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'V^ I By JOHN LENG, Editor of the Dundee Advertiser. PBINTED AND PUBLISHED AT THE DUNDEE ADVERTISER OPPrCE. 18 7 7, 204S47 /^//(5 J ^ 0<^'h (o v/ DEDICATED TO THE MANY KIND FRIENDS WHO ASSISTED IN MAKING HIS VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA FULL OF PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS, i» tltf ^nmt. life: NOTE. The following Notes of a Tour in America, during the Centennial year, were published to a considerable extent in the Dundee Advertiser, as letters, under the heading, " Across the Atlantic." The Author had no intention of issuing them in this form until requested by so many friends that refusal would have seemed more conceited than compliance. Numerous engagements have prevented any careful revision of the original letters, which were almost all pencilled in memorandum books on board of steamboats and in railway trains. This much of explanation may be permitted to account for what he fears will be too frequently discovered — the evidences of hasty composition. The Writer's aim was to enable the reader to see through his eyes as much as possible of the Cities, States, Scenery, and Institutions of the United States and Canada without any obliquity or discolouration of views by bias or prejudice. He will not regret if the result is to produce a desire on the part of others to follow liis footsteps, and check his experiences by their own. ^'\ AMERICA IN 1876. ■■»♦» LIVERPOOL TO NEW \ORK. " Life on tlie ocean wave," as ] massed on board a first -class steamer on the great steam ferry between Liverpool and New York, may be best understood by conceiving a first-class hotel made to float, and propelled through the water by steam engines and screw at the rate of from 300 to 400 miles a day. It is like a hydropathic establishment shipped off to sea without any change of inmates for ten days, and with beer, brandy, and cigars ad libitum. Different from most hydropathic institutions, the living is too luxurious — two very heavy meals, breakfast and dinner, vdth a light intermediate lunch, which alone is about equal to two ordinary dinners. Then there are all manner of diversions for the lively, of associates for the companionable, and of books for the studious. Unless a man is very dull or very sick, time will not hang on his hands. I am glad to say that I have been 10 THE STEAMER'S SALOON. hi fM I \ m neither sick nor dull, and generally surprised how short the days and quick the passage have seemed. I selected a White Star liner, partly f/r speed, but chiefly on account of the good sense of the builders in abandoning the old-fasliioned arrange- ment of placing the cabin and berths in the stern, abaft the engines and over the screw — an arrangement which converts the ship into a factory of sickness, by subjecting the passengers to the greatest motion, the worst smells, and the most excruciating dins. The White Star has been to other steam packet lines what the Midland has been to other English railways — the great innovator and improver, with the result that I have been hearing all the way over from experienced travellers of the numerous points of comfort in which our ship excels others in which they have crossed previously. The main advantage is the position of the saloon in midships, ahead of the cooking galley and the engines, so that none of the odours, or rather mal-odours, of the cook-house and the engine- room enter the cabin. Then there are a number of staterooms before the saloon — still further removed from the screw — and the ship is of such length, and the engines work with such extra- EXCELLENT VENTILATION. 11 )rised have ipeed, )f the ange- ti the v^ — an nto a jiigers }, and Star pit the •the result ' from Doints ers in main n in 1 the ather gine- mber rther ' such xtra- i ordinary smoothness, that in our vessel, the Celtic, we sometimes could hear neither the one nor the other, and appeared to be in a sailing vessel. The saloon itself, in all respects except height, compares favourably with the dining- rooms of the best London hotels. Upwards of 50 feet long and 40 feet in width, it admits of four large tables, seating comfortably 140 persons at each meal. It is lighted by twenty-four uncommonly large ports — twelve on each side — has a large library, a pianoforte, two marble mantelpieces, and numerous mirrors ; but chiefly surpasses in what is the weakest point in most cabins — ventilation — currents of fresh air always passing through the doors at each end, and upwards through two ventilating shafts. In the same way the staterooms and bed cabins are superbly ventilated. The wooden partitions are not carried up to the top, but kept nearly a foot below the ceiling, and from all the passages air-shafts are carried to large funnels above, thus causing a continual circulation of fresh air day and night in all weathers. This system prevents you being saluted when you go below by that abominable "smell of the ship," which commonly tu'-ns the stomach of the passenger long before any storm arises. As showing how much comfort m 12 AR^.ANGEMENTS FOR COMFORT and convenience are studied, I may add that each state cabin has its electric bell ready to summon steward or stewardess. There is a barber's shop, with all hairbrushing and sham- pooing appliances. There are several bath- rooms. The ladies have their own boudoir, and the gentlemen their smoking-room, airy and luxuriously fitted. There is a nursery for children, and separate rooms for both male and female servants ; while electricity, steam, and water are conveyed by their several veins and arteries all over the ship. Nothing, in fact, seems to be lacking that ingenuity can devise, and while the accommodation is spacious, not an inch of room is wasted. Soon after the passengers were carried on board in a large tender and their luggage in another, the anchor was heaved noiselessly by a steam windlass, and the engines going dead slow, our voyage began, the ship gliding away while most of the passengers were unconscious of motion. The appearance of Liverpool with its crowded docks, and of the Mersey with its numerous ocean steamers anchored in the stream, gave one a farewell impression of the magnitude ci the English shipping interest ; and in steam- ing down the river with two other large steam- A HUGE MEAT SAFE. 13 that iy to is a .ham- bath- , and ' and y for e and ., and s and fact, evise, lot an jd on ge in r by a dead away 3cious th its « h its ream, ; litude 1 team- i team- i boats and meeting a small fleet of sailing vessels coming up the river, one cannot but commend the Mersey Trust for the splendid manner in which by floating lights and lighthouses on shore the river is lighted almost like a street. The system of buoying is also a good example for the Conservators of the Tay, both the size of the buoys and their different shapes making it impossible for pilots and masters to mistake which side of the river a vessel is upon. Although our steamer is 450 feet in length — a walk six times up and down her deck being a mile — she is steered as easily as a yacht. The wheel is at least 250 feet from the rudder, l)ut is moved almost by the touch of a finger, the power being supplied by steam. The signals from the bridge to the engine-room are all given by electricity. Everywhere on board we see the practical utility of science. Its latest develop- ment has been the construction of a huge meat safe on board for bringing over ]00 tons of American beef every passage from New York. The Celtic brought this quantity on her last trip, and delivered it in perfect order in the middle of summer, so that there need be no fear for the winter supply. This safe is coated all round with zinc, and the meat is hung all through 14 ABUNDANCE OF THE PROVISIONS. 1 iJ: it from hooks ; a small steam-engine above works a fan which causes a continual circulation of fresh air. There are now eight steamers weekly between America and England, so that if each brought 100 tons there would be 800 tons of beef added to the supply of the English market. Were each vessel to bring 200 tons, the total of 1600 tons would considerably modify the price, as it can be brought over for somewhat less than ■^d per lb. freight. There seems no reason why good American beef should not be sold in the English market at about 8d per lb. Writing of the preservation of beef, one of the most surprising things on board one of these steamers is the freshness of all the provisions throughout the voyage. I am writing when we are on the Banks of Newfoundland, and yet everything — including butter, eggs, fruit, and vegetables — tastes as fresh as if it had just come from the market. The abundance, the super- abundance, and the embarrassing variety of good things — all as good as can be got at the best Hotel on shore — are astonishing. There are hot rolls and cakes fresh from the oven every morning — hot rolls in the English, and corn bread, hominy, and rice cakes in the American styles. The cooking altogether is nearly perfect, and % BILLS OF FARE. 15 the service by the waiters most attentive a,nd accommodating. As certifying that there is no danger of starving on board these ships, I send you one or two of our Bills of Fai*e.*''* At eight o'clock in the morning the warning bell rings for breakfast, which begins punctually at half-past ; kinch is at one, and dinner at six o'clock. In the intervals, "wind and weather permitting," the majority of the passengers sit or promenade on the upper deck, where time goes rapidly in making up sweepstakes on the speed of the ship, which are settled at mid -day, * BREAKFAST. Beef Steak and Onions. Hashed Calves' Head. Liver and Bacon. Broiled Ham. and Eggs. Omelettes and Mutton Chops. Findon Haddies. Fried Fresh Fish. Grilled Sausages. Rice Cakes. Devilled Bones. Corn Bread. Pori-idge. Digby Herrings. Irish Stew. Mashed, Chopped, and Jacket Potatoes. DINNER. Soups. Pea and Giblet. Fish. Haddock and Anchovy Sauce. Entrees. Veal Cutlets a la Zingara. L'Amour en Masque. Ox Tail a la Jardiniere. Curried Mutton and Rice. Roast. Ribs of Beef and Potatoes. Leg of Mutton and Onion Sauce. Loin of Pork and A]jple Sauce. Ducks and Green Peas. Spring Chicken and Bread Sauce. Ox Head Forced. Boiled. Rabbits and Bacon. Turkey and Oyster Sauce. Pork and Beans Baked. Cold. Ham and Tongue. Vegetables. Parsnips. Green Peas. Mashed and Boiled Potatoes. Pastry. 16 LIFE AND SCENES ON DECK. ■■"ff 1 1 ! . U when the speed is posted up, and marked down on the pocket charts ; in watching passing vessels ; playing at rope quoits ; or helping the youngsters to fly kites. The deck presents a succession of human dissolving views, which scarcely ever remain two minutes alike. There is the neat, close-shaven, silent, solitary man, who always paces the deck alone, speaking to nobody, nobody speaking to him ; the loud- talking youth, whose voice is heard wherever you go ; the broad-set, phlegmatic person, who waddles slowly along; the dark Canadian, always dolefully ruminating over his bilious condition ; the stout lady, who seems to live and sleep stretched out on her easy-chair ; the doting young husband who never leaves the side of his wife ; the gallant young gentleman who makes himself agreeable to all the young ladies in turn; half-a-dozen ladies in miscellaneous wi'aps, who seem to be reading through all the novels in the ship ; the man with the red smoking cap, the man with the green smoking cap, and the man with the blue smoking cap ; the handsome Captain, wLo smokes his cigar with the style of an Admiral ; the old Scotchman, whose features bespeak his early acquaintance with oatmeal porridge ; the placid Missourian f WEA TIIER VA RIA TIONS. 17 lawyer, full of law, science, and statistics, wliose grandparents were German and English on one side and Welsh and Scoto-Irish on the other ; the complacent Doctor from Tennessee, born in Hungary, who has just been visiting his native country but does not like it ; the smart mulatto and the negress, with her anxious smiling face, whose lips and nose remind one of Pio Nono's greeting to a black Bishop : " My brother, how ugly you are ;" the little fat boy riding in a chair converted by his sister into a miniature carriage, in which she sometimes airs her doll ; and the sudden racing, laughing, and shouting of children all round the ship. After being several days at sea some people come on deck who were previously unseen, and who appear to have been passing their time like Jonah in the whale's belly. In crossing the Atlantic we have experienced a little of several kinds of weather. We began with the wind right ahead, continuing for three days, and ending in a close approach to a gale ; then we had an exceeduigly fine day and lovely moonlight night ; then twenty-four hours of fog, the steam horn bellowing sometimes every half- minute like a gigantic sea-cow in distress, and with the excitement of passing very closely, in II ! 18 NOCTURNAL SOUNDS. in the thickest of the fog, a large ship, which was also blowing her horn ; then suddenly passing from the fog into the clearest moonlight again, and approaching the western coast with a fore- sight of the unclouded American sky. The nights to a sound sleeper like myself as we go west have a novel charm — the clock is put hack half-an-hour at midnight, and thus we gain nearly five hours extra sleep during the passage. I love the lullaby of the waves, which sound like the rustling of the leaves of a mighty forest, and although the glimpse of the moonlight through the port window tempts to wakefulness, it is pleasant to slumber to the music of the ocean, varied only by the sound of the boatswain's pipe, the distant singing of the sailors as they hoist the sails to catch a favouring breeze, the half-hourly ringing of the ship's bells, and the answer of the man on the watch that "All's well." The "shandy" man who leads the singing of the sailors when they go round in a gang washing the decks commonly improvises a song on passing events. After each couplet the gang join in a plaintive kind of chorus, reminding me of songs I have heard sung by the monks at night in Italy. On the last night before sighting the Western FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE COAST. 19 1 was issing again, I fore- self as is put e gain Lssage. sound forest, •nlight ilness, ^f the the f the ch a bf the Dn the man they nonly ' each id of ■s i istern Continent, the steward and cook surpassed their former achievements in the way of dinner, and there was great fun and hilarity afterwards. Next morning all were early astir to get the first sight of land. It was lovely weather, and crowds of coasting vessels, yachts, fishing and pilot boats betokened our approach to a civilised country. At a distance the coast of New Jersey looks like a well-wooded part of England ; but on approaching it we see that the trees are pines of natural growth. The villas are all very trimly kept, and what first strikes one is the settled, established appearance of everything. Clifton, off which we anchor a short time for the Health Officer's inspection, has a handsome church, with steeple and spire, and the tolling of the bell has quite a Sabbath sound. Nestling among trees all along the rising ground on both sides of the Narrows are charmingly situated residences. A slight haze somewhat intercepts the view of New York, but we pass numerous excursion steamers gaily draped with flags — that of the United States being generally of enormous size — while some are dressed out with smaller banners all round the bulwarks. One or two of the sea- going steamers are very stately — with two or three tiers of saloons, the beam engine working 20 NEW YORK HARBOUR. in the centre, the steering wheel far forward, bands of music playing under cover, and large crowds of passengers on the decks. We next desciy what appear two huge steeples, some- thing like the Victoria Tower at Westminster, and learn that these are the piers of the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, which is to have a span of 1600 feet. The steeples and spires of Brooklyn and then those of New York come into view ; amongst the loftiest, largest, and most conspicuous buildings are the Herald and Tribune newspaper offices, indicating the position which the press has acquired in the States. We now glide past the wharves of numerous Atlantic Shipping Companies — British, French, German, &c., till at last we sight our own and the Cunard landing- places. The accommodation is the best I have anywhere seen. Enormous steamers of from 3000 to 5000 tons steam direct into their own docks, and the wharves are completely covered by sheds which will hold their entire cargoes. Happily for us a friend is awaiting our arrival, who relieves us of all anxiety about baggage and conveyance to the hotel. There is an arrange- ment in New York by which as soon as a steamer is sighted at Sandy Hook telegraphic messages are sent out to persons in New York having 111 FUTURE MOVEMENTS. 21 friends on board informing them when she may be expected at the quay. I am now quartered at the Windsor, a very handsome hotel, of which more hereafter. The ** heated term " is passing away, and as I am strongly advised to see the Centennial Exhibition now, rather than, as I had intended, in October — when it is expected there will be the greatest crowds in Philadelphia — I have resolved to proceed there before starting for Canada and the West. 22 THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION AT PHILADELPHIA. 1 have had some *' dissolving views " of the great Centennial, for 1 was nearly dissolved by the heat while taking them. They say in Philadelphia that it was much hotter a month or even a fortnight earlier, and that then they had a "hot spell," in comparison with which this is comparatively cool. And I can believe it, for although there is a blazing sun there are a few clouds in the sky, and there is a pleasant breeze. Still, it is the heat of Madrid rather than of London, and one is compelled at considerable risk to be cortinually eating iced creams and drinking '* arctic waters." As there are so many millions in America who have nat seen our great European Exhibitions, it was well to show them a large collection of the world's products, and for them to show Europeans the largest that has ever been brought together of their own — of the productions and manufactures of the Western hemisphere. As a great Exhibition — a World's Fair — however, it cannot be compared either in the grandeur of its buildings or the multitude and variety of its PRE-EMINENTL Y AMER. CAN. 23 '•^. of the ^ed by say in month 5n they which believe ere are leasant rather ed at g iced contents with our Exhibitions in London, Paris, and Vienna. Young Jonathan has done wonderfully well for a beginning; but "the Centennial," as everybody calls it here, demon- strates that he is still young. The Vienna Exhibition was the finest and most truly cosmopolitan I have seen. The very best things which each European, and especially each Oriental country could send were sent there. The beauty, the number, and the arrangement of the articles is not likely soon to be surpassed ; and '^uriously the very poorest show was made by the Americans. Here all is reversed. The Americans, as might be expected, are in great force, and European countries relatively very small. Whether on account of the Protectionist tariff, or because of the depression of trade, and the great trouble and expense, it is obvious that large numbers of the first-class manufacturers in Europe have not sent anything to the Centennial. One thing does great credit to Jonathan — as a rule he has courteously given the best positions to foreign exhibitors, and he has greatly benefited by the criticisms made at Vienna on the flaring, gaudy colours with which most of his goods were there painted. Dazzling yellows and flaring crimsons were then m \ I 24 CHINESE AND JAPANESE WARES. 1 li M' k ! I his favourite decorations ; now he has adopted softer hues, and seems with his wonted speed to have made in three or four years half-a-century's progress in taste. Entering the Main Building — ^ which has no great Dome, nor " Brompton boiler " charac- teristics, and which is rather low for its length — we are first struck by the interesting displays of China and Japan. The large business relations of those countries with the west coast States have doubtless induced a special effort on their part, and old China has endeavoured not to be cast into the shade by renovated Japan. Those who delight in "curios" might spend days in examining all the wealth of vases, bowls, bronzes, caddies, and carved work, especially carved furniture ; while the ladies may regale their eyes on the most charming of silks, shawls, and embroideries. Some of the dark carved furniture is exquisite. One large screen, in which the carved frames are filled with artistic work on gold, is in excellent taste, and suitable for almost any house. Japan sends two vases about ten feet high, and the price of which is £ 1 000. There are a number of saucer dishes fully a yard in width, and for which fifty guinea,s each is asked. I however, that I see fancy, degeneracy OUR COLONIAL DISPLAYS. 25 merit of many of these curios, resulting from hasty manufacture of new articles to supply the large demand for the European and American markets. It is now becoming fashionable to fit up a Chinese or Japanese drawing-room or boudoir in great houses, and the taste of the porcelain, bronze, and ivory workers in China and Japan is likely to be affected by the demand to supply articles wholesale seldom previously duplicated. Our own Colonies are very strongly repre- sented — especially those in Australia, where the American element is considerable. Victoria and New South Wales occupy a large space, and occupy it well, and the other southern Colonies are in proportion. I see here large maps and views of Melbourne and Sydney — two cities, especially the latter, rivalling the finest in Europe and America in beauty of situation and tasteful erection and planting. The natural productions in gold — of which we have the usual pyramids, obelisks, and blocks, showing liow much has been exported to the present year — in coal, in wool, in fruit, and in wines, illustrate the wealth which exists there on and in the earth. It is obvious, also, that the manufacturing spirit has taken possession of 26 AMERICAN PRODUCTIONS. I jBII ! m them. Geelong sends tweeds in a great variety of patterns, and many other cloths undistinguish- able from those made in our own country. The Australian cabinetmakers exhibit some very neat and well-made furniture in Australian woods, and a Melbourne confectioner has some cases of confectionery put up with a degree of taste of which Messrs Keillor themselves would not be ashamed. The greatest and most varied show of all the Colonies is made by Canada. The Dominion has clearly resolved not to hide a diminished head in the presence of its imiAediate neighbours. Speaking generally, there is in the Canadian " exhibits " all the soHdity of British with much of the contrivance and adaptability of American work — a combination of the best European and Western qualities. Intelligent landed proprietors, farmers, or gardeners are the men who will most enjoy this Exhibition. It is really wonderful to see in the Agricultural Department, and more especially in the American portion of it, the glorious bounti- fulness of Providence, and the almost magical ingenuity of man. The States that figure their prolific condition by the most wonderful specimens of their produce and inventiveness are Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, New Hampshire, California, and RIVALRY OF THE STATES. 27 variety nguish- j. The jry neat woods, cases of )f taste uld not varied Canada. hide a niediate s in the British ability of le best lers, or oy this e in the 3ially in bounti- magical re their ecimens Illinois, lia, and Oregon — especially the two first and last. Illinois and Iowa seem to be modern Goshens, abounding in corn, cattle, and timber. The specimens of wheat and corn of all kinds sent from Chicago tell of rare combinations of sunshine and soil, resulting in innumerable specimens of the finest wheat, maize, oats, rye, and barley. The rules governing the inspection of grain in the City of Chicago, which accompany these specimens, show that care is taken to uphold the qualities. Speaking of soil, I was taking* a note of what at first seemed a large number of curhng stones, when on further inspection they turned out to be glass globes con- taining specimens of all the varieties of soil in lUinois, ranging from the blackest mould to the whitest clay. There are also many specimens of coal, bricks, and terracotta, innumerable samples of grasses, preserved fruits, and pickles. Iowa and Indiana, although not so mighty, are almost as multifarious in their products, and Indiana magnifies her merits on two boards of statistics, relating her growth and advantages,, one of which is that her indebtedness is only 5 cents per acre. New Hampshire glories in her bacon, and has two representative stuffed Chester white hogs about the size of the largest .j,r- 28 PACIFIC COAST EXHIBITS. polar bears. One of them was slaughtered last February, at the age of 19 months, its weight being 1253 pounds, and its epitaph states that it gained 100 lbs. per month live weight for eight months. So far as curing is concerned, Cincinnati bears the palm in the handsome way in which she cures, barrels, and brands her " Banner Hams " and shoulders and sides of bacon. The Central Pacific Railroad Company illustrates all the attractions of California in Pacific Coast productions, amongst which wine of all kinds is very conspicuous, and sends a series of views of the scenery similar to those exhibited at Vienna. Although not the most extensive, in some respects the most striking State Exhibition is that from Oregon. Here are sections of a great variety of trees of wonder- ful dimensions, one of a red cedar, which was Q7 feet in circumference, and 325 feet high ; samples of corn rivallinpj, if not surpassing, those from Illinois ; and of dried fruits and preserved salmon beyond anything seen elsewhere. Plummer's Patent Fruit Dryer is an Oregon invention for extracting all the moisture from fruit without impairing the flavour. If I get as far as Oregon I intend to see it, and also the processes for a canning » salmon in operation. From the AGRICULTURAL INVENTIONS. 29 stuffed specimens, Oregon seems to excel as much in the animal as in the vegetable kingdom, there being some beautiful heads and skins of deer, elk, sheep, beaver, eagles, &c. The greatest novelty and the most useful recent invention 1 saw in the Exhibition was a patent reaper and binder, which, in addition to the ordinary reaper, binds the corn as it is cut into sheaves, and ties the sheaves round in three places with wire. It attracts crowds of agricul- turists, who express themselves loudly in its favour. The makers are at Auburn, New Jersey. The Americans have long been famed for their agricultural implements, and every one who sees this Exhibition must admire the " knackiness," compactness, and neatness of their innumerable inventions. Abounding in material, they never make a clumsy use of it, but endeavour to use just as much and no more than is required for the work to be done. Their barrels and buckets, their boxes and cans, are models of lightness, tightness, and strength combined. Living in a land where everything that grows is not only abundant, but superabundant, yet where the climate is not favourable to keeping, their attention has been much directed to the best artificial means of food preservation, and the result is that preserved 30 AMERICA'S NATURAL WEALTH. \ m I I :' V meats, fish, fruits, butter, cheese, and milk, either in barrels o^ in tin cases or glass bottles, are conspicuous. They are thus labouring towards the desirable end of making less favoured countries enjoy at reasonable prices the good things of which they grow far more than they can possibly consume. It seems to me that a people whose country possesses such a wealth of natural resources would be far wiser to devote themselves to the development of that natural wealth — a princely and patriarchial occupation — than to aim at rivalling the older European countries in many manufactures which we know from experience are adverse rather than favour- able to the physical health and the domestic welfare of those engaged in them. If scarcely any of our Colonies, however, see this, need we be surprised that the Americans do not recognise it? In the Machinery Hall I am sorry to say that, next bo Corliss's magnificent steam-engine, which is the central power driving all the working machinery exhibited, the most striking objects are Krupp's enormous guns — which seem as if made to take part in the battle of Armageddon, and Sir John Brown & Co.'s 14 -inch armour plating, which we should think impregnable, if ^1f SPECIALTIES. 31 we did not see Kmpp's cannon a short distance away from it. Another prodigious but more peaceful specimen of cast-iron is a pipe for the Croton acqueduct, six feet in diameter. An American peculiarity, arising from the prevalence of wooden buildings and Volunteer Fire Brigades, is the pride taken in the finishing of the fire- engines. Some of those here are completed, with gilding, silver-plating, and glass — more like drawing-room ornaments than machines for extinguishing fires. The vast development of railways over a great country has also led to special excellence in the construction of locomo- tives and railway carriages, in the latter of which particularly the Americans have long been, and still are greatly ahead of us. The ordinary cars here in which the poorest man or woman rides are in some points far better than our first-class carriages were until lately. Pullman Cars are beginning to be known in England, although, when I left it, one had never reached Dundee. In this, as well as in many other things, a few days spent in America would take the conceit out of many Englishmen who foolishly suppose that everything is better in England than anywhere else. The Alt Gallery erected by the city of 32 ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY. ■iV ! i; I Philadelphia for the purpose of commemorating the Exhibition is the finest of all the buildings, but its contents are not equal to their shrine. A young country as yet, America has only begun to raise a school of a,rtists, and it will probably take some generations for her to reach the first rank in this direction. Here, however, is a very- handsome and spacious temple ready to 'receive the works of American genius. I was more interested by the collection of photographs than of oil and water colour paintings. A country that possesses the Yosemite Valley and the Great Divide affords grand opportunities to the artistic photographer, and some of them have been turned to good account by the Americans, although their manipulation does not seem so perfect as that of the Italians and Germans, whose views of Venice, the Tyrol, and Switzerland are of surpassing excellence. I was glad to see some striking views on Deeside and Loch Katrine assigned a good position, with the name of Mr Valentine, Dundee, attached to them. Speaking of Dundee, I must corfess that, as what our manufacturers have sent has been already mentioned in the Advertiser ^ I did not go near the Linen Department, as I felt much like a New York critic, who, alluding to one of SULKING OF BRITISH MANUFACTURERS. 33 lorating lildings, shrine. Y begun robably :he first J a very receive ,s more hs than oountry e Great artistic turned though feet as views are of e some Catrine of Mr the actresses in " Sardanapahis" the other day, veiy neatly said he wished to have described her dress, but could not as there was so little of it. Perhaps when the next Centennial Exhibition is held the Dundee of 1976 will take a more important place in it. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that Dundee has sulked more than many other places, for so far as British manu- facturers are concerned sulking has been the rule, and not the exception. It is not a British but an American Exhibition. lat, as been id not much one of i llll 34 THE HUDSON RIVER. ^^ I :1! It NEW YORK TO MONTREAL. Although I have spent some days in New York, and am becoming familiar with the external aspects of the city, I wish to see it more thoroughly before attempting to give my impres- sions of it, and shall therefore reserve till my retui-n such notes as I have made respecting it, merely remarking that it far surpasses my anticipations, both in its magnitude and activity. I expect when I revisit it later on to have still better opportunities than I have enjoyed of becoming conversant with its leading men and institutions. I have the advantage of being accompanied by a gentleman not only long resident in New York, but also intimately acquainted with Canada and the North West, to whom I am indebted for being guided without any trouble or anxiety to myself to whatever is best worth seeing. We started on a lovely morning up the far- famed Hudson River — a broad and mighty stream, which for forty miles is walled off to the west by a lofty mountain dyke higher than KinnouU Hill, and as steep in its decHvity, i ITS VARIED SCENERY, 35 n New jxternal t more impres- tili my )ting it, ses my Lctivity. bve still yed of en and ' being y long imately West, \^ithout :ever is he far- mighty to the ' than clivity, .^ while a gentler slope on the eastern side is made gay by innumerable villas and homesteads, having all the appearance of joyous plenty. At the Tapan Zee the river widens out to an expansive lake, and above Peekskill the soenery becomes more wildly broken, reminding us of our Western Highland Lochs. It is a mixture of the Clyde, the Elbe, the Rhine, and the Danube — there are the expanse of the Lower Elbe, the ruggedness of the Clyde, the vegetation of the Rhine, and the foliage of the Danube. The long- continued line of palisades — a high trap-dyke of perpendicular strata — is very im- pressive. The long, white, passenger steamers, some ascending from, and some descending to, New York, with their flags flying and bands of music on board; the tugs towing long rafts and trains of barges — and it is worthy of note that all the steamers burning wood or anthracite coal are free from smoke ; the fishing and pleasure boats, with their white sails reflected in the quiet water ; the numerous large depots where ice is collected and stored by thousands of tons in the winter to cool down the thirsty New Yorkers in summer ; the villages and towns on the banks, some of them having buildings of imposing extent and picturesque form — these ll L'i! i 36 ROMANTIC LEGENDS. present a continual succession of charming views, exciting pleasurable interest hour after hour. Nearly 100 miles above New York we reach the Catskill Range, and but for the growing heat of the day we should have been tempted to ascend them. As we pass along from point to point we are reminded how soon a region like this becomes endowed with human and historical interest. It is only a little more than two centuries and a half since Henry Hudson discovered and explored this noble river, and yet already there is scarcely a foot of the ground which has not its curious legend or its thrilling story. What Sir Walter Scott has done for Scotland, Washington Irving did^for the neighbourhood of the Hudson River, on *the banks of which he long resided, collecting its traditions, and gilding them by the rays of his genius. Cooper, too, has placed the scenes of several of his romances on the ground between New York and Canada. The highway between the Hudson and the St. Lawrence by Lake George and Lake Champlain necessarily became the scene of some of the most important struggles between the first settlers and the Indians, and then between the British and the French, and latterly between the Imperial and the Revolutionary forces. ^r JIISTORWA L i^CESKS. 37 Thus we find legendary, romantic, or historical narratives regarding every hill, pass, stream, or village, just as up the Khine or the Danube, or on the Tweed, or Loch Katrine, or in the Pass of Killiecrankie. We pass a manor house where George Washington made love and was rejected, and another where he arranged terms with the British for the evacuation of New York ; another where Major Andre was executed ; another where Washington Irving peacefully ended his days ; a fourth where Horace Greeley was wont to retire from his editorial den. There are many scenes of courage and dtiring which will for ever excite the pride now of the British or now of the American people, while both can afford to be told of them without any vindictive feeling. Westpoint, where the American Military College is placed, has been selected with rare regard to beauty of situation, and the young cadet must indeed be impassive who is not inspired by love of such a country. Higher up we pass New- burgh, so named on account of the resemblance of its situation to Newburgh on the Tay, but which has far outstripped its oldej' namesake, having between 17,000 and 18,000 inhabitants', and more than 20 churches. The American Newburgh is famous for the skill of its people in "^ '! ■ ■' 08 ICE-BOAT SAILING. ice-boat sailing. It is said that with a good breeze their ice-boats will keep up with the railway trains, and also that they sail wonder- fuUv near the wind. It were wearisome to allude to every locality of interest on this magnificent river, but we must mention Albany, the capital of the State of New York, a very thriving town, having 80,000 inhabitants, be- tween 60 and 70 churches, fifteen banks, and eight newspapers. Every now and again we come to large towns, having imposing edifices, and a very flourishing appearance, the importance of which is little known beyond the States. Albany is one of these, and Troy, at no great distance from it, is another — the two together having nearly 150,000 of population. Whoever, indeed, has an eye to see and an ear to hear will not be disappointed, but will be deeply interested and gratified by the ascent of the Hudson Eiver. I was rather disinclined to visit Saratoga, as it was a little off our loute, and as I care very little for watering-placers ; but it would be a pity for anyone who asctrnds the Hudson not to see the most extraordinary watering-place he is ever likely to visit. In Sr.vatoga the Hotel Life of the United States reaches its height. The :.* SARATOGA HOTELS. 39 centre of the town is filled with hotels, the magnitude and magnificence of which exceed anything on the continent of Europe. There are four — Congress Hall, the Grand Union, the Grand, and the United States— which accom- modate above a thousand guests each. We spent a few hours at the United States, which has 1100 rooms — our own being numbered 707. It is built round an enormous quadrangle, which is planted within, and kept cool and alcove -like on the hottest days. Several hundreds of guests, waited upon by a large bodyguard of negro waiters, were seated in parties at separate tables taking their dinners when we entered the dining-room. The Babel of tongues was some- thing to remember. Tlien the extent and the luxuriousness of the drawing-rooms, with their mnumerable miiroi's, couches, settees, frescoes, &c., in which gold, marble, satin, silk, abound, as we never saw them abound before, are simply inde'="~ribable. This hotel alone cost about a quarter of a million sterling, and we were shown through several others on a suiiilar scale and in corresponding stylos. B.uge as these estabhshments are they appeared to he crowded with people, most of whom were dressed in the height of fashion. We were introduced to some I! I 01 i 1 40 THE MINERAL SPRINGS. young ladies, who early in the afternoon were clothed in the lightest of Parisian silks. The heat was so great that the lightness did not seem unbecoming, but such dresses are never seen in the old country, except for bridals or balls. August is the fashionable season at Saratoga, so that we were lucky in seeing the place at its best. The professed attraction, of course, is the springs, which are both various and valuable in their medicinal character. One we tasted seemed an excellent natural soda-water, with a slightly saline taste. All the springs are "tubbed," and you can descend into the "tubs" and see the water bubbling up in large quantities. In con- nection with each of the springs is a bottling establishment, and at these millions of bottles of the different waters are bottled for use all over the continent. Many of the springs are surrounded by gardens and alcoves, in which bands of music frequently play. The gardens are gaily illuminated at night, when they present quite a fairy scene. Besides the hotels, many wealthy people have what are called cottages, but which are really handsome villas, and as many as 3000 private carriages are kept in thr. plaoe — the style most in use being quite up ^o 'Cmit of Botten Row. While the ladies come here for HUSINESS MIXED WITH PLEASURE. 