LIBRA 
 
 UNIVERSITY C 
 
 DIEGO 
 
 presented to the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 JNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIKGO 
 
 by 
 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY 
 
 donor
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA.
 
 LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 S. c REYNOLDS FJOLE, 
 
 DEAN OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD. 
 
 LONDON: NEW YORK: 
 
 37, BEDFORD STREET. 70, FIFTH AVENUE.
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 BY EDWARD ARNOLD. 
 
 aStttbrottg 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. PREPARATORY i 
 
 II. PROGRESSIVE . 17 
 
 III. ARRIVAL 24 
 
 IV. NEW YORK 34 
 
 V. CLUBS AND THEATRES 55 
 
 VI. THE PARKS 60 
 
 VII. FLOWERS AND FLORISTS 73 
 
 VIII. THE CULTURE OF THE ROSE 79 
 
 IX. THE POLITICAL CRISIS AT NEW YORK . . 89 
 
 X. EDUCATION 96 
 
 XI. THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 105 
 
 XII. THE CHURCHES 119 
 
 * 
 
 XIII. RAILWAYS 128 
 
 XIV. NEWSPAPERS 139 
 
 XV. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. 
 
 WORCESTER CITY 155 
 
 XVI. NIAGARA 171 
 
 XVII. TORONTO, DETROIT, WHITEWATER, MILWAUKEE 186 
 
 XVIII. CHICAGO 200 
 
 XIX. CINCINNATI . . . 217 
 
 XX. VIRGINIA 221
 
 Vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI. WASHINGTON 240 
 
 XXII. PHILADELPHIA, PITTSBURG, BALTIMORE . . 255 
 
 XXIII. UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES 263 
 
 XXIV. HARTFORD AND ALBANY 273 
 
 XXV. ROCHESTER ? . . . 280 
 
 XXVI. CLEVELAND, ST. Louis, DENVER, AND THE 
 
 ROCKY MOUNTAINS . 286
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PREPARATORY. 
 
 WHY should they who have the opportunity make a 
 tour in the United States of America? Because 
 they will see such results of political and industrial progress 
 as have never been achieved, according to all the records 
 of history, in the same period of time. Where, but fifty 
 years ago, there was silence and desolation, or where the 
 only inhabitants were wild men and wild beasts, the Indian 
 and the buffalo, they will find great cities with their 
 churches and capitols, colleges and schools, libraries and 
 institutes, museums and galleries, and parks. Where, little 
 more than thirty years ago, all joy was darkened, and all 
 work was stayed by the tragic interruptions of civil war, 
 they will find universal peace ; and where, before that 
 awful fight, the negroes were sold as swine in the market, 
 were branded and whipped and manacled and hunted 
 down by bloodhounds if they tried to escape, there is free- 
 dom alike for all. They will find an organisation of 
 government, designed by statesmen of consummate wisdom, 
 vast information, and laborious thought, which, while it 
 maintains the separate independence of the individual
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 States, preserves the unity of the nation and the integrity 
 of the common weal, through the recognition of a superior 
 federal authority, and a final court of appeal. 
 
 The scheme is complex, but the success has been so far 
 complete ; and it will advance the admiration of English- 
 men to note, that although free America could not, of 
 course, condescend to copy the Kings, Lords, and Com- 
 mons of the Old Country, there remains a pleasing resem- 
 blance in her President, and her dual Chambers, in her 
 senators and members of Congress. There is a very strik- 
 ing contrast between the simplicity of the White House and 
 the ceremonial splendour of Buckingham Palace, but 
 
 " Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, 
 The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, 
 The inter-tissued robe of gold and pearl, 
 The farced title passing 'fore a king, 
 The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp 
 That beats upon the high shore of the world ; " 
 
 it is not these, but the man, the woman, who, representing 
 and concentrating the will and power of the people, com- 
 mands our homage. Nor are we anxious to discuss the 
 relative advantage of hereditary or elected authority, so 
 long as "the throne of our queen is in Englishmen's 
 hearts," or so long as noblesse oblige. 
 
