for picturesque scenery ; and except 
 a cathedral and a university it seems to have 
 no public buildings of importance. A large 
 proportion of the inhabtiauts are of Scotch and 
 
 m 
 
i\ 
 
 13 
 
 Xordiorn Irish birth or extraction, aiul the 
 Province of Ontario has, I believe, but few 
 French Canadians, and still fewer Germans 
 witk'n its limits. Settlers of the latter nation 
 abound, as is well known, in many parts of the 
 United States, and are said to number up- 
 wards of three hundred thousand in the city of 
 New York alone. The wages of a working 
 man are considerably lower in the Province of 
 Ontario than in the adjoining State of New 
 York, where a man will get three-and-a-half 
 dollars per day, against two dollars on the 
 Canadian side. 
 
 As Canada, however, does not possess a de- 
 preciated paper currency, and the cost of 
 lodging, clothing, and food is greater on the 
 United States side, this will probably reduce 
 the difference to one-fourth in favour of wages 
 in the States, but this is quite sufficient to 
 cause a large drain of able-bodied labour from 
 Canada into the neighbouring Republic. 
 
 We left Toronto on the evening of October 
 1 8th, and not being able to procure places in a 
 Pullman sleeping-car, passed a rather uncom- 
 fortable night, for the ordinary American rail- 
 way cars, though arranged on a different plan, 
 
14 
 
 are scam^ly superior iu comfort to secoud-class 
 eurringes iu Eiigiaud. 
 
 Had it beeu earlier in the seasou, we should 
 have much preferred taking the steamer, and 
 enjoying the excitement of descending the 
 rapids, and navigating among " the thousand 
 islands" of the St. Lawrence. Shortly before 
 reaching Montreal, and after thirteen or four- 
 teen hours jolting along that roughest of rail- 
 ways, the Grand Trunk of Canada, we crossed 
 the main branch of the Ottawa river. Nothing 
 can give an Englishman a better idea of the 
 great rivers of North America than this junc- 
 tion of the Ottawa with the St. Lawrence, each 
 of these gigantic streams being here miles in 
 width, and this at a distance of more than seven 
 hundred miles from the sea! Montreal is a 
 well-built and flourishing city of one hundred 
 and fifty thousand inhabitants, nearly two thirds 
 of whom are French Canadians. The moun- 
 tain from which the town derives its name, is 
 an abrupt and thickly-wooded hill, on the slope 
 of which are some handsome private villas, and 
 near the summit is a cemetery. The naviga- 
 tion of the St. Lawrence for ocean steamers 
 ends here, on account of the rapids between 
 
15 
 
 i 
 
 
 Montreal mid Kingston. Between Montreal 
 and Quebec, the chief obstacle is the shallow- 
 ness of the Lake of St. Peter, where the river 
 spreads out to a great breadth. After spend- 
 ing three or four days very pleasantly at Mon- 
 treal, and enjoying the kindness and hospitality 
 of the brother of one of our Northumbrian 
 baronets, we embarked for Quebec on the even- 
 ing of Oct. 21st. 
 
 The American steamers are vastly superior, 
 both in size and comfort, to anything we 
 possess for river navigation in England, and I 
 can only wonder why similar steamboats have 
 never been introduced upon our largei rivers, 
 such as the Thames and the Clyde, where it 
 seems to me they would answer perfectly well. 
 
 Early next morning we were at the landing 
 place at Quebec, and I could have imagined 
 myself transported during the night across the 
 Atlantic, and set down in some old provincial 
 town in the west of France. The steep, nar- 
 row, crooked, and dirty streets ; the houses, 
 the churches, the people — all were mojo or 
 less French. 
 
 Three-fourths of the people of Quebec 
 speak French as their native tongue, though 
 
16 
 
 many of them can also cxprcsR lliomselvos well 
 in English, hut in the surrounding villages, I 
 believe, very little English is even understood*. 
 
 On the day of our arrival we drove to the 
 Falls of Montmorency, eight miles over a 
 capital turnpike road, which formed an agree- 
 able contrast to the mud and holes of the streets 
 of Quebec. The houses of the habitants, as 
 the French Canadian peasants are termed, 
 lined the road for the greater part of the way, 
 and though small, were neatly painted, and all 
 built of wood. Their land, which is, I under- 
 stand, yearly becoming more subdivided, lies 
 in narrow strips back from the river, and as 
 far as I could judge, seemed to be but poorly 
 cultivated. 
 
 The Falls of Montmorency are actually 
 a good deal higher than those of Niagara ; it 
 is the body of water that makes the difference, 
 for the Montmorency would not, even in 
 England, be called a large river ; the whole 
 scene is, however, wild and singular, though 
 scarcely beautiful. 
 
 * NOTE,— The business of the Courts of Law in Montreal ard 
 Quebec is conducted both in French and English, which has an 
 odd effect. 
 

 17 
 
 On our return to Quebec we saw the 
 Citadel, now tenanted only by a few Canadian 
 artillerymen, and then proceeded to the Plains 
 of Abraham. The spot where ** Wolfe fell 
 victorious " is marked by a monument in toler- 
 able taste, but its effect is marred by a huge 
 prison which has lately been erected close by. 
 There is another place marked only by an 
 inscription on the rock above, and situated in a 
 street near the St. Lawrence, which I looked 
 at with interest, for it was here that on the 
 30th of December, 1775, General Richard 
 Montgomery, at the head of an army of Ameri- 
 can insurgents, whom he was leading in column 
 to the assault, was shot dead by a rifle ball 
 from the Citadel, which, as well as the town, 
 was most gallantly defended by General 
 Carleton. Montgomery's troops retreated in 
 confusion, leaving the body of their brave 
 leader on the snow, whence it was brought into 
 Quebec by the besieged, and laid out in a 
 house which still exists. Montgomery was a 
 man of good family, and considerable landed 
 property on the Hudson River, about 100 
 miles above New York City. His house, 
 which his widow inhabited for fifty years 
 
18 
 
 after his tleatli, and which Mrs. L kiutlly 
 
 took us to see, is beautifully situated, and with 
 grounds beth extensive and kept in good order, 
 the hitter being a rare thing in America. 
 