41 (On were The heat Lot seem r seen in or balls, atoga, so 3e at its 56, is the luable in i seemed L slightly led," and see the In con- bottling f bottles use all lags are 1 which gardens T present i,:'.,^ m pleasure, Saratoga is said to be one of the best places in the States for the transaction of important business, as in the month of August almost everybody of note finds his way to it from all parts of the Union, and conferences can be held in it which can scarcely be held any- where else. We had in a short time pointed out to us a number of distinguished men, and were introduced amongst others to Mr Pullman, the head of the Pullman Car Company ; to Dr Standiford, President of the Louisville and Nashville Railway ; and to Mr Carnegie — whose name indicates that he is what he is — a genuine Scotchman, now head of one of the largest iron m.'.nnfl^cturing establishments at Pittsburgh. Evei}body sees and talks to everybody here wdtl ct freedom that is certainly delightful, and as a mere spectacle Saratoga ought to be seen by all who wish to enter into whatever is most peculiar in American life. In the cool of the evening we took a short . ourney by railway, and then a nine-miles drive L stage to the head of Lake George. This was oar first ride in an American stage and over a plank road, and, after the overpowering hea,t and dazzHng splendours of Saratoga, it was refreshing to " cool off*," as the Americans say, 42 A BURNING MOUNTAIN. I in an open conveyance to no other sound than the rambhng of the wheels and the chirrup of the crickets, which everywhere abound, and do chirrup with American Hveliness and activity. We drive over the scene of a bloody attack by the French t i English commissary train, and congratulate oui ^Ives on our immunity in these peaceful times from all such perils. We soon arrive at Fort William Henry Hotel — named after the same Duke of Cumberland who figured at Culloden. This hotel is a fine establishment, most pleasantly situated at the head of Lake George, which is to American Lakes what Loch Katrine is to our Lochs — the chief difference being that it is on the American scale, being much larger than our beautiful Scottish Loch. During the night there was a grand illumination of the distant part of the Lake by a burning mountain — not a volcano, but the wood, extend- ing over several miles, of a lofty range of hills, which had caught fire during recent excessive heat. There was a mournful grandeur in this vast conflagration — the greatest certainly I have ever witnessed. The irradescence spread over the entire surface of the mountain, the smoke reflecting the flames even where the fire itself did not extend. In the morniag the flames LAKE GEORGE. 43 were not to be seen, but only miles of smoke. After breakfast we leave in the Lake steamer Minnehaha, and enjoy a delightful sail by its wooded shores, its picturesque inlets and islets, most of them enlivened by villas and camping stations — living out in tents being here a great diversion — rounding its promontories, watching its fishermen, leaving and taking off passengers at its piers, and admiring its scenery, which often resembles that of our western Lochs in Scotland. At the north end we take the train for four or five miles to Fort Ticonderoga, where we embark again on board a much larger steamer — one of the most magnificent of the American Lake steamers, costing, as the Captain tells us, a quarter of a milhon of dollars. She is 270 feet in length, her nominal horse-power is 1800, and her full speed 20 miles an hour. She has a very large beam engine, but what chiefly struck us in her arrangement v^as that her boilers were all above the sponsons, projected beyond the body of the vessel, thus keeping the ship proper, with the exception of a comparatively small space, entirely for the passengers. The Upper Saloon runs uninterruptedly two hundred feet in length, and is fitted with State Cabins for 200 pas- sengers. These cabins are the largest we have 44 LAKE CHAMPLAIN. I l'^- ■ seen. Some of them are like bridal boudoirs. The ship will carry altogether 2000 people. The Saloon is furnished like a handsome drawing- room, and is about double the height of an ordinary cabin. All round outside of it is a gallery to which some of the State Cabins open, while on the lower deck are all kinds of useful apartmerits, such as a hairdresser's shop, reading- room, post office, and so on. Lake Champlain, like Lake George, is full of historical interest, and should be specially dear to the memory of Englishmen, as two millions of their money were spent under Pitt's orders in the erection of a Fort at Crown Point, intended to hold the Lake under command as the highway between Canada and the South. This Fort is now merely a monument of former British struggles, which were not destined to succeed, for supremacy on the American Continent. The fleets of transports, batteaus, and barges which formerly conveyed our troops, cannon, and ammunition over these central waters are now all sunk or destroyed. Instead of Forts the inhabitants are building picturesque villages wherever either the situation, natural produc- tions, or water privileges, hold out inducements to settlers. On the Eastern side of Lake . i ARRIVAL IN CANADA. 45 boudoirs. ) people, drawing- tit of an r it is a ins open, of useful reading- lamplain, interest, memory ir money rection of hold the between Champlain, built on the slope of a hill, is the flourishing town of Burlington, the Capital of the State of Vermont, which has handsome University Buildings, standing nearly 400 feet above the Bay. Towards nightfall, after spending nearly twelve hours on Lakes George and Champlain, we land at Plattsburgh, and soon after take train for Montreal, which we reach between eleven and twelve o'clock, thus passing for a time from the United States to the Dominion of Canada. 1 I' y i j ' ; ! 1 1 i ,1 It i I 1 i II ! r lii 46 CANADIAN CHURCHES. MONTREAL. "We arranged to reach Montreal on Satur- day evening, so that we might spend a quiet Sunday, and, if possible, attend the services at St Paul's and at Stanley Street Churches. Fortunately both the Rev. Dr Jenkins and the E-ev. J. C. Baxter, formerly of Wishart Church, Dundee, were at home, and we had the gratifica- tion of hearing both preach in churches which far surpass in internal comfort and convenience of arrangement any we have in Dundee. St Paul's is a large and handsome edifice, of excellent architectural proportions, designed by the late Mr Lawford, a pupil of Mr Barry. The tower is not yet completed, nor are Dr Jenkins' intentions with regard to the filling in of the windows with stained glass yet carried out, but the interior is exceedingly effective from its fine proportions. The Presbyterians in Canada have generally no objection to the use of the organ in Divine worship, and there is a fine instrument in St Paul's, which accompanies a well-trained choir. Dr Jenkins conducted the whole of the momine: service with tlse refined CHURCH Ann A ngements. 47 taste which distinguishes him. He preached an eloquent discourse on the surpassing glories of the future state as looked forv/ard to by the Apostle Paul, in contrast with the vague and dubious ideas of the greatest philosophers of Greece and Rome. In the evening we had the pleasure not only of listening to, but of shaking hands and conversing with, our old friend Mr Baxter and his sister. Although a less costly building, Stanley Street Church is scarcely less convenient than St Paul's. The favourite plan in Canada is to have the Sunday schools, Bible classes, week-day and social meetings in rooms in the basement storey. These rooms are large and comparatively lofty. One of the leading members of Mr Baxter's Church is Dr Dawson, Principal of the M'Gill University, who teaches a Bible class of some three hundred young people every Sunday afternoon. Dr Dawson is one of the old-fashioned Presbyterians who even in Canada object to the introduction of instrumental music in religious services, and the Stanley Street congregation chiefly consists of those who strongly sympathise with that view. One result is the excellence of the congrega- tional singing, led by a precentor with a splendid voice, who is supported by a powerful choir, while ■ I - i I 48 THE ORGAN QUESTION. I l> » m\ the whole congregation join apparently with heart and soul. If all our congregational singing were as good there would be little need for organs. I am glad, however, that I can im- partially appreciate a highly-cultured service accompanied by an instrument, as at St Paul's, as well as hearty congregational singing such as at Stanley Street. Principal Dawson was unfortunately not in Montreal, otherwise, if I had happened to meet him, I should have asked him how he gets over the last verse in the Scottish version of the Psalms — ■ *' Praise him with trumpet's sound ; his praise With psaltery advance ; With timbrel, harp, string'd instruments, And organs in the dance. Praise him on cymbals loud ; him praise On cymbals sounding high ; Let each thing breathing praise the Lord, Praise to the Lord give ye." I was sorry that my limited time prevented me calling on a number of ex-Dundonians in Montreal, but I was fortunate in seeing Mr Alexander, who began life in Messrs Keiller s establishment in Dundee, and who now rivals them in the extent of his own in Canada — while his West End confectionery and refreshment rooms are worthy of the West End of London or Paris, and such as I should be glad to see in APPEARANCE OF MONTREAL. 49 Dundee. I shall not soon forget the cordiality with which he received me, and sent his remem- brances to several of his old friends. Mr Alexander either is, or was lately, a member of the local Parliament. The Hon. Mr Ferrier is also closely connected with Dundee, and, although almost an octogenarian, has wonderful wiriness, vivacity, and youthfulness of spirit, speaking about Dundee and its interests and neighbouring places with sprightly intelligence. Few men, I am told, have done more to promote the commercial and social prosperity of Montreal than Mr Ferrier. Montreal has all the appearance of a flourish- ing city. The buildings at the river frontage are bold and impressive, and a large new dock is being constructed for the ocean steamers of the Allan, Dominion, and other lines, which are now moored at the wharves. Tho business streets are lively, but not well paved. ^^he thaws after the winter frosts break up Jae pavement terribly, but a beginniiig has been made in laying down ponderous slabs for the footpaths, which no thaw will disturb. Speaking of frosts, I was told that the English contractors for the Grand Trunk Railway, from their ignorance of the climate, and unwillingness 50 AMERICAN VERSUS ENQLTSTI TOOLS. I to take advice, lost heavily on their contract, although they had rates about double what line might have been made for, and the Canadian contractors made a large fortune. Although the Canadians are veiy loyal to the old country, they mention numerous instances of English stupidity. For example, there has been a great outcry in England lately against American competition in workmen's tools, and it is quite a fact that American tools have almost entire^ "^ driven English tools out of Canada. But wl is the reason ? It is not their cheapness, for a mechanic in Canada, I was informed by a leading hardware merchant, will willingly give nearly double for an American tool that he would give for an English one of the same name. It is because the American tool will do the work required very much better than the English — is so much handier, lighter, and has, as the work- man says, **a better hang about it altogether." The American axe is an illustration. When a man has to fell a great number of trees, after having a little experience of an American axe he will never again handle an English one. When the Canadian ironmongers found this out they sent patterns of the American article over to England, and requested the English makers to WHY ENGLISH TOOLS HAVE LOST GROUND. 51 send precisely the same kind of article, but they could not get them to do it. The English makers either would not attempt to supply the order, or they would make such alterations, founded on their preconceived ideas of what an axe should be, as entirely spoiled it in the eyes of the Canadian farmer. The same holds good of almost every other tool ; and now the Americans have got almost the whole of the tool business into their own hands. The Englishman will stick to his old pattern, and will not believe that anything can be better. The American, on the other hand, eagerly adopts any new idea, knowing that if it is a good idea it will give him the command of the market. The Canadians, seeing that they could not get what they wanted, have gone largely into the manufacture of tools themselves. The same remarks apply to agri- cultural implements, including mowers and reapers. The most conspicuous edifice in Montreal is the French Catholic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which has two lofty but narrow towers. The main building is of enormous size, with three galleries, and will hold 10,000 persons, and fully half of that number must have been present when we looked in for a few minutes on Sunday i 52 UNION OF PRESBYTERIANS. V'. I 1 1 i r morning. It is being richly decorated ; but we have never seen so large a church having such a mean general effect. The English Episcopal Cathedral and Irish Catholic Church, although not so large, are far finer specimens of architec- ture. Montreal abounds in handsome churches, one of the most prominent of which is St Andrew's, of which the Rev. Gavin Lang is minister. This is the only Presbyterian Church in Montreal which remains out of the Union — the Rev. Gavin Lang, Sir Hugh Allan, and others of his congregation, having resolved to continue their adherence to the Established Church of Scotland ; but a considerable number of members of the Church, holding the general union to be desirable, have hived off, and are likely to divide themselves amongst the other Union Churches. Mr Lang's position is not very pleasant, and is not likely to be tenable for any great length of time. It seems absurd to carry into new countries the historical feuds and factions of the old, and so the overwhelming majority of Canadian Presbyterians are strong for a United Church. The situation of Montreal greatly resembles that of Dundee. It stands on the north bank of a broad river, and slopes, although not so ■ i PUBLIC BUILDINGS, 53 I. rapidly and steeply, up towards Mount Royal, which, however, is more, like Balgay Hill than our Law. The western suburb of the town is divided into long wide avenues running on a plateau of great length, and admirably adapted for the tramway cars wliich ply upon them. Some of the villas we visited are very handsome Luildings, both in their exteriors and interiors. The grey lunestone of the district, faced with freestone from Cleveland, has a very good effect both in the private and public buildings. One of the most important of these is M'Gill College, of which Principal Dawson is President, and which has an able staff of Professors. This College was founded by a Scotch merchant, who left a considerable portion of his means for its endowment, and some of them are in land, which has greatly increased in value. The Court- House, St Mary's (Jesuit) College, the Church of the Gesu, the Gray Nunnery, and the great Hospital are all Yerj imposing buildings. The French Catholics are very strong here, and have large endowments, which, on the whole, are very carefully administered, considerable sums being spent on schools, hospitals, and other charitable institutions. There has been a long-standing feud between the Catholic Bishop and lay m I m 54 THE VICTORIA BRIDGE. m 81 I administrators, who object to his extreme Ultra- montanism. He is said to be a very good but very injudicious man, and the hon mot respecting him is attributed to a Roman Cardinal that " it is well there is a heaven for such sain" since they give so much trouble in this world.'' It is understood that orders have recently been sent from Rome to the Ultramontanes here to make considerable abatement in their pretensions, as it is not desired to have a repetition of the Guibord scenes. As a rule, the French and Irish Catholics keep quite apart from each other, and do not pull well together ; indeed, although not exposed to Protestant eyes, the differences of the Catholics are known to be almost as great, within certain limits, as those of the Protestants whost divisions they deride. The Victoria Bridge over the St Lawrence, one of the modern wonders of the world, is only about half the length of our Tay Bridge, and its level is comparatively low, but the breadth of its spans — 242 feet — and the massiveness of its masonry, give it a very solid character. In passing over it one sees nothing, the tube being equivalent to a tunnel. It is best seen in passing under it in one of the river steamers. This we did in returning from Lachine, to which we went i'l VIEWS FROM MOUNT ROYAL. 55 m by special train on Monday morning for the purpose of " shooting the rapids," a very lively sensation, having just a sufficient approach to danger to make it piquant. All visitors to Montreal, if they do not come down the St Lawrence all the way, should go up to Lachine and take the market boat in the morning, as it is an excellent way both of seeing the Rapids and the Victoria Bridge. The finest view of Montreal and the neigh- bouring country is obtained from the top of Mount Royal, round which the Municipality has constructed a fine carriage road. A very extensive range of scenery is enjoyed here, including the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Adirondacks of New York State, the wide expanse of the St Lawrence, the foaming ridges of the Lachine E-apids, the quiet rural villages occupied by the French Canadians, and close below the mansions, churches, and public insti- tutions of the city. On the side of Mount Royal, as on that of Balgay, is a large Cemetery. Altogether the resemblance between Montreal and Dundee is very striking — Montreal, how- ever, being minus our factory smoke, and plus much finer streets, churches, and pubUc buildings. Ml w m 56 THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. i h I MONTREAL TO NIAGARA. I must hasten over the ground more rapidly than in my last, or I shall soon be a thousand miles behind. Leaving Montreal in a Pullman sleeping car, I had the first experience of going to bed in one town and getting up in another. Having done a pretty hard day's work in diiving, sight-seeing, and making calls, I slept as soundly as if I had been at home, and enjoyed the arrangement, being able to wash the dust off and go to the Hotel to breakfast quite rested. We spent the whole day in Ottawa, and were much gratified by an examination of the Houses of Parliament and Departmental Buildings, through which Lieut. -Col. Macpherson, of the MiHtia Department, kindly showed us. The Parliament Buildings are worthy of the Dominion Government, both in style and extent. The internal arrangements are closely copied from those at Westminster, while the situation is far grander, on an elevated plateau 160 feet above the Ottawa Bi\er. The Houses are seen many miles away in all directions, and when Parliament is in Session their illumination at ^f THE CANADIAN PREMIER. 57 night is very telling. In height, magnitude, selection of materials, and architectural propor- tion and detail, the dwelling-place of the Dominion Government is one of which the members of that Government and Canadians generally are entitled to be proud. The officers of Departments, with several of whom I had opportunities of conversing, appear to be high- class and efficient men. Of course, I did not neglect to call on our recently-acquired fellow- citizen, the Hon. Mr Mackenzie, the Premier of Canada, who received me and my friend most kindly. Although all who heard him speak in Dundee must have been impressed by the clear- ness, calmness, and evident conscientiousness of his statements, I should say that his eminent capacity for government and administration is much more apparent in such a private interview as I was privileged with. I could not but profoundly admire the quondam fatherless boy of Aberfeidy, schoolmate of good Peter Barron now at the Perth Railway Station, and for a while a working mason, installed here as Chief of the Cabinet of the Canadian Ministry, surrounded with maps, blue books, and documents, and having about him and at command the whole political machinery of a Confederation immensely E t:i i 58 MR MACKENZIE'S CHARACTERISTICS. f I ! i greater in extent than the Mother Country. I had occasion to make some rather minute inquiries respecting an outlying Province of the Dominion, and was struck with the readiness with which Mr Mackenzie was able to give specific information on every point, to trace on the map all the railway and water connections, to explain the natural features and social peculiarities, to lay his hands at once on all the published reports relating to it, and to note down further particulars, information regarding which he promised to forward. Mr Mackenzie has both a deliberative and discerning mind; the tact promptly to perceive what needs to be said and done at the moment ; a wonderfully retentive memory for facts and figures ; a faculty of expressing himself simply and neatly, without any redundance of verbiage or tautology ; and all his gifts are overruled and directed by a conscientiousness and earnestness to do what is right which commands the respect and confidence even of his opponents, whose chief affliction is that they have to contend against such an able and upright man. In passing through Canada I saw some slight signs of reaction, or rather an endeavour to bring about a reaction, against the Mackenzie Government, by those who would A GRAND LIBRARY. 59 ?y; a is Hce an he like to seize the political loaves and fishes ; but Mr Mackenzie, just as honest Abraham Lincoln had in the States, has a strong hold on the affections of the great body of the people of Canada, who instinctively feel tliat their interests are safe in the hands of one who is solely bent on doing what is right in whatever circumstances he is placed. Before leaving the Houses of Parliament we visited the new Library, which is nearing com- pletion, and which will be one of the finest buildings of its kind in the world. It is circulai*^ in form, and is 135 feet in its centre height. The fittings are entirely of Canadian woods, to be polished in the natural state, and ornamented with excellent carvings. An extension of the buildings is also being pushed on, which will be a monument of Mr Mackenzie's tenure of office. The importance of these Parliament Buildings will be understood when I mention that when completed they will have cost nearly a million sterling. From them we wended our way to the Bank of Montreal, which has an elegant office, under the charge of Mr Drummond, who accompanied us through St Andrew's Church — a veiy beautiful building, admirably equipped in all respects, and which has a fine organ and Ii '^ Ii ■i- || «' I fljll 60 THE CIIAUDIERE FALLS. large amateur choir. The Rev. Daniel M. Gordon is the minister, and is working well under very encouraging circumstances. Our last visit was to the Chaudiere Falls, which are a miniature Niagara, with the difference that the Ottawa people have turned their water privileges to great practical account, having seven large sawmills, employing about 4500 men, and sawing about 200,000,000 feet of timber per annum. Just now, from the general dulness of trade, there are enormous accumula- tions of deals at Ottawa. About 16,000 men are employed felling the timber to keep the mills g<»ing, and still more in the rafting and shipping of " the lumber." It is astonishing to see and hear the many "gangs" of saws working together. It is also curious to go on from these great operations to the smaller manufactories, where water-power is also used for the wholesale production of matches, water-pails, and wash- boards. Much pleased with a day in Ottawa, we took the evening train down to Brockville, on the north bank of the St Lawrence, and slept there, to be ready for embarkation next day in one of the river steamboats, to sail through the Thousand Islands, although there are really 1800 islands THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. Gl m and islets, varying in size from small rocks to populous and well- cultivated pieces of land some miles in length. Almost all the islands are covered with trees. Many of them have summer houses, in which wealthy Americans and Canadians reside. One has two large hotels. It takes the steamer more than four hours to meander through them, the channel in some places being very narrow, so that in misty weather the passage cannot be attempted. It is a very curious archipelago, and we saw it under lovely atmospheric conditions, but were told that in the autumn, when the foliage is changing, the effect would be stiU finer. Soon after passing through the Thousand Islands, and just before entering Lake Ontario, we rounded a rocky point crowned by Fort Henry, and came in full view of the City of Kingston. In the l7th century the French planted here Fort Frontenac, and since then Kingston has been an important military position. Commanding the river and lake, the city has a fine appearance from the water, being built chiefly of limestone found in the vicinity, and having many handsome public buildings. During the last American war this was a naval station, and the old dockyard and its capacious buildings I 1 1- *H i .. 62 QUEEN'S COLLEGE AT KINGSTON. \ ' I are now occupied by the Canadian Military College, under the charge of three British officers of high standing, and intended, like West Point, to give a first-class military education to youthful aspirants for commissions in the Canadian service. The Provincial Penitentiary and Lunatic Asylums are very large and well- managed Institutions. We visited the former of these, and were shown over it with great courtesy by Deputy- Warden Flanagan. The system is that generally in use in the Si^ates, every convict being usefully employed, and afforderl an oppoiiunity of learning a trade. The Prison and Asylums were both built by convict labour, and the buildings are admirably adapted for the purpose. Among the Educa- tional Institutions of Kingston the most important is the University of Queen's College, established some forty years ago by Royal Charter, and the only Canadian University under the management and control of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. At one time Queen's College received a liberal annual grant from the Canadian Government, but, on the withdrawal of all aid to sectarian institutions, the Presbvterians in connection with the Church of Scotland subscribed for an endowment, the f LAKE TRAVELLING. G3 \ \ interest of which made up for the loss. Queen's College has a full and able staff of Professors in Arts, Theology, and Medicine, the Principal being the Rev. Dr Snodgrass, from Glasgow. In Arts and Theology there were last year sixty students, many of them studying for the ministry, and receiving their education free. There are numerous churches in Kingston, the largest being the Roman Ca.tholic Cathedral, attached to which is a College named Regiopolis. Returning to the steamer, we slept well in a roomy and airy state cabin, and in the morning obtained our first experience of the size of an American Lake — the shores of Lake Ontario being sometimes quite invisible. It was a charming morning. No mode of travelling is so luxurious as this, with a pleasant company on board a well-appointed steamer on a lake the surface of which is just rippled by a breeze. Approaching Toronto we see all the evidences of a busy and prosperous city. Toronto has a fine situation on Lake Ontario, which formerly was protected along its entire length by a long spit of sand — a natural breakwater, which enclosed the harbour as an inner lake. Some years ago, however, a beneficent storm made an inlet through the sand, causing a current to pass . II [J 1 • , 'J f ^\ h ir . t I ■■ 64 A POLITICAL AND AORICULTURAL JOURNALIST. through what was previously stagnant water, and there is now a channel for vessels from the east as well as the west. There is some risk, however, of the spit being too much washed away, and the harbour being left seriously exposed. On reaching the town our first call was upon the Hon. George Brown, a member of the Senate, who, although not now in office, is a great political ^power in Canada — the Toronto Globe, which he edits, being the most influential journal in the Dominion, very vigorously con- ducted, and largely read, especially in the west, by the farmers of Canada. Mr Ex own combines a frank and hearty manner with great political foresight and business shrewdness, and one reason why the farmers have so much confidence in him is that he is one of the most emirent of their own class. He has established r Stock Farm in one of the best Counties in Wes ern Ontario, which is a Model Farm no' '[y for Canada, but for the world. Its pob >m pid soil have been carefully selected, while its buildings and appliances are as complete as they can possibly be made. After a pleasant talk with Mr Brown, his brother, Mr Gordon Brown, very kindly drove us through the city, and especially to University College, a massive PUD Lie BUILDINGS IN TORONTO. G5 building, said to be the best specimen of the Norman style in Aruorica. It already has quite an Old World appearance, which causes it to be much admired. It is largely endowed, and doincf excellent work. Goincr throiiirh the IS Museum, we recognised the handwriting of Professor AUeyne Nicholson, one of the Univer- sity Lecturers in Dundee, and heai'd his praises sounded for the immense pains he took in collecting, arranging, and labelling the Natural History specimens. He has left a high reputa- tion in Toronto for industry, skill, and research. The Queen's Park, St James's Cathedral, Trinity College, and the Normal School are among the principal sights here. We went through the Educational Museum, and were much impressed by the earnestness and ability with which the Colonists are training competent schoolmasters and equipping efficient schools. The Canadians of the rising generation ought to be thoroughly weU instructed, and they certainly have advan- tages which few as yet in the Old Country enjoy. While in ToroLto we called on Lieut. - Governor Macdonaid, with whom we had a very pleasant conversation on the position of the Colony and the mode of conducting the Govern- ment both Municipal and Parliamentary. 1*: .; i>« f r 06 ARRIVAL AT NIAGARA. Taking a Lake Kceamer, we sailed across Lake Ontario to Lewiston, and thence had only four miles of a railway journey to Niagara Falls. It is too late at the end of this letter to begin a description of them. I will only say that, as many express their disappointment at the appearance of the Falls, my own feelings were quite the reverse. I think that they alone are worth visiting America to see — that is, if the visitors do not consider, as some have done, that an hour is quite sufficient for seeing them. We took the time and made the exertion required to see them properly, and have carried away impres- sions of the sublime and beautiful that can never be effaced. THE CATARACT HOUSE. 67 If ta If ijll I^'IAGARA FALLS TO CHICAGO. The Cataract House, at which we stayed during our visit to Niagara, is built close upon the Rapids near the American Fall — indeed it has a pavilion walk and bridge extending over a part of the Rapids, the perpetual rush, surge, and spray of which are immediately below and around it. At the Clifton House, on the Canadian side, a more complete view of both the Horse Shoe and American Falls is obtained ; but I was glad to make my acquaintance with these sublime wonders in such a way that the impression grew upon me. Rising early, I took a bath in what is called the Cataract Current at the hotel — an inflow from the Rapids — which was delightfully refreshing. We then surveyed Ooat Island, where the only important use to which the immense water-power is turned is in driving a paper-miU, at which the paper is made for some of the leading American journals. From the islets known as the Three Sisters a splendid view is obtained of thf^ Rapids over the Horse Shoe Falls, which are of great extent ; but the grandest sight, the most im- li 51 i I:' I 1 • -''J Ill 68 BEHIND THE CENTRAL FALLS. m ill' ' portant thing for men and even women — if they have nerve and firmness sufficient — is to descend into the Cave of the Winds, far down in a recess behind the central Fall. The action of the water has formed a cave under the Fall, over and in front of which the vast flood is seen to pour. I ought to have mentioned that before descending you have to strip off" all your ordinary garments and put on a regular bathing dress, with a sou' -wester to protect the head ; and the necessity for this is soon experienced, since in approaching the cave your breath is quickly taken away by what seems the spray of a million shower-baths, and you are wet to the skin as effectually as if plunged into the riven Half-blinded by the water beating all round, and not seeing where one is going, it needs perfect confidence in the guide and a tight grip of his hand to persevere in the expedition. I had an excellent guide, and did not feel the slightest fear, although at times it seemed as if there was no escape from being overwhelmed. It was grand to see the vast body of water pouring down between us and the river ; but this spectacle was not so magnificent as the view of the Falls from the rocks at their feet, to which our guide slowly led us by apparently perilous i ni it' SUBLIME VIEW OF THE FALLS. 69 I'-.i* but really safe and well-devised paths, although we had often to wade to a considerable depth. Every effort was more than repaid by the sublime view of the Falls when we reached the rocky bed at the bottom. That is the place to impress any man with his utter insignificance in contrast with the stupendous works of the great Creator. The morning had been dull, but by the time we had reached the foot of the Falls there was a glorious sunshine penetrating and lighting up both the water and spray. The mighty volume of water, emerald-coloured as it curves dow^n at the top of the Fall, and then converted into spray of dazzling whiteness, descending as it seems from the very clouds — for the altitude appears even greater than it is — surpasses all attempt at description. The river being luxuriously warm, we enjoyed a swim in one of the rock-bound pools — the grandest bath we ever had. The scene was so magnificent that we could have stayed for hours. Ascending at length, we had the novel experience of walking upon — literally walking upon — and being sur- rounded by rainbows, which formed themselves on the spray, and accompanied and environed us at every step. On reaching the top we resume our ordinary dress and proceed to the Ferry, il.'M \i i i 70 THE HORSE SHOE FALL. 9 w which is reached by the descending cars of an elevator railway. A splendid view of the Falls is obtained from the boat, and should not be missed. We then drive on the Canadian side to the Horse Shoe Fall, and are told that the Shoe is becoming perceptibly more curved in the centre, having been hollowed out considerably within the last twenty or thirty years. The beauty of the Falls is best seen as we saw it on a lovely summer day, the gauzy mist being made resplendent with light, but the sense of subliniity is deepest when they are seen from the rocks below. We concluded our survey by driving down to the Whirlpool, a recess of the river where the Niagara whirls in and out, and where trunks of trees and sometimes human bodies^ will, it is said, be kept whirling for several days. The Niagara itself is wider, but has very much the appearance of the Severn where it is crossed by the Clifton Suspension Bridge. It is a long deep ravine, supposed to have been cut out in the course of ages by che action of the water — the material having been much softer than that now reached at Niagara. Our next movement was by the Great Western of Canada to Detroit. We left the Falls at midnight by a sleeping car, and early in the ENGLISH NAMES IN CANADA. 71 morning passed through the flourishing agricul- tural city of London, beautifully situated in the centre of Middlesex, and of course upon the river Thames. Just in sight of the Railway Station is Covent Garden Market ; at some little distance is the modern Cathedral of St Paul's, close to Pall Mall. After crossing the Thames we pass through Westminster, and are soon in the adjoining county of Kent, and stop for breakfast at a prosperous little town named Chatham. The fondness of the colonists for old country names is everywhere exemplified. For upwards of a hundred miles the country is perfectly flat, not a piece of rising ground to be seen. The soil is a fertile loamy clay, without a stone. The road then skirts along the margin of Lake St Clair, which is situated between the two great Lakes Erie and Huron, and at its southern extremity is the modern town of Windsor, innnediately opposite which is the large and imposing American city of Detroit. Passing through Western Canada we are struck by the want of trees for shade and shelter. The Canadian farmer, long accustomed to regard them as his natural enemies, has felled them until there is now a great want of wood. The first experience we had of American ferry M :.] 'J12*' ml m 72 CONTRAST BETWEEN CANADA AND MICHIGAN. steamers was in crossing over to Detroit in a large boat that carried our whole train over under cover — just like a large floating railway station. I had been invited by Mr Pullman to visit the great Pullman Car Works at Detroit, but was unable to give the time. Passing on by the Michigan Central Railway through the State of Michigan I also for the first time saw a vote taken in the cars for the President. Travelling through Michigan, it is at once evident that there is a larger and longer settled population than in a considerable part of Canada. There are more trees, more fertile fields, and more and brighter homesteads. It is in some respects the most flourishing country we have seen, even in America, till reaching Illinois. We dined very satisfactorily in the Hotel Car, where the sense of hurry experienced at railway station meals is not felt. It was night before we reached Chicago, skirting the shore of Lake Michigan for some miles, and impressed with the size of the town from the great length of the lighted houses and streets before we stop at the Depot — the name by which railway stations are always called in the States. THE GREAT FIRE AT CHICAGO. 73 n CHICAGO. The story of the rapid rise and progress of Chicago has often been told. The thrilling narratives of its Great Fire, and the wonderful energy of its people in rebuilding the city, were read over the whole world. One's first impres- sion on seeing the Chicago of to-day is that it is scarcely possible the magnificent business streets we see extending over a vast area can all have been rebuilt in so short a time. The fire in October 1871 spread over nearly four square miles — some 2100 acres — and destroyed over $240,000,000 worth of property, of which only $40,000,000 were recovered from the Insurance Offices ; and yet here in September 1876 the business part of the city probably siu-passes in the even regularity and magnificence of its shops, stores, and warehouses any other in the world. •Conceive a city all whose principal streets correspond to Victoria Street in London, or the most central parts of Glasgow and Manchester, and you will understand the style of the Chicago of to-day. There are miles of streets consisting of blocks five, six, seven, and eight storeys high* ii ?