 With regard to the members of Congress, they seem to 
 be somewhat inferior to our representatives in the House of 
 Commons, outwardly and intellectually ; but I must dissent 
 from the cruel distinction made by a quaint gentleman of 
 Denver, when he said that as the cream was formed upon 
 the milk, so in England the best men were sent up to 
 Parliament, but as in boiling potatoes the scum rose to the 
 surface, so in America the worst men were sent to Congress. 
 Many causes combine to deter the cleverest and most
 
 PREPARATORY. 
 
 energetic men from offering themselves for election. Con- 
 gress does not make millionaires, and ^1000 per annum, 
 with travelling expenses, and ^25 for stationery, is not 
 such an inducement in a country where great fortunes are 
 sometimes quickly made as it would be in ours. It is 
 said that further enrichments are accessible to the member 
 of Congress who will hold out his hand to take them, and 
 will give his vote upon certain specified measures in ac- 
 cordance with the donor's interest ; but while it is generally 
 deplored that bribes have been and are accepted by the 
 weaker brethren, it is confidently affirmed that the number 
 of those who yield to the temptation is grossly exaggerated. 
 Nevertheless, Mrs. Mary Livermore, a well-known public 
 lecturer in America, made the startling announcement at 
 Detroit, in November, 1894, "that the English House of 
 Parliament could not be compared with the lower legisla- 
 tive body of the United States, because the former was in- 
 vulnerable to bribery, while $200,000 would insure the 
 passage of any bill in Congress." We accept the compli- 
 ment, but not without a qualm of apprehension that if the 
 censorious Mary came to England she would have some- 
 thing to say about our Acts for the suppression of bribery, 
 intimidation, and other corrupt practices, not quite annulled 
 in this our virtuous isle. 
 
 Reverting from aberrations to inducements for a tour in 
 America, I would assure the tourist that he will find him- 
 self in a land of infinite beauty and of inexhaustible re- 
 sources, amid scenery which will delight him in all its 
 varied forms, from the tree-clad slopes of fair Virginia to 
 the stern grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, from ripplirig 
 streams and silent rivers to the thunder and the glory of the 
 " Falls." He will be reminded of the " land of wheat and 
 barley and vines, and fig-trees and pomegranates, a land of
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 oil-olives and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread 
 without weariness, thou shalt not lack anything in it, a land 
 whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest 
 dig brass." 
 
 Herein, moreover, is " a vein for the silver and a place 
 for gold." The coal-fields are said to extend over a third 
 of the continent. The forests occupy millions of acres ; 
 and to prevent the enormous demand for timber exceeding 
 the supply, a national organisation, known as the American 
 Forestry Association, composed of delegates from all the 
 States, meets annually. The President is authorised to 
 make public forest reservations ; and the individual States 
 have striven to encourage the growth of timber by appoint- 
 ing a certain day in the year the second Wednesday in 
 April, to be known as Arbour Day for the voluntary 
 planting of trees by the people. 
 
 The wealth of the United States is an amazement. As 
 each successful worker " makes his pile " in rapid succes- 
 sion, " hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise." An 
 interesting American census, recently issued, and quoted 
 in the "Times," April 8, 1895, shows that if this wealth 
 could be realised and equally divided, there would be a 
 sum of ^200 for each inhabitant. The actual valuation of 
 all real and personal property is $65,037,000,000, or 
 ;i 3,000,000,000. The total has multiplied ninefold in 
 forty years, and the increase of wealth is faster than the 
 increase in population. In 1850 it was only equal to ;6o 
 per inhabitant. Of this wealth 60.8 per cent is real estate ; 
 railways, 12; machinery, 4.6; agricultural stock, 4.1; 
 mining, 2. 
 