 Thus failed, ninety-seven years since, the 
 daring attempt of the Americans to gain posses- 
 sion of Canada, for though their army under 
 Benedict Arnold, who afterwards betrayed the 
 cause he had espoused, passed the remainder of 
 the winter before Quebec, the British vessels 
 forced their way through the ice of the St. 
 Lawrence early in the spring, reheved the 
 garrison, and compelled Aruold, though one of 
 the ablest of the revolutionary soldiers, to 
 make a disastrous retreat in the direction of 
 Lake Champlain. It is singular how this 
 hankering after Canada has possessed the 
 minds of the people of the United States ever 
 since they became a separate nation, and ceased 
 to speak of England as " home." The United 
 States Constitution of 1787 'Contains provisions 
 for the admission of Canada into the Union ; the ^ 
 
 conquest of Canada was one of the chief 
 objects of the Americans in the war of 1812, 
 and the same spirit was shown in their sym- 
 
19 
 
 pathy with the Rebellion of 1838, and with 
 the Feuian raids of a few years back. 
 
 Yet, iu spite of all this, 1 doubt whether, 
 since the time when we wrested Canada from 
 the French, that country was ever so loyal to 
 the British Crown, or so ILtle disposed to 
 "annexation" with the States, as at tiie pre- 
 sent day. 
 
 The situation of Quebec is singularly 
 picturesque, and resembles that of Stirling in 
 Scotland, if we leave out the St. Lawrence 
 altogether, and suppose the River St. Charles 
 to represent the Forth. Besides the drive to 
 Montmorency, there is that to Lorette, a vil- 
 lage inhabited by a colony of civilised Indians, 
 the last remnant of the once powerful tribe of 
 the Hurous. The Chiefs who bore the name of 
 Paul, and spoke excellent French, had a piano 
 in his house for the use of his daugliter, who 
 had been educated at the Ursuline Convent at 
 Quebec. The St. Louis and St. Foye roads are 
 delightful, and bordered with villas iu the 
 English style. The chief defect of Quebec 
 must be its climate, for though situated in the 
 latitude of Lyons, iu France, it has a truly 
 Kussiau winter, with intense frost and deep 
 
20 
 
 snow, and a river navigation closed by ice for 
 four or five months out of the twelve, during 
 which time all direct communication with Eu- 
 rope must come through Portland, in the United 
 States. At Montreal, which is further south, 
 Mr M told me that he had seen the thermo- 
 meter at 29 degrees below zero ! The Cana- 
 dians hpve, however, a far more robust and 
 healthy look than their Yankee neighbours, 
 though I fear the former are more addicted to 
 intemperance in drink. In the States sobriety 
 seems to be the rule in all public places, where 
 little else but iced water is generally to be seen. 
 Some thirty or forty miles north of Quebec be- 
 gins the unbroken wilderness, where one may 
 wander hundreds of miles through forests with- 
 out meeting a human being, and seldom even a 
 quadruped or a bird. Indeed, the rarity of wild 
 animals is remarkable in all parts of America 
 that I h^^ve seen. There are no rooks, no larks, 
 no sparrows, except a few of the last that have 
 lately been introduced into some of the great 
 towns from England, and perhaps our farmers 
 may be glad to learn — no rabbits*. Grey 
 
 * Note.— The so-called American rabbit is in reality a small 
 hare, which possesses neither the burrowing habits nor the re- 
 productive powers of its namesake in the Old World, The early 
 English settlers in North America were not happy in naming 
 
T'T-' :^~" 
 
 21 
 
 vV 
 
 1 ■ i 
 
 squirrels are seen hangiug up iu the markets 
 beside the grouse aud so-called partridges, the 
 latter being the more common, and iu ray 
 opinion a dry, tasteless bird. Both the prairie 
 chicken and the so-called pheasant are species 
 of grouse, and the quail differs from that of 
 Europe. Butchers' meat in the cities is nearly 
 as dear as with us, and of worse quality, par- 
 ticularly as regards mutton. The hotels in 
 Canada that I have seen are inferior in comfort 
 to those of the States, though conducted on the 
 same plan. The cookery in both countries is 
 nearly equally bad, though exceedingly pre- 
 tentious. Tea and coffee are alike execrable, 
 and good wine and beer extremely dear. The 
 sea fish is not equal to ours, and the oysters, 
 though very large, are insipid to the taste of a 
 European, though the Americans complain that 
 our oysters taste of copper. We left Quebec, 
 where, as usual, our introductions had procured 
 us a most hospitable reception, and enabled us 
 in American phrase " to have a good time," on 
 
 the animals and plants they founi there. They called a Bison, 
 a Buffalo : a Vulture, a Turkey Buzzard ; an Elk, a Moose ; a 
 large species of deer (the Wapiti), an Elk ; a Tlirush, a Robiii ; 
 and a Spruce Fir, a tf emlock ; but tbe greatest misnomer of all 
 unquestionably originated with Columbus himself, who lived 
 and died in the belief that the land he had discovered was a 
 part cf India, aud therefore uamea it The Indies, aud its inhabi- 
 tants Indians! 
 
22 
 
 the 24th of October, travelling by rail, and in 
 a Pullman sleeping car, an admirable invention 
 which, like the American river steamers, might 
 be advantageously introduced on our side of the 
 Atlantic. To reach the railway, the St. Law- 
 rence, here at one of its narrowest points and 
 07ily a mile wide,has to be crossed to Point Levi, 
 whencethelinefollowsthe right bank of the river. 
 Morning showed us the country covered with 
 hoar frost, and after passing the great tubular 
 bridge, which owes its existence to Robert 
 Stephenson, the Northumbrian, we found our- 
 selves again in Montreal, where we remained 
 till the evening of the 26th, and then took our 
 places, amid heavy rain, in the cars for Boston. 
 
 Up to Lake Cham plain the country is flat 
 and uninteresting. There are the usual ugly 
 rail or snake fences, with here and there a field 
 of cabbages, or one with (Indian) corn-stalks, 
 which are used as fodder for cattle, put up in 
 sheaves, and pumpkins, looking like gigantic 
 oranges, lying scattered on the ground between 
 them. At St. Alban's we had once more to 
 encounter a United States Custom House 
 Officer, who searched some of our luggage 
 pretty closely, as smuggling, particularly by 
 
 '/? 
 
\i 
 
 n 
 
 ss 
 
 23 
 
 ladies, is said to be but too commou from 
 Canada into the States. Soon after leaving St. 
 Alban's we entered a far more picturesque 
 country in the State of Vermont. The railway 
 winds for fifty or sixty miles among rocky and 
 thickly wooded hills, through valleys that seem 
 to be rich, and along streams which ought to be 
 the paradise of the trout fisher. The villages 
 at which the train stopped were universally 
 handsome and well built, with nothing in the 
 shape of shabby cottages, nearly all the houses 
 having an upper floor, and looking bright with 
 fresh paint. The most conspicuous buildings 
 were everywhere the church and the school- 
 house, the latter being often very large. I can- 
 not, however, give so good a report of what I 
 saw of the population, of which the male por- 
 tion were lean, sallow, and unhealthy looking, 
 with countenances by no means wanting in 
 shrewdness, but generally the reverse of agree- 
 able. 
 