■ 1 ii] n RAPID REBUILDING OF THE CITY. i \ The thoroughfares are crowded, busy, and bustling ; and abounding signs of life and energy in the people and their modes of trading are everywhere apparent. Imagine a city of which all the principal public buildings — the Custom- House, Post-Office, Court-House, Exchange,, railway stations, banks, hotels, newspaper offices, warehouses, and shops — were completely burnt down in a conflagration that i aged for three days and nights over four square miles of ground, and imagine all these replaced, in the course of five years, by much finer and more costly buildings, and you are enabled to form some idea of the wonderful activity that characterises the Chicago people. I wish I had time to reproduce some of the stories I heard of what occurred during the fire, and how men, after realising their losses, set themselves to re-establish themselves almost before the fire was extinguished. With some remarks made by a Chicago citizen I was much impressed. He said, " I think our fire led to the grandest display of true Christian feeling the world ever saw. Here we were, hundreds of thousands of people — houseless, homeless, without food or shelter ; and first from all parts of the United States, and then from every country and city in the civilised world money iiJ! 1 SUPERABUNDANT RELIEF. 75 ro came pouring in till in less than a fortnight we had to telegraph them to stop — that they were sending too aiuch. As it is, we have 500,000 dollars unspent, and if we had not telegraphed there would have been 5 , , . The telegraph for days and weeks was chiefly employed bring- ing us news of help. The first thing we did was to send off our wives and families into the country, and then set to work to relieve those who could not help themselves. I never had my clothes off or slept in a bed till after the tenth day. That was when we knew the water supply was on again, which took off the tension, as we were all afraid the fire might break out again. There were thousands like myself It w^as not a time for sleep but for work, and men worked then as they had never done before, giving their first attention to others rather tb themselves." Four thousand houses were uuilt by the Ilelief Committees and furnished with all absolute requirements within a month. The public Boards met and resolved to maintain public credit. The number of firms not able ta meet their engagements was comparatively small. The Banks, although almost all their safes were destroyed, stood firm; the State forwarded a large sum in cash to the Municipality, I :t:l ill U J 76 GREAT HOTELS. and confidence was promptly restored. Then the rebuilding of the city commenced at such a rate as has perhaps never been equalled. Architects, builders, and workmen came from all parts of the States. Buildings worth between X7,000,000 and £8,000,000 sterling were com- pleted within the first year. One architect alone had £1,200,000 worth in hand. The rate of restoration was marvellous, and the general style of the work excellent. More than any other I have yet visited, Chicago is the city of great hotels. With the exception of the Palace Hotel at San Francisco, the Palmer House is the most costly on the American Continent. It is most ornate in its decorations, and most luxurious in its furniture, but is not so spacious and airy as the Grand Pacific, which is "run" by Mr Drake, who has the reputation of being the most skilful hotel- keeper in the United States — a perfect master of the business. He took me through the wonder- ful subterranean regions of the Grand Pacific, and showed me how they " run " these mon- strous hotels in all their details. In addition to the Palmer House and Grand Pacific there are also the Sherman and Tremont Hotels, very large and first-class houses. I was also intro- 1 • PINE BUSINESS SITE. 77 diiced by u Chicago gentleman to the new Chib House, which has just been opened, and which is most tastefully decorated and furnished in the early English style advocated by Westlake. There are now in course of erection splendid County and City Buildings, a new Post Office, and Custom House, &c. The warehouse blocks are of great extent, and no little sensation had been caused in Chicago just before I arrived by the goliath Stewart dry goods firm of New York having leased two of these blocks. It was rumoured that Claflin and others of the New York houses were about to follow, having discovered that the course of trade, like that of Empire, is tending westward. The dry goods business is said to be gradually centring in Chicago, and leaving New York to be the financial centre. Judging from its growth in the past, he would be a bold man who would venture to prognosticate the limits of Chicago in the future. Its situation at the head of lake and river navigation, and on the direct high- ways from all parts of the North and West of the American Continent to the seaboard, eminently favours the development of an enormous commercial business. The Lake and the Chicago River generally standing about the ? 78 A LARGE ELEVATOR. I) same height, there is no trouble from the rise and fall of the tides, while the elevators and warehouses give greater facilities for handling grain, provisions, and lumber than are now possessed in any other place. I went through and up to the top of the largest and highest elevator in Chicago and the world. It has twenty-three elevating shafts, on the same principle as a dredging machine, ten of which work direct out of the cars. It will empty 500 cars of 200,000 bushels a day, and will load a vessel with 60,000 bushels in two or three hours. The main body of the interior is a labyrinth of bins and spouts — the corn, wheat, barley, and oats being chiefly stored at the top ready to run down the spouts into the vessels on one side, after being elevated from the trains on the other. This B Central Elevator, as it is called, is worked by a splendid steam engine of 500 H.-p., which drives all the shafting by an india- rubber belt 4 feet wide, 315 feet long, and weighing 3600 lbs. Paper cores are used here for the belts to run upon with great success. From the highest storey of this elevator we have a panoramic view of the city, the commercial advantages of whose position are very conspicuous. SPLENDID WATER SUPPLY. 79 The risk of another vast conflagration is greatly diminished by the erection of stone and brick edifices — the building of wooden frame houses being now interdicted. But the greatest security is in the abundant water supply. The pumping system at Ottawa is the finest I have seen driven by water power, and that at Chicago the finest by steam power. The City has determined that if another fire occurs there shall be no lack of water to extinguish it — the whole of Lake Michigan — to which the Loch of Lintrathen would literally be only a drop in a bucket — having to be pumped out before the supply would be exhausted. A subaqueous tunnel draws in the water from a great depth two miles out in what is called " the Crib " in the Lake, and a gang of enormous engines pumps the water with such force as will reach the tops of the highest buildings in quantities sufficient to flood out any fire. For drinking purposes the water is now excellent in quality, and remarkably cool even in the height of summer. The tunnel from the lake is large enough to supply a million of people with 57 gallons each per day; while the pumping power at present is equal to 1^0,000,000 gallons during the same period. m A\ w 80 JiAPID HOG KILLING. I* ; f ; i. m ril I ' 1 ' !ir i I Next to the Elevators and Water Works the great sight in Chicago is the Stockyards, where hogs, cattle, and horses are brought in by- thousands and hundreds of thousands to be sold — the cattle to be shipped, and the hogs to be slaughtered. The afternoon I visited the Stock- yards was rather too hot for comfortal:)le observation of wholesale hog-butchery We saw for some time hogs having their throats cut at the rate of eight every minute, or nearly 500 an hour, at an establishment which in the ensuing winter will kill, cut up, cure, and pack at the rate of 6000 a day. We followed the butchered pigs till they were hung up, ready to be sent to the ice-chambers below, where they remain 48 hours, when they are cut up and salted, pre- paratory to being packed. The scale on which ever}i:hing is conducted is astonishing. Commercially one of the most interesting sights in Chicago is the Board of Trade, a large room in which great and sometimes enormous transactions are carried on daily in a manner quite unintelligible to the uninitiated, who hear nothing but apparently frantic and delirious shouts, howls, and screams. Everywhere else in Chicago people seem to be lively, but sensible : here they seem to be maniacs, ejaculating and ' ! Il CUICAQO DRAINED INTO THE G ULF OF MEXICO. 8 1 ^i^ gesticulating in ways suggesting the immediate issue of a Commission de lunatico inquirendo. In course of time it will probably occur to the Board that some method may be devised for conducting its business in a quieter and more orderly and rational manner. Sensil)le men could surely effect their purchases and sales without such a confusion of tonoues. The only defect in the situation of Chicago is its flatness. It is built on a dead level, very slightly above that of the Lake, and from this cause great difliculty was for long experienced with the drainafTfe, which went into the Chica c'J '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 jL i/.x ^^ ^^ 17 ii !i 92 STIMULUS TO AMBITION. soldier that there may be a Marshal's baton in his knapsack develops itself in the breast of every born American citizen, who knows that the humblest American homestead may contain the future President of the United States. In our old countries there is some limit to the career of every one not " born under the purple," but in the great Western Republic it is possible for a river boatman, railsplitter, land surveyor, and country attorney, such as Lincoln was, to become one of the greatest Potentates on earth, to earn a noble and spotless fame, and to die lamented not only by the millions of his own countrymen, but by all enlightened and civilised nations. THE MISSISSIPPI. 93 ST LOUIS, MISSOURI, AND KANSAS. Travelling from Springfield by the Chicago and Alton Railway — the passenger and general traffic on which is very large, and which is one of the best managed railways in the United States — ^we first strike the Mississippi at Alton. It is here a broad, deep, and placid stream, divided occasionally by large cultivated islands. Be- tween Alton and St Louis extend those rich American bottom lands which are so exceedingly productive that corn grows upon them twelve to fourteen feet high, and yields regularly 60 to 70 bushels the acre. The excessive vegetation is, however, unfavourable to human life, which suffers from the malaria of the swamps. St Louis comes in sight long before we cross the river, on the west bank of which it extends for eleven miles, and running back from it from one to four miles. There is great rivalry between St Louis and Chicago, each of which claims a larger population than the other. It is admitted that there is more real wealth in St Louis, from its being a much older place, but it was thrown back nearly half-a-century by the ■I * 'I in m hm im m 94 APPEARANCE OF ST LOUIS. total interraption of its business and the navigation of the Mississippi during the Civil War. The Chicago people, who tabulate every- thing in figures, also say that their colder •climate enables them to do 15 per cent, more work than the St Louis people. No doubt the humid heat of the banks of the Mississippi is very enervating, although a gentleman to whom I had introductions said he had lived there for thirty years and never been sick. Not having been recently burned down and rebuilt, St Louis has not the modern appearance of Chicago, but it has some very fine business streets and public buildings, of which the Exchange and the Four Courts are the most conspicuous. The former has the largest Exchange Room in America, but the building, which is of massive granite, would have had a much finer situation if a cantankerous shopkeeper could have been induced to sell his property at a reasonable price. We were kindly driven out to see the Water Works, which have an enormous pumping power, although the muddy stream of the Mississippi, even after long settling in the reservoirs, scarcelv becomes so clear as one could wish for drinking water. In our drive we saw the fine system of suburban parks, extending A MUNIFICENT ENGLISHMAN. 95 over 2000 acres. The Lafayette Park is the most perfect, and is quite a place of fashionable resort. The Tower Grove Park, of nearly 300 acres, which contains the finest drives, was given to the city by Mr Henry Shaw, an Englishman of great wealth, who made his fortune by buying, long ago, large tracts of land in St Louis and the neighbourhood, which have become immensely valuable. Although extend- ing a refined hospitality to strangers calling upon him, he lives quietly — ^his great delight being in adorning and benefiting the City by laying out this Park with everything which taste and skill can devise. Not content with this, he throws open his private grounds — known as Shaw's Gardens — which are kept like those of an English nobleman, and are unequalled on the American Continent. It is also understood that he has bequeathed his splendid property to the City for the purpose of maintaining these Gardens and Park in all time coming. Before being set down at the Lindell Hotel we were driven over the carriage-way of the famous St Louis Railway Bridge, over which we had come in the train. It is at once the most massive and handsome railway bridge I have seen ; but I am sorry to say that, although a Ml I ^ ■'!;<»' mM m nr 96 PROSPECTS OP ST LOUIS. magnificent engineering success, the St Louis Bridge is an equally magnificent financial failure, from the fact that the haulage of goods from the Levee to it costs more than the ferrying of them across the river. In course of time the through traffic may be sufficient to pay the interest on the expenditure, but this will not be soon. The St Louis people are generally as confident of the future of their city as are the people of Chicago. They say that the Valley of the Mississippi will maintain a population as great as that of Europe, and that, from its position, St Louis must be the metropolis of that valley. It is the central port for the inland navigation of the Missouri and the Mississippi, and also the great railway centre for the South West. The business men are solid and substantial, but not lacking in enterprise, and are already turning to account the wealth of coal and iron to be found in tiie neighbour- hood. The famous Iron Mountain, wh'^ch is at a comparatively short distance, is now connected by railway with St Louis, and contains an inexhaustible supply of a very fine quality of ore. I was taken to the Vulcan Works, a few miles from the city, where I saw the process of casting and rolling steel rails carried on by machinery almost £is perfect as science can ROLLING MILLS. 9r devise. The ingots, which each weigh a ton, are brought at a golden heat from enormous gas furnaces, which are now used in preference to coal on account of their freedom from sulphur. They are then rolled till the ingot is reduced from 15 to 7 inches square, when it is cut into three, each representing three rails, and these rails are rolled out into 30 feet lengths by being passed over a succession of rollers with astonish- ing rapidity. It is amusing to see how a ton of red-hot metal is moved and turned over and handled by machinery as if it were a baby. Throughout the Works hydraulic, steam, and gas apparatus are used in ingenious combina- tions, with the result that 300 tons of ingots are converted into steel rails ready for use every twenty-four hours. I found that the head mechanic in these works was a Scotchman, and that his employers consider him the best man in the establishment. Besides this there are several other Rolling Mills, Smelting, and Wire-Drawing Works. Lead casting is a large business ; pork packing sums up to £500,000- a-year; beer is brewed to the extent of half a million barrels ; and as many barrels of flour are ground and shipped. My St Louis friend believes that it will yet become 'ii ! i ! f. I A. m lii ^8 A MONSTER RIVER STEAMER. II !| I ( one of the largest manufacturing cities in the world. Before leaving St Louis I went on board the Great Republic, the largest ri\ er steamer in the world, her burden being 2600 tons. Her main deck is of prodigious width and length, curiously beamed, sparred, and tied to hold the framework together, but with space for an enormous quantity of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and other freight. Over this is the saloon, which is 275 feet in length, about 12 feet high in the centre, and has branching out at each side state cabins, with 200 sleeping berths. There is a large office, bai-room, and every equipment of a first-class hotel. The paddle-wheels — constructed entirely of wood — are of the largest diameter I have ever seen. The Great Kepublic is certainly a prodigy of steamboat construction, especially as she is built to run in ^ve feet of water, and when fully loaded draws only twelve. From St Louis westward I passed from under the direct charge of the kind friends, whose atten- tions I shall never forget, and to whom I am indebted for opportunities of everywhere seeing the best pf everything to be seen with the least possible waste of time. Although travelling a,fterwards across the Continent for more than a FEARFUL THUNDERSTORM. 99 li week in one sense alone, I have never felt lonely, having always found very pleasant companions in the Pullman Cars, which are most sociable institutions, infinitely preferable to our small and exclusive compartment carriages. The only mishap I have yet encountered was in Missouri. Leaving St Louis by the 8.15 p.m. train, I •expected to breakfast next morning in Kansas State, but when I awoke I found the train was standing little more than 100 miles from St Louis. During the night there had been a heavy downpour of rain, which had flooded the country and made the engine-driver afraid to cross the bridges. During the day we only crept along about fifty miles through a swampy region filled with water, which stood up to the rails, and remained at a place called Moberly till the following morning. There was no moving either forwards or backwards. The night was made miserable by the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes. An hour or two before daybreak a thunderstorm broke round the train, in which the lightning was more vivid and continuous than I had ever seen, and the thunder, instead of being in the sky, seemed to be on the very ground. One of the discharges appeared like that of a tremendous battery within a few 100 WRECK OF A TRAIN. yards of one side of the train, followed a few seconds afterwards by another on the opposite side. It was terribly grand — not an experience to be desired, but which having passed through one remembers for good. In Missouri we literally passed through the floods and the fire. Next mornimty we were reconciled to our long delay on learnmg that a few miles ahead of us a train had been wrecked by falling into a culvert, and that Mr Taussig, the manager of the line, with a son, nephew, and friend, who were travelling in the Directors' car, had been drowned inside of it, while eleven other persons were injured. We subsequently saw the wreck of the train, the cars being capsized right over on their broadsides. In the afternoon as we travelled along we could not but admire the luxuriant vegetation bordering on the Missouri — our admiration, however, evaporating greatly in the perspiration caused by the sweltering heat of the minghng land and water under an almost tropical sun. Everything seems admirable in Missouri, the Midland, and some of the Eastern States, except the climate, which in summer must have a debilitating effect on all who are not accustomed to it, although there are many who seem quite acclimatised. EMBRYO CITIES IN KANSAS. 101 Up to Kansas City the weather continued very hot, but soon after leaving it we came to a cooler region. For the first 250 miles Kansas is well settled, and has the appearance of a thriving and prosperous State ; but we heard sad stories of the desolation of crops by the grasshoppers, which for two or three seasons have been a perfect plague. They came later this year than last, and have done much less damage. Next morning we were passing through the uncultivated prairie — not a tree, field, or house to be seen — and the horizon as distant as when seen from a ship at sea. However level the plain may be, by an optical delusion the land seems to rise considerably in every direction; but the extent of dead level ground is not so great as we had expected, for, except in a few places, there is generally some " rolling ground," if not even hills or bluffs, in sight. As we move westward our stopping places are the mere rudiments of villages — future " Cities" perhaps in embryo, but now consisting only of the wooden shed of the station-keeper, two or three shanties — little log houses — and a " dug-out" or two — places of shelter dug in the ground and covered with a roof of planks. The population of Buffalo Station is 10 ; Aroya, 11 ; 1 1, I, ,•■< I ! II m M w 102 PRAIRIES OF COLORADO. Monument, 15 ; and Monotony, 22. More dreary places to live in, either summer or winter, can scarcely be conceived, yet thousands of large and flourishing American towns have had similar beginnings. In the afternoon of the second day we pass out of Kansas into Colorado, which has much the same character. Here, as in the Western Section of Kansas, it is a diversion to look out for prairie dogs and antelopes, both of which abound. The herds of buffaloes have been scared by the Ir^comotives and receded, along with the Indians, to the great North-West. In some places the soil is little better than sand, and so arid that the grass does not cover it. In others, where there are either streams or springs of water, numerous herds are seen quietly grazing, while the mounted herds- men, in their broad hats and scarlet vests, raise the dust as they gallop over the plain. Very rarely " a prairie schooner " — the name given to an emigrant's team, which is always covered with white canvas — comes into view. Almost the only railway traffic besides that of passengers is in the transport to the East of Kansas and Colorado cattle, which is becoming larger and larger as the plains are being more extensively stocked. A couple of hours before sunset we DENVER CITY. 103 r I Hi come in sight of Pike's Peak, a mountain upwards of 14,000 feet high, and one of the highest in Colorado — about the same height, if I remem- ber rightly, as Mont Blanc, but not covered Hke it with perpetual snow. We see it distiu 'tly at a distance of eighty miles, and after sunset the purple hnes upon its long sloping sides art) highl} pic+v isque. Denver City is reached a little ^^fore bedtime, and, after the hot vapour baths of Missouri, it is quite a luxury to enjoy the delicious cold of Colorado. We are now a mile above the level of the sea, and the atmos- phere is as rare and as cold as on the top of Ben Lomond or Ben Nevis. For the first time since leaving Montreal we welcome the cover of blankets, and wake in the morning, after a most refreshing sleep, with a keen appetite for one of the delicacies of Denver — antelope steak — which seems as common here as beefsteak and mutton chops generally are at American as weU as at English hotels. \ A :i: i^i I I'll :!ll ■' Jn ■iJl liii If W Si |f"l |i 104 THE PACIFIC RAILWAY. A MAGNIFICENT RAILWAY JOURNEY. The n.en who conceived and demonstrated the practicability of spanning the American Continent lay a railway connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic Coast deserve well of the American people and mankind. It was a gigantic under- taking, and they are amongst the giants of our time who saw their way to stride over the plains of Nebraska and Wyoming, march beyond the Black Hills, penetrate the E,ocky Mountains, and scale and descend the Sierra Nevadas, till they linked New York and Chicago with San Francisco. Omaha, the point at which the Union Pacific Railway begins, is about 1400 miles west of New York, and it is 1914 miles from Omaha to San Francisco. When first projected, the greater part of this line w^as through an uncaitivated and unpopu- lated region. It was for national and military reasons — to prevent the disintegration of the United States and the formation of a West Coast Republic — that the Federal Government resolved to give large subsidies of money and land towards the cost of constructing a trans- CHINAMEN CN THE RAILWAY. 105 continental railroad. The constructors are said to have made very favourable terms for them- selves, but the enterprise, pluck, and energy they exhibited merited no ordinary reward. In travelling over the Union Pacific and Central Pacific roads it is obvious that the men who laid down these lines understood their business, and did it well. Although the lines were " graded and ironed" at a rate never previously known in the history of railway making — several miles a day being completed day after day for weeks together — the rails are strong, and very evenly laid. There is no safer and steadier travelling anywhere than on this line ; the only sensation of danger is in crossing the wooden trestle bridges, but these are being rapidly displaced by solid embankments, on which large regiments of Chinamen are at work under the superintendence of American "bosses." The platelayers and surfacemen all along are Mongolians, and at some of the stations we are attended for the first time by Chinese waiters, dressed more like women than men, and very feminine in appear- ance ar.d in the softness and quietness of their movements. As waiters they are more dexterous than the negroes ; while amongst the navvies are many strong and brawny-looking fellows. H ii. ;!f ^:ii ' I m rt I 106 PACIFIG RAILWAY SUMMIT. Coming on to the Union Pacific road at Cheyenne, we are within fifty miles of the highest railway point on the North American Continent. The elevation is 8242 feet, and yet it is reached so gradually that the ascent is in many places almost imperceptible. The rarity of the atmosphere testifies to our being high up in the world, but it is difficult to realise that we are more than twice as high as the smnmit of Ben Lomond. The fact that the base of the adjacent mountains is at such an elevation probably accounts for their apparent height being less imposing than most travellers expect. More solitary places than the railway stations at some points on these Pacific Roads it would be difficult to conceive, and yet I found that one of them was kept by a young Scotchman, married to a young Englishwoman — quite a lady in her manners — whose blooming cheeks attested the salubrity of this lofty region. The name of the highest station is Sherman, and not far from it are the Skull Rocks, which suggest that the craniums of hundreds of mammoths had been piled upon each other. We next pass a number of curious-looking Hills or Buttes, rising isolated from the Laramie Plains. In these plains tlieep-raising is carried on extensively by CURIOUS ROCKS. 107 modem Shepherd Kings and Stock Eaisers, who have large flocks and herds, and whose average increase of capital is estimated at 50 per cent, per annum. At Laramie Station is one of the numerous windmills used for pumping water for the locomotives. Both in the making and working of these Pacific Lines the supply of water was one of the great difficulties to he overcome, and although in some cases it is brought to the stations by gravitation, more frequently windmills or steam engines have to be used. Having spent the afternoon in travel- ling from Cheyenne, beyond Sherman and Laramie, the sun sets, and while we sleep the train steadily pursues its track over the Con- tinent. Next morning we awake in the region of the Green River, and the keen, bracing air appetises us for a hearty breakfast. The famihar name of Baxter appears on a station passed in the early morning. Green River derives its name from flowing over green shale, and there are many curiously-shaped shale rocks in innumerable strata, most conspicuous amongst which are the lofty Castle Rock, the Twin Sisters, Giant's Club, and Giant's Teapot, and beyond these Church Buttc3, from their supposed ecclesiastical if |f mri I ~^i lit ^ fill 3 \ 1 M' m :i j « I ;i ■ n : '^'1 -'i?l I 108 A MOUNTAIN OP COAL. I forms. Whether it be so or not I cannot say, but it is alleged that the construction of the railway has been followed by rain falling in these regions, where it was previously unknown, and the action of rain and frost together are said to be rapidly altering the configuration of these rocks. Further on a mountain of coal has been discovered, with three seams nearly 90 feet in total thickness. The Union Pacific has been very fortunate in striking coal at several points, and is able not only to supply itself with all it needs at a very moderate expense, but to sell considerable quantities at a good profit. The most memorable scenes on the Union Pacific are passed on the second afternoon from Oheyenne, in descending through Echo and Weber Canons (pronounced Canyons). It was a splendid afterncon, with a sufficiency of white clouds to prevent the eyes being dazzled, while they served to reflect the light and bring out distant objects distinctly. For more than three hoius I sat on the platform of the engine in the best possible position, just above the ** cow- catcher" — which is never permitted except to privileged observers — and enjoyed a feast of vifiion never to be forgotten. The ever- varying ,\ILD SCENES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 109 scenes can only be described as indesciibable in their wild and rugged grandeur ; their glimpses of subhmity ; their suggestions of awful sub- terranean upheavals, demoniac battlefields, blights, and curses, followed by the exhaus- tion, weariness, and sickness of nature for ages upon ages. Here mountains have been riven apart, and huge rocks tossed about like play- things. Gradually a mantle of vegetation has spread itself over ugly wounds and scars ; and a river glides cheerfully through the midst of desolation. Some idea of the fantastic forms of the rocks may be gathered from their names — Castle Eock, Hanging Rock, Sentinel, Witches' Battlement, Needles, Egyptian Tombs, Pulpit Rock, Monument Rock, and so on. Passing on from Echo Canon, we approach the Weber River, and enter Weber Canon, with its Eagle's Nest Rock, Devil's Slide, and the Thousand Mile Tree. The Devil's Slide consists of two perpendicular, jagged, and serrated ledges of granite on a mountain brae 800 feet high. The Thousand Mile Tree has a large " ticket" upon it, proclaiming that 1000 miles from Omaha have been reached. In Weber Canon we see the conflict between man and nature. We are now in Utah, and the Mormons are cultivating i ilji iiil Mi ' "f I ■f'ij 14; I'll m^-' 110 THE CENTRAL PACIFIC. the narrow valley and bottom lands ; while above and beyond are the sterile Wahsatch Mountains and the rocky wilds of the Devil's Gate. We are surrounded by deep ravines, yawning fissures, and jagged peaks. Anything more desolate than the canons in Utah can scarcely be conceived ; and the Mormon leaders must have imbued their followers with consider- able faith before being able to induce them to pass through such dismal approaches to their Promised Land. Ogden is the station at which the line branches off for Salt Lake City. Here we change cars and trains, and are no longer on the Union but the Central Pacific Line, in the building of which over the Sierra Nevadas even more skill was required than in crossing the Rocky Mountains by the Union. One great impediment to the making of this line was that all the rails, tools, engines, and machinery had to be sent round Cape Horn to California — a voyage of several months — so that the expense of everything was doubled and trebled before being placed on the ground. According to Williams, " The first 100 miles was up a total ascent of 7000 feet. At the height of 5000 feet the snow line was reached, and 40 miles of snow galleries had to be erected, DIFFICULTIES OF CONSTRUCTION. Ill at an additional expense of 20,000 to 30,000 dollars per mile, and made so strong that avalanclies might pass over them and yet pre- serve the safety of the track. Even after passing the Sierras, the road descended into a vast plain — dry, sere, and deserted — where there was neither fuel nor civilised life. For over 600 miles of the route there was not a single white inhabitant. For over 100 miles at a stretch no water could be found for either man or machinery." The men who planned had, however, the pluck to carry through the work, and dug, cut, and blasted their way through beds of granite and over the sides of mountains, and before they finished actually succeeded in laying down and running an engine over ten miles of railway in a single day. The Directors of the Central Pacific are now the Railway Kings ot the West, and they are men of great wealth, yet they are not making any miserly accumula- tion of their money, but spending it as fast as they make it in building new lines for the benefit of the Pacific Coast. On my way to San Francisco I read in the journals of that city of the opening of the Southern Pacific — which is really an extension of the Central — to Los Angelos, a distance of 350 miles. Mr Stanford ' 'hi 1 1 :«!'. m ■It' i: / ^f \ ;ji ■I 112 THE PALISADES. and his colleagues evidently aim at controlling the whole railway system of the West Coast, and it is understood that when they have secured their position in the South they wiU turn their attention to the North, and complete their connections with Oregon and Washington Territory. Leaving Ogden about sunset we see little of the first 250 miles of the Central, but are in- formed that even in daylight there is httle to be seen. We breakfast at Elko, the rude metro- polis of numerous mining stations, where we see piles of ore in small sacks made from Dundee Hessians. The early part of the day is spent in passing through the great Humboldt Desert, and before noon we pass through the impressive Palisades, where, as in many other places, it seems as if Nature had provided for the easy con- struction of this railway by cleaving mountains asunder which would have been next to impene- trable by artificial means. In the afternoon we reach Winnemucca, from which it is expected the Central branch line to Oregon will be con- structed. It is the centre of a vast mining region — mines of gold, silver, antimony, and salt being very productive. It is said that in the antimony district slabs weighing three tons, and averaging THE HUMBOLDT SINK. 113 70 per cent, of pure antimony, can be obtained. This region of the Humboldt is chiefly interest- ing to the traveller from the strange phenomena of the Humboldt and Carson Sink, into which the waters of two considerable rivers — the Humboldt being 500 miles in length — merge and submerge without any outlet, and, according to some, run down into a subterranean sea, or, according to others, simply disappear by eva- poration. Several other streams, such as the Truckee, in this region have similar Sinks. Pyramid and Winnemucca Lakes both receive streams, but have none flowing out of them. It is a thirsty land, whose thirst is unquench- able. Those who note the rapidity with which water evaporates from any exposed vessel during the hot season are satisfied that evaporation alone is sufficient to explain the phenomena. I forgot to mention the snow sheds on the Union, but as they are simply intended to arrest drifting snow they are not so remarkable as those on the Central, most of which are made strong enough to resist avalanches coming down the sides of the Nevadas. The lower trunks of trees are used for the upright posts, and the upper portions or large branches for the cross pieces. Millions of feet of "timber" must have been t m M if I '• i a i !i i M 114 SNOW SHEDS. worked up into these sheds, and fortunately th© trees were close at hand. In the construction of these railways the sleepers are also mucH larger and closer than with us, the abundance of wood causing it to be lavishly used. As snow sometimes falls on the Nevadas to the depth of five feet in a day, and will gather in places to the depth of thirty feet, the need for these snow sheds will be understood. Great precautions are required in summer to prevent them taking fire, and to extinguish fire if it breaks out. But for them much more ( f the mountain scenery would be visible ; we must be content, however, since but for them the mountains themselves frequently could not be traversed by the trains. On the second morning after leaving Ogden, at the friendly suggestion of the intelligent negro steward of our sleeping car, we rise at day- break to catch the first glimpses of the magnificent scenery of the Sierra Nevadas. This is quite different in its character from that of the Rocky Mountains. There the line passes at the foot of bleak and sterile crags. Now we are rapidly descending from the lofty table land between the Rocky Mountains and the Nevadas down the sides of the latter into the valley of the Sacramento — the descent being upwards of 7000 !i GRAND SCENERY OP THE SIERRAS. 115 feet. The road is a continuous series of serpen- tine curves and inclined planes cut into the sides of the mountains, and cut through and out of forests of pine. At Shady Run, which we reach just at sunrise, while it is all bright above, the deep valleys below are filled with violet vapour, deepening in hue with the depth of the abysses. We see the junction of Blue Canon Creek and the North Fork of the American river through a chasm 2000 feet deep. Wherever the view opens we behold a sea of foliage, the trees having a curious wave-like effect. The two most won- derful scenes are near Serpentine Ravine and at Cape Horn. They break suddenly upon the view, and are of overwhelming grandeur, tran- scending all power of pen, ])oetry, or painting to communicate to others the revelation of beauty and magnificence which ravishes the eye, and places its spell on the imagination. The traiu stops at Cape Horn, so that the passengers may " step out and down " to see — for too brief a time — the glories of the scene two thousand feet below, and stretching away for miles in the distance. Surrounded by mountains, we stand midway amidst them, with a precipice below our feet, and see before us a mighty array of pine-clad hiUs and vaUeys bathed in the softest ;■ ' i ^ ■ »i ;i::>;^i ^■''1 w in m m It: 'J 'II i-i m 116 DESCENT TO THE PLAINS. 'i morning light — a scene to be remembered for ever. Soon, however, we move on, and it is interesting to watch the long train describe semicircles, sometimes concave, and sometimes convex, round the windings of the mountains. Often we quake as the trestle bridges creak below us. Then a large surface of hill is seen washed bare, displaying the extent to which placer mining has been carried. Then we watch the miles of iron pipes and wooden sluices which have been constructed to convey streams of running water to the mines. Now and again we shoot through a short tunnel — of which, if we remember rightly, there are only four on the line — and it is remarkable how little tunnelling there has been over these 2000 miles of Pacific road — much less altogether than on the Caledonian Railway in Scotland. At last we have dropped down to Sacramento, and now travel about 140 miles through a rich and cultivated plain, bright with villages, villas, and homesteads, many of which are maintained with an elegance foretelling the proximity of a great and prosperous city. Then comes Oakland, the Brooklyn of San Francisco, where the trains run over the longest pier I ever was upon — two and nth miles — over the shoal water, until jight- CLAMOROUS RECEPTION. 