 Nor must we forget how large a portion of this wealth 
 has been won not only by patient labour, but by that inven- 
 tive genius which has done so much to accelerate the
 
 PREPARATORY, 5 
 
 operations of our hands, and to diminish the burden of our 
 toil in the factory and on the farm. What a development 
 there has been, what a progress towards perfection in the 
 crafts and skill of the workman ! One hundred years ago 
 Eli Terry made wooden clocks at Plymouth, Connecticut, 
 which cost ^5 apiece. Then Chauncey Jerome manu- 
 factured them entirely of brass, bringing down the price to 
 a few shillings ; and then the process of making watches 
 was brought to its present excellence at Roxbury, and 
 Waltham, and Waterbury. The total production is said to 
 be about 10,000 a day ! 
 
 Again, it will be good for the English traveller to visit a 
 nation, which, in the prevision of the seer and the pres- 
 cience of the thoughtful, will be hereafter, from its wonder- 
 ful intelligence and wealth, from the fertility of its soil and 
 the treasures beneath it, the unbroken continuity of its 
 possessions, the identity of its language, and above all from 
 that righteousness for which men hope and pray, because 
 that only exalteth a nation, a queen among the peoples. It 
 can be said no longer that England holds the balance of 
 power, or a supreme priority in commerce ; and if it should 
 be her destiny to recede, and her fate be the common lot 
 of all great dynasties, 
 
 " Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where are they ? " 
 
 what greater consolation can she have than that the heir- 
 apparent is bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh ? And 
 so parva componere niagnis, as the aged sportsman rejoices 
 to contemplate from the back of his steady cob, like him- 
 self well stricken in years, his grandson gallantly charging and 
 clearing on his pony "really quite a respectable fence," or in 
 later years hitting a cricket- ball into the pavilion at Lords, 
 or better still to read his name at the top of some competi-
 
 6 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 tion list ; or as the eyes of some fair mother glisten, and 
 her cheeks glow, as she marks the homage of admiration 
 which is paid to her daughter's charms, and " O matre 
 pulchrd filia pulchrior " is whispered wherever she goes, 
 so may John Bull say, " Jonathan was an audacious child, 
 and cut himself free with his long bowie-knife from his 
 mother's apron-strings, and made himself generally unpleas- 
 ant, but he is going to be a first-class man. He was a 
 cantankerous colt, rearing, and jibbing, and kicking himself 
 clear of his harness, but he has grown into a grand horse. 
 If ever I have to climb down and take a back seat, Jona- 
 than is the man for the box." 
 
 Moreover a visit to the States will assure the visitor that 
 this affection is reciprocal. They who sail over seas change 
 their climate, not their character; the old interests are 
 entailed in the Anglo-Saxon heart, and will be always para- 
 mount above all other strains. There are everywhere 
 bilious and discontented men, who love to stir up strife ; 
 but the American instinct is homeward bound, and thinks 
 of England as Wendell Holmes when he wrote of her, 
 
 " Our little mother isle, 
 God bless her ! " 
 
 "We are brothers," so Tennyson wrote to Longfellow, 
 " as no other nations can be." Northamptonshire, in 
 England, takes precedence of America in the biography of 
 George Washington, and the mention of his name recalls 
 an incident to my mind which charmingly and conclusively 
 corroborates that which I have said. 
 
 While at New York I received, through Bishop Potter, 
 an invitation from the Regent of the daughters of the 
 Revolution, whom I had not then the privilege of knowing,
 
 PREPARATORY. 
 