 At White River junction we crossed the 
 Connecticut river, and entered the State of New 
 Hampshire, where the scenery had a less ro- 
 mantic character. Night set in long before we 
 entered the State of Massachusetts, but I could 
 
■v-'^' r].\^>y^^"^ 
 
 ■ ,^'^'^S^'i'f'-^^'^ 
 
 24 
 
 see that we were passing through a populous 
 and manufacturing district till we reached 
 Boston at 10-30 p.m., and found, that owing 
 to the prevalence of the horse disease, not a 
 cab, cart, or even a wheelbarrow was to be had 
 at the station, so entrusting the more portable 
 part of our baggage to some boys, we trudged 
 through the wet and deserted streets to our 
 hotel. 
 
 I J 
 
 k 
 
 1! 
 
 III. 
 
 We remained at Boston only five days. This 
 city, which shortly after our departure, suffered 
 from a fire second only in its disastrous effects 
 to that of Chicago, was by far the most English 
 looking town I had yet seen in America. The 
 older portions of Boston seem to have been 
 modelled after the City of London, and Beacon 
 Street and The Common are almost fac- similes 
 of our Piccadilly and Green Park. In the 
 Public Garden adjoining the Common, is a fine 
 bronze equestrian statue of General Washing- 
 ton, by Ball. I mention this, because as far as 
 T have seen, Washington, like some great men 
 in our own country, has not, generally speaking, 
 
 
 i 
 
 f 
 
if 
 
 k' 
 
 . 
 
 ^i 
 
 25 
 
 beeu fortunate in the statues erected to his 
 meraory. As it was the eve of the Presidential 
 election, politics, as might have been expected, 
 ran pretty high at Boston during our stay. 
 Judge R , to whom I had a letter of intro- 
 
 uk duction, kindly invited me to accompany him 
 one evening to a political meeting at a small 
 town called Waltham, about ten miles from 
 Boston, and chiefly inhabited by watchmakers. 
 The meeting was held in the public room, 
 which was well filled, several ladies being 
 among the audience. Judge R has de- 
 servedly the reputation of being an excellent 
 speaker, nnd the art of oratory is much more 
 cultivated on his side of the Atlantic than on 
 ours. He spoke for nearly an hour and a half 
 in favour of General Grant and the Republican 
 
 ( pttrty, and apart from some rather crude ideas 
 
 of political economy, which find favour in the 
 New England States, I thought his discourse an 
 able one. Of course we were treated to a little 
 about " The Star-spangled Banner" and its 
 triumphs over the British flag ; but without 
 some garnish of this kind, I presume n® Ameri- 
 can political oration would be considered as 
 i complete. 
 
 41 
 
2G 
 
 There was a slight show of disapproval 
 from some members of the Democratic party 
 at the meeting, but this was speedily put dowD, 
 and the cheering was performed in the genuine 
 British style. 
 
 Cambridge, which contains Harvard Uni- 
 versity, is almost a suburb of Boston. The 
 situation of Cambridge, though on a dead flat, 
 is ornamented by some fine trees, one of which, 
 a magnificent elm, stands close to the house of 
 the poet Longfellow.* 
 
 The University buildinr/s, with the excep- 
 tion of a " Memorial Hall," which is yet un- 
 finished, have nothing remarkable about them, 
 and the students wear no academical dress 
 whatever. 
 
 On the evening before we left Boston, we 
 witnessed, from the house of a Senator, a grand 
 torchlight procession in honour of Grant and 
 Wilson. The Republicans mustered about 
 ten thousand strong, and as they marched 
 past in companies carrying various flags and 
 devices, and each man bearing a kind of torch, 
 the eff'ect v/as very good indeed, though owing 
 
 * Note.— Tlie Americnn Elm, with its pendant branches, is a 
 more graceful tree than ours. 
 
 1 
 
27 
 
 At 
 
 to the prevalence of tlie horse-disease, none of 
 the noble quadrupeds could take part in the 
 show. Among other devices was a full-rigged 
 ship, mounted on wheels, and manned by a crew 
 of ten or a dozen men. Having often heard of 
 this ship before, as being a prominent feature 
 in processions at Boston, I remarked to an Ameri- 
 can gentleman thatlsupposed it represented the 
 mercantile marjneofthe United States. He said 
 that it was intended to do so, and turning to 
 his neighbour, added, " I think they had better 
 have left that out, for our mercantile marine 
 has been dead for some time." 
 
 This is an unfortunate fact, into the causes 
 of which it is unnecessary now to enter, but the 
 *' Meteor Flag of England" seems to have at 
 present nearly driven the " Stars and Stripes" 
 from the ocean. 
 
 We left Boston on the morning of the 31st 
 October, and after passing through an undu- 
 lating and wooded country, and latterly obtain- 
 ing beautiful views of Long Island Sound, we 
 arrived at New York before sunset. 
 
 The eighteen days we remained in New 
 York were passed very pleasantly in the liospit- 
 able house of an American la<ly, whose acquaint- 
 
28 
 
 jiuce, and that of her mother and daughter we 
 had the good fortune to make on board the 
 " Russia." On the 2nd of November I wit- 
 nessed the inauguration of a statue of Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott, in the Central Park The day was 
 very fine, quite worthy of the Indian summer, 
 and the statue, which, if not a copy, strongly 
 resembled that in the Scott monument at Edin- 
 burgh, was unveiled in the presence of some 
 hundreds of well-dressed people The principal 
 speaker was William CuUen Bryant, the poet, 
 a fine-looking old man with a white beard, who 
 spoke with much energy, and was decorated 
 with heather^ a plant, by-the-bye, which does 
 not grow on the North American continent. 
 There was, however, very little demonstration 
 of enthusiasm among the audience, but I ob- 
 served the same apparent coldness afterwards 
 at the theatres. The 5th inst. was the great 
 election day for the Presidency and Vice Presi- 
 dency of the United States. Those elected will 
 hold office for the term of four years, from 
 the 4th of March next. There was a great 
 crowd, but a very orderly one, in front of the 
 Fifth Avenue Hotel, in Madison Square, that 
 eveniag, when the votes in the various States 
 
29 
 
 of the Union were exhibited, by a sort of magic 
 lantern apparatus, as fast as they arrived by 
 telegraph ; the Californian returns having been 
 transmitted over something like three thousand 
 J miles of wire ! Grant, for President, and Wil- 
 
 son for Vice-President,* carried the day by an 
 immense majority, and Horace Greeley, who 
 had just previously lost his wife, did not long 
 survive his defeat. 
 