117 we reach the large ferry-boat, which tranships us all, bag and baggage, to San Francisco, where the hacks and omnibus men and porters hail us with all the clamour and create all the confusion that greets the arrival of a crowd of passengers at every Aiierican city. ■■"• n I'll '■ . i rj IIR OREGON'S DISADVANTAGE, \ Jli; i THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND THE WILLIAMETTE. I spent nearly four days in San Francisco on my way to Oregon — a State which I shall describe hereafter, which is possessed of almost every advantage except direct railway communica- tion. There is a gap of 275 miles between the northmost railway station in California (Reading) and the southmost station in Oregon (Roseburg), and it takes forty hours of continuous travelling in an American stage coach over a very rough road. I happened to see one of the stages leave one of the central stations, and the plunging and rocking of the vehicle decided me rather to run the risk of a storm on the Pacific. Oregon will not take her proper position — and a very high position it will be — in the Federation of the United States until she is linked to the other States by being connected with their system of railways. For practical purposes she is more cut off from them than Ireland is from Great Britain, since, instead of a few hours, it takes three or four days to go from San Francisco to Portland. The Oregon people are alive to the BAY OP SAN FRANCISCO. 119 m importance of the distance between them and the Eastern States being reduced. It is the uppermost subject in their thoughts, and it is only a question of time as to the want being supphed. It is expected that within three or five years it will be as easy to reach Portland from the East, and as cheap and soon, as to reach San Francisco. Whenever this occurs Oregon will take a new start and have a rapid influx of immigration, as there can be no doubt that its climate is much more suitable to people from the North of Europe than that of most of the Eastern and Middle States. Like California, it has the great advantage of a moderate tem- perature and cool nights all the year round. Leaving San Francisco in the steamer Geo. W. Elder on a fine morning, accompanied by a genial companion, we had an excellent view of the splendid bay, of which it has been truly said that it would afford shelter to all the navies in the world, while it is almost entirely land-locked, the entrance at the Golden Gate, relative to its great extent, being remarkably narrow. The high land gives good shelter when vessels are once through the Gate — which is the opening between Fort Point and Point Bonita — the island of Alcitraz further acting as a landmark and i'l I V* *1 i i :« n i V] -HI Mil if %m 120 THE PACIFIC COAST RANGE. \ 'i \n breakwater. There is a short bar outside the Gate, where in winter, with a north-west or south-west gale, there is often a heavy broken swell and an ugly cross sea. The tides at San Francisco are not great, and there is a curious variance of one to two feet between their height in the morning and evening. When we passed the bar it was comparatively calm, but there being a slight fog we saw and heard the fog horns blowing regularly at the lighthouses on both sides — the escape of steam being visible long before the sounds were audible. We were now on the great Pacific Ocean, and found it justify its name by the calmness of the sea and the gentleness of the breezes — not sufficient to encourage the setting of sail all the way to the Columbia river. From time to time we had extensive views of the bold coast range of mountains, which rise up like lofty ramparts protecting the Continent from the ocean. There is no flat land between the water and the hills, but the mountains rise up directly from the beach, or more frequently from the waves. There are high headlands all along the coast, but scarcely a single bay into which a vessel of much depth of water can run for shelter during a gale of wind. We left San Francisco on Saturday morning, and when m BAR OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 121 approaching the Columbia river on Monday- afternoon experienced a disagreeable ground swell, consequent on a " Norther," which we afterwards learned had blown there the previous night, although it had not reached us. It was quite dark when we crossed the bar, and the Elder made lively work with her rolling, which several ladies on board attributed to the original depravity of the ship rather than to the roughness of the sea. Once inside the buoy all were merry as possible, and not a few landed at Astoria to enjoy dishes of small oysters, which are of excellent quality. The Astorians believe theirs will ultimately become the great port of the Columbia river, being so near its mouth, but the ground is so steep that there is little room for a town to grow except as it is now doing, upon piles over the river. Astoria seems too far from the wheat-growing valleys to become a great depot for shipment. Our steamer remained at Astoria till day- break the following morning, when we were up betimes to observe the beauty of the Columbia, which is undoubtedly one of the finest rivers in the world. It contains an immense body of water, and, although injured at present by a few shoals, is capable of being made as excellent I i ■; •, ; .; ii li ! ■I 122 SCENERY OF THE COLUMBIA. for navigation as it is for its scenery and fishings. Our anticipations of its beauty were more than realised. At Astoria it is a magni- ficent sheet of water six miles wide. Gradually it narrows till its regular width becomes from a mile to half a mile, its banks varying in height from one to several hundred feet, wooded to the top. Above Astoria it widens out to a large lake, then we pass between a group of islands, then a number of salmon canneries, where large numbers of Chinamen are in the season employed in canning salmon for exportation. Many of the turns on our course are exceedingly beautiful, in the contrast between the broad tranquil river and the lofty, pine-clad braes, on which are exquisite sites for thousands of villas in the future. Ever and anon the majestic snow-clad forms of Mount St Helens and Mount Hood come into view. Looking upon this sparsely- populated region now, one cannot but feel a desire to return a few centuries hence and see the changes which will be wrought, when Oregon will probably contain many millions of population, and Portland will be the London of the North Pacific Coast. The recent freshet had temporarily diminished the depth of water i'i one part of the river ; but Colonel ' m let I of lel SALMON CANNING STATIONS. 123 Wilson, of the United States Survey, merely desiderates a good dredger to secure, at a com- paratively slight cost, a sufficient depth for the largest merchant vessels. All the way up the Columbia we heard of the large profits made in the canning of salmon during the present year. As always happens, there is some danger of the business being overdone, and of the fisheries being permanently injured by reckless and wasteful fishing. Hence the Oregon Legislature is already being petitioned to lay down regula- tions under which the fishings shall be conducted. At certain seasons the whole river seems to swarm with fish. The canneries were closed before our arrival ; but we can understand how prolific the Columbia is, having seen the water coloured by myriads of trout at the Cascades. The demand for Oregon salmon has been greater this year and the returns more profitable than ever before, so that it is worth taking some care of a crop which needs so little outlay, and is harvested with so little labour and expense. As yet there are few places of any importance except the Fisheries on the Columbia. Westport takes, its name from ex-Senator West, a Scotchman from Dalkeith, who was one of the first to become rich in the canning trade. Kalama was I -i: iii it 4 I, 1 ill 124 A "BUSTED" TOWN. one of those places we soir jtimes fall upon in America, which, having had a brief prosperity, have suddenly collapsed. At one time it was expected to become the chief station of the Northern Pacific Railway on the Columbia, and town lots were sold at a high price on that expectation ; but when Jay Cooke " busted" Kalama "busted" along with him, and now its chief hotel and about two-thirds of its houses are unoccupied. St Helens has a large sawmill, and vessels, when the river is low, go down there to load up their cargoes, after taking in the greater part of their freight at Portland. A httle above St Helens we come to the Slough of the Willamette — a backwater navigable even in winter, when the Columbia is disturbed by drift ice. Further on, at a point where the military station of Vancouver is visible, we enter the Willamette proper, and after steaming up it for e hour come in sight of Portland. roitland is spoken of by some people as " the greatost little city in the United State i." Not having seen all the cities in the States, I am not presumptuous enough to say that it is so ; but certainly I have never seen a town of 15,000 inhabitants where the merchants have built such splendid warehouses and wharves, or the shop- A SMALL CITY WITH ORE AT IDEAS. 125 keepers such handsome shops, or the merchants such elegant villas. Some small men have large brains, and here is a little place with great ideas. Enterprising men of Portland have had the foresight to plan and the boldness to carry out their plans with a view to conducting busmess on a large scale. Hence the warehouses and wharves of men like John M'Cracken, Donald M'Leay, Allen & Lewis ; the stores of Messrs Goldsmith, White, and others ; the market buildings and offices erected by Mr Ankeny; and many of the shops in First Street, are of a size that seems prodigious for a town as yet only in its infancy. When, however, we saw eight or nine large ships waiting for cargoes in the river, and were told that a month or two later there would be considerably more, and that in addition to the two railways some thirty river steamers would be engaged bringing wheat for shipment, we could realise the necessity for such premises. Portland is to Oregon what Montreal is to Canada, or St Louis to Missouri, and it is just now relatively where those towns were in the beginning of the century. The marks of the great flood which occurred in June are still visible on many of the houses, and the streets, which are paved and planked with ^1 ' i ■ J vv I ^;ii 126 DOMESTIC ABRANGEMENTS. wood, are still under course of repair. I was driven all over the city, which, although of so much less population, occupies at least half as much ground as Dundee. Living in flats is here unknown. Any well-conducted clerk, mechanic, or workman can possess a neat self- contained house. The houses, although built of wood, appear very comfortable, and are neatly finished inside, while each has its own lot of ground outside. From the moderate tempera- ture in winter stoves are noo required, and open fireplaces give abundant heat. The only risk is from conflagration, which is guarded against by a fire brigade, divided according to districts, and warned by telegraph signals. In the business part of the town, within what are known as "fire limits," wooden buildings are now pro- hibited. Nowhere were we received with greater kindness than by hospitable friends in Portland, who did everything to make our visit agreeable. The situation of Portland is such as to provide ample space for the growth of the town on both sides of the river. It can have a very extensive frontage, while its buildings range backwards in streets known by their numbers, as First, Second, Third Street, and so on. The ground slopes upwards to the base of a spur of the Coast range THE UPPER COLUMBIA. 127 of mountains, and the situation generally is not unlike that of Montreal. If the citizens are wise they will, like those of Montreal, acquire the hill behind for a Public Park. As yet the public buildings are not imposing ; but, con- sidering that the whole place is the growth of a little more than twenty years, its development is wonderful. Having given this letter chiefly to the Columbia river, I may close by mentioning a day's expedition upon it as far west as the Cascades, where the first stage of navigation terminates, the second beginning in another class of vessels above. We left Portland in a liver steamer, the first in which we had been that was driven by a stern wheel — one large paddle pro- jecting from the stern of the boat. The action of these boats is easy and steady — much more so than that of the screw-propeller — and it is said to cause less wash on the banks. After leaving the Willamette and passing Vancouver we sail for about six hours through scenery not a little resembling that of the Caledonian Canal, except that there is more timber on the mountains, which are often nearer and of much greater height than in Scotland. Here, too, water- falls, comparatively rare in the Lower Columbia, II i j-^i "f.l w mmm 128 THE CASCADES. are frequent. At one point there is a grand formation of basaltic rock — a long steep cliff cut through apparently by the water. At another islands of rock rise suddenly from the water, and at another regiments of mountain heights come marching forward as if to invade the river, which, however, arrests their advance ; and near the Cascades, on the left bank, is a stupendous rock, 1400 feet high, called by some the Roost, and by others Castle Rock, which is seen for miles above and below. The Cascades are caused by the descent of the Columbia (about sixty feet) through a narrow rocky gorge about six miles in length. The river above has been dammed up by Nature into a picturesque lake, but as soon as it reaches the Cascades it rushes down with violent haste over all impediments till it reaches the level of the lower Columbia. It is grand to see such an immense body of water gorged in so narrow a ravine, and to mark how, after its brief period of wild agitation, it again becomes calm and silent — mighty ahke in its excitement and in its repose. CLIMATE OF OREGOX. 129 1 \ OREGON SCENERY, TOWNS, AND FARMS. Oregon Is a country of snow- clad mountains, of rich and fertile valleys, and of many streamed rivers. Its principal valley — the Willamette — is embosomed between two mountain ranges — the Coast Range and the Cascades, which shelter it from both Western and Eastern gales. Storms of wind and thunderstorms are alike rare. Of all parts of the world its former and its latter rain appear most sure. Since white men settled in it drought has been unknown, and not a single harvest has been lost. In winter it is warmed by the Japan current. In summer it is cooled by the breezes which descend from its backbone — ^the Alpine range. It has not yet become the fashion of our Alpine climbers to go far afield, but now that they have nearly exhausted Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, and the Rothhorn, I commend to their attention Mount St Helens, Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, and Mount Baker — mountains which stand like sentinels fifty or sixty miles apart, mighty icebergs moored fast in the Cascade range, that never melt and never i : llf" II I; I I i 130 THE WESTERN ALPS. disappear from the horizon. Beginning with Mount Shasta in California, the extension of the Nevadas northward is distinguished by the uprise at almost regular distances of these snow- mantled giants, which increase in height as you go north, until half-a-dozen of them can be seen at once, averaging upwards of 10,000 feet high. They are magnificent landmarks, perpetually cool and serene, while their pyramidal forms reduce to mere children's playthings the Pyramids of Egypt, and illustrate the difference between the handiwork even of a Cheops and that of the Creator. As yet the American Alps have been very imperfectly explored, and the Alpine Club has work in the far West for half a century to come. My Portland friends, in order ilidt I might acquaint myself with the appearance of the country and its resources, arranged for my travelling through the Willamette Valley to Eugene City, a distance of 125 miles, and then driving back and across the country, a distance of about 100 miles, to the end cf the West Side Railway, some 50 miles from Portland. In this way I saw two large and interesting sections of country, and was nearly four days familiarising myself with Oregon farms and homesteads. of OREGON CITY. 131 After leaving Portland by the East Side Hail- way we pass through a number of dauy farms, surrounded, generally, by timber lands. At Milwaukie, the first place of any importance, there are large flour mills and tanneries, and also the orchard from which most of the splendid fixiit trees in Oregon originally sprung. A stiU liveher place is Oregon city, which was marked on the maps and mentioned in geographies before Portland was known. Here is a minia- ture Niagara, supplying, however, a much greater water power to flour, paper, timber, and woollen mills than has been turned to account a,t Niagara itself. The wool and flour mills are of considerable extent, and this little city, if it had enjoyed better navigation, might have become, as it formerly aspired to be, the leading town in the State. The navigation, however, is here interrupted by cascades, and for sea-going vessels Portland is practically at the head of navigation. By means of canals and locks river steamers ascend the Willamette a long distance above even Oregon, and thus keep the railways in check, as many large farrris have their own landings for the shipment of wheat and produce, besides the landings at the towns and villages. The Willamette is a 132 APPEARANCE OF OREGON TOWNS. I i M picturesque winding river, well wooded on both sides, but when the stream is low the steamers are from twenty to thirty feet below the banks, so that little of the surrounding country can be seen. From Oregon City, therefore, we continue our journey by railway, and before reaching Salem come into an open prairie country, the fertility of which may be measured by the frequency of the railway stations and the prosperous appearance of the small towns. These have all considerable resemblance to each other. Near to the station, and generally parallel to the railway, is the principal business street, and conspicuous in it are the restaurants, saloons, and stores. Not uncommonly trees are planted, boulevard fashion, in the streets, which intersect each other at right angles. The houses are almost invariably of wood ; they are painted white, and the paint generally kept fresh. The roofs are shingled, and as these are not painted, a year's exposure to the weather gives them very much the colour of slates. In the shop streets the upper front of the buildings is often kept square, and used for signboards. The footpath is generally covered over with a verandah for shelter, which saves blinds. The basement storey is commonly twelve to fifteen feet high, the SMALL "ClTIESr 133 American storekeepers believing in height, and even in the smallest villages this is the case. So also is the prevalence of large plate-glass windows, and it is remarkable hew in these country places in America the latest novelties and most fashionable articles are to be seen in the stores. Beyond the store streets are othevs with dwellings, all self-contained, each on its own lot, raised generally a few feet from the ground, sometimes with shrubs growing in front of it, often with trees shading it. Then there is always one, commonly two or three, little churches, with their neat little spires rising from the roof. The largest and most pi ominent building of all is the Public Schoolhouse, ordinarily of two, and sometimes of three storeys. It may be known both by its size and the square or circular beifry in the centre of the roof. This predominance of the common school is a chara<"l dstic of all American hamlets and towns. The smallest places with only half-a-dozen houses are built on a plan admitting their extLiision to large cities, and it is amusing how many places are called cities which seem very unlikely ever to be more than villages. We heard, indeed, of a single house in one place being christened a city. m [ t I • A STATE TOWN. When we come to a place like Salem we see a State town, with State House and other public buildings, investing it with considerable dignity ; and the streets are laid out with a spaciousness and elegance making them desirable places for residence. On returning here we visited the new State House, and were present at a meeting of the Senate, which was in Session, and con- ducting its proceedings in the most orderly manner, with very little '* speechification." We were favoured by Governor Grover — who had just been elected United States Senator, which will remove him next March to Washington — with an interesting interview. Mr Grover is quite a pohshed gentleman, and will uphold the dignity of Oregon wherever he may be placed. His successor in the Governorship will be the present able Secretary of State, Mr Chadwick, with whom we also had a pleasant conversation, and received from him some useful documents just presented to the Parliament of Oregon. The State House at Salem has not cost one-tenth of the sum spent on that at Springfield, Illinois, the Oregonians being exceedingly economical lii their ideas of public expenditure. It is built of brick, made by convicts three dollars per thousand, at the rate of about while the ordinary THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY. 185 -\ i ■; t : )1S, of )Ut cost of bricks in the State is from ten to twelve dollars. In course of time it will be cemented : at present it may be useful, but certainly it is not handsome. A few stations beyond Albany we come to Jefferson, where a young Dundonian 1 1 charge of a large flour mill, which is driven by water-power, and belongs to Messrs Corbitt & Macleay, is on the outlook for us, and accepts our invitation to accompany us for some time on our trip. Albany, like Salem, is situated in the centre of a rich wheat- growing district, and having fine water-powder, has numerous, flour, woollen, and other mills. Like Si'lem, it has many handsome private residences, a first-class hotel, and very ple?'*.saiiC rheltered avenues. Leaving it we pass by rail through the Willamette Valley on to Eugene City, where an estimable and culti- vated gentleman is awaiting our arrival, ready with his carriage to drive us a few miles away to re;-.! for the night. Before sunset we chmb a neig^/oouring Butte, which might be denominated Pisgah on account of the lovely views obtained from it in all directions. The Willamette Valley stretches for a great distance in front, with the Coast Bange to the left and the Cascade Ba.nge to the right. Towards sunset we are struck 1 ! I ; 136 CURIOUS PHENOMENON. i# il with the rosy hue which surrounds, not the western, but the eastern horizon, and which gradually purples, and then disappears into the clearest bhie. Immec; c^^v below us on the left is a fork of the Wij mette embowered in trees, and near are natural parks which might be taken for part, of a nobleman's estate in England. So far as its natural scenery is concerned, Oregon enjoys almost every variety that can be desired — level plains, undulating, or, as it is called here, "rolling land," inniunerable streams, lofty highlands, and colossal mountains. No sooner had the sun set than we found it necessary to hasten to our fnend's, the twilight being very short. After dinner we greatly enjoyed the company of our host, who, having been formerly one of the Surveyors employed by the United States Government in surveying and mapping out the country, was full of minute and valuable information with regard to the proposed routes for direct railway connection between Oregon and the Central or Union Pacific Railways. Conversing with this gentleman on a variety of subjects, general and political, we felt that, possessing many such as he, the United States need not despond about their future. They have a reserve of wisdom and experience "HEADING" OP WHEAT. 137 < _A\ % een ific |)n a felt ted re. knee which may be relied upon to guide them in any emergency. On the following morning we rose at dayhght and breakfasted early, in order to begin our drive through a considerable portion of the most cultivated country in the States. We were driving with only an hour's intermission from nearly sunrise till after sunset, and all that time through cultivated land. The very wet spring this year had been in the low level lands more injurious to the wheat crop than had ever previously been known. In some places it had prevented spring wheat being sown till almost the end of June ; but the climate will be under^ stood when we mention that we were shown some wheat which had been sown on the 2 2d June and which was cut and thrashed on the 2 2d September. The greater part of the wheat was gathered in during the last week of September, when we were passing through the State, and what was left was being rapidly " headed" and thrashed. Reaping with sickle or scythe is practically unknown. Reaping machines and *' headers" — principally headers on the large farms — are used, and it is a very lively sight to see two headers and a steam -thrashing machine at work in a large field. The headers t " I I 1' 138 SNAKE FENCES. generally go pretty near together. Each is driven by four and sometimes by six horses, besides two in the waggon which accompanies it at the side. The great advantage of the climate here is that perfectly dry weather can be cal- culated for completing all the harvest operations in the field, even tc* the sacking of the corn. The only pity is that the great bulk of the straw is burned on the ground as the easiest and cheapest way of disposing of it. Comparatively little is required or used for fodder, and very little of it is ever collected for manure. Although greater in extent the Willamette valley is not unlike Strathmore. The Coast Range greatly resembles in configuration the hills from Dunsinane to Kinpurnie and on towards Forfar; while on the other side there are yellow-brown braes in the foreground, and jagged peaks and snow-clad mountains in the background. Here the roads shew a discredit- able neglect of guide-posts, and are little better than broad stripes of land worn into sandy ruts, which makes the vehicle "jolt" fearfully, and creates a desire for the well-macadamised roads of the old country. The prevailing fence is the zig-zag rail or " snake" fence — rails put together without nails. The wealthier farmers are now A TROUBLESOME FERN. 139 putting up good posts and squared rails. There are very few hedges, and the roads certainly are not picturesque. Fern collectors in the old country may be informed that they would be welcomed in Oregon by the thousand, as the fern (Pteris aquilina) is the most troublesome weed the Oregon farmer has to contend, against, although its presence is always a sign of good land. Many of the farmhouses we pass are exceedingly neat in style, and the farmers' wives and daughters we meet driving out in their buggies or waggons have all a well-to-do, and sometimes even elegant, appearance. The absence of outhouses of any extent is remarkable on the prairie farms, the large *' steadings" we are accustomed to in Scotland really not being required. We visited one farm, however, where even some of our best . Scotch farmers might get an occasional hint. Mr Hy. E. Ankeny kindly drove us from Albany to spend an evening, and on the following day go round his model farm, which both in its situation, size, arrangements, and appliances is the finest we have ever seen. It extends to 4680 acres, of which 3500 are cleared and under regular cultivation. It has a fine slope from the North and East to the South ,, ( !m Si 140 A MODEL FARM. and West, and is bounded on the West by the Willamette, on the banks of which are two granaries and a landing, from which the whole produce of the farm can be shipped to Portland in steamers passing every day. Being an aggregate of eight smaller farms, several of the previous farmhouses are occupied by the farm servants, of whom there are twenty regularly employed — several of them being from Scotland. At the time of our visit Mr Ankeny had thrashed and sacked all this year's crop of wheat, and was ploughing for autumn sowing. He has one field of 300 acres regularly in wheat, and it may interest Scotch farmers to know that the cost of heading wheat stands him at only 1 dol. 25 cents, or about five shillings per acre, and of thrashing the wheat five cents, or 2^d, per bushel. Mr Ankeny has about 15,000 bushels this year. He also has about 300 head of cattle, 40 horses, 640 sheep, and 100 hogs. It is a dairy as well as a wheat farm, and his product of cheese last year was 45,380 lbs., and this year will be fully 50,000 lbs., besides 800 lbs. of butter a month during the six winter months. To one who is not a practical farmer the cow byre seemed to be perfect in its plan. It is 102 feet in length by 66 feet in width, and in two 1 4'f ITld lbs. iths. cow 102 two LIOHT AMERICAN PLOUGHS. 141 storeys — the upper one 16 feet high, for the bam, being reached by an inclined pl^ine, so that the carts and waggons drive the grass and hay direct into it. It holds easily 200 tons of hay. The byre itself is divided into four alleys, holding 32 cows each, and the cows have their necks through moveable upright stanchions, with latches so contrived that one man in two or three minutes can fasten or unloose every cow in the byre. There is a small tiamway for moving the feedmg stuff, which consists of hay, mill feed, or steam feed, according to the season. No litter is used ; the droppings fall into channels filled with sawdust or bark, and there is a system of drains for carrying off the liquid manure to tanks — Mr Ankeny not permitting any waste. The arrangements for cheesemaking in the dairy are admirable, and here, too, the whey is drained off for the benefit of the hogs. An experienced farmer who was with us, and who was accustomed to Scotch and New Zealand ploughs, specially admired the lightness of the American ploughs, some of which we saw a man lifting into a waggon without any asssist- ance. Of course, they would not be strong enough for our heavy clays or stony hillside lands. Everything that a steam-engine can do on i i : ! \ I r ^ 142 SXO W- CLAD MO UNTAINS. \\ a farm is done by Mr Ankeny's locomotive — such as threshing in the field, cutting food, steaming food, churning butter, sawing timber, &c. All the soap required on the farm is made by a very simple process from the house fat. The byre, barn, and dairy system seems as nearly perfect as it can be made, and all works under the advantage of an excellent supply of water by gravitation — the whole farm, indeed, being well watered throughout. Altogether it is a place that a Prince might envy. In driving us next morning to Salem, Mr Ankeny — who is a man of great intelligence and energy — drove by an eminence from which we saw five snow- clad mountains — Rainier, St Helens, Adams, Hood, and Jefferson, besides the three snow peaks known as the Three Sisters. We could also see to the South the counties of Lane, Linn, Benton, Polk, and Marion ; and to the North Multnomah, Clackamas, and Yamhill. This was altogether a most enjoyable ride. After spending two or three hours at Salem, we drove to Col. Nesmith's 3000-acre farm ; strolled with the Colonel into his magnificent orchard ; visited Mrs Nesmith's fruit cellar, and saw how Oregon ladies preserve fruit ; and, finally, had the pleasure of looking over the Colonel's well- SLOVENLY FARMING. 143 :;i e h d n e stocked library, and hear him tell some capital anecdotes in " guid braid Scotch." Col. Nesmith was eight years in Congress and one of the humorists at Washington, and impressed us as a man of no ordinary vigour. We ended a long day by driving to Lafayette, where we slept, and next morning went by the first train to Portland, passing through Yamhill County, some stretches of which are quite like some parts of the Scotch Highlands, and are much affected by Scotch settlers for that reason. We saw, in passing, Mr S. G. Reed's stock farm Reedville, the handsome buildings upon which were erected under the supervision of Mr Wm. Watson, son of Mr Hugh Watson of Keillor. Then we crossed the lofty hill range and descended into Portland with the conviction that there is lax id enough in Oregon to grow immense quantities of wheat; but the State is as yet only sparsely populated, and the greater part of the land that is under cultivation is wastefuUy farmed, as all new land in new countries is apt to be. In fifty or a hundred years farms in the style of Reedville and Ankeny will probably be the rule and not the exception. There seem to be fine openings in Oregon for skilful farmers, but we would advise them to look !■ I 144 CHILLS AND FEVERS. out for hill lands or rolling prairie, the level prairie and bottom lands near the rivers being subject to " chills and fevers," or ague, of which emigrants should be forewarned, as what the emigrants call "mean diseases," and very much to be avoided. It should also be remem- bered that there is a long rainy season, when the country cannot have the cheerful appearance under which we saw it. •I!! ! WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 145 PUGET SOUND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. Having often read of the magnificent Mediter- ranean Sea and Archipelago of the West Coast of America, and finding that I could return to San Francisco as economically and almost as easily that way as any other, I took a through ticket from Portland by Kalama, Tacoma, and Victoria. This enabled me to go right through Washington Territory, a considerable part of the south shore of which I had already seen, and it also enabled me to see a large part of Puget Sound, which I would have been sorry to miss. In the railway journey through Washington, except for a short time on the Cowlitz River, and occasional glimpses of what are known as "pocket" lands, there is little to be seen but trees. Hour after hour you travel through a forest — the longest forest ride I have ever taken. Here and there fertile valleys are cultivated, and in one of them — the valley of the Puyaloup — about 2000 Indians are employed cultivating and picking hops, which has proved very profit- able, the hops being of excellent quality. The great feature, however, of Washington Territory ■X I n \ \': ^ ;■ i 146 AFTER-OLOW OF MOUNT RAINIER. is its timber, and, if we did not remember what vast forests in the Eastern States have been cleared away, we might suppose there was timber enough here to last the world for centuries to come. What is seen along the line of railway is not of the large size which is found in the foot hills, and the best trees have already been cut down. Tacoma, on Puget Sound, was at one time spoken of as the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway, and until that railway shall be constructed it is not likely to become of much importance. I shall remember the place chiefly for the splendour of Mount Rainier, as its massive snow-clad form and rugged peaks appeared incarnadined at sunset. The after- glow did not continue so long as I have witnessed it on the Jungfrau ; but, after the rosy hue had disappeared, the immense rock- iceberg almost made one shiver while gazing on its livid sides. All night and the following day our steamer coasted from point to point, taking on board quantities of dead meat, butter, eggs, &c., to be landed at the stations lower down, wheie either there is little land suitable for farming or the people are more profitably occupied. Seattle, in consequence of the y g \y LUMBER MILLS. 147 proximity of coal, of fair quality and easily worked, is the largest and most flourishing of the upper ports. The chief of several large lumbering establishments is that of Messrs Pope & Talbot, at Port Gamble, where six large ocean sailing ships were being loaded when we called. These places are generally located in inlets and natural harbours, some of which are very picturesque. As the steam boilers cannot con- sume half the refuse wood made by the mills, they can generally be seen by the smoke of the burning slabs long before you reach them. Except in thick weather, steamers have little difficulty in navigating the sound, but it is in a few of the bays only where the depth of water does not prevent sailing vessels finding an anchorage. If it were only possible to mcor them, all the ships in the world could be sheltered in this magnificent inland sea. So far as scenery is concerned, Puget Sound is among the many grand views any one of which would have made my visit to America memorable. Except from a pleasant breeze, caused by the movement of the boat, there was scarcely a ripple on its deep blue waters during the whole day. As our course zig-zagged from one winding inlet to another we had an ever- ■*' i i' lli t 148 GRAND SCENERY OF PUOET SOUND. changing panorama of the snow-clad mountains of the Cascade Range — Mounts Rainier and St Helen gradually receding from, and Mount Baker coming into the foreground. Few in Eui'ope have any idea of the mass, height, and ruggedness of these mountains, especially of Baker and St Helen. Ever and anon new peaks and new ranges come into view, while the sand -rock shores and fir-clad heights are mirrored in the waters below. The icy-cold aspect of the mountains, the dark sides of the Coast Kange, with their upper fringes of snow, contrasting with the unclouded brightness of the sky and the perfect stillness of the water, over which a slight heat -haze extends, produces an ineffaceable impression on the mind. Leaving Port Townsend, where quite an array of Indian belles in their tawdry finery are watching those who land from the boat, we cross the Straits, and pass at no great distance from the San Juan archipelago ; and here we cannot but lament that, through the ignorance of our Statesmen, and the stupidity of oiu* Diplomatists^ so much splendid territory in Oregon, Washing- ton, and San Juan has, at different times, been lost to Great Britain. Such losses ought to be a warning to our Governments to appoint none ESQUIMAULT HARBOUR, 149 iS but well-informed men of business to negotiate treaties and determine boundaries. Before sunset we enter the small landlocked harbour of Victoria, somewhat too narrow and rocky for ocean vessels. Within a short distance is Esquimault, a miniature bay of San Francisco, having deep water, and being protected from every wind that blows. It is a very picturesque little fiord, and will enable the Victorians ultimately to carry on a large ocean traffic, as a short canal about a quarter of a mile in length will connect it with Victoria Harbour. The San Francisco steamers and other large vessels, including Her Majesty's ships, regularly use it. Victoria itself is now steadily recovering from the severe depression which followed the inflation that immediately attended the gold discoveries in 1858. The British element is strong here, but has curious American-like developments in the style of the streets, shops, and restaurants, and with specially large out- croppings of Indians and Chinese. Lord Dufferin had just left before our arrival, and the talk was largely about the extension of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Victoria — a dream of the future which the Victorians insist shall be fulfilled regardless of expense. I have no doubt ■ ' 11 Jt • ! J I. '8 ■■■■■Illllil 150 GOLD MINING IN COLUMBIA. '*; that the Canadian Government — whoever may be in office — will work steadily in that direction, so far as they can do so without overstraining the resources of the Dominion. Soon after landing in Victoria I was sought out by Dr Tolmie, a member of the Colonial Legislature, and an excellent specimen of the old servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Like many others of them, he came from Scotland in his youth, and gave the best of his days to the Company's service, in the course of which he became familiar with a wide range of North American territory. His reminiscences were to me exceedingly interesting, and it is to be hoped he will yet give to the world the benefit of his intimate acquaintance with the Indian tribes, and his researches into their languages and dialects. I received from him a considerable amount of information with regard to British Columbia, the immediate prospects of which depend upon the success attending its mining operations. The gold mines have since 1858 produced about £8,000,000 sterling, and last year the production was larger than in any year since 1867, amounting to about £500,000, which was extracted by only 2000 men. The search for gold in British Columbia has been marked by u COAL MINEii. 