 to attend a meeting to be held on the 5th of January to 
 commemorate the anniversary of the wedding of General 
 Washington. I gladly accepted the summons in the kindly 
 spirit which inscribed it, repeating to myself the motto of 
 our Free Forester Club of Cricketers, "United though 
 untied." I received a gracious, genial welcome, which I 
 shall never forget, and when I was asked for the inevitable 
 " few words," I acknowledged it con amore. I told that 
 brilliant convocation of ladies and gentlemen for there 
 were sons as well as daughters met together, all lineal 
 descendants of those who had taken part in the War of 
 Independence that my appearance in their midst was 
 appropriate and opportune. That when the Generals of 
 the Great Roman Emperors returned with their victori- 
 ous armies from the battlefield, they were wont to include 
 in their triumphal processions some huge barbarians 
 who walked in chains behind their chariots of war, and 
 testified to their conqueror's overpowering might. I at 
 once confessed my complete subjugation to the irresistible 
 influence of a foreign power, and was proceeding to express 
 a willingness to hug my chains when it fortunately occurred 
 to me that such an expression might be misconstrued and 
 denounced as unbecoming an aged Dean. Whereupon I 
 proceeded to express my gratification that their gigantic pris- 
 oner was not to be turned into a gladiator, more Romano, 
 and introduced to famished lions and bears, but was to 
 be exhilarated by beauty and enlivened by wit ; that " grim- 
 visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front, and now 
 instead of mounting barbed steeds to fright the souls of 
 fearful adversaries," and subsequently dragging them igno- 
 miniously through the streets, to derision and dungeons, he 
 was satisfied with Batailles des fleurs, and his captives rode 
 in carriages with gray horses, instead of walking behind
 
 8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 them, American gentlemen overcome by English ladies and 
 vice versd. 
 
 These nuptials suggested, of course, the occasion and 
 the man whom we met to honour, and when I had assured 
 my hearers not only that we had forgiven his somewhat rude 
 behaviour, but that (in all seriousness) we revered him 
 as one of the greatest and best of heroes, I was decore by 
 the Regent with the badge of the society, with a miniature 
 flag of the stars and stripes, and with a large rose named 
 " American Beauty " placed over my heart ; and I went 
 back to my astonished wife to inform her that " Europe 
 was superannuated, and that my return was doubtful." 
 
 In the country, around the haunts, ancl it may be in the 
 homes of those American authors who have impressed and 
 instructed us from childhood until now, we are refreshed 
 by pleasant memories, and the times and the scenes in 
 which we read them, and the thoughts which they induced, 
 are presented to the mind once more. Again, as I stood 
 before the home of Washington Irving, on the banks of 
 the Hudson, I felt something of the implicit faith, and of 
 the thrilling awe, with which, sixty years ago, I read his 
 " Tales of a Traveller." At Albany I grasped the hands of 
 the grandson l and the great-grandson of Fenimore Cooper, 
 and afterwards, in the places of which he wrote, I renewed 
 the excitement which enthralled my boyhood, as I read 
 by day and dreamed by night of "The Spy," "The 
 Pioneer," "The Pilot," and "The Last of the Mohicans." 
 
 In Virginia and in Vermont, where Washington was 
 
 1 He told me that his grandfather, who lived at Cooper's Town, a 
 village belonging to his family, did not wish at first to be known as 
 the author of his books, and, to promote the concealment, presented 
 them to his sister as "new publications, which he thought might 
 interest her."
 
 PREPARATORY. 
 
 born and died, I paid my homage to that dfaf dvSpw, not 
 forgetting in the former place the honour due to that noble 
 Christian soldier, General Lee, or his patriotic farewell to 
 his defeated army, "I have done the best I could." 
 
 " See, the conquering hero himself comes " before our 
 imagination as we enter Ohio, the State in which General 
 Grant was born, and as we travel elsewhere by many a 
 battlefield, and thank God that America has passed the 
 ordeal of that most tragic war. 
 
 In Kentucky, with a reverent admiration, we remember 
 President Lincoln, how he said in his youth, when he saw 
 the slaves sold in the market, " If I have ever the power, 
 I '11 hit this business hard," and how he lived to strike the 
 death-blow ; and that tyranny was overpast. 
 
 In the State of Maine, " the manifold soft chimes " of 
 Longfellow float on the air like bells at evening pealing, and 
 the exquisite songs of the Chief Minnesinger, with their 
 solemn sweet vibrations, dignify our ambitions, soothe our 
 sorrows, and sanctify our hopes. Here also we shall have 
 in fond remembrance for he was born at Waterford, 
 Maine, a fellow of infinite jest, who has so often refreshed 
 our spirit, from the merry heart which doeth good like 
 a medicine Charles Farrar Browne, better known as 
 "Artemus Ward, Showman." 
 