 Shortly before leaving New York, I paid a 
 visit to Blackwell's Island, in the East River, 
 which island is wholly occupied by hospitals, 
 workhouses, almshouses, and penitentiaries, and 
 is only accessible through an order from the city 
 authorities. The ^orAAo2/5e, I soon discovered 
 was in reality a sort of House of Correction^ 
 not for felons, but for those who had been con- 
 victed of disorderly conduct or ©f drunkenness. 
 No one can be committed there for a shorter 
 period than ten days, or for a longer one than 
 six months, and I was surprised to find that 
 persons habitually drunken and disorderly could 
 be sent there by their friends, on application 
 having been first made to the police. Two 
 
 * Note.— The Vice-President of the United states is ei-officio 
 President of the cfenate at Washington. 
 
so 
 
 i 
 
 cases of this sort were poiuteil out to me, the 
 delinquents being evidently of the educated 
 classes, and the cause of their committals habi- 
 tual drunkenness ; though one was, I regret to 
 add, a young and pretty woman. 
 
 The j^lmshousey which is at a short dis- 
 tance from the Workhouse^ much resembles 
 our Union Workhouses, and has, I was informed, 
 during the winter months eight hundred or nine 
 hundred inmates, who are supported from the 
 taxes of the City of New York, and who appeared 
 to be extremely well fed and cared for in every 
 respect. A very large proportion of the in- 
 mates were of Irish birth, for the native Ameri- 
 cans are seldom inclined to avail themselves of 
 charitable relief, or eveu to serve in a subor- 
 dinate capacity in any trade or occupation, if they 
 can possibly avoid doing so. Hence in Boston and 
 New York, the domestic servants, the waiters 
 at hotels, the assistants in the shops, the cab 
 drivers, and the labourers of every description 
 are in a very large proportion Irish immigrants. 
 Though generally an industrious, the American- 
 Irish do not seem to be a happy people, but to 
 be painfully conscious of the social inferiority 
 to which they are condemned in the United 
 
 
ai 
 
 States, except hy those politicians whose interest 
 it may be to secure tlie Irish vote tor their own 
 purposes. Many of these Irish immigrants are 
 wiiolly illiterate ; nearly all are more or less 
 disposed to be insolent, and they seem to have 
 left all their native politeness, and much of their 
 wit on the other side of the Atlantic. It may 
 readily be imagined that the American-Irish- 
 man has DO love for the Britisher ; but there 
 is oue race that he finds ou his arrival here, 
 which he has learned to hate with even more 
 intensity than he does the Saxon, and that is — 
 the Negro, During what are called the Draft 
 Riots, at New York, in 1863, the city was for 
 the space of four days in the power of an Irish 
 mob, who in spite of the praiseworthy exer- 
 tions and denunciaf ions of the Roman Catholic 
 Archbishop Hughes, and his clergy, burned the 
 Coloured Orphan Asylum, murdered the ne- 
 groes, wrecked their houses, and would probably 
 have ended by destroying a great part of the 
 city, but for the advent of the regular troops 
 from New Jersey, who put down this dangerous 
 insurrection in a very summary manner. I was 
 assured ou good authority, thatou this occasion, 
 many of the domcbtic servants in New York 
 
32 
 
 actually left their employers, joined the rioters, 
 and came back when order was restored, to 
 their old places, their employers not daring to 
 refuse to receive them ! It is satisfactory to 
 think, however, that the children of these Irish 
 will cease to bo social pariahs, and that their 
 grandchildren will be quite undistinguishable 
 from the mass ot the American people, that 
 great English-speaking race, which is gradually 
 but surely absorbing all other nationalities 
 within its vast territory. 
 
 It has long been the fashion with certain 
 *' unco guid" persons in this country to speak 
 of the Americans as "a Godless people." 
 Everybody knows that the United States do 
 not possess the blessing (?) of an Established 
 Church, and that all religions are there on the 
 voluntary system, and on a footing of perfect 
 equality. This voluntary system appears, 
 however, to work well, as the number of 
 churches of various denominations in New 
 York seems considerably to exceed in propor- 
 tion that of most of the large towns of Great 
 Britain. The Sunday, too, is quite as strictly 
 observed as in England, and perhaps no one 
 but an M/^ra-Puritan would be disposed to 
 
 I 
 
33 
 
 quarrel wilh the disphiy of beauty and fashion 
 which Fiftli Avenue, in New York, oxhil)it5> 
 after morning service on that day. I shoukl 
 have been surprised, however, to find the odious 
 system of pews prevailing even in the Catholic 
 cliurches in the Slates, had 1 not previously 
 seen the same thln^ in Montreal and Quebec, 
 where one would have supposed that French 
 traditions would have led to the adoption of a 
 better taste. The Catholic Cathedral of St. 
 Patrick, in Fifth Avenue, New York, will, 
 when completed, probably be the finest church 
 in the United States. It is built entirely of 
 white marble, like the Duomo of Milan, and 1 
 was informed that owing to some ingenious man- 
 agement on the part of the then governing autho- 
 rities, the land for its site was obtained at the easy 
 cost of one dollar per acre ! With regard to 
 crimen it would, perhaps, be difficult to arrive at 
 its real statistics in a city like New York of 
 nearly a million and a half of inhabitants, and 
 which has been for many years past constantly 
 fed by an influx of the offscourings of Europe. 
 One of the worst features of society in the 
 United States is that there is little oi- no value 
 placed upon human lifc», and that the constant 
 
34 
 
 practice, CTen among the better classes, of carry- 
 ing loaded fire-arras about their persons is but 
 too likely, in the event of a casual quarrel, to 
 lead to the employmeiit of a revolver or a 
 Deringer to settle the " difficulty." But not- 
 withstanding these irregular ites, the streets of 
 New York generally, in respect of the display "^ 
 
 of drunkenness and profligacy, bear a very ad- 
 vantageous comparison with those of London 
 or of Liverpool. 
 