151 all those surprises and fluctuations which are common to gold mining — the miners having at times done wonderfully well, while at others they have been bitterly disappointed. The more general use of machinery will probably equalise the results. Of greater permanent value to this Province of the Dominion than its gold mines will no doubt be its coal, of which several mines, yield- ing anthracite, ship, house, and gas coal, are now being worked — the output having increased from 81,000 tons in 1874 to 110,000 in 1875, and it is beheved considerably more this year. Some of the coal crops out at a considerable height near the coast, giving great facihties for shipment. As the gold mines are not worked in winter, most of the miners return to Victoria, and give a large increase to its population during the winter months, and a harvest to the shopkeepers. From what I heard of the scenery of the upper part of Fraser River I should have been glad had time permitted me to visit it, but the City of Panama was awaiting her passengers in Esquimault Harbour, and I was obhged to go on board, not, however, before being driven by Dr Tolmie to enjoy the hospitalities of his pleasant retreat at Cloverdale, and to see the interesting scenery around Victoria. !l ' \n !' ' I** 152 THE STRAITS OF FUCA. After steaming out from Esquimault we had a grand view of the Straits of Fuca. The Olvmpic Range, on the Washington side, rising steeply 7000 to 8000 feet above the Strait, is almost terrible in its grandeur, especially when seen as we saw it in the approaching gloom of night. The many high, sharp peaks looked like an enormous saw with its teeth cutting the sky ; while the snow on their upper ranges contrasted strongly with the deep purple of the lower reaches, which have their feet in the depths of the Straits. Soon after sunset a dense fog set in which hid all from view, and the fog horn of the steamer was blown regularly, not only to prevent collision with other vessels, but on the chance of hearing its echo from either of the shores, which would warn of too close approach. Almost the whole way to San Francisco the fog made the bellowing music of the steam horn familiar to our ears, and very little was seen of the coast till we again approached the Golden Gate, after passing through which we speedily entered into sunshine, and were again struck by the fine appearance of the splendid fleet of large ships at anchor in the Bay of San Francisco, some about to load, and some deeply laden with wheat for British ports. 1 1 1 mmtmmimmmmmiltUtlmtm' 1^ AD VANTAGES OF SITU A TION AND CLIMA TE. 153 SAN FRANCISCO. le San Francisco, if not swallowed up by earth- quakes, seems destined to become one of the greatest and wealthiest cities in the world. Possessing a splendid Harbour, it is already a great shipping port : it is the immediate outlet for one of the most fertile wheat, fruit, and vine- growing regions on the Western Continent ; it is the centre of the most productive gold, silver, and quicksilver mines ; it is as yet, and will probably always continue, the principal highway for American commerce with China, Japan, India, New Zealand, and Australia ; and, superadded to all these advantages, its climate is perhaps better adapted to the Anglo-Saxon race than any other out of the British Isles, so that the men who live there can do more work all the year round without fatigue or exhaustion than else- where. Taking the whole year, it is neither so hot nor so cold in San Francisco as in London, and there it? far more sunshine, which gives more brightness and zest to life. Except in the com- paratively brief rainy season, clear sunshine may be calculated upon in the mornings, with a cool L 154 CliOSSING THE BAY. breeze from the sea in the afternoons, and the nights are always cold enough to make warm clothing enjoyable and to favour refreshing sleep. At San Francisco ague, " fevers and chills," the curse of some of the finest portions of America, are unknown — unless imported ; and severe frost and heavy storms of wind or thunder seldom, if ever, occur. Sometimes there are fogs sufficient to remind any one of the East Coast of England ; but taken altogether the climate seems admirably adapted for Germans, Scandinavians, and " Britishers," while men and women who would die in the Eastern States go to California and live and thrive. Travelling from the East by the Central Pacific Kailway, the train does not stop at San Francisco, but on the long pier at Oakland, on the east side of the Bay. The ferry is some five or six miles wide, and, crossing in the huge steam ferry boat, you first pass Goat Island, one of a number of rocky islands in the bay, fortified and lighted by the United States Government. Then San Francisco comes into sight, the public buildings and houses extending over a succession of billowy ridges — a bird's-eye view giving the peninsula on which the city stands the appearance of a petrified storm at sea. ILL-PA VED STREETS. 155 I Le Id a There are about a dozen streets considerable portions of which are as steep as the Constitu- tion Brae in Dundee. So far as buildings are concerned the town cannot be compared with St Louis, Chicago, or New York. It is in a state of transition from wooden frames and common brick to cement and stone. The streets are without exception the worst paved of any place of importance in the States. Sections of wood pavement have been laid down — not in the scientific manner followed in London, but so carelessly that the rain throws it all up and out, and makes a ride upon it fearfully uncomfort- able. In the higher parts of the town the streets cross sand hills, and the dust in dry weather is most disagreeable. There ought to be a revolu- tion amongst the City Supervisors, as the members of the City Council are called, unless they proceed forthwith to make the street pave- ment more decent. That it can be done is obvious from the finely macadamised roads in the Park, where the " beauty and fashion " of San Francisco may be seen driving in handsome equipages, while hundreds of buggies — singles and pairs — are driven by gentlemen after business hours. Not even in the Central Park at New York are there finer teams — the people )■! 156 CLIFF HOUSE AND THE SEA LIONS. of San Francisco having a great liking for good horses. The ordinary rate at which they drive seems to be about half as fast again as in England, and there are several notices up in the Park announcing that it is not allowed to drive faster than ten miles an hour, which seem more honoured in the breach that the observance. All through the States the horses are very lively and well kept, and nowhere more so than in San Francisco. One of the things to " do " here is to drive through the Park to the Cliif House to see the ** sea lions " gambolling on the rocky islets immediately in front, while the Golden Gate is close to the right ; then you drive on the beach to the music of the surf of the Pacific Ocean as far as the Ocean House ; and back through a rugged highland district, where the valleys are irrigated and tilled by Italian market gardeners, till you come to a high point, from which you have splendid views of the Bay and the city, the extent of both being surprising. San Francisco is said to spread over 42 square miles, although its population as yet is under 300,000. How far will it reach when it has a million ? It is very exhilarating to be driven rapidly down the steep, winding, and gusty road, as we were by a friend, who handled his A FURIOUS BOARD. 157 :e a horses well, so that we had no cause to fear a sudden overturn. The principal business street, where the merchants, shipbrokers, and especially the mining stockbrokers most do congregate, is California Street, the comer of which, near Montgomery Street, is generally crowded with dealers and speculators in mining shares. Close at hand is the Mining Board, which even sur- passes the Board of Trade at Chicago in the clamour, vehemence, and seemingly bellicose and pugilistic style of its proceedings. The clanging of a piece of iron, which calls to order, is followed for some seconds by what to the uninitiated appears the most riotous disorder — a score of men jumping up all round and rushing into the centre ejaculating unintelligible sounds, which, however, are all recorded by the clerk, who then reads off the transactions ; and similar scenes and sounds are repeated until the share list is gone through. In California Street may often be seen the Bonanza Kings — Flood, 0*Brien, Mackay, and Fair. Flood and O'Brien, now two of the wealthiest men in the world I was told, formerly kept a lunch saloon. Along with Mackay and Fair they belie the general supposition that Irishmen have not got business heads on their jli ! '\ 158 THE BANK OP CALIFORNIA. shoulders. Many others who have made large fortunes in mines and mining shares were named to me, including William Sharon, who owns the Palace Hotel, and who placed his whole fortune at the disposal of the California Bank after W. C. Ralston's death, on condition that Mr Mills resumed its management. No man, perhaps, stands so high in reputation and esteem on the West Coast as the present Manager of the Bank of California. He had accumulated the largest fortune in San Francisco as a banker, having along with his brother brought a considerable sum from the East to begin banking with. He had the credit of firmly establishing the Bank of California, and, when he resigned its manage- ment, left it with a surplus of $3,000,000 and earning splendid profits. W. C. Ralston, by his over-reaching speculations, dissipated the entire reserve and squandered the whole shareholders' capital. At his death the liabilities of the Bank were $20,000,000, and unless arrangements had been made for meeting these hundreds of persons and firms must have been ruined. All eyes turned to Mr D. O. Mills, and he was assured that if he would resume the management every dollar should be forthcoming to carry on the Bank. A powerfid syndicate was formed .4 IIIUIOIC liANKlR. 159 guaranteeing the enormous sum required, anil Mr Mills, to liis undying honour as a financier — although he had completely retired Irom business, and was living at his ease at his beautiful residence on the Bay, named Mills- brae — stepped into the breach, and devoted himself as earnestly to the salvation as he had previously done to the success of the Bank. Its credit is now thoroughly re-established ; its securities, instead of being slaughtered in a panic, have been prudently realised ; all its obligations have been met and will \ e met ; the mischief, instead of spreading to other Banks and Institutions, was kept just where it originated ; and in the financial history of the world never was what for a time seemed a monstrous and irretrievable disaster so successfully limited and Iwarfed in its dimensions or so quickly remedied. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Mills in the Bank p rlour and receiving courteous attention from him, but did not learn till some time after- wards the full extent of his heroic self-denial in coming :o the rescue, not only of the Bank, but also of the general financial solvency and credit of California. When San Francisco begins to erect statues to its great men, Mr Mills is certainly entitled to one of them. » I I 160 PACIFIC RAILV/AY MAGNATES. I Next to the Mining and Banking are the Railway Magnates. Until the West Coast was linked with the East by the Pacific Railways, Calltbrnia was practically as much insulated from the Eastern States and from the rest of the world as Australia. Not only so, but the Eastern States, having done little for the West Coast States, had very slight hold upon them, and it was evident when the death struggle broke out between North and South that, unless a closer bond could be established between East and West, the latter would resolve themselves into a separate Republic. The difficulty was how to obtain the speedy construction of two thousand miles of railway across the Prairies, the Alkali Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Nevadas. Half-a dozen shrewd, energetic men living at the small town of Sacramento, possessed of very little capital, but of great foresight, pluck, and perseverance, saw their opportunity and seized it. They undertook, if the Government would give them a certain sum per mUe and a certain number of square miles of land along the line, that they would make it. Another set of men in the East came under a similar obligation, and a race began between the men in the East, who called theirs the Union THE TWO PACIFIC LINES. 161 if im lof it. a le m Pacific, and thj men in the West, who called theirs the Central Pacific, till they ultimately met at Ogden. The Union from Omaha to Ogden is 1 032 miles in length — the longest because the easiest half — the Union men having also done a good stroke by contracting with Brigham Young to employ a large force of Mormons in grading the western section of their line. From San Francisco to Ogden is 882 miles ; and the crossing of the Sierra Nevadas was a difficult undertaking, besides which all the plant, rails, and rolling stock had to be shipped round Cape Horn to California. The men who achieved the rapid construction of the Central were Leland Stanford, the President ; C. P. Huntington, Vice- President ; E. B. Crocker, Chas. Crocker, and Mark Hopkins, the Directors of the Line. They still take a very active share in its management. They have realised large fortunes, and Mr Stan- ford and one or two others have very handsome and costly residences in San Francisco. None of them, however, are sordid men, and their sole ambition apparently is to extend their railway dominion over the whole West Coast of North America. As fast as they make money they put it into new railway extensions. They have run a direct line to Los Angelos, and are ramifying m I 162 WEST COAST RAILWAY RAMIFICATIONS. branches of it through Southern California. Their object is to control the approach of the Southern Pacific to California. They are also credited with the intention of annexing Oregon to their system, by acquiring the Oregon lines and connecting with them at Winnemucca and Redding. If they do this they will be at the head of the most extensive railway system in the world. I should not be surprised if one Company should yet command a line from New York to Chicago and San Francisco in the West, Portland in the North* west, and San Diego in the South-west. Although Miring and Railways have done so much to attract population to California, its most enduring wealth will probably be in the abundance of its agricultural and horticultural products. The Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys are especially adapted to wheat-growing, and their proximity to San Francisco favours the vast shipping trade of that port. We in Dundee are enabled to realise the extent of the wheat shipments at San Francisco from the demand for grain bags. In these notes I have carefully avoided becoming statistical, but as I have not previously seen the following table — which I extract from the last report of the San ENORMOUS CROPS AND FARMS. 163 le e re I In Francisco Chamber of Commerce — and believe that it will be interesting to Dundee manufac- turers in coimection with the Calcutta gi'ain sack competition, I embody it here : — Exports of Grain and Flour from the Port of Francisco. San Wheat. 100-lb. Sacks. Barley. 100-lb. Sacks. Oats. 100-lb. Sacks. Flour. Brls. Year ending 30th June 1862, 775,553 132,805 149,822 82,605 » 1863, 1,159,748 ;?0,424 39,511 141,488 it 1864, 984,941 42,292 85,951 158,225 ft 1865, 23,818 8,104 3,511 52,424 »» 1866, 1,044,826 338,106 115,818 249,857 tl 1867, 3,642,505 166,212 88,414 485,493 »» 1868, 3,773,002 31,414 4,987 426,157 »> 1869, 4,373,213 91,880 22,499 459.923 »i 1870, 4,864,590 300,621 13,858 354,106 It 1871, 3,583,124 132,095 12,508 194,703 >» 1872, 1,404,355 16,286 11,240 222,398 >» 1873, 9,835,571 226,922 5,401 264,529 »» 1874, 7,289,278 599,109 26,617 674,698 1* 1875, 8,833,880 702,173 67,944 525,614 The crop in 1876, consequent on the abundant winter rains, has been the largest ever grown and gathered in California. It is estimated at 14,000,000 centals, or 625,000 tons, and its value at from $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 or from £4,000,000 to £5,000,000 sterling. Much of the farming is done on a very large scale. I heard of farms of 10,000, 20,000, and even 30,000 acres. One farmer alone has this year between 20,000 and 25,000 tons of wheat. 1 i| li 164 MARITIME AND MERCANTILE ACTIVITY, Steamboats, barges, railway cars, warehouses, and wharves are filled with 100-lb. sacks of wheat, but the immensity of the trade is most apparent in the wonderful shipping business of San Francisco. Fifty-three ships sailed in September with 75,000 tons of wheat, and it was expected that sixty more would sail in October with upwards of 80,000 tons. From the 1st July to 4th October 116 large wheat- laden ships had sailed, and when I left there were eighty more in port, of which sixty-one were chartered, and only nineteen disengaged. To any one with a nautical eye it is a dehght to see such a splendid commerial fleet as is moored in the roads and lying at the wharves — especially the iron ships, vessels of very fine lines, tautly rigged, and every part of their equipment ship- shape and handsomely kept. I observed some very large American woc^en ships — ^the Baltic, 2552 tons ; Glory of the Seas, 2102 tons ; and Ocean King, 2516 tons ; but these very large vessels obtain a lower rate of freight than vessels from 1000 to 1500 tons. The shipping offices were all extremely active when I visited them J and wherever business may be dull it certainly is not in San Francisco. Besides the wheat and flour trade, the export of wool and WOOL, TEA, AND WINE TRADES. 165 the imports of tea from China and Japan are becoming very considerable. The growth of wool in California has increased from 300,000 lbs. in 1855, to 8,949,931 lbs. in 1865, and 43,532,223 lbs. in 1875. The extent of the tea trade is still more remarkable : — From China, From Japan, Imports op Tea, 1875. ••• «•• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 1,881,651 lbs. 17,990,578 lbs. 1874, ... 1875, ... Exported Overland. ••• ••• ••• ••• •• ••« ••• ••• 11,779,156 lbs. 18,136,424 lbs. 6,357,268 lbs. Including those to China and Japan, there are now five lines of ocean steamers running to San Francisco. The wlialing fleet of the Pacific is more and more making this its port of rendezvous. More than three hundred miUion feet of timber are annually imported, and upwards of half-a- million tons of coals. The California wine trade is also rapidly developing. There are now 40,000,000 vines growing in the State, and the production of wine is estimated at 8,000,000 gallons. I am, however, sorry to say that it is almost the only wine one does not see on a gentleman's table in California — the natives being prejudiced against their own vintages. ^f i I 1 ■ 'i ) ! ■ ' 'i 166 THE CALIFORNIA MINT. The only California wine I tasted was some Hock, which I ordered for the mere sake of tasting, at the Palace Hotel, and which seemed to me a very pleasant beverage. San Francisco, more even than New York or Chicago, is a city of hotels, and the Palace Hotel is at the head of them. The Mint is the most important Government building, as well as one of the most substantial examples of architecture in San Francisco. Its apparatus and appliances for refining the ore, casting, milling, and stamping are all of the latest and most improved kinds. In the absence of General Le Grange, the Superintendent, we were shown over the building by his deputy, Mr Gross, who explained the different processes, some of which — such as the conversion of the silver into a chloride, in which condition it resembles pipe-clay — are very curious. The machinery for milling and stamping is exceed- ingly rapid and pretty in its action. In the department for examining and testing the coins, a large number of well-dressed and sprightly young ladies are employed, and the employment is just one of the class — entailing little physical fatigue — adapted to the fair sex. We handled some of the gold and silver bullion previous to its being LARGER COINAGE OF GOLD THAN SILVER. 167 minted. The arrangements are such that the metal left to-day is assayed immediately, and its value is paid over the Mint Counter by the cashier to-morrow. During our walk through this establishment we obtained confirmation of an important fact too little known in England during the recent silver panic — that nearly one- half of the product of the Comstock Lode, >vhich all goes under the name of silver, is really gold. To show that there is no risk of the world being deluged with silver coin as against gold, and that, if there is to be depreciation, gold must be depreciated as well, I give the following official statement of the coinage of the California Mint from January to September this year, during which there has been a special demand for silver coins to replace the fractional paper currency of the United States, and also an active coinage of trade dollars for China, which are all silver : — ; \ Gold. Silver. Total. January, $1,9-10,000 §617,000 32,557,000 February, 2,362,500 780,000 3,142,500 March, ... 2,280,000 1,028,000 3,308,000 April, 2,780,000 609,00Q 3,389,000 May, 2,780,000 1,034,000 3,814,000 June, 1,020,000 632,000 1,652,000 July, 4,140,000 466,000 4,606,000 August, ... 3,480,000 1,320,000 4,800,000 September, 3.000,000 1,000,000 4,000,000 Totals, ... $23,782,500 37,486,000 $:il,268,500 I 168 A JUTE FACTOR Y WITH CHINESE WORKERS. It will thus be seen that in this the year of the silver panic the Mint which is at the head- quarters of silver production has coined more than three times a greater value of gold than of silver coins. Before leaving San Francisco I went over to Oakland, to see the Oakland Jute Works, which are owned by a Joint- Stock Company in San Francisco. To any one accustomed to seeing the semi-palatial establishments erected of late years in and near Dundee, the one in California is very curious, both in its building and working. The greater part of the mill and sheds is of wood, which one would suppose to be very liable to fire ; but no smoking is allowed, and neither gas nor lamps are used, the work only going on in daylight. The rule is to work from sunrise to sunset — scarcely so much in summer, but the running time aU through the summer is 12j hours a day, and in winter as long as there is daylight, which is considerably longer than in Scotland. The most curious feature in the working of the mill is that, with the exception of an American Manager and two Scotch heads of departments, it is " run" entirely by Chinese. There are about 430 Chinese inen and boys altogether, including weavers, spinners, shifters, UNCERTAINTY OF CHINESE LABOUR. 169 )n oilers, sack sewers, &c. Most of the good hands earn a dollar a day and upwards. The wages, however, are not paid to the hands themselves, but to a Company which contracts to supply the men and boys required, and which divides the wages amongst them. Mr Thompson (whose father resides a.t Tayport), who has charge of the mill, and Mr Robertson, from Dundee, who is manager of the preparing, weaving, and finishing department — two very intelligent men, who have been in the works a considerable time — say that the Chinese make very good hands, easily learn, and are very attentive so long as thc^y remain, but often they go away as soon as they become proficient at the work. Even those who remain, on one pretence or another, go away for weeks at a time. Some- times a youth receives word from his mother in China that he must go home to get married, and he is sure to obey the command, but returns some months afterwards without his wife. The machinery all came originally from Dundee and Leeds, and when any important renewal has to be made they have to send to the old country for it. The coals cost from $6 to $8, or from 24s. to 32s. per ton. The only thing materially cheaper is batching oil. Salmon oil is found M It * I i 11 170 SALMON OIL FOR BATCHING. very suitable, being very soft and penetrating, and only costs about £27 a ton. As now- supplied, however, it has a very offensive smell. In the event of whale oil becoming scarce at any time, the Dundee spinners might turn their attention to salmon oil, which, doubtless, could be purified and refined for Scotch use. I made no inquiries at the works, but from what I heard in San Francisco I should doubt whether on the average of years they have been a very profitable investment, or whether many others are likely to be erected in California. Labour is both too dear and too uncertain. I believe, also, that the Calcutta contracts for next year are regarded with considerable apprehension by those inter- ested in these works, as likely to have a very disturbing effect for some time on the San Francisco market. When in Oakland one of my friends drove me round the greater part of the place, which is to 'Frisco what Birkenhead is to Liverpool. In some respects, indeed, it seems the more eligible place to live in, having more shelter, much richer vegetation, and better roads, in consequence of which not a few wealthy San Francisco people have their residences there. Having referred to the Chinese at the Oakland Jute Works, I may add that John Chinaman ii_ . t CHINESE SERVANTS. 171 makes his presence felt everywhere on the West Coast. In CaHfornia the people evidently could not get along without John's help, and yet they, or, at least, the unreasonable section of them, are continually abusing him. When I was in San Francisco there was an outbreak of small-pox in the Chinese quarter, which prevented my visiting it. The city doctor had been appointed to report on the best means of preventing the spread of the epidemic, and his published report, instead of being confined to a strictly professional state- ment, began with a violent tirade against the general character of the Chinese population. So far as I could make out, they really offend the idle by their industry, the improvident by their thrift, and the intemperate by their sobriety. Those who act as servants or waiters are remarkably neat, tidy, quick, docile, and honest. No doubt there are bad Chinamen as well as good, but it is rather their virtues than their vices which make them disliked by their competitors in the labour market. San Francisco all through is one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world. Low down there are the Chinese, the negroes, and occasionally the Indians. Then there are the Irish, most of whom regard all the former as their natural enemies. Besides 1 1 5 \ 172 AN EARTHQUAKE IN SAN FRANCISCO. r: !, these there are men of every kindred, people, and ton^e, all keen and ea^er whether in the pursuit of business or of pleasure. In the dining- room or in the lobbies of the Palace Hotel you may hear the language of every civilised nation. San Francisco is an epitome of the world. I began my notes respecting this city by observing that the only contingency adverse to its future greatness and wealth is that of being swallowed up by earthquakes. One night while I was at the Palace Hotel engaged in conversa- tion with a gentleman well known in Dundee, who has been in San Francisco for many years, I suddenly felt a tremulous motion of the floor, and heard the doors and Venetian window shutters shaking considerably. It was just as if a very heavy cart had passed a very ill-built house. We were on the fourth floor, and my friend said, "That is an earthquake. We are too high up here. The sooner we go down the better." There did not seem to me to be anything to be alarmed about, and I was rather glad than otherwise that amongst other novel sensations in America I had experienced an earthquake. My friend, however, said " There is nothing to alarm you much in what you heard, but if you had seen as much of earth- if WHY WOODEN 1I0U>'SES ARE PREFEliRED. 173 quakes as I have you would never like to feel another. The first shock may be very light, but you can never tell what is to follow it. I have seen houses thrown down, and people buried in the ruins. I remember once while getting an early breakfast a shock occurred that frightened everybody out of their houses, and many were killed by the falling of the bricks at the door- ways. If they had remained inside they might have escaped being hurt. I remember one earthquake that left a large crevasse in one of the public streets. It is the danger to brick buildings that makes people here prefer to live in wooden-framed houses, which are thought the most secure. The Palace Hotel is as strong as it can be built, but one of the things it has to stand is the test of a severe earthquake, and I would rather not be so high up when it is tried." By the time this was said we had reached the ground -floor, where people were all talking of what had occurred. One gentleman who was writing in the Reading- Room told me he scarcely perceived it, but another who was at the very top of the building — on the sixth, or rather seventh, storey — said he felt the Hotel rocking like a ship at sea. The Palace is very strongly framed, beamed, and pillared with iron ; I ! ; \n m 174 A REMOTE CONTINGENCY, still it is impossible to forecast what might be the result of a serious disturbance to its foundation. The probability is that these catastrophes are diminishing rather than in- creasing in their frequency and destructiveness. Nevertheless, it is possible that San Francisco, like many other cities, may yet be engulphed by an earthquake. M l! m AX EXTRAORDINARY RAILWAY. 175 THE GOLD AND SILVER MINING REGIONS. Some of my most pleasant recollections are of a visit paid on my return from San Francisco to Virginia City — tlie headquarters of the celebrated Comstock Lode, the Metropolis of the mines in Nevada. Leaving the main line of the Central Pacific at Reno, we pass the busy little town of Carson, and then wind our way up the spiral staircase known ns the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, whicli takes nearly fifty-two miles « o run over a direct distance of twenty -one. This is one of the most extraordinary little railways in the world — extraordinary in the steepness of its gradients, the sharpness of its curves, the number of trains run ujy>n it, i'le amount of traffic carried over it, and the profit it yields to its shareliolders. It is a steep railway climb from the plains at Carson round the mountain sides, over deep gorges, across stupendous bluffs, and throvigh tunnels, imtil you come into a region where the outlook is upon a vast ocean of huge petrified billows — a terrific storm consolidated and perpetuated for ever, or until another great convulsion, upheaval, i>r 17G DENUDATION OF THE MOUNTAINS. and cataclysm occurs. Wherever one looks the hills and mountams are hare, and to a stranger seem as if they never had borne a tree, and yet I was told that within thirty years they were all covered with forests, as the greater part of the Sierras Nevada still are. This denudation of the mountains — the conversion of richly-wooded heights into naked and desolate hills without any shelter remaining for man or beast — is really unwise, and the time is coming when the Americans themselves must deplore that in their eagerness for present gain they have slain much future wealth. If the law, or in defjuilt of law, foresight and prudence, had made it customary not to cut down trees of less than a certain girth, the young wood would always have been growing into future crops of timber. As it is, the surface productiveness of extensive regions has been destroyed foi' a long time to come. First of all, the large trees are cut down, to be sawn into the large square props and strips used in the shaftings and driftings of the mines ; then the smaller trees are taken for fluming and railway purposes and for cordwood ; and then the smallest are swept off by the adventurous gleaner, who conveys them to the nearest town for firewood or other purposes. It STTVATrON OF VIRGINIA CITY. 177 )f Lt not tlunir for the If Mi . uncommon tnmg lor zne large ivinnii*.^ Fluming Companies to buy extensive tracts of land from the United States Government merely for the timber, and as soon as they have cleared off all they want they don't think it worth even paying the State taxes, so that the ground either reverts to the State, or is sold under a tax sale iur a merely nominal sum. In the meantime anybody can go and cut wood or squat upon the ground, and the ultimate result too commonly is that territories which, within the recollection of many now living, were splendidly timbered, are now bare, arid, and desolate. The Department having charge of the public lands at Washington has always favoured the regulation of the cutting of timber, but the people of the Western States, it seems, have objected to being interfered with — the doctrine that every man has a right to do what he likes with his own prevailing there as well as in the British Isles. Perched high in the wonderfully rugged region which I have described — more than 6000 feet above the level of the sea, with another hill. 1700 feet immediately behind it — is Virginia City, the most thoroughly representative mining city in America. It is built right above the celebrated Comstock Lode. Before reaching it li*k^ 178 THE MINING SHIFTS. the eye is kept actively engaged on the extraor- dinary natural features of the country, with the artificial additions that have been made to them — peaks, bluffs, ridges, crevasses, gorges, water- falls, flumes, diggings, claims, trestle bridges, mines, narrow gauge railways, quartz mills, shanties, villages, and towns like Gold Hill. Landing at the railway station, close to the extensive works of the Consolidated Virginia Mine, we find it a steep climb up to C Street. This is one of the most remarkable streets which I have ever seen. It is full of saloons, restaurants, and gaming-houses, which, day and night, always seem to be crowded with people. It contains the Frederick House, which is, and will be, the principal Boarding-House until the new Hotel is completed. This Hotel, which takes the place of one destroyed, along with a large part of the city, in October 1875, will be the most imposing edifice in the place, which is already almost rebuilt. The mines being worked every day in the year by eight-hour shifts, one-third of the population of the city is always under ground. Another third may be assumed to be in the Boarding- Houses, and the remaining third in C Street, where they dress and live like gentlemen. In a community like this there are THE CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA MINE. 179 doubtless some desperadoes and ruffians, yet during my two days' visit I saw nothing but the most perfect order and decorum. The majority of the working miners, I was assured, are a steady, well-behaved, and particularly generous -hearted class of men. Four dollars, or about fifteen shillings, a- day is the regular wage. As they e.^rn their money rapidly they spend it freely. Their besetting sin is gambling either at the gaming tables or in mining stocks. There are men working as common miners who have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and lost them all. Believers in mining " luck" not unnaturally come to be speculators either at cards, dice, roulette, or shares ; but it is not the believers in luck who become the great Bonanza Kings. I had introductions tc two of these gentlemen, one of whom was from home, but the other enabled me to penetrate into the very arcana of the Consolidated Virginia and California Mines, whose extraordinary ^productiveness of silver ore assisted so greatly to alarm the English public in the beginning of this year with the fear that silver would soon become almost worthless. First of all, I was taken through the extensive works above ground, where are enormous steam \>i . i » , 'lift % ■r 180 PRODUCTS OP ONE MINE. I > X II, engines for pumping water up from and air down into the depths below, as well as for crushing the argentiferous and auriferous ores. There is one compound engine of 1100 H.P., having a 40-inch cylinder, and lifting a 12-inch column of water 1400 feet. The water is of so high a temperature that, like the water from the boilers of the factories in Dundee, it has to be cooled l)y exposure to the air before it can be used for condensing purposes. The large volume of water pumped up is all used in subsequent processes for washing the ore after it has passed through the crushing mills, where there is machinery for pulverising 800 tons of ore from the Consolidated Virginia, and 300 tons from the California every day. Everything is carried on here on a colossal scale. The crushing works have an engine with a 6 5 -inch cylinder. The last of the processes is the melting, which is done in crucibles very similar to the retorts used for gas -making. In 1875 the Consolidated Virginia alone sent up 1G9,095 tons of ore, which yielded $16,731,653. Up to the present time it has yielded altogether upwards of $36,000,000, and paid in dividends upwards of $24,000,000, or say ^yq millions of povmds sterling, in less than three years. FAR DOWN IX THE WOULD. 181 S Having resolved to investigate tlie silver question, I readily availed myself of the offer to descend to the lowest depths of the Con- solidated Virginia — 1550 feet. Two gentlemen, one from Germany and the other from Poland, accompanied me, under the guidance of the chief underground official of the mine. I should very much have liked to have had our photo- graphs after we had divested ourselves of our ordinary attire, and pat on the garb of working miners, which is certainly not made according to the latest Paris fashions. After beiiiof riB of condensed vapour tlirougli which we have passed. The cages descend down shafts o^ which the hot moist air of the mine rapidly ascends. So loncj as we remain where the current of humid air is strong endurable — it is in the there is no current that it it IS quite inner recesses where lecomes oppressive. 1 ! 182 A GOLD AND SILVER HIVE. After our eyes become accustomed to tlie dark- ness of the pit we begin to realise what it is to live nearly a third of a mile underground. It is like a great subterranean beehive, where the men work instead of bees. All between the 1000 and the 1550 feet levels there are cuts, cross- cuts, drifts, and mazes — different names for passages and excavations — which are all made on a system so as to take out all the payable ore that can be removed without risking the immolation of the miners. A cut is made right throuo'h the lode in one direction. Then it is extended in the opposite direction ; then two others are made at right angles to these. The length is 372 feet one way by 200 feet the other, and the galleries, passages, and chambers are worked at the different levels under 1000 feet to the bottom. In the course of time the whole lode will be honeycombed. The human bees who are here gathering the silver and golden honey — for nearly half the bullion of this mine is gold — are not pale, cadaverous, weak men, but ruddy, healthy, strong, active fellows. It is as hot as the Sudatorium of a Turkish Bath, and with the exception of trousers they are naked, and the sweat makes their skin shine as if they were oiled. All through the principal OPPllESSI VE SJLEXCE. 183 passages are narrow guage tramways for con- veying the ore to the cages and taking back timber from them, and the running of the waggons is all done by hand, there being no horses or mules as in some of our English coal mines. After a passage has been made — unless in a few places where there is granite or other hard rock — the sides and roof are propped with heavy timber cut to the requisite length. With the exception of the running of the cars on the tramways there is very little noise, the picking of the ore being a quiet operation. Occasionally a blast is heard, but the report is not loud, and the silence that generally prevails is almost oppressive. Now and then it is broken by small cranes, which are driven by compressed air, the escape of which into the heated atmosphere is very grateful. Were it not for the heat we feel as if we could remain down any length of time, but after travelling the length and breadth of the mine, and going up and down numerous ladders to reach other levels and drifts, and descending to the lowest dip of the mine, we are glad enough to ascend — not, how- ever, before we have visited the chamber where the ore is of the very richest character, and are informed that we are surrounded by more silver I if- : is ;!;» 184 A HOT PLACE. and gold than is known to exist in any other part of the globe. Some specimens of ore are here given to us worth from $2000 to $3000 per ton. Here and there portions are almost pure gold and silver. The richest place is also the hottest, which suggests a grim joke as to the doom of rich men generally ; but the heat is almost too great for joking, and we all desire to return to the fresh air above. We ascend in the cage, and are soon rejoicing in the luxury of a cold bath, which is ready for us in the dressing- room, and which soon draws the blood from the head, and relieves us of the oppression felt below. In the afternoon we take the train down the Virginia and Truckee Railway to Carson, and are again astonished by the singular features of the country, the apparently perilous nature of the road, and the extensive traffic in lumber and ore which is conducted upon it. At Carson we deliver a letter of introduction from a far- travelled friend in Fife to the enterprising manager of the line, who in this small place controls perhaps the largest and most lucrative traffic run upon any railway of the same length in the world. Without wasting many words, he promptly arranges for us another most pleasur- AN ELE VA TED LA KE. 185 able and novel excursion for the following day, by communicating with Mr Bliss, the managing partner of the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company, who is at our Hotel — kept by Mr Fryer, originally from Ghisgow — soon after daybreak next morning with a fine team of horses, to drive us up to Lake Tahoe — one of the most remarkable sheets of water in America. It is 22 miles long, by from 10 to 13 wide, and is G218 feet above the level of the sea. It is surrounded by lofty mountain ranges, some of which, like the Rubicon and Napoleon's Cap, are 11,000 feet high. The water is a cerulean blue, and it is so deep that in some places it can scarcely be fatl ^med. The moun- tain peaks to the south and west are covered all through the summer with snow, which rests on them in the winter to the depth of from 12 to 14 feet. The water was beautifully calm and placid as we steamed across, first to Tallack, and then to a lovely inlet called Emerald Bay, in a yacht which, with 120 lbs. of steam, easily made 17 miles an hour, and with 150 lbs. runs UD to 20 miles. It is curious that the fastest steam yacht in America should have been built in sections at Wilmington, in Delaware, carried over the Continent by railway, and cor eyed in N ^%. %. ^ \r,\ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) V 'iio '■/ :A ii