 Seven cities contended for the distinction of Homer's 
 birthplace. Massachusetts boasts of seven Homers, seven 
 wise men, of her own, Bryant, Prescott, Emerson, Poe, 
 Holmes, Motley, Lowell, four of these, Emerson, Poe, 
 Holmes, and Lowell, born at Boston. And it may be noted 
 that the year 1809 was annus mirabilis in the history of 
 American worthies, as introducing to the world a triumvirate, 
 Abraham Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Edgar Allan 
 Poe.
 
 1O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 The Englishman can view the splendid conquests of the 
 engineer without leaving England, and, when he visits 
 other lands, will find the handiwork of his fellow-country- 
 men attesting their mechanical skill; but he will be de- 
 lighted, none the less, with the magnificent accomplishments 
 of American science and labour, in their great viaducts 
 over valleys and rivers, 1 their railways amid precipitous 
 rocks; and, again, in their application of electric power, 
 so far more extensive than with us, to locomotion and to 
 light in the street-cars, the public buildings, and private 
 houses of their principal cities. Especially, he will find 
 at Niagara a gigantic and momentous experiment, which 
 promises results of a new and almost infinite force ; but of 
 this I would speak more particularly when I come to the 
 " Falls." He will be brought face to face with the inventive 
 genius to which I have already referred, and which has 
 done so much to diminish the drudgery of manual labour, 
 in the improvements, for example, which were first made 
 by Mr. McCormick in the reaping-machine, and in count- 
 less instances of minor importance. 
 
 A large number of my compatriots might derive much 
 benefit from visiting a land in which the men and women 
 are almost universally engaged in work. I believe that 
 there are more idlers in Bond Street, London, than in all 
 the city of New York more lazy, tattling, maundering 
 loiterers, who only live for the gratification of instincts 
 which they share with the animal world, and have not a 
 word of justification or apology to offer for their limp and 
 silly existence. The Americans despise these dummies, 
 
 1 The Suspension Bridge between New York and Brooklyn has a 
 clear span of nearly 1,600 feet, and, including the approaches, is 5,989 
 feet in length. This, and the Niagara Railway Bridge, will be easily 
 accessible to the tourist.
 
 PREPARATORY. \\ 
 
 whose literature is limited to the latest " scratchings " and 
 " odds ; " whose chief correspondents are trainers and touts ; 
 who shoot pigeons, and call it sport ; who regard their 
 dinner as the supreme object and occupation of the day ; 
 who have no love but for themselves, and no fear but of 
 their tailor. 
 
 On the other hand, the Englishman will bring back over 
 the Atlantic, with all this sympathy and praise, a more 
 thankful appreciation of many advantages which he enjoys 
 in his native land. America may be compared to a magni- 
 ficent palace rising in the midst of a fair-ground, of which 
 the boundaries are too distant for the eye to see ; but the 
 edifice is as yet but a few feet above the soil, and the design 
 of the landscape-gardener is little more than outline. Eng- 
 land is a venerable mansion on a much smaller scale, but 
 complete without, and comfortable within, from parapet to 
 basement, tastefully and abundantly furnished from the 
 attic to the cellar-bin ; and all out of doors is garden. The 
 surface of the land, and therefore the scenery, is more 
 varied, and we have no long, monotonous continuance of 
 prairie desolation. The humidity of our climate gives us, as 
 some small compensation for rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, 
 and chronic catarrh, a luxuriant verdure, which seems to 
 keep our " fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green," and 
 which beautifies alike the pleasure-grounds of the rich and 
 the cottage gardens of the poor. 
 