 In this Republican country it was difficult 
 to suppress a smile at seeing, in the same build- 
 ing as the City Library, a window bearing the 
 words, " New York College of Heraldry," 
 in splendidly illuminated characters, and on 
 making enquiry within, I found that I could 
 be accommodated with a coat of arras, and 
 possibly with a pedigree. The love of title 
 seems to be stronger in this country than even in 
 ours, for not only is an English nobleman an 
 object of unbounded adoration, especially with 
 the fairer portion of the community, but almost 
 every second Araerican you meet in society is a 
 General, a Colonel, or a Judge, tiid the veriest 
 New York '* rowdy" will expect to be addressed 
 as "Boss" or "Cap," before he condescends 
 
 . ^ • 
 
 i 
 
35 
 
 th 
 
 to nod or shake his head in answer to 
 your question.* One of the great drawbacks 
 to New York is the want of means of locomo- 
 tion. The cabs, or " Hacks," are generally 
 neat Broughams, but they are not numerous, 
 drive slower than our London cabs, and will 
 not stir a step under a dollar and a quarter — 5s. 
 Unless, therefore, you prefer to walk, which few 
 Americans will do if they can avoid it, you are 
 obliged to take the cars, which are drawn by 
 horse power on tramroads, in some of the princi- 
 pal streets, but are generally overcrowded, and 
 a favourite resort for pickpockets. Coloured 
 people are now admitted into these cars, which 
 was not the case before the late Civil War, and 
 this does not render travelling by them more 
 agreeable. 
 
 The weather became cold before we left 
 New York ; on the 16th November about 
 two inches of snow fell, followed by a severe 
 frost, which withered all the remaining flowers, 
 and sent the few leaves which still lingered on 
 the trees to the ground. 
 
 • NOTE.—" Boss" is from the Dutch word " Baas," which 
 means *' Master " or " Employer." The English word *' Master" 
 is eschewed by the citizen of the United States as savourmg of 
 " servility.'' *' Cap'' is merely an abbreviation of " Captain.* 
 
36 
 
 The system of warming the houses by *' fur- 
 naces," which are placed below, and supply hot 
 air and hot water to the topmost story, is very 
 
 effective and economical, but the rooms are 
 overheated, and not well ventilated, and 1 can- 
 not believe such an atmosphere to be wholesome. 
 Certain it is, that the Americans of the Eastern 
 States at least, are far from possessing either 
 the active habits or the robust health of the 
 English, while in the small number of children 
 in their families they may be said to rival the 
 Fiench. 
 
 We left New York on the 18th inst., and 
 the day, though frosty, being clear and bright, 
 we saw the country well as long as daylight 
 lasted. After the ferry over the Hudson, the 
 railway passes through swampy, low land, in 
 New Jersey, but the sceneiy improves when 
 you cross the Delaware at Trenton, and still 
 more so at the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, 
 of which city we had a good view, but did not 
 pass through its streets, as we afterwards did 
 through those of Baltimore, where the cars 
 were dragged by horses. The long bridge 
 over the great river Susquehanna was tra- 
 versed in the dark, and wc reached Washiugtou 
 
37 
 
 at 10 p.m., having travelled by express traiu, 
 and performed 226 miles in nine hours. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ^ \ 
 
 To be the capital of a great country it must be 
 owned that Washington is an extraordinary 
 looking place. 
 
 It has no trade, and the Potomac, on whose 
 banks it stands, though a tidal river, is only 
 navigable for vessels of light draught. 
 
 The climate being excessively hot in sum- 
 mer, and often very c^ld and windy in winter, 
 the streets have b(}en judiciously laid out in 
 straight lines, and with an enormous breadth, 
 so as to secure to passengers the full benefit of 
 wind, dust, mud, and a burning sun, according 
 to the season. As regards the mud, however, 
 I am bound to add that very great efforts were 
 being made at the time of our visit, by the em- 
 ployment of a host of negroes, to pave and 
 asphalte the streets, so that in another year or 
 so, a drive through Washington may be a plea- 
 sure instead of a punishment. These improve- 
 ments unfortunately have had the effect of 
 
n' 
 
 
 38 
 
 more than doubling the city taxation, which is 
 still, I believe, on the increase. 
 
 The houses which border these wide streets, 
 are, with the exception of the public buildings, 
 and of some few private houses, of the meanest 
 description, being inferior to those of a second- 
 rate provincial town in England. The same 
 observations will apply to the shops, or stores 
 as they are universally called in America. 
 Their prices are at least, double what they 
 would be with us, and their goods generally of 
 
 inferior quality. 
 
 The city, which, with its far more pictur- 
 esque suburb of Georgetown, contains about one 
 hundred thousand inhabitants, has no theatre 
 worthy of the name,* and no public drive or 
 promenade. Having gone thus far in the 
 way of depreciation, it will be only fair to ^^ 
 
 state what may be said in the way of ap- 
 proval. The Capitol is a truly magnificent 
 building. Placed, as it is, on the highest 
 ground in the city, its lofty dome and walls of 
 white marble form a conspicuous object from 
 afar, and the impression of its grandeur is not 
 
 * NOTE.-The wretched apology for a theatre, dignifiwl by the 
 name of ''National/' was burnt down durir.g our stay at Wash- 
 ington in the following January. 
 
n 
 
 39 
 
 (limiuished by a nearer view, though its archi- 
 tecture cannot be termed absolutely faultless. 
 The finer front is unfortunately that which is 
 turned from the city, and looks to the east- 
 ward. 
 
 For the groups of statuary near the princi- 
 Y P^l entrance much cannot be said, but the 
 
 bronze doors which bear the history of Colum- 
 bus are worthy of all praise. The Central 
 Hall, under the Dome, contains several large 
 pictures, the most interesting of which, though 
 below criticism in point of art, are four by 
 Colonel Trumbull, representing the Adoption of 
 the Declaration of Independence ; the Surren 
 der of General Burnroyne at Saratoga ; that of 
 Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown : and Washinf^- 
 ton resigning his command of the army before 
 Congress. Trumbull was an amateur artist, and 
 a brother soldier of Washington. The Capitol 
 contains both the Hall of the Senate, and that 
 of the House of Representatives, and as Con- 
 gress met for the first time after the recess on 
 December 2nd, we did not neglect to be present 
 on that occasion. The two Houses are con- 
 structed in the semi-circular plan, which seems 
 to find favour in all countries excepting our 
 