I 236 BOSTON PVBUC LTBBARY. Ill :! pool ; but although those cities far outvie it in population and wealth, their efforts, great as these have been, to maintain and extend the usefulness of their Libraries, sink into insignifi- cance when compared with the princely liberality which has enabled it to rank with the most extensive Libraries in America, and to present an aggregate of issues unapproached by any. It is supported by an appropriation from the funds of the. city, which last year amounted to $111,000 (upwards of £23,000), and the interest of various sums contributed or bequeathed by seven individuals and the Franklin Club, amounting to $105,000, and yielding $6300 per annum. Including several sums from other sources, the yearly income will be little short of £25,000. The shelves of the Central Library and six branches contain 297,875 volumes. The number of persons registered as having liberty to take books for home use is 97,388, and last year upwards of 73,000 of these made use of the Library to the extent of 947,621 volumes, or about 13 volumes to each reader. In the reading-rooms 317,308 visitors made use of 400,452 periodicals. At the branches the attendance is about stationary ; but at the^ Central Library, in Boylston Street, the CIRCULATION OF BOOKS. 237 accommodation is too confined, and an enlarge- ment of such wonld result in a considerable increase of readers. During twenty -three years (1854-76) more than 6,000,000 of volumes have been circulated, and this diffusion of knowledge is rightly looked upon as an important factor in the work of education. The service of the Library is conducted by 125 persons, 82 of whom are ladies, a considerable number occupy- ing important and responsible positions. Last year the cost of this service was %Qi7fibl, and as the city appropriated $69,500 for this purpose, it will be seen that the actual cost was consider- ably within the estimate. The books purchased within the year cost $26,368, and the periodicals, $3945 ; together, $30,313 (£6315)— a sum sufficient to excite the envy of the Committees who manage similar Ir ^titutions in our own land. The Bindery, which is an integral portion of the Institution, is conducted by one foreman and eight assistants — the half of whom are ladies. Last year, in addition to a large quantity of miscellaneous work, there were bound no fewer than 10,989 volumes, many of them beautiful examples of the bookbinder's art, the cost of the whole being $5137. Without enumerating the purchases from Trust Funds, ■I ■•}.>■ ] 'ir 'I'll ritt 238 CII ARMING SUJ '^^S. the number of volumes presented to the Library since its opening exhibits a total of 107,016 — an example of liberality worthy of imitation in Dundee. The Institution is managed by nine Trustees, acting under the authority of the City Council of Boston ; and they justly congratulate the Council on the continued success of the Librar}'", and the fact that ' 'ndividual, to their knowledge, has asked for reatsonable help without receiving it, or without being met by efforts to aflbrd it. Boston is extraordinarily rich in its intellectual and artistic resources — its Libraries, Museums, Pictvire Galleries, and statuary. It is the Athens of the American Continent. It has surpassing attractions as a city for the learned and refined. It also has most charming suburbs. You can drive mile after mile and hour after hour on roads sheltered by trees, between gently rising uplands, where are many sequestered glades and nooks seized upon for the summer residences of the Boston citizens. Of course we visited Mount Aaburn, a very picturesque cemetery, extending over 150 acres; and Cam- bridge, whose University has already reared a long roll of distinguished men, and whose Memorial Hall — erected in honour of alumni HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 239 who fell in the Civil War — is a splendid building, worthy of any University in the world. Harvard University numbers amongst her sons Cotton and Increase Mather, and W. E. Channing, theologians ; John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Presidents of the United States ; Edward Everett, Caleb Gushing, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips, orators and statesmen ; W. H. Prcscott, George Bancroft, and T. L. Motley, historians ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, R. H. Dana, jun., W. D. Thoreau, and J. Russell liOwell, literary men and poets — all men of world-wide fame, besides many of considerable American repute. No University in the world has sent forth more, if so many, eminent men in the same period of time. From Boylston Street, in Boston, there branch out numerous other fine streets named after old towns and Peers in England, and running on alphabetically from Arlington to Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, and so on. This part of Boston equals the finest districts in the West End of London — Common- wealth Street being notably handsome and pleasant, from its great width and central garden. Altogether, Boston is the Eastern City in which Europeans are likely to feel most at home. ^i ^1 111 : .' '7. " 1.. Il m\ 240 ANDOVER COLLEGE. THE PACIFIC MILLS AT LAWKENCE. From Boston I took a day's excursion in order to see the largest, and probably the most successful, manufacturing establishment in America, which is situated at Lawrence, about 26 miles distant. I stopped three or four miles short of it, at Andover, where the enterprise of Messrs Smith & Dove — Scotchmen, originally from Forfarshire — have turned a small water- power to good account, and established a second Brechin, minus its Town Council and Lower Tenements. The mills here have a prosperous appearance, and the town is one of the most picturesque in Massachusetts, while its College — famous as the theological seminary of the Congregationalists in New England — is beauti- fully situated. At the end of a fine avenue of trees is a College building erected by the liberality of Messrs Smith & Dove, to which the name of Brechin Hall has been given, in honour of the birthplace of the donors, who are the manufacturing magnates of Andover. I missed seeing the gentlemen here, to whom I had letters of introduction, which, however, probably gave A PRODIGIOUS MILL. 241 me more time for going through the neighbouring mills at Lawrence, which I should be sorry not to have seen. Lowell has been more heard of in England than Lawrence, in consequence of the visits and descriptions by Sir Charles Lyell, Dickens, and Frederika Bremer ; but having been informed that the Pacific Mills at Lawrence were the largest, and that the goods manufactured in them were known in every dry-goods store in the United States, I resolved to visit them, and was exceedingly well repaid for the time I spent there. I may mention, first of all, that a magnificent water-power, equal to 10,000 horses, is obtained from the Merrimac. The lade, as we call it in Scotland, is 100 feet wide, 28 feet deep, and a mile long, having on its banks nearly a dozen manufacturing establishments, chief of which are the Pacific Mills. The principal mill is the largest I have seen anywhere, being 810 feet long by 70 feet in width, and having seven floors. Besides this there are numerous other buildings, one of them, the worsted mill, being 320 by 45 feet — the estab- lishment altogether having forty- one acres of floorage. It has 11 turbine water-wheels, with an aggregate of 2000 h.p., besides 37 steam m 'Ml 242 LARGE MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION. h ■IK ii % engines and 50 boilers, consuming 23,000 tons of coal per annum. The fabrics made here consist both of wool ana otton, separately and in combination, and include the whole processes, from the opening of the woolpacks and bales of cotton to the sending away of the dyed and printed materials. The worsted goods most largely produced are poplin and alpaca lustres, merinoes, jacquards, and serges ; and in printed and dyed cottons, jaconets, organdies, lawns, cretonnes, and prints. There are 135,000 spindles on cotton, and 25,000 spindles on worsted. The weekly spinning of cotton amounts to 116,000 lbs., and of fleece wool to 65,000 lbs. The number of looms is 4500 ; the yards of cloth printed or dyed are 1,000,000 ; and there are twenty-four printing machines, printing from one to sixteen colours. The printing department was to me exceedingly interesting, and confirmed an old conviction of mine that typographic printing has long been relatively inferior to calico printing, while the cost of type-printing machines is absurdly out of proportion to those used in manufactures. The precautions against fire appear to be very complete. All the floors are reached by outside stairs ; there are ten fire- SOCIAL ARRANGEMENTS. 243 escapes ; and there are four towers with reservoirs of water sufficient to flood any part of the buildings. Vast as the buildings are, and admirable as the machinery, order, and cleanliness throughout, I was most interested in the arrangements for the social and educational wellbeing of the operatives. The number of hands regularly employed in the Pacific Mills is between five and six thousand. There were on the books at the time of my visit 3534 women and girls, and 1766 men and boys. The average earnings of the former are 98c., and of the latter 1 dol. 40c., — or say 3s 8d and 5s 3d a day. The wages are all paid monthly, on the second Friday in each month, and the rule is to keep a fortnight's wages in hand. From the incorporation of the •Company in 1853 there has been, as I learned from Mr Fallon, the Manager, who kindly fiimished me with much valuable information, a fixed purpose to do all that can be done to cai'e for and elevate the operatives physically, morally, and intellectually, so far as this can be accomplished without interference with the proper discharge of the business of the Com- pany. Nearly three hundred houses have been erected, chiefly as boarding-houses for the young ■i In if IPMiUJ. ' l|.u people, which have large rooms for meals below, and numerous smaller apartments for lodgers above. These houses are built with ample breathing space externally and internally, and are generally three storeys high. I inquired of one of the boarding-house keepers what the meals commonly consisted of, and was told that at breakfast there was tea and coffee, meat and potatoes, hot rolls and bread, and apple or other fruit pies ; at dinner, beef or mutton, roasted and boiled, potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes, onions, squash, and other vegetables, and different kinds of fruit pies ; and at tea, sliced bread and tea, with hot rolls every Wednesday night. This will be thought very luxurious living, but I believe it is the average dietary of the working people of the States, and notwith- standing what may seem its attractiveness, and all that is otherwise done for them, nearly 400 of the females change their places each month. As a rule, the workpeople, especially the females, dress very neatly, the only complaint I heard, indeed, being that they are apt to spend too much on dress. The heads of families have been encouraged to build houses for them- selves, the Company making loans to them at 6 per cent, to enable them to do so ; and it is SICK RELIEF SOCIETY. 245 believed that about 40 per cent, of the men permanently in the Company's service have houses of their own. For many years the Company received deposits from the work- people, and allowed 6 per cent, interest upon them, but the sum they received was so large that they ultimately shrank from the respon- sibility of holding it, and this has been given up« The Company has long provided a library and reading-rooms. The library contains 7000 volumes, and there are 700 daily readers. It is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. to all the work people and their families. There is a Relief Society, whereby the sick are provided with a weekly allowance during sickness, which has worked well, and been the means of preventing much poverty and distress. The rules are very similar to those which regulate the management of the sick fund of the Dundee Yearly Societies. Every person connected with the works must be a member, and if earning more than three dollars weekly must, on every pay-day at the time of receiving wages, pay at the rate of two cents a week ; but any person earning less than this sum is not allowed to pay more than one cent a week. While on the sick list two dollars are paid weekly to the first, and one dollar " \ ■ w 24G CLASSES OF DISEASE. twenty-five cents to the latter. The Corporation of the Pacific Mills agreed, at the formation of the Society in 1854, to pay two dollars fifty cents per week ; but during the last five years this sum has been doubled. Last year the income was $7451, equal to £1552, and the sum paid as benefits and extra sick allowances was $4193, equal to £873. In case of dissatis- faction with any action of the Board of Government an appeal may be taken, not to arbitration as with the Dundee Societies, but to the Directors of the Corporation or their representative in Lawrence, whose decision is final. During the last seven years an interesting record of the diseases prevalent has been kept, from which I learn that while fever has attacked no fewer than 710 persons, and kept them, in the aggregate, off work 4367 weeks, diseases of the throat and lungs have laid up 364, httle more than one-half, but the period of enforced idleness extended, in the aggregate, to 3253 weeks, or nearly three-fourths. During the whole of these seven years there was only one case of small-pox, probably because special provision is made for examining every person admitted to the work. An Hospital for the sick, where those suffering from ailments or accidents MORAL SURVEILLANCE. 247 can receive greater attention than in the boarding-houses, has also been estabhshed by the Company. It is under the charge of a matron, and the superintendence of a physician ; and has all the apparatus and sanitaiy appliances necessary for such an Institution. A certain degree of moral surveillance is exercised over the employees, and an openly profane or drunken has no chance of beine^ retained in the man employment. One result of tiie interest exhibited in the welfare of the work people is that since the establishment of the Company there has been nothing like a strike, and if any difficulty has arisen it has been amicably adjusted. In connection with the Paris Exhibition in 1867 the late Emperor of France offered ten prizes of 1000 francs to whatever individuals or Society had accomplished most to secure a state of harmony between employers and their work people, and had been most successful in advancing their material, intellectual, and moral wellbeing. Five hundred applications were received from different countries in Europe and from the United States. Nine of the ten prizes were given to applicants in France and Germany and the tenth to the United States, being to the Pacific Mills, which really received the second I i m M iJSl BIT'! 248 RESULTS OF THE HIGH TARIFF. Ill '1 11 prize — M. Schneider at Creuzot being awarded the first. The hours of labour at Lawrence are from 6.30 A.M. to 6.30 P.M. in summer, with an hour for dinner — between 12 and 1 o'clock — and stopping at mid-day on Saturdays. In winter the engine starts at 6.45 a.m., and runs till 6 P.M., stopping an hour for dinner, and running on Saturday till 4.30 p.m. There are only five holidays in the year — Washington's birthday in February, the Fast-day in April, Independence Day in July, Thanksgiving Day after harvest, and Christmas Day. Of the manufacturing position of the United States I can only give the conclusions at which I arrived from my observations, without setting foit/h the data on which they were reached. They are, that America, including both the United States and Canada, will become less and less dependent upon the rest of the world for imported products and goods. At present, while the United States, under a highly protec- tive tariff, are shutting us very much out of their markets, they, so far as manufactures are concerned, are also shutting themselves out of all the markets of the world. A high tariff means high wages, and where both the raw FUTURE OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES. 249 material and the manufactured article are pro- duced under highly-paid labour, it is impossible to compete with, countries where labour is relatively cheap. It only needs one or two men with the ability of Cobden and Bright — and there is an opening for such men which is sure in due time to be filled — to convince the masses of American people that they, as a nation, are now being exorbitantly taxed for the benefit of a small manufacturing class. But many manu- factures are now so firmly established that it is certain that America will become a great manufacturing, as well as a great producing country. Having so wide an area, with such diversities of climate, soil, and people, everything that can be grown in any part of the world can be grown in the United States. Corn, oil, and wine — the ancient symbols of Arcadian wealth — are already superabundant. California and Oregon this year will ship nearly three-quarters of a million tons of the finest wheat. Splendid Malaga and Black Hamburgh grapes were selling when I was in San Francisco at a penny per pound ; bunches like those of Eshcol were offered me at Sacramento for 5 cents. Then every mineral that is named by the mineralogist abounds in different regions of the States — • R i' i tu. i HI 1 ' i' '■ll I ! i'l i 250 MINERAL WEALTH OF THE STATES. especially iron, copper, tin, lead, silver, quick- silver, and gold, and there are some places where these are to be found purer and in greater bodies than in any other parts of the known world. There are mountains of iron, beds of copper, and rich pockets of silver and gold. Still more important are the immense coal measures underlying extensive tracts of the country, and differing from many of ours in the fact that they underlie rich and fertile soils. Possessing these rich natural gifts, America needs little from foreign lands ; and, populated by our own children — ingenious, inventive, plodding, and persevering — they will not fail to turn all their advantages to good account. No intelligent man could see the wonderful products shown in the Agricultural Department of the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia without astonishment and delight, or inspect the scarcely less wonderful implements and machinery invented by American skill without pleasure and admiration. Placed in different circum- stances and acting under different conditions, the Americans have shown the same capacity as English and Scotchmen to win the mastery over every difficulty — -to obtain domj'nion over the earth, to subdue and replenish it. In some of aSSBB MACHINE-MADE FURNITURE. 251 our specialities they may not equal us, but in their own they surpass us. The division of labour is not carried on the other side of the Atlantic to the same minute degrees it is on this, and the result is, if in some cases rougher work, handier, more intelligent, and more inventive workmen. As a rule, too, in America- good material is more insisted upon and inferior less tolerated than with us. People having more money to spend will not put up with inferior tools. In some things, such as furniture, the prevalence of certain good forms leads to monotony, and the substitution of machine for hand-made articles gives a stereotyped uniformity of style wearisome to an artistic taste. ■ lery jure iitl -n ■f| w V": -1 rr i I [[| 252 FRENCH STYLE OP HOTELS. AMERICAN HOTELS AND HOTEL LIFE. If there is one thing more than another in which the largeness of American ideas is every- where apparent it is in their Hotels, which are fully proportioned to the greatness of their cities and of their country. With us it was long the aim — I refer to the old uoacbing days — to have in ou-^ Inns as much as possible of the quietness, snugness, and domesticity of our homes. The great Hotels in the States have not been built upon the idea of the English Inn or Tavern, but upon that of the French Hotel, adapted and enlarged to meet the requirements of an unsettled and tr."veH ' j people. In all the newly settled f^'' >, or States that are only in process of bei set + led, there are large numbers of single mun v ho either do not wish to marry or cannot find single women vho wish to marry them. The only way for them to get housekeepers is to get wives, and, failing this, they must live at boarding-houses )Y Hotels. Then in both the small and great cities — and I may remark that almost every village calls itself a City, believing that it will some day become WIfY AMERICA XS LIVE IX HOTELS. 253 one — there are many newly-uuirried couples, and some old couples without families, or with only one or two children, who find that they can live more cheaply, with more style and less trouhle about furnishing, cooking and attendance, by living in Hotels than in houses of their own. As a rule, rents in America are exceedingly high. In cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco they are enormous, even as com- pared with the greatest sums now paid in London, Manchester, or Glasgow. So are servants' wages, and, however high they are, the general complaint is of the impossibility of being waited upon and served in the way expected in older countries. Hence with many living in Hotels is scarcely a matter of choice, and heixo? also the largeness of American Hotels. While they aru resorted to by Europeans — " globe-trotters," as they are sometimes called — and by travelling Americans, the permanent boarders — those who keep their rooms for months and years together — are the mainstay of every Hotel. Some wealthy people seem to be always " moving round," being perhaps in New York, Philadelphia, or St Louis in the winter, and Newport, Longbranch, Saratoga, or \> in the summer. In the Eastern Spates, ( •y I Niag£ in f ' J \ ] { I fWTi- 254 INJURIOUS EFFECTS ON CHILDREN. amongst the native Americans, small families are almost as much the rule as in France, and this favours Hotel life. In a western city, however, I heard of one gentleman who, with his wife and ten children, Hved in the chief Hotel there, paying a very large annual sum for their board and lodging. It is not at all uncommon to see the papa and mamma with three or four sons and daughters, when these are sufficiently grown up, sitting together at their meals at the same table. The habit of living at Hotels has doubtless much to do in giving the young ladies that remarkable coolness and self-possession which generally characterise them. For young children and nurses separate meals are provided at different hours from those of the adults. To me, with my old world notions of home training, it was often melancholy to see young children, little toddling things, and others up to ten or twelve years of age, con- tinually " dressed up to the nines " so as to be fit to be seen in the elegant corridors of the grand city Hotels. This very artificial hothouse kind of life cannot have a healthy influence either on the physical or moral Condition of those tender human plants. If I name some Hotels at which I stayed it is THE NEW YORK HOTELS. 255 for the sake of making my descriptions more definite, and not to praise any one at the expense of others. I was not a "dead-head," but every- where paid my bill, and was under no obligation except for the civility which was shown me. If you ask which is the best Hotel in any city, different people will generally give you different answers, and commonly recommend the one they have resorted to themselves. In New York, for instance, there is a perplexing choice of Hotels deserving the title of first-class, and it depends very much whether you wish to be near the business part of the city or in the more fashionable quarter which of them you may be induced to select. The Fifth Avenue, Windsor, Buckingham, Grand, St James, Everett, Claren- don, Westminster, Brevoort, and Astor House are all much frequented and recommended by Europeans as well as Americans. There are many others where Americans most do congre- gate. The Fifth Avenue is externally the most imposing, being built of white marble, and having a fine frontage to Madison Square on Broadway. From its central position, it ia generally crowded, and its office frequently resembles a public Exchange in the bustling throng of persons coming in, going out, making m m .V: iiiui ( ; : titi 256 . THE P UBLTC OFFICE AURA NGEMENTS. inquiries, meeting and talking ; while the stacks of trunks and other luggage piled up in the lobbies are stupendous. The public office is an important institution in every American Hotel, and instead of being " cribbed, cabined, and confined," as it almost always is in an English Hotel, it generally occupies a large space on the ground floor, is wide and lofty, and sometimes runs right through the building. In the new hotels the office and central lobby are paved with marble in black and white diamond slabs. In the centre at one side is a long counter, where the manager or one of the proprietors, the cashier, and the clerks are to be found ready to answer inquiries, allocate apartments, give or receive the keys of your rooms, hand your letters, for which boxes, with numbers corres- pondliig to your rooms, are provided, and take payment of your account. Opposite, or at a slight distance from this, is another counter, where a railway and steamboat ticket agent will inform you when every train or steamer starts for any part of the States ; will give you one, or, if you wish it, fifty different maps and time- tables issued by the different Railway and Steamboat Companies ; and will also give you tickets to take you wherever you wish to go. NUMERO US CON VENIENCES. 257 This is a great convenience. You can get your railway or steamboat ticket at the Hotel you are staying at without any hurry or pushing or crushing; and by handing your ticket to the porter he will get your luggage checked to go to that place by any train you wish ; and you need take no further trouble about it. There are also in connection with the Hotels large baggage-rooms, where you can leave any part of your luggage as long as you please. I left at New York in August a small box and hat-case, which I found all right and brought away on the 1st of November. A newspaper, magazine, and book stand is always to be found in the office or corridor, besides which a boy is always in attendance at the door of the breakfast- room with the morning papers. In addition to these conveniences, it is common to have shops in a part of the street floor of the Hotels, at which cigars, shirts, ties, sox, shoes and slippers, and many other personal requirements can be obtained. In New York a friend had arranged for me before I landed that I should go to the Windsor, as being the quietest and most elegant of the large Hotels on the Fifth Avenue. I could not have been introduced at the beginning to a finer i. I .1^ Hi I? ,1- J , ■5 'ti hn I'M fi H m Ml Ml m '^■^ 258 ELEGANCE AND REFINEMENT. rl specimen of the American Hotels. Its frontage extends over the entire block between Forty- sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, and its grand entrance-hall alone is as large as many Scotch Hotels, and paved with marble like an Italian palace. Near the doorway is a fine display of ^ ferns and plants. The main staircase is of pure white marble pannelled with dark Lisbon ; the visitors' and ladies' staircase has encaustic tiles r.nd variegated marbles. The cabinet work, upholstery, and frescoes throughout are in the best taste — elegance and refinement having been studied in every detail. Better taste I have never seen than in the splendid dining-room, drawing-room, and ladies' boudoir, while each bedroom and parlour is as nearly perfect as it can be made. And here I may remark that the bedrooms are not such miserable narrow boxes as one is crushed into in the crowded Hotels of London, Manchester, or Glasgow, but large enough to answer both as parlour and bedroom. This results from many continually living as well as sleeping in them. In all good Hotels in America the rooms are of such size that the beds only take up a small part of them. There is sure to be a good wardrobe, two or three easy-chairs, a large dressing-table with high LARGE BEDROOMS. 259 back and mirror, a mirror over the mantelpiece, a writing-table, and a closet. My bedroom at the Windsor was exceedingly cool and pleasant. In reaching it I always used the elevator, wliich is continually ascending and descending from six in the morning till twelve at night. The excellent attendance at the Windsor is one of its most praiseworthy features. A maid generally sits at a corner of each landing ready to answer a summons, by the electric bell, from any of the rooms. The male attendance likewise is all that can be desired. At Saratoga I visited the huge United States Hotel, which has 1100 rooms, but where the furnishings wyre all too gorgeous and flashy for my taste. The Cataract Hotel at Niagara is another great establishment, but of irregular construction. Some of the finest Hotels in the country are at Chicago — notably the Grand Pacific Hotel, the Palmer House, and the Sherman House. The most money, perhaps, has been spent on the decoration and upholstery of the Palmer House, which is, if anything, too magnificent, and I prefer the architectural plan of the Grand Pacific, which is exceedingly spacious, airy, and well ventilated — the ventilation being simply perfection. The Grand Pacific Hotel I I' 9 i I'" m I ; I- ^^^•i' il i jii' . ,*i:' i- 'i '1 , 1 1 t 1 i I I 260 GRAND HOTELS AT CHICAGO. occupies an entire square, and cost a quarter of a million sterling for the building alone, and £70,000 more for the furniture ; it has four fronts 375 by 200 feet ; is of seven and eight storeys ; and reaches a height of 130 feet. It has 500 rooms, 250 of which have bath-rooms and W.C.'s attached to them. The Grand Dining-Room is 130 feet long by 60 feet wide. There is a Ladies' Ordinary 60 feet square, and saloon 130 by 30 feet. The principal corridors are 325 feet long. Anxious to see the interior woiking of one of these enormous hotels I descended with Mr Drake, the able Manager, into the subterranean regions, and saw the splendid arrangements of the kitchen for having in readiness everything mentioned in the exten- sive bill of fare as soon as possible after it is ordered. There is no mixing up of one thing with another, but everthing has its own copper or other vessel, so as to preserve its own flavour, and everything is so placed as to prevent con- fusion and to move on in the most systematic manner. Then there are large ice chambers, where meat, fish, and vegetables are kept cool in the hottest weather. The grocery store resembles a wholesale w^arehouse. A powerful steam engine assists a multitude of operations, THE PACIFIC HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO. 261 all that can be done by machinery being done to save labour. The managers of Hotels like these need to be men both with remarkable faculty of government and minute knowledge of details, both of which Mr Drake eminently possesses. The only other Hotel which I need specially mention is the Palace Hotel at San Francisco — the largest and most complete Hotel in the world. It is seven storeys high, and is 350 feet in length, by 275 feet in depth. It is on the plan of some Hotels in Vienna, the large outer building enclosing interior quadrangles covered with glass. Within the external structure there are two blocks filled with parlours and bedrooms. Between these blocks and the outer part of the Hotel are open courts, through which all the supplies of the Hotel are brought and all refuse taken away. Each storey has a glass- enclosed corridor, lighted from these courts. The most remarkable feature is the large central court, 144 feet in length, by 84 feet in width, and covered entirely with glass. The carriages drive into this court to set down or take up the guests and their luggage. The parlours of the inner sections of the Hotel all open upon corridors, 12 feet wide, handsomely completed, and which surround the centre court. It looks like a if r 1 1-'- I ;l f 262 SIZES CF PUBLIC ROOMS. quadrangular tlieatre with seven galleries. I quote the following brief description of the building, which I received from Mr Warren Leland, the obliging lessee : — " The lower storey is 25 feet high, the others 16 and 14 feet. All walls and partitions throughout the Hotel are built of stone and brick, laid in cement, and banded together with iron. Fronting the Centre Court, from every storey, and upon its entire boundary, there are Verandahs, 12 feet wide, illuminated by standard lights at each pillared section, and from the garden level to the verandah of the second floor is an elesrant staircase, ornamented at its various landings with statuary and flower vases. Midway up this staircase is the approach to the Music Pavilion, for the use of the instrumental band. From the Centre Court is the main entrance to the Hotel Office, that room being 55 by 65, as also the entrance to the Breakfast Room, 110 by 55 ; Dining-Room, 150 by 55 ; Ball and Music Room, 65 by 55 ; Ladies' Reception Room, 40 by 40 ; Reading Room, 40 by 40 ; Committee Rooms and other general apartments, used in common — all these rooms having other convenient entrances. On the second floor are Ladies' Drawing-Room, 84 by 40 ; Children's Dining Hall, and Private Dining-Rooms. The rooms for guests are equally well finished and furnished, and arranged for use either singly or in suites of two or more, they being so approached and connected that a suite of any number can be had possessing all the VENTILA TING A ND OTHER ARRANGEMENTS. 263 advantages of a private dwelling. All outer rooms have a bay window, and every room a fire-place, a clothes closet, and toilet-room ; and to every two rooms there is a Bath-room and W.C. The total number of rooms in the Palace, above the garden floor, exclusively for the US3 of guests — most of them being 20 feet square, and none of less size than IG by IG — are 755. Each floor has its own annunciator, with its special service in constant attendance, as also a tube receptacle for letters for Post Office, all leading to the main letterbox in the general office. There is a pneumatic despatch tube, by which messages and parcels can be instantaneously sent to any point on the different floors. All the rooms have approach or entrance from the arcades, furnished by the existence of the three inner courts, thereby giving to all interior rooms fresh air and sunlight. The system of ventilation applied to all the rooms, including the bath and toilet rooms, is perfect, there being a total number of 2042 ventilating tubes .ening outward on the roof of the Hotel; each . coming from some particular room or closet. And for each room there is special provision made to admit the fresh air. Upon the garden floor of the Palace there is an Arcade Promenade, 12 feet wide, with entrances to all the stores under the Hotel, each one having a show window upon the Promenade. The Palace Hotel is elegantly furnished, equally well upon every floor, and as complete in extent of detail as the comforts of the patrons can desire. In addition to being fire-proof, as mentioned, the arrangement for protection against fire is perfect, the Hotel having four Artesian wells, a reservoir under the \. t ; iw ■ i!. w. 2G4 PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FIRE. I 1 :i:!; garden plot — hoUling capacity being G3(),000 gallons — steam-engines, steam-pumps, and a supply of 14,570 feet of hose, which, with fire apparatus complete, is located at convenient stations upon each floor of the building. In every room and passageway throughout the Hotel there is a thermostatic bulb, by which any extra degree of heat existing will be announced at the general office upon a dial stating the exact locality, making thereby a complete fire-alarm guard. The watchman's tell-tale indicator, in the office, faithfully reports the intervals of tlie watchman upon his regular rounds, both day and night, and in other respects indi- cate the method and manner of his attention to duty. There are five elevators and seven stairways leading from garden floor to the upper storey. There is a solid iron staircase, enclosed by brick, which leads from basement to upper storey, having openings only on each floor. The elevators are worked by hydraulic power, and while the most desirable speed is attained they are safe and noiseless." It will be seen that everything that can be thought of has been adopted in this Hotel for the comfort of the guests. Before it was built the architect visited all the best Hotels in the United States and Europe in order to adopt every improvement that could be suggested. The only fault is that it is too large, even with the best of systems and appliances, it being difficult to secure prompt attendance in the WEALTHY HOTEL PROPRIETORS. 