 Returning from the new to the old country, we regard 
 with a more earnest reverence our cathedrals and other 
 churches, our ancient colleges and schools, our hospitals and 
 almshouses, remembering what Christianity has done for us 
 before, and since those days of which Lord Macaulay wrote 
 that, if there had been no monastic institutions, the country 
 would have been divided into two companies, beasts of 
 burden and beasts of prey.
 
 12 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA, 
 
 Dilapidations do not excite me, and I have no sympathy 
 with the gushing girl who informed the unmarried proprietor 
 of a castellated home with fallen towers that she " was awfully 
 gone on ruins." I am convinced that " not to the past, but 
 to the future looks true nobility, and finds its blazon in 
 posterity ; " but I venerate, nevertheless, these ancient fanes 
 and fortresses as teaching and illustrating history, as preach- 
 ing sermons in stones, and as asking each generation, " Are 
 you true sons of your fathers, who made those sacrifices and 
 fought those battles, who said, ' I will not give to God that 
 which costs me nothing,' and who went into the fight 
 with this thought in their hearts, 
 
 ' How can a man die better than facing fearful odds 
 For the homesteads of his fathers, and the altars of his Gods? ' " 
 
 And then there is the joy of return and re-union, the 
 sight of those who care for us most, the sound of the voices 
 which have been praying for us. 
 
 "And oh, the joy upon the shore 
 To think of all our perils o'er ! " 
 
 I had other inducements, personal, to visit the States, 
 genial invitations from ecclesiastics and florists promising 
 fraternal receptions and financial successes if I would give 
 public lectures. This pecuniary incitement was decisive. 
 Our funds for the restoration of Rochester Cathedral were 
 exhausted, and if I could bring home a substantial sum, I 
 might evoke new generosities, energies, and hopes, and 
 should feel that, while I was enjoying my excursion, I was 
 not neglecting my work and duty. And so, having the 
 promise, "Where thou goest, I will go," from one whom I 
 could not leave, and two dear friends having agreed to 
 accompany us, I engaged berths on board the Majestic 
 and commenced preparations.
 
 PREPARATORY. 13 
 
 Then arose a commotion, which I had not foreseen, 
 protests and prophecies of evil from kinsfolk and from 
 friends. These were uttered, in my presence, sweetly and 
 with smiles ; but I detected from time to time, amid their 
 their playful banter, a severe rebuke of my temerity, and a 
 sad commiseration of my ignorance ; and I heard, from 
 those loquacious makers of mischief, who exult in repeating 
 that which " perhaps they ought not to tell you," that in my 
 absence their denunciations were remarkably fierce and free. 
 " Had the amiable, but slightly obtuse, old gentleman for- 
 gotten that he was no chicken ? (As though any man in his 
 seventy fifth year should liken himself to a cockerel ! ) Had 
 he never noticed that the Atlantic beat the record for roll- 
 ing and pitching, fogs, icebergs, tornadoes, collisions, and 
 wrecks? The idea was preposterous, and suggested soften- 
 ing of the brain, for an old man to leave his comfortable 
 home for perils by land and water, like the crazy old king in 
 the play. As soon as he landed at New York, he would 
 be the dupe of tl^e covetous, and the laughing stock of the 
 scornful. The Americans would jeer at his gaiters, and 
 would classify him with that community whom Dickens has 
 described as 'a variety of humbugs in cocked hats.' Every 
 one knew that the railway trains in the States were attacked 
 and robbed almost daily by armed brigands, to say nothing 
 of their falls from embankments and topplings into streams." 
 They seemed to anticipate for me the reception which the 
 cowboys gave to a tourist who had excited their anger, 
 whom they denuded, tarred and feathered, gagged, and tied 
 to a tree, and then questioned, with mock politeness, " How 
 he liked travelling in the West?" They were credibly in- 
 formed that in some of these Western States they did n't 
 quite know where the Indians were still agile with their 
 tomahawks and poisoned darts, and that the custom of
 
 14 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 scalping and cooking strangers was by no means obsolete. 
 They regarded my exodus with melancholy forebodings, and 
 with the tearful eyes of sad imagination they saw, thousands 
 of miles away, a long, large, lonely grave ! 
 