 ^ 
 
40 
 
 owu for Parliamentary purposes. Both Sena- 
 tors and Eepresentatives are much better ac- 
 commodated than our own Lords or Commons, 
 each member having a comfortable arm chair, 
 and a desk in which he can keep his books and 
 papers, and upon which, in American fashion, 
 he can occasionally rest his feet. Both houses 
 were warmed with hot air to a temperature of 
 about 70 degrees, an atmosphere stifling to 
 most Europeans, and which cannot be whole- 
 some for the members themselves. The pro- 
 ceedings in the Senate were opened by an ex- 
 tempore prayer from the chaplain, wlio was, 1 
 believe, an Episcopalian ; after which business 
 began without any further ceremony. A new 
 Senator having to be sworn in, he came up arm- 
 in-arm with his colleague, for each State, big 
 or little, returns tivo Senators, and me oath was 
 administered by the Vice-President, who is 
 ex-oificio President ol the Senate, Mr Schuyler 
 Colfax,* the right hand being held up while 
 the oath was taken, but there was no kissing of 
 
 * Note.— This gentlemnn subsequently got into trouble in con- 
 nection with the Credit Mobilier scandal, but escaped a vote of 
 ccHsure in the Senate. His term of office ceased on the 4th of 
 . March, 1873, and he has since, I believe, retired into private life. 
 It should not be forgoten, thao in ]8(;7, being then Speaker of 
 the House of uopresentatives at Washington, he publicly received 
 
 f 
 
 n 
 
 i 
 
I 
 
 41 
 
 the Book. Then followed the President's 
 message, the reading of which, by one of the 
 clerks of the Senate, occupied about an 
 liour and a quarter. It was very well and dis- 
 tinctly read, in spite of some peculiarities of ac- 
 centation, such as " enquiry" and " devasta- 
 ting." The appearance and conduct of the 
 Senators was, on the whole, not undignified, but 
 the same could not be said of the members of 
 the House of Representatives, who behaved 
 like a set of unruly schoolboys, whom the 
 Speaker, Mr Blaine, was doing his best, but 
 not very effectually, ^to keep in order. It was 
 impossible not to be struck with the juvenile 
 appearance of the great majority of the mem- 
 bers of both Houses. Few of them seemed to 
 have passed the limit of middle-age ; probably 
 the well-known precocity of the American 
 youth causes the older men to be laid on the 
 shelf at a period of life when they would be 
 thought most useful in Europe. It is un- 
 pleasant to be obliged to close this account of a 
 visit to the Capitol with the remark that its 
 
 in his official capacity, a deputation of " Fenians," headed by a 
 man named Roberts, who styled himself *• President of the Irish 
 Republic.'* 
 
 w 
 
42 
 
 corridors and staircases of white marble boye 
 unmistakeable traces of the tobacco-chewiuir 
 propensities of the citizens of the great Re- 
 public, most of whom had evidently disdained 
 to avail themselves of the nearly omnipresent 
 spittoon. A few days before the meeting of 
 Congress, we had the honour of being intro- 
 duced by our minister. Sir Edward Thorntor', 
 to President Grant. The "White Housa" 
 where he resides, is a building without much 
 pretension, and in the style of architi^cture 
 which prevailed in England for country houses 
 at the close of the last, and the beginning of the 
 present century. The grounds in front are 
 small, kept in only rough order, and quite open 
 to the public. President Grant is a short, 
 stout-built man, seemingly about fifty years 
 of age, with an intelligent eye, and a re- 
 solute expression about the mouth and chin. 
 His manners, though plain and simple, were 
 not, I thought, devoid of dignity, and though 
 he is well-known to be no orator, and to be 
 often rather taciturn as regards conversation, on 
 thip occasion he talked a good deal, and talked 
 well. He spoke of California, and of the pro- 
 jects which were on foot for establishing more 
 
 I 
 
 : 
 
43 
 
 Hues of railway communication between the 
 Atlantic and the Pacific ; he also said a few 
 words respecting Horace Greeley's candidature 
 and defeat for the Presidency, expressing his 
 surprise that Mr. G. should have thrown 
 himself into the arms of a party, to which, 
 during his loBg career as a journalist, he had 
 been bitterly opposed. 
 
 Mr Greeley has since died, and there can 
 be but one opinion as to the generous feeling 
 which brought General Grant to New York, to 
 attend the funeral of his late opponent. Mrs 
 Grant, with whom was her daughter, Miss 
 Nellie, did the honours to the ladies of our 
 party in a very amiable and unaffected manner. 
 
 But to return to the public buildings at 
 Washington. The Treasury, the Post Office, 
 and the Patent Office, are fine buildings, in 
 which marble and granite have been largely 
 used with that massive simplicity so suitable to 
 what we term Greek architecture. One very 
 remarkable feature in the Treasury and the 
 Post Office was the number of women employed 
 in the various departments. Many of these, I 
 was given to understand, were the widows or 
 relatives of Federal soldiers who had fallen 
 
 w 
 
-■T^T--- W~ 
 
 44 
 
 (luring the Civil War ; they receive a smaller 
 remuneration for their services than the male 
 employees, but I cjuld not learn whether they 
 were considered to be equally efficient. The 
 management of the Post Office in America is 
 far behind that of our own, particularly as re- 
 gards the delivery. Newspapers which ar- 
 rive with letters, are always delivered much 
 later ; often not until the next day. A tall, 
 square tower, which 1 at first took for a light- 
 house, turned out to bean unfinished monument 
 to the memory of George Washington, begun a 
 quarter of a century ago, and which had better 
 now be left alone, or better still, pulled down 
 altogether, and the materials employed to make 
 the muddy banks of the Potomac more acces- 
 sible from the city. It is difficult to imagine 
 anything in more atrocious taste than this 
 "obelisk." The Smithsonian Institution, de- 
 rived from funds b?queathed many years ago by 
 an Englishman, is a strange medley of medieval 
 and renaissance architecture. It has extensive 
 grounds attached to it, and contains a tolerably 
 large, but ill- arranged collection of objects of 
 Natural History in badly lighted rooms. I may 
 here remark, that as far as I have observed. 
 
 
 i 
 
4o 
 
 the study of Natural History, so passionat(^ly 
 piirnueU by many of our countryineu, finds hut 
 small favour among our American coubins as 
 individuals, though the surveys and reports 
 })ublished by their Government are admirable 
 in this respect both from the fullness of the in- 
 formation they contain, and the drawings with 
 which they are copiously illustrated. 
 