265 private rooms. The exterior of the building, which has some 300 bay windows, is also more monstrous than elegant. I may mention that the building of this Hotel was one of the causes of Mr Halston, the former manager of the Bank of California, bringing both himself and that great establishment to grief — the vast sum required to complete it having, with his other ventures, completely overtaxed his resources. There is a curious propensity in men who have become i ich in the States to build Hotels. The late Mr A. T. Stewart owned one of the large Hotels at Sarat(>u;a. The Palmer House, the Sherman House, and son:e other large Hotels in Chicago, are named after their wealthy owners. The Lick House at San Francisco was built by Mr Lick, who died and was buried with much pomp while I was in San Fra.icisco — the Pioneers, those who lived in California before 1850, having walked in procession to do him honour. The Lick House is less pretentious but more profitable than the Palace Hotel. It is understood, indeed, that the second and third class houses are more lucrative than the first. At almost all the Hotels I have named the charge when I was in America for the best rooms was $5 or slightly less than £1, a day, s I » : i i!.,. mm II 'M 266 HOTEL CHARGES AND MEAL HOURS. which included all the attendance, except a fee to the porter who hands out your baggage on leaving. But there are Hotels at all rates down from $5 to $1 a day, or even $5 per week. The rates charged at the different Hotels and the style of accommodation given in return are of such interest to many thousands of people that there is puhlished at Chicago the Daily National Hotel Reporter, giving special Hotel information. It should be further explained that the rate paid per day at any American Hotel — except those announced as being conducted on the European plan — includes every meal and every- thing on the bill of fare at every meal you choose to order except wines or liquors, which, as I have said, are seldom tasted except at the bars. In the best Hotels there is almost always some meal on the table. The hours generally are : — Breakfast, from 7 to 1 1 o'clock ; lunch, from 1 to 2 ; early dinner, from 2 to 4 ; late dinner, from 5 to 8 ; tea, from 6 to 9 ; supper, from 9 to 12. Children and nurses have separate hours and rooms. If your appetite would hold out you could eat all the time without extra charge, and, to show what there is to eat, I quote one or two of the ordinary BiUs of SPECIMEN BILLS OP PARE. 267 Der, ate old tra 3at, of Fare just as they were handed to me at the table : — Tomatoes. Beefsteaks. Veal Cutlets. Mutton Chops. Smoked Salmon. Smoked Herrings. Codfish, with Cream. Calf's Liver. Clams. BREAKFAST. Cantaloupes. Cucumbers. BHOILKD. Calf 8 Liver. Rashers of Pork. English llreakfast Bacou. Ham. Spring Chicken. Mutton Kidney. FISH. Fresh Salmon. Fresh Codflsh Salt Mackerel. Fresh Mackerel Spanisli Mackerel. Filet of Sole. FRIKD. Veal Cutlets, Breaded. Oysters. Fish Balls. STEWKD. Oysters Kidneys. Tripe. Beef. Boiled Clams, Corn Beef, Ilashed. Chicken, Hashed. EQOS. Boiled, Scrambled, I'oached, Fried, Shirred. Omelets, Plain, with Jelly, I'arsley, Onions, Ham, Cheese, or k I'Kspugnnle. COLD. Pickled Lamb's Tongue Ham. Chicken. POTATOES. Stewed. BREAD, ETC. Hot Dipped Toast. Cream Toast. Milk Toast. Dry Toast. White Cakes. Irish Oatmeal. Lamb. Baked. Hot Wheat Rolls. Hot Graham Rolls. Hot Corn Bread. Rice Mutflns. Boston Brown Bread. Tongue. Turkey. Fried. .t^yonnaise. Cracked Wheat. Hominy. Samp. Maple Syrup. Sugar Loaf Syrup, Broiled Fish Beef Tongue. Lamb. Salad. LUNCH. Fruits. Consomme Soup, Beef Steak. Mutton Chops. COLD MEATS. Roast Beef. Corned Beef. Ham. Pickled Lambs' Tongues. Sardines. POTATOES. Fried, Long Branch Style. Baked. Stewed, with Cream. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Green Peppei-s. Wheaten Grits. Hominy. OatmeaL With Milk. BREAD. French. Plain. Twist. Graham and Boston Brown Bread. Cream, Buttered and Dry Toast. Assorted Cakes. Ice Cream. Black Tea. Green Tea. Chocolate. Coffee. Mock Turtle. DINNER. SOUP. FISH. Boiled Salmon, Hollandaise Sauce. Potatoes & la Duchesse. Priutanier. Filet de Sole, a La CoVoert, 1 i-r^ 268 BILLS OF FARE. l! BOILED. leff of ^rutton and Capers. Corned Beef and New Cabbage. Turkey, Parsley Sauce. Beef Tongue. Boned Capon. Lobster Salad, Lettuce. Chicken Salad. ROAST. Ribs of Beef. Chicken, Stuffed Turkey. Ham Glacd, Champagne Sauce. Lamb, Mint Sauce. Goose, Apple Sauce. COLl) UISHKS. Chicken. Lamb. Turkey. Lobster, Plain. Beef. Mutton. JLayonnaise of Sulinon. KNTRKES. Filet of Beef piqu6, i la Windsor. Giblet of Tame Duck, h. la Bonrpuignonne. Small Tatties of Chickt'ii, a la I'lmperatrice. Soft Shell Cral)s Fried. Escalope of Veal, Vienna Style. Woodcotk Sautt'e, an funiet do gibier. rancakes ^ la Dauphine. veqktahlks. Boiled Sweet I'otatoes. Succotash. Pickled Beets. New Beets. Boiled Rice. New Sf public schools. Now that slavery is at an end, it is reported that " In Mississippi the ^'^"..x^ % v« '*?.'■ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 .> 5 (A ;\ \ 6^ m 280 FEATURES OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. Acts of the People of the State of New York bearing upon these points : — Section 1 . All parents and those who have the care of children shall instruct them, or cause them to be instructed, in spelling, reading, writing, English gram- mar, geography, and arithmetic. And every parent, guardian, or other person having control and charge of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen years, shall cause such child to attend some public or private day school at least fourteen weeks in each year, eight weeks at least of which attendance shall be consecutive, or to be instructed regularly at home at least fourteen weeks in each year in spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, unless the physical or mental condition of the child is such as to render such attendance or instruction inexpedient or imprac- ticable. § 2. No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed by any person to labour in any business what- ever during the school hours of any school day of the school term of the Public School in the school district or the city where such child is, unless such child shall have attended some public or private day school where instruction was given by a teacher qualified to instruct in spelling, reading, writing, geography, English gram- mar, and arithmetic, or shall have been regularly instructed at home in said branches by some person qualified to instruct in the same, at least fourteen weeks of the fifty-two weeks next preceding any and every year in which such child shall be employed. EDUCATION NON.SECTARIAN. 281 §18. No school shall be entitled to or receive any portion of the school moneys in which the religious doctrines or tenets of any j)articular Christian or other religious sect shall be taught, inculcated, or practised, or in which any book or books, containing compositions favourable or prejudicial to the particular doctrines or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect, or which shall teach the doctrines or tenets of any other religious sect, or which shall refuse to permit the visits and examinations provided for in this Act. But nothing herein contained shall authorise the Board of Education to exclude the Holy Scriptures, without note or com- ment, or any selections therefrom, from any of the schools provided for by this Act ; but it shall not be competent for the said Board of Education to decide what version, if any, of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, shall be used in any of the schools : Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to violate the rights of conscience, as secured by the Constitution of this State and of the United States. In 1875 the City of New York spent nearly three-quarters of a million sterling on education. Of this sum about half a million went as salaries to teachers in the Normal College, the Grammar and Primary Schools, and to the officials of the Education Board. Between £60,000 and £70,000 were devoted to books, school supplies, gas, fuel, rents, and incidental i 1 i ! I 282 LARGE MAJORITY OP FEMALE TEACHERS. expenses. The repairs, alterations of buildings, furniture, heating apparatus, &c., cost about another £40,000. No less than £20,000 were given to schools conducted by benevolent associations ; and upwards of £2,000 was spent on compulsory education and some other items. The supplying of books, paper, pencils, slates, &c., to the scholars is a feature of the American system not yet introduced into this country. Another pecuHarity is the large preponderance of female teachers. Taking the day schools alone there were in 1875 : — Male Teachers. 56 Male Principals in Grammar Schools. 151 Male Vice-Principals and Assistants in Grammar Schools. 207 Female Teachers. 413 Female Assistants in Male Grammar Schools. 45 Female Principals in Female Grammar Schools. 482 Female Vice-Principals and Assistants in Grammar Schools. 109 Female Principals in Primary Schools. 1255 Female Vice-Principals and Assistants in Primary Schools and Departments. 2304 NHW YORK NORMAL COLLEGE. 283 its in The proportion of female to male teachers in New York is thus more than ten to one. The salaries of the female teachers in the Primary Departments and Schools amount to nearly £200,000 ; in the female departments of Grammar Schools to nearly £100,000 ; and in the male departments of Grammar Schools to upwards of £60,000. The entire sum paid to the Male Principals, Vice-Principals, and Assist- ants in Grammar Schools was only about £80,000. The special aptitude and success of females in the vocation of teachers is distinctly recognised^ In New York every young maiden is at liberty, if she chooses, to go from the Grammar School to the Normal School, which is really a Female College, and where in a three years' course she may be fully instructed not only in the know- ledge, but in the art of teaching Latin, French or German, History, English Language, Litera- ture, Composition, Music, Drawing, Geometry, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Astronomy. I was present at the morning assembly of upwards of a thousand of the female students at the Normal College, composed of girls and young women between the ages of fourteen and twenty — all entering the chapel two and two punctually at nine o'clock to the playing of a pianoforte. ! ; t : 1 ^■]:'i.:: I'll •i.''^:!i 284 ■Si llil' ■ I RIGHT TO NORMAL SCHOOL TRAINING. Every movement was conducted here — as in the class-rooms — by a signal on a handbell. An anthem was sung, a chapter read, then a hymn followed, then several recitations were delivered with great self-possession and accuracy, and then all went out again to the strains of the piano. I next saw the gymnastic exercises, and went through several of the higher classes, and then into the primary schools, where the art of teach- ing is practised by the older scholars under the superintendence of regular teachers. Everything is arranged and conducted on a perfect system, and the Commissioners in their last Report — which is for the City of New York what that I previously quoted is for the whole of the United States — observe : — There is a direct pecuniary gair> to the taxpayers in providing that those who are taught without expense to themselves should be able to return somewhat of the advantage they have received to the common stock. But the moral advantage is still greater. Every pupil in a public school understands, from the moment of entering upon a course of instruction, that whatever else one may fail to know or be unable to do, the system provided by the State, if faithfully pursued, will equip one for an honourable and useful avocation. Such . an idea, con- stantly present to the mind, has a useful disciplinary result. The observant and industrious pupil, under the " ONE-HORSE COLLEQESr 285 influence of this idea, employs the abundant facilities provided to the greatest advantage. And when the course of instruction is completed, and the pupil has become the teacher, it is believed that something besides a perfunctory discharge of duty to employers is attained, and that a consciousness of benefits reciprocated pro- duces increased interest in the work and sfreater success in its accomplishment. Teachers thus trained enter upon the work with a sense of obligation to the State, with a knowledge of the advantages of the system in their personal experience, and with an understanding such as no stranger can have of the responsible task imposed upon them. The primary and secondary scbools in the United States seem to me, on the whole, better adapted to the general requirements of youth in America than are the similar schools in Scotland, and more particularly in England. But with one or two exceptions, like Harvard and Yale, the Universities are far inferior to ours. The New England Universities deserve their designation, but the name of Universities is a misnomer for many institutions so-called, which a University man rightly designated to me as "one-horse colleges." E^-ch State aspires to have a Uni- versity, which may be a laudable ambition, for in course of time most of the States will be quite able to maintaiQ one ; but there have been too t! I !!} I n .} I .'. \ ' I 286 SECTARIAN " UNIVERSITIESr many well-intentioned but misguided men anxious to perpetuate their names as founders of Universities which are never likely to be any- thing more than local Colleges. It is impossible for two, three, or even four Professors to teach, as they are expected to do in some of these insti- tutions, the whole round of universal knowledge. The excessive multiplication of Colleges in con- nection with different religious sects is also generally lamented by the most intelHgent members and ministers of the different Churches, who, while they do not object to separate theo- logical teaching, think it would be much better if the general course of studies were the same for all as in the large and ancient Universities in Europe. HANDSOME CHURCHES. 287 AMERICAN CHURCHES AND PREACHERS. In the religious aspects of America there axe especially notable — 1. The architectural evidences that Christian liberality, without State endowments, may be relied upon to erect and maintain places of Christian worship. 2. The readiness of ministers and people of all Protestant sects to co-operate in all Christian effoit : the comparative absence of exclusive sectarian pretensions. 3. The livelier and more interesting character of the religious services. 4. The more modern and direct style of preaching. , Take cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, and my impression certainly is that the churches in them are not only more numerous, but more handsome in their ex- teriors, as well as more spacious and convenient in the interiors, than in our corresponding centres of Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham. There is one Presbyterian church $' \> \: f- .:l 288 EXCELLENT INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS. I in New York which cost no less than $1,600,000, or about £200,000 — the site alone having cost £60,000. It was built at a most expensive time, but it was probably easier to obtain a million dollars then than it would be half-a-million now. This church is fully as long as the East church in Dundee, but considerably wider and loftier, and will accommodate half as many more people. All the seats at the sides and end down stairs are gently raised, while in the gallery they are so graded that the persons in one pew in no way obstruct the view of those behind them. Every one has a distinct view of the minister, and also of almost the entire church. Not only are the pews most comfortably cushioned, but both them and the endless passages and lobbies are handsomely carpeted. The acoustic properties are excellent — the preacher, without straining his voice, is heard easily in all parts of the bmlding. American Churches excel those in this country in the excellent arrangement made for the week-night services, Bible classes, Sunday schools, and social meetings. Some twenty years ago the practice was to have large rooms for these in the basement stories, but now they are generally placed in the rear of the main building. " MO NTH L Y SOCIA DLES: ' 289 the Each church has a large room neatly seated, cushioned, and carpeted for week-night services and social meetings — generally large enough to hold from 300 to 400 or 500 persons — with several smaller rooms as class or committee rooms. There is also generally a ministers room, which he uses either as a study or to receive inquirers. Dr Jenkins' new church at Montreal, and Mr Gordon's at Ottawa in Canada, Mr Munro Gibson's at Chicago, and Dr Halls in New York, are all of them not only fine specimens of ecclesiastial architecture, but also of admirable arrangement and equipment for congregational purposes. I only mention them because I went through them all. There are hundreds of others like them. One of the Trustees of the Second Presbyterian Church in Cliicag^j — Mr Gibson's — in explaining to me the uses of the rooms annexed to that very fine church, said : — " Be- sides the usual week-night services and class meetings, we ha,ve wliat is called our Monthly Sociable. It is the duty of the office-bearers to take note of all new comers to the church, to invite them to these monthly social meetings, to introduce them to the members, make them acquainted with friends, and see whether there ■ !'■: 1'i 1; I 290 ALL SECTS Oy AN EQUAL FOOTING. %A' are any of our classes or societies in which they can be useful. We have schools, and Bible classes, and missionary societies, and Dorcas societies. The ladies come and bring their sewing, and in this way every man or woman who is so disposed can find something to do." Most of the American churches are wrought on this plan. I found in several cases that the ministers devoted special attention to the Sunday schools. At Springfield, in Illinois, I found a Congregational minister conducting a children's service before the ordinary Sunday morning service, and at the end of it the younger children went home, while the older remained to join the congregational worship. The absence of State connection with any of the Churches prevents any kind of assumption, by one denomination, of superiority over others. Each has to stand, and does stand, on its own merits. The ministers have no partition-wall set up between them. As an illustration of the eftect of this, the first Sunday evening I was in New York I heard a young Episcopal clergyman, the son of the E.ev. Dr Tyng, conducting a revival service in the Gospel Tent — a very large marquee or tabernacle, which had been used shortly before by Messrs Moody and Sankey. In FINE CHORAL S Kit VICES. 291 Boston, too, I heard a very eloquent Episco- palian preach to one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the city, who, I am told, had taken part in Messrs Moody and Sankey's meet- ings. I was present at one of these giitlemen's mid-day meetings in Farnell Hall, in Chicasro. Although it had been predicted th^c this city, on account oi its business activity and devotion to the dollar, was the last and worst place where a mid -day audience could be expected to assemble, yet about 3000 people — members of all Protestant sects — regularly attended. The religious services in America, although generally as long, are not so monotonous and somniferous as they often are in this country. There is more frequent and more melodious singing. It is not thought sinful to comply with the exhortations of the Psalmist : " Kejoice in the Lord, ye righteous. Sing unto Him a new song; play sldlfully with a loud noise. Praise Him with s ♦•ringed instruments and organs." I have never heard finer singing than in the second Presbyterian church in Chicago, and in Plymouth Congregational church, Brooklyn. At the former the congregation were first hushed to listen to the exquisite playing of an introductory .;]:,' 292 PRESBYTERIAN REFINEMENT. i Voluntary on the Organ, which has a Vox Humana stop so perfect in its imitation of the human voice that I at first thought some in- visible singer was singing a solo to the organ accompaniment ; then followed a Sanctus by the quartett choir, consisting of two male voices — bass and tenor, and two female — soprano and alto ; then a short prayer ; then a chant — " come and let us sing unto the Lord ;" then a Psalm was read ; then a prayer ; then a chapter from the New Testament ; then a hymn ; then the sermon ; followed by the collection, a hymn, and the benediction. This service seemed to me admirably broken up, so as never to be tedious or wearisome ; when the choir sung alone the effect was as nearly angelic as one can expect to hear in this world ; when the congregation jomed in the hymns they did so heartily, singing with both the voice and the understanding. The same evening I attended another Presby- terian service, where with less culture and re- finement there was quite as much variety, and where the organ and choir were scarcely less prominent. In some of the chiu-ches in New York they have a double quartett At Ply- mouth Church, Brooklyn, in addition to a pro- fessional organist and quartett, there is a volun- CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN PREACHERS. 293 tary choir of about 100 singers, who lead the congregational singing with such Hfe and hearti- ness as effectually prevents either droning or dozing. The attention paid to Church singing throughout America is exhibited in every pew, as a rule, being abundantly supplied with large Hymn Books, which have the music printed above the Hymns, like the large edition of the Hymns Ancient and Modern, or Church Hymns used by the Episcopalians in England. Nor are the services alone more interesting : the same may also be said of the sermons. I did not hear one duU or tedious discourse in America. I admit that I went to hear the preachers of highest repute, but even they differed considerably from those who are equally distinguished in this country. The difference is in their bemg less clerical in their tone and manner and more human. There are many styles of preachers, but all are less professional — less addicted to the use of stereotyped phrases — more direct, homely, and practical than with us. They do not show so much of the scaffolding in the structure of their discourses, by announcing a regulation number of heads, sub-heads, lastly *s, finally 's, and in conclusion's. They also seem to model their sermons more after the style of \ - i I i/4 294 DR HALL OF NEW YORK. Christ's own sermons, instead of following, as ours commonly do, the epistolary style of St Paul. They deal largely in anecdote and illustration. The Rev. Philip Brooks, the most eloquent Episcopal clergyman in Boston, preaches extem- pore, with a gush of language that makes it difficult often to seize the beauty and originality of his ideas. Dr Hall, one of the most popular Presbyterian preachers in New York, has not a whit of ministerial formalism about him, but addresses his audience just as a first-class pleader would a jury, or a great statesman a political assembly. I heard him preach from Heb. xi., 3d verse — " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen are not made of things which do appear" — and for upwards of an hour he transfixed the attention of the congregation as he showed that there is nothing whatever in the Pantheistic ideas of Tyndall, Huxley, and the evolutionists which were not anticipated long ago by Hindoo, Greek, and Latin philosophers and poets ; as he logi- cally exhibited the gaps and defects in their theories and assumptions ; and as he illustrated that, with regard to all the great mysteries of life, we must, after all, walk not by sight but by PROF. JENKINS OP AMHERST COLLEGE. 295 11 faith. Dr Hall, who came originally from Ire- land, without any Hibernian flashiness of rhetoric, is one of the most forcible speakers to whom I ever listened. Although he preaches extempore — and certainly not by rote — he never hesitates for a word, and his diction is so accu- rate that every word might be printed as he utters it without any appearance of redundancy or tautology. Besides preaching to one of the largest and most educated congregations in New York, Dr Hall is also a regular contributor to the New York press, and his contributions display great breadth of view, sound discretion, good common sense, and a perfect familiarity with modern literature. Of all the sermons I heard in America none impressed me more than one I heard in Chicago, by the Kev. Professor Jenkins, of Amherst College, Massachusetts — it seemed to me so admirably conceived and so well thought out in nil its branches. His text was Matt, xvi., 26th verse — " What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?" Although evidently a man of refinement and culture, it was not the m.anner but the thought- fulness of his liscourse which secured for it the closest attention. I reproduce, as far as I can, its w ■fit- % I. \ ':■ \ i ■;>:<■ 296 PROFIT AND LOSS. leading thoughts. He began by saying that the possession of a soul was the characteristic of man. An animal exhibited no sign of a soul. It might have a degree of intelhgence, and even affection, and something indeed like conscience, but it had no soul ; it showed no concern about a future life ; it had an appetite for food, but no capacity for religion. The soul was the distinc- tion of man, and Christ's ministry was a voice to the world on behalf of the soul. If ever any one was in the world who could best estimate the worth of the soul it was Christ, and the first lesson of the text was, a single human soul was worth more than the whole world. The question put in the text was one of profit and loss. If there was one thing that in these days engaged the attention, desires, and aspirations of men more than another it was — profit. In one way or another all were seeking profit, and never were there such enormous Drofits and losses as i. now. Yet the words of the text were as true now as when first spoken. Christ spoke for all time. He foresaw all that we see in the modem world — its splendid cities, its grand Exchanges, its fleets on all waters, its mines of wealth, indeed all the wealth of all ages, and He declared that a man's soul is' worth more than it all. Nor was A LOSS THAT CANNOT BE COMPENSATED. 297 He content with the mere declaration. He showed His value of the human soul by what He did for it. Words were cheap ; therefore He died that the souls of men might be saved. The second lesson of the text was — the soul may be lost. Everything a man has he has with the liability and the possibility of losing it. His money — there is no perfect insurance against the losing of money : it has wings and may fly away. OlBBice, social standing, friends, health may be lost. A limb, speech, hearing, eyesight ; mental powers, imagination, memory, the ability to con- ceive ideas, conscience, self-control — ever}i:hing a man has may be lost. But, greatest and worst of all losses is the loss of the soul — the soul itself may be lost. This was the sum of all catastrophes, because (Thu"d) of the impossibility of compensating for this loss. Other losses admitted of some compensation. What was lost by fire might be made up by insurance ; an artificial limb might supply the place of one that had been amputated; the loss of one faculty often led to the quickening of the susceptibilities and enjojnnent of others ; if health gave way, friends would be more kind and more attentive — almost every loss admitted of some partial compensation; but it was otherwise with the V •IPS'. 5itS' > 1 " 1 K ; I 298 AN EFFECTIVE ILLUSTRATION. soul, which, if lost, was wholly lost. What, then, was the evidence that the soul was not lofet ? It was, that it could feel what was invisible. If an arm will not do the work of an arm, it is lost ; if a mental faculty will not act, it is lost ; and if the soul wiU not do the work it is designed to do, it is lost. A soul should feel sin as the body feels pain ; it should hunger and thirst after righteousness as the body hungers and thirsts for food and drink. If it does not, then it is lost, for it has ceased to do the work of the soul. Christ likened the loss of the soul to a lost sheep — it was lost, not slain ; to a lost coin — it was lost, not destroyed ; to a lost son — who was lost, not dead. So long as there was life there was hope of the recovery of the lost soul. This was a man coming to himself — finding again the dormant powers of his soul. He had known a distinguished man, an eminent judge, smitten with paralysis — for a time quite a wreck — one of whose hands long appeared to be helpless, but sensibility and power began to return. Day after day, and month after month, that great man practised with a dumb-bell, till first one finger, and then another finger and another began to move, and feel, and be useful again; and at last the whole hand moved, and felt, and MISTAKEN VALUES. 299 handled as before. After the same fashion a lost mental power had been known to return and become achive again ; and so after the same fashion a lost soul might again begin to feel after God, and be conscious of sin and awake to righteousness. Did any there fear that their souls were lost? — let them, like the paralytic judge or the weakly invalid seek propitious cir- cumstances and motives to bring the soul into action again. Above all, let them seek Divine help, remembering that the mission of Christ was that of a Saviour who came to seek and to save the lost. There was not a man or woman in that congregation whose souls need be lost. If their souls were lost, it was because they mis- took the values of things, and had not sufficiently pondered the questions — " What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?" These are very imper- fect notes of a remarkably calm, reflective, impassioned, and pointed discourse. Of course I went to hear the preacher in America who has probably more than any other influenced the style of preaching in that countiy by the freshness, vigour, and homeliness of his discourses — Henry Ward Beecher. The ,.i i:i tD; QOO HENRY WARD BE EC HER. crowds to hear him in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, during the latter weeks of tHe Cen- tennial Exhibition were so large, and so many were disappointed hearing him, that in the beginning of October a circular was issued, re- questing the ordinary congregation kindly to give up their seats entirely to strangers during the whole of that month, which they agreed to do. I went on a rainy, stormy night, but the build- ing — which, although large, is very plain, and not at all aesthetic in its arrangements — was quite filled both in the seats and aisles. After the fine organ voluntary, choral service, and con- gregational singing, to which I have previously referred, Mr Beecher, who is b, broad set, florid, healthy-looking man, with bright eyes and white hair, and who spoke from a platform decorated with shrubs and flowers, preached from the words (Bom. xii. 11) " Fervent in spirit." He said the Apostle wished it to be understood that it was i^ot enough to have right feeling, but that their feelings ought to glow ; that it was well to have faith, but that it should be a burning faith. There was a great difference in the warmth of life. Who was there that had not sometimes lived more in an hour, in the intensity of a higher life, than a whole year of ordinary hum- DEFECT OP MODERN PREACHING. 301 dram existence ? It was especially necessary for all who were engaged in God's work, and parti- cularly for the preachers of the Gospel, to be fervent in spirit. It would not do to be merely receptive, learned, scholarly men. Ministers as a class were a studious, sincere, upright, con- scientious, diligent body of men ; why, then, was there so little result from their preaching ? Was it not because they were content with calm, cold reasoning ; with giving instruction ; with trying to convince the understanding ? The fault of their preaching was that they did not preach in earnest — their hearts were not on fire. It needs a soul on fire to kindle a flame in dead hearts. Many things would not solve till heated, and the richest metals commonly needed the greatest heat to melt them. A cold message would never warm the human heart. They had hundreds of instructive ministers who went on preaching for years discourses on which they bestowed great labour, and that would be ex- cellent discourses, except that they produce no effect. A revivalist comes round, and the churches are filled, and the membership is greatly increased, and they feel it as a reproach that he should accomplish with perhaps much ruder means what they failed to achieve. Why ''!■ ! Ml H u f . ii If I I I 302 WANT OF FIRE IN PREACHING. is this ? Why, they are like a man who wants to kindle a fire, and he brings a hundred cords of wood, and goes on adding one cord to another, expecting to get some heat, but he might go on for ever unless some one came with a spark and set the wood on fire. There are many very good men and very good ministers, but they have no flue to their stoves, no draught to their chimneys. Oh, that we had tongues of flame I This is the want of the pulpit. Its learning is admirable ; its occupants are sincere, devoted men ; they give themselves steadfastly to their work, but there is a want of fire in their preaching, of con- suming zeal, of enthusiasm, of fervency of spirit in what they do. Nothing wins in this world like sweetness of spirit allied to enthusiastic Divine fire in the soul. What is it that controls a child like a mother's sweetness : it is to him as the opening of heaven ; he sees through her eyes the golden Kingdom of God. In the fervour of a mother's love the child knows no doubt and feels no fear. So. with the mass of mankind there is no power equal to the fervour of a noble nature. Doubts may be removed, dogmas be taught, questions may be argued and set at rest, and still you may have a cold, and poor, and barren faith. Preach as it should be MORE ENTHUSIASM NEEDED. 303 no preached the love of Christ — that love which blessed little children, pitied the harlot, and promised Paradise to the dying thief ; speak of the intensity of the Divine love of Jesus Christ, and the cold formality of the pulpit and the pews will soon disappear. There is a necessity for more enthusiasm in the Christian world. Away with cold, subtle, metaphysical preaching ; have faith in the Divine power of the love of Christ and then all things are ours. *' For I am per- suaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shaU be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Notwithstanding all that Mr Beecher has recently passed through, I saw no sign either of mental or physical exhaustion in his preaching, which was singularly fresh and forcible. From the interest taken on this side of the Atlantic in Plymouth Church, I may mention that it was organised in June 1847. Henry Ward Beecher commenced his ministry, preach- ing his first sermon as pastor, the 10th of October 1847. There were twenty-one persons ■constituting the church, three of whom survive, and are still members of the church. During I i f! c . ■ r ;■ ii-i 804 MR BEECIIERS CONGREGATION. Mr Beecher's pastorate some 4000 persons have united with the church, and the present mem- bership is about 2500. Deaths and removals number some 1500. The largest number entering the church in any year was 350, during an exten- sive revival in 1858. Kevivals occurred in 1848- 52-55-57-58-62-65, and G6, since which there has been no religious interest or excitement characterised as a revival, yet there have been large accessions to the church, averaging about 140 per year. The house in which Mr Beecher preaches will, when crowded, contain 3200. It is rare that every seat is not occupied; and, as a rule, in good weather many that come are unable to obtain admittance. There are some six or seven hundred free sittings, and sittings not occupied (by those who hire them) ten minutes before the hour of seivice are filled by the ushers with strangers waiting at the door. The pews are all owned by the society, and are rented at auction at the commencement of each year to the highest bidder. The annual rental is about $14,000. The annual expenses of the home establishment are some $9000, which are met by the revenue from the pews. Curiosity prompted eight young men to count the number of people who endeavoured to get into the church the second Sabbath in October. BENEVOLENT EFFORTS. 305 They counted between 3,400 and 3,500 men, and between 3,100 and 3,200 women — stopping the count at the hour of service, though the people were still commg. Seven thousand persons must have presented themselves for admission, nearly 4,000 more than could stand within the doors. The church sustains two missions in the neigh- bourhood. The annual cost of these missions is about $3,000, and the c(^st of mission buildings, &c., was about $25,000. Connected with the missions and Plymouth church the Sunday sch'"»ols have about 3,000 teachers and scholars. Twenty-one stated public collections for benevolent objects are taken every year, and in addition there are special collections. Some $30,000 were contributed last year by the church and society, in addition to the regular sums for pew rents and benevolences alluded to previously. Not long since one of the families of the church contributed $60,000 to one of the Universities. One of the members of the church recently deceased, though contributing largely during his whole life to the various benevolent objects, made provision in his will for bequests amounting to more than $40,000. Mr Beecher is certainly a powerful preacher, and has a most attached and active con- gregation, testifying to the success of his ministry. ■5 f 306 FERMENTATION OF IDEAS. We sometimes hear or read of Shakers, Free Lovers, and Spiritualists, and their nimibers and doings are magnified imtil we are alarmed lest a pure and simple Christianity be entirely over- powered by the vagaries of the ignorant; or the vices of the immoral taking to themselves the garb of some new religion. But a traveller in America, unless he goes out of his way to discover these eccentricities — just as one leaves the main line of the Pacific Railway to see the Mormons at Salt Lake City — will probably never meet a Shaker, a Free Lover, or a Spiritualist. In a country where religious belief is so unfettered, and in a population made up of representa- tives and descendants of so many different nationalities, and not a few of them rejoicing in new-found hberty of thought, there is sure to be a great fermentation of ideas, and far be it from me to say tha,t the froth and the scum which rises to the surface in the first stages of that fermentation are anything better than froth and scum. But if we have any reliance in the natural order of events, we may have confidence that the minds of a free and thinking people, who are chiefly of the same race, and largely predominated by the same Christian principles as ourselves, will neither lapse into imbecility, J :• AMERICA A CHRISTIAN LAND. 307 Free •s and lest a over- or the ;s the ler in ay to leaves ee the never it. In itered, senta- erent iing in ire to be it scum lores of froth the idence [eople, xgely iciples Icility, infidelity, or indecency. Weeds are often most rank in a newly turned soil, and there are some weeds that may not be soon or easily extirpated from American life, But America is a Christian land. The Cross is everywhere the symbol of its faith. The Church-going bell is everywhere heard. The Gospel is everywhere preached. Men and women there have the same needs, the same struggles, bereavements, and griefs, as are common to all in this world. Hence we may be assured of the permanent ascendancy of that faith which, beginning with the Genesis of all things from God, oifers to the weakest and worst of sinners a, Divine Saviour, and ends with an Apocalypse of everlasting blessedness. 1 >j i*. ,n:t II 308 AMERICAN DISTANCES. ASPECTS OF LIFE IN AMERICA. Few persons on this side of the Atlantic have any conception of American distances, and one advantage of crossing over from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast is in being enabled better to realise what those distances are. For instance, a careful calculator tells me that if I had travelled the same distances in the Eastern Hemisphere, my journey from New York to Montreal corresponded to the distance between Dundee and London. From Montreal to Detroit equalled a journey from London to Berlin, via Paris and Frankfort. From Detroit to Chicago and Indianapolis, and through Illinois to St Louis, would have taken me from Berlin to Vienna, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Con- stantinople. From St Louis by Denver and Cheyenne to Ogden would have carried me on from Constantinople in a straight line to Astra- bad, in Persia. From Ogden to San Francisco would have led on from Astrabad to Kandahar, in Affghanistan. From San Francisco to Port- land, British Columbia, and back, would have taken me to Calcutta. And from San Francisco EXTENT OF DIFFERENT STATES. 