 Publicly, as well as privately, my project was criticised, 
 and while it was commended by several journalists as coura- 
 geous and deserving success, it was denounced in all kind- 
 ness by a foremost London morning paper as objectionable, 
 because such restorations should be made at home as a 
 national duty, and that there was a jarring sense of incon- 
 gruity in asking subscriptions, in sending round the hat, 
 abroad. I can see no impropriety in Christians exhorting 
 one another, wherever they may be, provoking to love and 
 good works, in inviting the children on one side of the 
 Atlantic to help in repairing the churches which their fore- 
 fathers built on the other, and which many of them love as 
 dearly as we do. We had done what we could, and I saw 
 no signs of "national duty" coming forward to complete 
 our unfinished work. Moreover, as a matter of fact, I did 
 not " ask subscriptions." Two offertories, one at New York 
 and one at Albany, were given to me after I had preached : 
 all other money was paid by those who came to hear my 
 lectures, in which there was no reference to the restoration, 
 and was therefore at my own disposal. In preferring to 
 spend the surplus of five hundred pounds which I brought 
 home, upon the cathedral, rather than in appropriating it to 
 myself, I fail to apprehend that I have acted " hardly in 
 consonance with the dignity of the nation and of the 
 National Church." 
 
 A wise man, before he visits America, will read a reliable 
 history of the country, such as Bryce's " History of the 
 American Commonwealth," or Goldwin Smith's. He will 
 carefully study a good modern map ; he will try to obtain
 
 PREPARATORY. 15 
 
 introductory letters to citizens of credit and renown ; he 
 will provide himself with such a strong portmanteau as will 
 resist the notorious "baggage-smashers," with a smaller one 
 for use on the rail ; with a good supply of clothes, which 
 are so much dearer in the States that I heard an American 
 gentleman affirm that by laying in a large stock of garments 
 in London, and partly wearing them, as duty is chargeable 
 on brand-new garments, he had defrayed the cost of a 
 voyage ; and with a camera and field-glasses. 
 
 The ladies have, of course, more extensive needs. My 
 wife secured from an eminent purveyor in Oxford Street 
 two huge wooden tenements, described as "Saratoga 
 trunks," which were about the size of the mysterious cabi- 
 nets in the possession of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook, and 
 would have furnished ample accommodation for the plate 
 of some wealthy peer. Nevertheless, I was severely re- 
 pressed when I ventured to doubt the rapid portability of 
 these structures without the introduction of levers and 
 cranes, and was distinctly informed that the man who made 
 them, and was therefore supposed to know something about 
 them, regarded them as of medium size. 
 
 One more preparation remains for those who propose to 
 visit America, the preparation of self, the elimination of 
 prejudices, theories, verdicts pronounced without evidence, 
 mere sentiments, opinions formed from circumstances which 
 no longer exist. Charles Dickens, in the postscript to his 
 "American Notes," expresses his great astonishment at the 
 changes which had occurred between his first and second 
 visit to the States, and ever regretted that on the former 
 occasion he had made such an unfavorable and extreme 
 selection. There cannot be a more disastrous mistake, 
 the joint offspring of self-conceit and ignorance, than to 
 frame from hearsay or from a brief and partial acquaintance,
 
 l6 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 dogmatical convictions, laws unalterable as those of the 
 Medes and Persians. If Froude could revisit America, he 
 would hardly repeat his suggestion that " Washington might 
 have hesitated to draw the sword against England, could he 
 have seen the country as we see it now." 
 