 Nearly one-half of the population of 
 Washington seem to be either downright blacks, 
 or to bear evident marks of negro blood. When 
 we remember, that up to avery few years back, 
 slavery was one of the cherished institutions of 
 the district of Columbia, of which Washington 
 is the capital ; that the majority of these 
 coloured people were born slaves, and that it 
 was very rarely that slaves were taught to read, 
 we may imagine the amount of ignorance that 
 prevails among a race who have for some time 
 past been in possession of the elective franchise. 
 Indeed, I am inclined to believe, that in most 
 of the Southern States of the Union, educa- 
 tion, including even that of a large portion of 
 the white population, is at a lower ebb than in 
 any part of Great Britain or Ireland at the pre- 
 sent day. We took leave of our friends in 
 
 w 
 

 46 
 
 Washington on the 6th December, intending to 
 embark for England after a very few days' stay 
 in New York. Circumstances, however, in- 
 duced us to alter our intention, and to remain 
 in New York till after Christmas day, return- 
 ing to Washington for its gay season, which be- 
 gins with the New Year and lasts till Lent, 
 being thus identical with the Carnival time of 
 Continental Europe. 
 
 V. 
 
 We were now destined to see something of an 
 American winter, my experience of which 
 would not induce me again to choose that sea- 
 son for a visit to the country. From the 10th 
 of December the frost at New York was of 
 more continued severity than I ever felt in 
 Europe. On Christmas Day, Fahrenheit's 
 thermometer fell to 5 degrees above Zero, and 
 in the evening a violent snowstorm came on 
 from the north-east, lasting for nearly twenfy- 
 four hours, the snow being upwards of two 
 feet deep on the level in the streets, and the 
 temperature never rising to more than 9 de- 
 grees above Zero. 
 
17 
 
 There was, of course, plenty of sleighing in 
 the Central Park the day after this heavy 
 snowfall ; hundreds of " carrioles,*' " cutters," 
 &e., being drawn by the fast Anoerioan trotters, 
 and thousands of sleigh-bells ringing in the 
 sharp, clear air. In the streets, however, 
 matters were not quite so pleasant, many of the 
 narrower ones being blocked up by the snow, 
 some of which had not entirely disappeared 
 when we returned to New York early in 
 February. And yet this city is in the latitude 
 of Naples ! 
 
 Let no intending emigrant to the United 
 States or Canada allow himself to be deceived 
 by false statements regarding their climate, 
 which is much worse in almost every respect 
 than that of corresponding latitudes in Europe. 
 Washington lies nearly as far to the south as 
 Palermo, in Sicily, where frost and snow are 
 unknown, where flowers bloom all the winter 
 through, while the orange and lemon trees are 
 laden with their golden fruit.* 
 
 * Note.— The mean temperature at Washington for the 
 month of January, 1873, was SI".?. The highest tempera- 
 ture was 64^* on the 16th inst., the lowest 6 degrees be- 
 low Zero or the 30th. Washington, N. Lat. 38 deg. 53 min. 
 Palermo 38 deg. 8 min. , 
 
»:-r/™,-Vfr-an»- 
 
 48 
 
 We agaiu left New York for Washington 
 on the 28 til December, the Hudson at the ferry 
 being full of floating ice, and all the other 
 rivers we crossed being solidly frozen. I shall 
 not readily forget the discomfort of this jour- 
 ney. Not a " Pullman" or a '* Chair" car 
 being lorthcomiug, we were forced to take our 
 places in one of the ordinary cars, of which 
 most of the occupants passed their time either 
 in peeling apples, or expectorating tobacco on 
 the floor. The whole country was covered 
 with deep snow, and the temperature mnuj de- 
 grees below freezing, but the stoves in our car 
 refused to burn, though we remained in it as 
 long as we could, preferring the chance of being 
 frozen to that of being suffocated. It is, per- 
 haps, needless to add tha^ all the Americans de- 
 serted MS as soon as the Gres went out, and 
 went into the next car. At last the " con- 
 ductor" (guard) '* guessed" that he would 
 " cut off" our car, so we moved into the next, 
 but had not been there five minutes before he 
 guessed that nmst be cut off* too, and then we, 
 with the rest of our fellow-passengers in the 
 second car were crowded into a third, in a 
 manner which overcame even the well-known 
 
 ' 
 
 *. 
 
49 
 
 submissiveness of Americans when travelling 
 in their own country, and occasioned a display 
 of ill-humour, accompanied in one instance with 
 a resort to blows. How such an utter want of 
 arrangement on one of the great railroad lines 
 of the United States, and one connecting their 
 largest city with their Federal capital, could 
 take place was a mystery. It was past eleven 
 at night ere we reached Wormley's Hotel, at 
 Washington, having left New York at 1 p.m. 
 The proprietor of the hotel, which, by the way, 
 is a very good one, is a man of colour, who was 
 formerly a slave, but having been a house ser- 
 vant, with white blood in his veins, had been 
 educated, and had the manners of a gentleman. 
 The waiters and chamber maids were, almost 
 without exception, " full-blooded" negroes. 
 From what I saw in America, however, I am 
 inclined to prefer negroes to white men as 
 waiters. The former, though rather slow, are 
 quiet in their movements, and seldom awkward ; 
 add to which, they are generally good-humoured 
 and civil. Among other delicacies to be found 
 at this hotel were the celebrated canvas-back 
 ducks, which are not considered good till they 
 have fed upon the wild celery which grows in 
 
r 
 
 r)0 
 
 abunclance in Uie lower reaches of the Potomac. 
 Tliere was also terrapin soup, the lernijin being 
 a small water tortoise, which would be better if 
 it had few^er small boues, that certainly do not 
 improve the soup, which is rich and dark 
 coloured. 
 
 Though there is very little keeping of 
 Christmas in our seuse of the word, New 
 Year's Day is a great day all over the United 
 States, and was duly celebrated at Washington 
 by the ladies of every family receiving their 
 male friends and accjuaintances ; some of these 
 gentlemen, I was informed, having made up- 
 wards of one hundred calls during the day 1 
 These calls consist of a shake of the hand, a 
 few words hurriedly spoken ; sometimes, but 
 not always, a glass of wine, egg-nog,* lemon- 
 ade, or an ice taken at the table, and then a de- 
 parture to make a similar call elsewhere. The 
 custom must be a tiresome one to all the par- 
 ties concerned, but such is the social tyranny 
 that prevails in this country, that no one has 
 yet had the courage to lift up his voice 
 against it. 
 
 * Note.— Egg-nog is a rathor nanseona mixture of rum, 
 eggs, milk, nml sugar, served hot m a soup Umson. 
 
Cougrcss met again on the (ith inst., but 
 the proceedings were not of much interest, 
 with the exception of an investigation respect- 
 ing the disposal of certain shares in the Credit 
 Mobilicr and Union Pacific Railway ; which 
 enquiry subsequently revealed a degree of cor- 
 ruption among some members of the Senate and 
 House of Representatives, that in England 
 is now happily unknown, though it seems 
 hitely to have met with something like u 
 parallel in Canada. 
 