309 to Chicago, Washington, Baltimore, Phila- delphia, Boston, and New York would have carried me to Canton, in China, and on to the Pacific about half way between Hong-Kong and the Sandwich Islands. If to that I add twice crossing the Atlantic, the first crossing would have landed me at San Francisco, and the second brought me to St John's, Newfoundland — so that excepting the distance between St John's and Liverpool I might have travelled round the world. One or two other illustrations may be given of American distances. From Calais to St Peters- burg or Constantinople as the crow flies is only as far as from New York to Denver. From London to Sebastopol is only as far as from Chicago to San Francisco. From Gibraltar to Mecca is only as far as from San Francisco to New York. The State of California alone would hold the whole of Great Britain and Ireland and half as much more inside of it. The State of Texas alone is more than double the size of the United Kingdom. There are three States and six Territories averaging a considerably larger extent than that of the United Kingdom ; there are four other States — Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and Michigan — as large as England and Wales ; and there are four — Indiana, Kentucky, i.iii I '■.; ,:' ' J 310 RAILWAYS AND POPULATION. Maine, and South Carolina — as large as Ireland. The largest Lake in this country — Loch Lomond — ^has only an area of 45 square miles, while Lake Erie has close on 10,000 square miles; Michigan, 22,400; Huron, 24,000; and Superior, 32,000. According to the last census returns there were in Great Britain and Ireland 16,000 miles of railway, and in the United States 75,000 miles, while the number of square miles of land to each mile of railway was only 8 in the United Kingdom, and 50 in the United States. The entire area of the United Kingdom is 119,924 square miles, and of the United States 3,603,844 ; while the population per square mile is 265 in the former, and only 11 in the latter. The total population of the United States is about 10,000,000 more than that of the United King- dom ; and, while the States have almost as many large cities — New York corresponding to London, Philadelphia to Birmingham, Balti- more to Newcastle, Boston to Liverpool, St Louis to Manchester, Chicago to Glasgow, and so on — ;the agricultural population is relatively very sparse. The distance between the Eastern and Western Cities is, speaking roundly, 2000 miles, and then you are only one-third of the way ox' to the West Coast. THE AMERICANS A TRAVELLING PEOPLE. 311 .mg- jt as ^ding >alti- St and Ively Itern !000 the Hence it is not surprising that the sjnse of greatness — the mere physical greatness of his country — is strong upon every American, just as every Briton rejoices in the consciousness that small as may be his island home the sun never sets on its Colonies and Dominions. America is so great that, comparatively, few Americans have ever gone over the length or breadth of it. The Atlantic steamers bring over thousands to Europe who have never crossed over to California, and far more Americans travel in Switzerland and Palestine than cross the Kocky Mountains and Sierra Nevadas; while more go up the Nile than the Columbia River. Yet the Americans in America travel more and much farther than any other people. It is astonishing how full their trains always are. The Centennial Exhibition caused more travelling this year than usual, but far beyond its range — in Illinois and Kansas and Colorado — I was surprised to see ladies travelling alone or with children for hundreds of miles merely to pay friendly visits. Enter a common car in the summer time, and all the women and children are not merely neatly but elegantly dressed in Hght muslins and prints or close fitting "dusters." Good humour and quietness prevail throughout the carriages, which If ii m III'. \ !:};■ 312 CONVENIENCES OP AMERICAN TRA VEILING. are of great length, and open throughout, while the passengers are at liberty to move at pleasure from one carriage to another to discover friends or make acquaintances in any part of the train. They are not locked up in moving prison cells, such as the compartments in our carriages are. On most of the Eastern lines there are Hotel Cars, where excellent meals can be obtained at mode- rate charges, and eaten at leisure, without the feeling of hurry insepara,ble from meals at railway stations. The conductors are generally very attentive. Newspapers, books, and fruit can be obtained from an attendant who goes with the train, and at night the sleeping cars enable you to rest with comfort. The Americans are a travelling people, and travelling has become a more practical science with them than with us. We go by express trains to make our misery in travelling as short as possible. The A^mericans are so comfortable in their trains that toev are content to travel slower. Their river oisd coasting steamboats are also equipped with every arrangement for luxurious comfort. They are large floating hotels, with all the conveniences of hotel life — some of them having state cabins for several hundreds of passengers. Life in America wears a different aspect from A TMOSPIIERIC AND CLIMA TIC DIFFERENCES. 3 1 3 y ours from the mere difference in the atmosphere. Day after day and week after week there is scarcely a cloud in the sky. The sun rises clear in the east, shines all day with dazzling bright- ness, and sets in the west just as it rose. The weather is rarely spoken of, because there is so little change in it. It is bright, and it is hot, indisposing to much physical exertion ; and, as the morning is the coolest part of the day, everybody rises early. The houses, churches, and public buildings in small towns and villages ^re almost invariably painted white, to throw off the heat. The shop windows are protected by permanent awnings or verandahs, which keep off the sua in summer and the rain or snow in winter. The climate is more like that of the south of France or Germany than ours. In the south it is still hotter, and I fancied in St Louis and Missouri that many of the people had quite a Spanish or Italian look, from living in a similar climate. I confess that, on the whole, I would rather have our dusky skies, our white fleecy clouds, and our ever varied sunsets, than the monotonous brightness of an American summer. The hymn- writer who sings of heaven as having an " Eternal, high, unclouded noon," li) I I n w 314 WANT OF SONG BIRDS. did not know how welcome a few clouds would sometimes be. The heat of summer is debilita- ting, and, in many States, when winter comes, the cold is so extreme that people cannot take the exercise necessary to reinvigorate them. It has been said, and I believe truly, that there is no country where people can walk out with com- fort so many days in the year as our own. The vocal surroundings in America are also very different from our own. The brightness of the sky is fraught with c glorious oppressiveness, but the indescribable chirruping of innumerable crickets and locusts which accompanies you wherever you go, whether in the country or neighbourhood of the townis, was fretfully weari- some to me, so different is the sound to the melody of our own sweet song birds. The sparrow has been introduced into some of the New England States, and the meadow lark affords some relief, but it would be a great addition to the pleasure of life in America if the thrush and the blackbird, and our other song birds, could be generally introduced on the Western Continent. Domestic life differs from ours in consequence of the difficulty of procuring domestic servants^ and the very high wages which have to be paid. LACK OF DOMESTIC SERVICE. 315 The cost of keeping up grounds is such that town houses are either built entirely without or with very small plots of land round them, and these often not in good order. Inside the houses in the country the mistress and daughters are pretty sure to do all the work, although they may be comparatively wealthy people. In the large towns there will be only one oi two ser- vants in houses where in England you would expect to see three times as many. I have very seldom seen more than one waiter at a private dinner, although there might be a considerable party. Affluence in America can scarcely provide the same attendance as in England. The difficulty of getting washing done at home is favouring the establishment of Chinese laundries in almost every town in America. John Chinaman seems, if I may be permitted the Bull, to be a born washerwoman, and he is now doing most of the washing, starching, and ironing in America, and it also looks as if he would soon do all the kitchen and house work as well. In the Eastern Hotels — in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago — the waiters are generally negroes, as also in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. But the Chinese abound both in the hotels and private houses in California and Oregon, and they are gradually It . I i^i i I 1- \ 1.- r 316 POSSIBLE CHINESE ASSIMILATION. making their way eastward. They are very clean, active, and to a certain point reliable ; but I confess that after having had them about me for some time it was quite a pleasure to be waited upon again by fair-complexioned young women of our own race in Nebraska and Iowa. There seems less repulsion between the Anglo- Saxon and the negro than the Chinaman, who may be a servant but never seems disposed to become a friend : he will fulfil to the letter his contract for pay, but will not form the slightest personal attachment to his employer. Yet it is possible that in course of time America may assimilate the Chinese. I heard of one Chinaman — a good- looking fellow — who had persuaded a white girl to marry him, not however until he had complied with her stipulation that he should cut off his pig-tail, after which no Chinaman will ever return to China, as he practically excommuni- cates himself from all the rights and privileges, as well as all the rites and ceremonies, of China and Chinese worship. When a Chinaman in a country town in Oregon was told of this the first question he asked was : **Had white girl's father much money?" and when answered *' Yes, a good deal," his next inquiry was, "Has Chinaman taken out his naturalisation papers V* LIFE ELECTRIC AND INTENSE. 317 showing that the idea of becoming naturaUsed Americans is taking possession of the minds of the Chinese in America. The presence of the negroes, the Chinese, and the Indians is one of the social as well as the civil difficulties of America, and we may be thankful that we have not to contend with it. Partly arising from the climate, the clearness of the atmosphere, the prevalence of heat in summer and Irost in winter, and partly from the activity of all business movements — all life seems to be more electric, more rapid, and more intense than with us. It is certain that men work longer and harder — both professional men and working-men — on the other side of the Atlantic' than on this. There is no " regulation stroke'* there, no attempt to restrict the product of any man's hands, and every man, who is not a loafer, or a victim of whisky, seems to do his very utmost. The workman is more highly paid, he has more money in his pocket, and he spends it more freely. He eats and wears what he would nev er think of eating and wearing here, his wife and children are dressed as they never would be here, but he works longer hours, and puts his hands to a greater variety of work, and turns much more out of his hands than he would i i.i i \i r.i8 CONDITION OF THE WORKPEOPLE. ever do here. The French working-men who were sent out as Delegates to the Centennial Exhibition reported, on returning to Paris, that they found American workmen the shives and drudges of Capital. This they need not be, for every workman is in a sense his own master, but the probability is that if he starts business for himself, however hard he worked for another, he will work still harder on his own account. Hard work is the rule in America, and no man need go there and expect to prosper unless he is ready to do his very utmost, and certainly to do much more than even hard working-men do here. An American when he observes the command- ment to keep holy the Sabbath-day does not forget that it says, "Six days sludt thou labour ;'* and he has very few holidays, and no Saint- Mondays. In some directions the average American has more enjoyments, but he has less leisure in his ordinary life than the average Englishman or Scotsman. He is always going at the very top of his speed, and taxing his strength to the highest point, with the result that he often breaks down. Notwithstanding their more abundant food and luxurious hving, I sometimes thought there were more careworn, haggard, languid countenances amongst all SPEC (IL AT I VE EKCITEMENT. »319 )> cliisses in America than in Europe. They are more restless, less willing to l)e satisfied with moderate competence, more intent on rapidly amassing wealth. Of course there are many exceptions to all this, but I speak in a round general way of the more obvious phases of American life. From the greatness of the coiuitry and the wonderful development of its require- ments and resources, many can scarcely help themselves. They find their l)usinesses grow at a rate beyond all their calculations and arrangements. They try to cope with it as it grows, but are always underhanded. From the fluctuating value of lands and mines — especially those producing gold and silver — from new dis- coveries like those of Petrolia and the Comstock Lode, the speculative element enters largely into American life, and wherever there is much speculation there is all the excitement, and often much of the desperation of gambling. These extraordinary phases are incident to the extra- ordinary circumstances of so new and great a <;ountry, and must be allowed for accordingly. In estimatinof the relative conditions of American society I fear many are too apt to think that it is chiefly made up of men who became fugitives from our own shores and 'ill 320 ELECTION OF JUDGES OBJECTIONABLE. those of Europe to escape the policeman and the judge ; and of adventurers like Boss Tweed, Jim risk, and others of the Tammany class. We always read in the newspapers much more of the evil that is in a country than the good ; but it is unjust to take its scoundrels, and those who have fled to it from Europe, as fair representatives of American life. They are as exceptional and as much detested and abhorred by the vast masses of intelligent and law-abiding people in America as our rogues and thieves are here. The time was when they were allowed too much license, but latterly there has been such a determined stand taken against them that commercial life is fast becoming as honest and upright as in this country. There are no judges now in New York in the pay of Tammany swindlers. One judge was impeached and broken ; another resigned in fear of the same fate ; and a third died of a broken heart. The- judges in New York, I was assured, are now all men of the highest character and esteem. The judicial system of America will not b& what it ought to be until all the judges are appointed for life or good behaviour, as are those of the Supreme Court of the United States, and public opinion is fast ripening in this direction. ORDERLINESS OF THE PEOPLE. 321 Considering how many of tlie dangerous classes of Europe have landed in America it is marvellous how few, comparatively, and far between are the outbreaks of crime and violence in the States. It is a delusion to suppose that every man in America carries a bowie knife and a revolver. All the time I was in America, and even in San Francisco and Virginia City, I never saw either the one or the other. I never saw a single breach of the j^eace ; I rarely heard an oath ; and rarely saw a man worse of liquor. At the hotels you seldom see wine on the table, and if you do, it is almost always Englishmen or other foreigners that are drinking it. The drinking there is all done at the bar, and in hot weather it is chiefly of iced and a3rated waters. The climate is such tliiit drinkers of spirits — those who tipple and resort to "brandy cock-tails," "gin slings," *' eye-openers," and other such drinks — are on the highway to become drunkarde and a dru: ' i,rd in America is socially as well as morally discredited. The crimes we hear or read of in America are almost invariablv altributable to excessive drinking of rum or whisky — to that temporary insanity whicii comes from a man putting into his mouth that whicli steals^ away his brains. 322 THE A VERAGE AMERICAN. Orderliness, not rowdyism, is the most con- spicuous feature of American life. There is more of French method than of French gesticula- tion, more of German calmness than of German hilarity, more of Scotch caution than of the perfervidum Scot ovum, more of English reserve than of English dash, in the manners, customs, and speech of the American people. In places of public entertainment, in the streets, at railway stations, and in steamboats, everything is con- ducted more after Continental systems for securing order and quietness than our haphazard way of everybody crushing and squeezing as if nobody had a chance, otherwise, of obtaining a seat or a place. As a people, too, the Americans are quiet and reticent rather than noisy and intrusive. In the Far West you still come upon specimens of men who wish to know everything about you and your business, but generally you are as untroubled with inquisitiveness as in your own country. Everywhere, too, pleasant, intelligent, and well-informed people are to be found, who, rightly approached, will give you all the information you desire from them. I have been struck over and over again with the reasoii- ableness, the fairness, and considerateness of the majority of the men with whom I entered EVENNESS OF DIALECT. 323 into conversation. The average American is not •a bragging, boastful, blustering fellow, who exaggerates the praises of everything in his own country, and the faults of every other, but who will candidly admit the defects incident to the youthfulness of America, and the advantages consequent on the long-established order of things in the Old World. There is one curious characteristic of American speech which I have never heard noticed. All through the Middle States — from Massachusetts ^nd Maryland to Oregon and California — the dialect is remarkably even and level, with very little perceptible diiference — far less than bet^vec'i> that of Aberdeen and Dundee, or E«lin burgh and Glasgow. It is more that of the educated Scotchman than of the Southern Englishman ; several times, indeed, I asked whether persons with whom I conversed were not Scotchmen, but found they were born Americans. The composite character of American life is very striking. It seems to me to derive its main strength from the German, Scotch, and Scandinavian elements, and these predominate so largely that we need have no fear of the future stability of American institutions. A 1 324 PREDOMINANCE OP SCOTCH AND GERMAN ELEMENTS, large number of newspapers are published in tlie German and Scandinavian languages, and tlie Germans — while differing in their views of Sabbath observance, being much more addicted to amusements, ai. ' substituting lager beer for whisky — are, like the .»tch and Scandinavians, almost invariably industrious, saving, well- conducted people. The Scotch and their descen- dants in America, as in every other part of the world, by their thrift and perseverance generally rise to the top of any department of business or enterprise in which they are engaged. The future destiny of America is being moulded by the same class of men and minds as is now governing Europe, the greater part of Asia, and indeed the greater part of the civilised world. We must remember that, compared with the millions of the American people, the disreputable men who land annually in New York are a very small class, and not a few of them, there is reason to believe, desire to take a new departure, and lead a better life. I have spoken of the climatic, domestic, civic, educational, and religious aspects of American life. I should not be a faithful witness to what I saw and heard if 1 did not testify before I close to the most obvious defect of the Republic THE ROOT-EVIL OF AMERICAN POLITICS. 325 as it now exists — the exasperation of political excitement consequent on the dependence of the •office-holders in almost all public appointments on the party in power. The doctrine that the spoils of office belong to the majority is not con- fined to the United States, but it is carried there to absurd lengths, in the appointment of State Judges, Prosecuting Attorneys, Secretaries and Clerks in public offices. Postmasters, and Oustom-house Officers. The battle between the " In's" and the " Outs," which with us is limited to a comparatively small class, extends there to hundreds of thousands, and as the Presidential election comes round every fom^ years, and the agitation begins months, and sometimes years, before the election, the country is kept in pro- longed electioneering turmoil. So many offices depend upon the result of the elections that electioneering is made a business, and politics are reduced to a trade. The sum spent by both parties on the recent Presidential election — to say nothing of the expenditure of time — must have been enormous. Night after night in every town in the country there were torchlight parades and processions, and one which I saw in New York was said to have had in it upwards of 50,000 men, with innumerable vehicles, ban- w i 326 OPPORTUNITY FOR A GREAT STATESMAN. Tiers, and illuminations. It is said that all wha hold office under a party are regularly assessed towards the payment of the party expenses in the election : those who are in office pay in the hope that they will retain their offices : those who are expecting office pay in the hope of their expectations being fulfilled. Tons of what are called " campaign documents" are issued by the Committees of the two parties and sown broad- cast over the country. Too many of the news- papers are employed in blackening the characters of the men of the party to which they are opposed, with the general result that public life is made odious to all sensitive and self-respecting minds. In travelling through the States I found that intelligent Americans were all agreed that the judiciary, legal, and civil service appointments, should all be made independent of political party ; that only men of proved competence and integrity should receive the appointments, and that having received them they should hold them for life or good behaviour. The scandals, at Washington under General Grant's adminis- tration, while wholly evil in themselves, have done much good in fixing' public attention on the necessity for civil i only a question of time :vice DIMINISHING PROPORTION OF IMMIGRANTS. 327 be effected. There is an opportunity for a strong American statesman immortalising himself bj removing from American politics that trading element which has done so much to degfrade and demoralise them. To the special difficulties arising from the continual importation of so many aliens in birth, and in political and social ideas, I have already adverted. In order to attract immigration full political rights and privileges are conferred on foreigners after a brief residence in the country, and it is to gain the votes of these, by appealing to their prejudices, hatreds, and weaknesses, that demagogues who aspire to, and designing men who have gained, political office have too often endeavoured to arouse national jealousies. As, however, the population of native Americans steadily increases, the influx of strangers is becoming less and less considerable in proportif)n to the whole body of the American people, who may be regarded as eminently reasonable, peace-loving, and law-abiding. It should also be remembered that if many have fled to America who were unworthy of the Old World, thousands have gone to it of whom it may be said the Old World was not worthy — men who were resolved rather to sacrifice aU they pos- 328 ANIMATING TRADITIONS. sessed than submit to the yokes of civil and rehgious bondage imposed in our own country in the days of our forefathers, and in some countries in Europe even in our own day. More heroic lives than those of many of the Pilgrim Fathers — grander examples of physical endurance, moral courage, and religious enthusiasm, the modern world has not seen. If we have the traditions of our great struggles and achievements in securing personal and political liberty, and above all liberty of conscience— so, too, the Americans have theirs. If it warms the blood and accele- rates the heart-beating of a Scotchman to hear the names of Bruce and of Wallace, of Knox and of Chalmers ; or of an Englishman to hear those of Hampden and of Cromwell, of WyclifFe and of Cranmer ; so does it with an American to hear of Washington and of Franklin, of Penn and of Lincoln. Calamitous to individuals as was the recent Civil War, it has left memories which will long assist to elevate and purify the influ- ences of American life. Although the direct political issues were for some time complicated and disguised, the instinct of our Lancashire operatives was right. The main question from the beginning, and all through, was that which was openly avowed and proclaimed in the end — ENNOBLING SENTIMENTS. 329 whether the Union was to be maintained in the interests of freedom or of slavery. The New Englanders more especially seized upon that, and resolved to do battle for that all along, and nothing touched me more during my visit to the States than the long list of names sculptured on the marble tablets in the transept of tliat magni- ficent Memorial Hall in Harvard University, at Cambridge, Massachusetts — the names of hun- dreds of young students, the sons of ministers of religion, physicians, merchants, wealthy landed proprietors, and others beloved by their parents, and having every comfort and luxury at home — who went forth at the call of duty, and bled and died for what they believed to be the cause of freedom, when, if content to surrender the poor and despised negro, they might have remained at their ease. Although a young country, America has already not a few pages in its history of which the Americans may be justly proud. They also inherit and rejoice in sentiments which cannot but have an ennobling effect on every noble nature. They are proud of being free citizens of so great a country, and notwithstanding the sectional interests and jealousies that un- doubtedly exist, and which some politicians and I ( 11; 330 RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. writers are always endeavouring to excite and inflame — jnst as some misguided politicians and writers in Ireland are always endeavouring to do with respect to England and Scotland — we may rely upon it that the vast majority of Americans in all parts of the States are resolved that the United States shall never be disunited — that the greatest llepublic the world has ever seen shall not he made less. Another sentiment which swells the breast of every enlightened American is that every man can worship God according to his own conscience, and neither in law nor in fact lia» any sect or denomination rights or privileges not possessed by all. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, are all on the same footing, without any superior dignity, precedence, legal or traditional prerogative, and with the result that there is a degree of ha,rmony and co-operation amongst them which cannot pos- sibly exist when one sect is raised by the law on a pedestal above every other sect. It is the con- viction of the immense value of perfect religious^ equality which makes intelligent men of all the Protestant denominations in the States so re- solute that their grand system of national educa- tion shall not, by being made denominational, hand over the funds of the people to the ad- HESPECT FOR QUEEN VICTORIA. 331 lU liS^ d- ministration of priests. The reading of the Bible without note or comment in the pubUc schools is generally accepted as a satisfactory solution of the religious difficulty ; and one result of the schoolmaster not being expected to teach re- ligious doctrines, creeds, or catechisms is that the ministers are not only expected to, but generally do, give more attention to the youth of their flocks than is customary in this country, in attending Sunday schools, conducting Bible classes, and holding children's services. In travelling through America I heard much less " bunkum " and " spread-eagleism" than I had been led to expect. The older the country becomes the less of juvenile boastfulness there is likely to be. The more the Institutions of the United States become consolidated, the readier are the American people to recognise ' ^e defects in their own government and the meritiii of others. While I heard several very thought- ful men admit that the present system of government of the Bepublic is still on its trial, I did not find one who believed that a Monarchy will ever take the place of the Repubhc. As a loyal subject of Her Majesty, it was most gratifying to me to hear all classes of Americnns^ in ocean steamboats, on the Atlantic and Pacific, if 1 ■ S32 UNION OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN FLAGS. in railway cars, travelling through the plains of Kansas and Nebraska, in private houses and liotels in California and Oregon, as well as in the Eastern States, speaking in the warmest terms of admiration of our beloved Queen — of her spotless life, her rare discretion, and her illustrious example. And this leads me to conclude with a thought suggested by what every voyager across the Atlantic is likely to hear and see before he lands at New York. On the Sabbath morning the ship's bells ring to worship in the saloon, when the sense of common danger and humble dependence on the Almighty Kuler of the waves, which a journey over the pathless waters commonly excites, brings together a large attendance of the passengers and crew, and causes a very hearty joining in the service of prayer and praise. The Chaplain is the Captain of the ship, who reads the form of Common Prayer with the manliness and earnestness that characterise a sailor. In the prayer for the Queen the Presi- dent of the United States is also mentioned, and supplicated for along with her as an object of the Divine favour. Then as the vessel approaches the American coast, and the flags are hoisted, the Union Jack goes up to the foremast head. BRITISH AND AMERICAN AIJJANCE. 333 a and the Stars and Stripes at tlie mizen. The sight of these Hags thus combined is enough to warm the hearts of every Briton and every American, and I fervidly hope that their being thus hoisted together on board our ocean steamers will become more and more a siixnal to the world of a sincere, intimate, and inseparable alliance between the British and American peoples. The Americans are deeply attached to their flag, which floats over all their City and State buildings. They are proud of tlieir Cities, of their States, and of tlunr Nation. Let us not grudge their pride, for they have much to be proud of ; let us rather be proud of them and theirs — for are they not our offspring, and the offspring of the spirit, the institutions, and the faith carried by them and their forefathers from our own shores ? After travelling so many thousands of miles across the American Conti- nent, seeing its wonderful cities, with their splendid edifices, thriving industries, and busy populations ; after mixing amongst all classes of its people, in their houses, in the streets, in the churches, on railways and in steamboats, in public assemblies, and on the desert plains and lonely hillsides, I have come home with the conviction that in heart and soul we are really I hi 334 THE GREATEST OP POLITICAL CALAMITIES, one people, and of one kindred and tongue; with the feeling that any conflict between us would be fratricidal, and that there can be no greater crime than for any man wantonly to set himself to misrepresent, malign, or vilify either section of the Anglo-Saxon race. It was too lonof the custom of our Encjlish writers to air their wit at the expense of the peculiarities incident to the youth of a people. Happily, under the influence of an excellent system of education, many of those peculiarities are rapidly disappearing. There are still differences in manners, customs, and phraseology, but things may be different without being wrong, and in some things we may learn from the Americans, as in others they may learn from us. Believing as I do that of all political calamities the greatest would be any serious misunderstanding, any chronic bitterness — not to say any outbreak of hostilities — between us, it is my firm re- solve so long as I live to do all in my power to promote peace and goodwill between Great Britain and the United States. I believe that such will be the resolution of every candid and unprejudiced man who may, like myself, have the advantage of spending some time across the Atlantic. The more we know of each other A GENERO US EMU LA TION RECOMMENDED. 335 the more we shall respect each other. Pre- judice is generally the child of ignorance, and if Britons travelled more in America such pre- judices as they have against Americans would give place to regard and admh-ation. Let it be •our part to foster a generous emulation between the intellect, the genius, the enterprise, the munificence, and the moral heroism of all English- speaking peoples, and especially between all who dwell in our own long-favoured islands, and those who breathe the exhilarating air, and bask in the sunshine of that vast, newly repopulated, and comparatively vmdeveloped Western Con- tinent. n I ; CONTENTS. LIVEEPOOL TO NEW YORK. Life on board a first-class steamer — The "Celtic" described— The Saloon — Ventilation — Arrangements for comfort— Liverjjool and the Mersey indicative of the magnitude of British shipping— The Mersey Trust commended— Importation of American beef — Fresh- ness of provisions on board the "Celtic" — Their abundance^ Bills of Fare— Life on deck- Characteristics of the passfngers— Weather variations — The lullaby of the waves— Nocturnal sounds — Approaching the New World — Coast of New Jersey— Glimpses of Brooklyn and New York— Arrival . . Pages 9—21 THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. Pre-eminently American— Cannot be compared with the Exhibitions of London, Paris, or Vienna — Jonathan's courtesy— Chinese and Japanese Curios — Modern demand for Curios the cause of their degeneracy in design and workmanship— Our Colonies strongly represented — Melbourne confectionery — Geelong Tweeds - Canada makes the best Colonial show — The Agricultural I)ei)artmcnt— Illinois and Iowa modern Goshens — New Hami>shire baccm — Chester white bogs — California and Pacific Coast jjroductions— Oregon red cedars arid other products— Plummer's Patent Fiuit Dryer — Patent Reaper and Binder — Knackiness and neatness of American inventions — Examples of food artificially preserved— The Machinery Hall-Art Gallery , . Pages 22-33 4338 CONTENTS. NEW YORK TO MONTREAL. The Hudson River — Romantic and patriotic associations connected with the district through whicii it flows — West Point — Newburgh — Ice-boat sailinfj— Albany— Saratoga : its springs, hotels, and hotel life — Meeting-place for the transaction of important business — First drive in an American stage—Chirruping of Crickets — Lake George — A Mountain in Flames— Lake steamer described— Lake Champlain — Crown Point— Burlington— Arrival at Montreal . Pages 34 — 45 MONTREAL. St Paul's and Stanley Street Churches— Principal Dawson and the organ question — Ex-Dundonians — Appearance of Montreal — English stupidity— American verima English tools— Canadian Churches — Union of Presbyterians- Isolated position of St Andrew's Church— Situation of Mt)ntreal — Its Public Buildings — Victoria Bridge- Views from Mount Royal . Pages 46—55 MONTREAL TO NIAGARA. 'Going to bed in one town and rising in another — Ottawa — The Canadian Houses of Parliament— The Honourable Mr Mackenzie — His specialities— A grand library — The Chaudiere Falls— The Thousand Islands — Kingston— The Provincial Penitentiary — Queen's College— I^ake Ontario— Toronto— The Honourable George Brown— Public Buildings — Arrival at Niagara Pages 56— 6G NIAGARA FALLS TO CHICAGO. The Cataract House— A refreshing bath— Goat Island— The Three Sisters— The Cave of the Winds— Dressed for the occasion — Behind the Central Falls— Sublimity of the scene— A bath fit for the gods — CONTENTS. 331) Walking upon rainbows — The Falls, from the boat— The Korse- shoe Fall— The Whirlpool — J^eave Niagara — English names in Canada— Lake St Clair— Town of Windsor — Absence of trees in Canada — First experience of an American Steamer — Arrival at Detroit — Vote taken in tlie railway cars for the President— State of Michigan— Tts appearance contrasted with Canada— Arrival at Chicago . • . . . , Pages 67— 7U CHICAGO. The Great Fire — Recuperative power of the citizens- Superabundant relief— Great Hotels -New Club-Hoiise— Fine business site — A large elevator — Water Sujjply — Excellence of the Water— The Stockyards— flog killing — The Board of Trade— 'PL e drainage carried to the Gulf of Mexico — Boulevards, Parks, and Gardens- Urbanity of the business men . . . Pages 73 — &i INDIANOPOLIS AND SPRINGFIELD. Indianopolis— Pork packing — Belfast Hams— A Political Committee Room — Suburban residences — A Democratic procession- Spring- field — Abraham Ijincoln's house — Reminiscences — The State House — Electoral system of the States becoming complicated — The Civil Service — The Lincoln Monument— Stimulus to ambition Pages 84-92 ST LOUIS, MISSOURI, AND KANSAS. First sight of the Mississippi— Fertility of the soil— Excessive vegeta- tion unfavourable to human life— Rivalry between Chicago and St Louis— Appearance of St Louis— Its Suburban Parka- A munificent Englishman— St Louis Railway Bridge— Prospects of St Louis— The Iron Mountain— Rolling Mills— Flour, Beer, and Bacon— A monster River Steamer— Leave St Louis— Pullman. r,40 CONTEXTS. Cars sociable institutiona— Terrific Thunderstorm — Wreck of a train— Everything admirable except the climate — Past Kansas City — Grasshoijpers— The Prairie — Embryo Cities— Colorado— Prairie Dogs and Anteloi^es — Character of the soil— Pike's Peak— Arrival at Denver City — Antelope steak . . Pages 93— 103 A MAGNIFICENT RAILWAY JOURNEY. The Pacific Railway— Its route — Its constructors- Chinamen as navvies — As waiters — Summit-level of the Railway — The Stations- Modern Shepherd Kings— Onward while sleeping— Green River — Curious Rocks— A Mountain of Coal — A Wilderness among the Rocky Mountains -The Thousand Mile Tree— In the State of Utah — Faith of the Mormons— Ogden— Change from the Union to the Central Pacific Railway— Constructive difficidtics surmounted — The Palisades— The Humboldt Sink — Evaporation— Snow sheds — The Sierras Nevadas— Sublimity— Descent to the Plains — Arrival at San Francisco— Clamorous reception . . Pages 104 — 117 THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND THE WILLAMETTE. Oregon's disadvantage— Bay of San Francisco— On the Pacific Ocean — The Coast Range— Bar of the (Columbia River— The depravity of the ship— Astoria — The Columbia described — The Oregon of the future— Columbian Salmon— Canning Stations— A "busted "town — Enters the Willamette— In sight of Portland — A small city with great ideas— Domestic arrangements— Situation of Portland — The Upper Columbia— The Cascades . . Pages 118—128 OREGON SCENERY, TOWNS, AND FARMS. The climate of Oregon— A suggestion for Alpine climbers— The Western Alps- -An interesting drive —Oregon City— The Willamette— Oregon Towns— Predominance of the Common School— Small "Cities"— CONTENTS. 341 Salem — The State House— The Senate in Session— Albany — The Willamette Valley — An American Pisjjah — Curious i)henomei»on — Agreeable company— " Headers," reaping, and threshing machines — Snake fences — Ferns as weeds — Farmers' wives and daughters — A model farm — The byre — Cheese-making —American ploughs — Mr Ankeny's locomotive— Snow-clad mountains— Colonel Neamith — Oregon's capacity for the growth of wheat— Slovenly farming- Chills and fevers .... Pages 129-144 PUGET SOUND AND BKITISH COLUMBIA. Washington territory — Extensive forests— Hops — Tacoma— After-glow of Mount Rainier— Coasting — Lumber Mills— Puget Sound — Grandeur of the scenery— San Juan Archipelago— British loss through incompetent Diplomacy — Esquimault Harbour — Victoria — Extension of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Victoria— Dr Tolmie— Gold mining— Coal — Straits of Fuoa — The Olympic Range, as seen in the approaching gloom of night— Dense fog— Fog horn — The Golden Gate —At San Francisco Pages 145-152 SAN FRANCISCO. Its destiny — Situation and climate — The Bay— Ill-paved streets— A Revoluti