 On a clear, frosty day, early in January, 
 we paid a visit to Arlington Cemetery, on the 
 Virginia side of the Potomac. Crossing that 
 river from George Town, by a bridge at which 
 a toll was exacted, we found ourselves immedi- 
 ately in a woody country, which must, in the 
 fine season, be very picturesque, but over 
 which, owing to the enow, which, after a par- 
 tial thaw, had frozen on the surface, our 
 progress on foot was not a very easy one. 
 
 Arlington House, with the extensive 
 grounds belonging to it, stands in a noble 
 situation to the south-west of Wasliington, 
 and overlooks that city and the broad surface 
 of its then frozen river. It was, up to the 
 
52 
 
 time of the Civil War, the property of Robert 
 Lee, beyond dispute the ablest of the Con- 
 federate Generals, if not the ablest who held 
 command on either side during the war. Lee 
 was a man of spotless character, and a true 
 patriot, in his own acceptation of the word ; 
 but he was imbued with the mischievous doc- 
 trine of State Rights, a doctrine which had 
 previously had the support of some of the most 
 eminent statesmen of the Union ; and when 
 the war broke out, he decided to throw in his 
 lot with that of his native State of Virginia. 
 It seems a cruel irony to have selected land 
 that was once his, and which he had inherited 
 from a connection of George Washington, as 
 a place of sepulture for the soldiers who fell 
 during the Civil War. The grounds are covered 
 with grave-stones, and in one spot alone are 
 interred the bones of some thousands of men, 
 brought from distant battle fields. The house, 
 a large and substantial one, is empty and 
 desolate. One could not help reflecting on the 
 miseries of a Civil War, which, strange to say, 
 few or none of the many able foreign writers 
 on the United States seem to have anticipated,^ 
 
 ■ t NOTEt—Including, among others, Alexis de Tocqucvillo. 
 
 y 
 
 if 
 
i 
 
 53 
 
 9 
 
 and feeling thankful that for the last two cen- 
 turies and a quarter our own country had been 
 virtually spared from such a scourge. It may 
 not here be out of place to say a word about 
 the periodical press of America. A few of the 
 political, and most of the literary and scientific 
 journals are respectably written, but of the great 
 mass of ordinary newspapers it may be said 
 that personalities, scurrility, bad English, and 
 sensation headings are their principal charac- 
 teristics. What would be thought in England 
 if one of the leading journals of London filled 
 its columns with the details not only of a prize- 
 fight, but of a coe^ fight, and even of a 
 dog-^ght ? Yet this is quite a general practice 
 with some of the leading journals of New 
 York. 
 
 Washington was now in the height of its 
 gay season. Receptions, balls, and " Germans" 
 were the order of the day and night. A 
 " German" is simply a cotillon, and when that 
 is performed no other dance is allowed. Square 
 dances, with the rare exception of " The 
 Lancers," are never seen, and the mode of 
 waltzing, though not ungraceful, has a slow- 
 ness and solemnity about it which must ustonish 
 
■ ;TT'r', '"■■ «<7 
 
 54 
 
 most Europeans. Having entered upon this 
 topic, it would be ungracious not to say a few 
 words regarding the American ladies. Here it 
 is the daughter, not tlie mother, who takes the 
 lead in society, who receives her friends, male 
 and female, as often as she pleases at her home, 
 whose friendships and attachments are seldom 
 interfered with by her parents, and who, in the 
 important matter of marriage, has the most per- 
 fect liberty of choice. At the risk of being 
 thought unpatriotic, I must say that I prefer 
 the American fashion of intercourse between 
 young persons of both sexes to our own, and I 
 believe that as the young people in that 
 country are pretty sure to know each other be- 
 fore marriage better than they could possibly 
 do in England, unhappy marriages are less 
 common on their side of the Atlantic than on 
 ours. Though too often delicate in health, the 
 American women of the upper class are pretty, 
 graceful, and thoroughly unaffected, with a 
 charm of manner peculiarly their own. They 
 have the good taste, too, to dress in the French 
 fashion, and in New York especially, spare no 
 expense to make their toilettes as perfect as 
 possible. 
 

 55 
 
 Society ill Wasliiiigtou has tlio advantage 
 of being largely leavened by the members of 
 the various Diplomatic Corps who reside here, 
 and contribute in no small degree to make it 
 agreeable ; for the average American man, 
 though kind-hearted, shrewd, and possessing a 
 strong sense of humour, is sorely wanting in 
 refinement of language, manners, and ideas ; 
 and, while ever vaunting the superiority of his 
 own country to all others upon the face of the 
 earth, is yet ludicrously sensitive to any criti- 
 cism a foreigner, and especially an Englishman, 
 may presume to make upon that country or its 
 institutions. 
 
 We bade a final adieu to Washington on 
 the 8th of February, and after a stay of four 
 days in New York, we took our leave of the 
 " Empire City" in a\snowstorm, whicli obliged 
 the "Parthia," after about an hour's steaming, 
 to anchor off" Staten Island for the night. After 
 a tedious voyage of 14 days, at the] erd of 
 which we were again detained for about 12 
 hours at the entrance of the Mersey, we landed 
 at Liverpool on Feb. 26th, and reached our 
 home in the North on the following morning. 
 
^^^ 
 
wv^^^^f •« I r i^ " 
 
 *. 
 
 /' 
 
■-:!~I-'^1'<^T7- -T.-nj--.-. jj, T 
 
 r 
 
 A 
 
 25 
 
 beeu fortunate in the statues erected to his 
 memory. As it was the eve of the Presidential 
 election, politics, as might have been expected, 
 ran pretty high at Boston during our stay. 
 Judge R , to whom I had a letter of intro- 
 duction, kindly invited me to accompany him 
 one evening to a political meeting at a small 
 town called Waltham, about teu miles from 
 Boston, and chiefly inhabited by watchmakers. 
 The meeting was held in the public room, 
 which was well filled, several ladies being 
 among the audience. Judge R has de- 
 servedly the reputation of being an excellent 
 speaker, nnd the art of oratory is much more 
 cultivated on his side of the Atlantic than on 
 ours. He spoke for nearly an hour and a half 
 in favour of General Grant and the Republican 
 party, and apart from some rather crude ideas 
 of political economy, which find favour in the 
 New England States, I thought his discourse an 
 able one. Of course we were treated to a little 
 about "The Star-spangled Banner" and its 
 ' • triumphs over the British flag ; but without 
 some garnish of this kind, I presume n® Ameri- 
 can political oration would be considered as 
 f\ \ complete. 
 
 )