 There are, nevertheless, not a few travellers who seem 
 to measure and weigh everything by standards and scales 
 of their own manufacture. They pare and they pad. They 
 ignore that which exceeds or opposes their expectation, and 
 they add from their own inventions that which they do not 
 find. They fling all the material they collect, like pig-iron, 
 into the heated furnace of their imagination, and pour it 
 molten into their own mould. They bring home the 
 impressions which they took abroad. If their conception 
 of Hamlet is not Shakespeare's, so much the worse for 
 Shakespeare. They confidently undertake to produce a 
 striking portrait from a single sitting. It is striking. It is 
 about as like the original as the small schoolboy's mural 
 fresco in chalk of the master whom he loves the least, 
 "the Reverent Mr. Juggins, he is a bevvty." 
 
 We must go as disciples, and not as teachers. Jonathan 
 will only amuse himself with the stranger who lectures him 
 as though he were in statu pupillari. He will fool him to 
 the top of his bent. He will seem to be profoundly im- 
 pressed, to drink with parched lips into his thirsty soul 
 these showers of blessings, and when he has exhausted 
 such enjoyment as may be had from galloping donkeys, he 
 will despise and forget him. One of our demagogues came 
 to the States while I was there, and informed the Americans 
 that their Constitution was obsolete, and ought to be dis- 
 carded ; but though I remained some time in the country 
 after he had left it, I did not hear that either the President 
 or the people had commenced any reconstruction.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE. 
 
 THE Mersey is glittering in the midday splendour of 
 the sun, and the Majestic well-named, for she is 
 every inch a queen walks the waters like a thing of life 
 as she steams out of Liverpool docks. She glides, she 
 moves with a stately grace, like " a daughter of the gods, 
 divinely fair, and most divinely tall," dancing a minuet de 
 la cour. There are pale faces trying to smile, tremulous 
 voices trying to cheer, hands waving snowy handkerchiefs 
 which will never clasp each other again; but the motion 
 of the ship, the breeze from the sea, and the surroundings 
 of the shore refresh and exhilarate, and the apprehensive 
 passenger gains confidence, as he treads the deck in his 
 new tweed suit, his fur-lined coat and cap, or reclines on 
 his elongated chair with a guide-book or a novel in his 
 hand, and a gay rug over his knees. How gratified he is 
 to find, when the trumpet summons him to dine in the 
 bright beautiful saloon, and he has adroitly inserted himself 
 in his revolving chair, that he can thoroughly appreciate 
 the excellent fare so artistically cooked and so attentively 
 served. Yes, he will have a pint of Perrier Jouet, and then 
 he begins to fancy, good, easy man full sure, that his great- 
 ness as a sailor is a-ripening, and that he must be a lineal 
 descendant of those hardy Norsemen whose home was on 
 the ocean wave. Alas 
 
 2
 
 1 8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
 Except the page prescribed, the present date. 
 
 And no one disputes the veracity, however they may 
 deplore the conduct, of the cruel hawk who prophesied, 
 "when he heard the robin redbreast a-singing round the 
 corner, that if he knowed who was a-coming, he would 
 soon change his note." 
 
 Next morning, the sea, which seemed to be sleeping, 
 peacefully as an infant, awakes, as babies often do, to make 
 itself most disagreeable. Its wavelets develop into billows, 
 and that gentle breeze into a gale. The Majestic goes 
 on her way bravely, as steady as ship can be, but you can- 
 not travel over hills and valleys without ups and downs, 
 and the enthusiastic passenger becomes painfully conscious 
 that he has left the level road. He ceases to identify him- 
 self and to claim affinities with the hardy Norseman. There 
 are no " notes of fatherhood," no traces of family likeness 
 between that ancient mariner and himself, as, leaving the 
 cabin, he clutches the balustrade of the stairs, reels to and 
 fro on the deck, and finally stumbles, with a sudden lurch, 
 upon a stout elderly dame looking over the side of the 
 ship, as though he were a fond, affectionate son, who had 
 just discovered his long-lost mother. He apologises with 
 a sickly simper, which is intended to announce that, though 
 he has lost the control of his legs, he retains the command 
 of his temper, and again pursues his devious course, as one 
 who essays with his eyes closed to delineate the outlines of 
 the cat or pig. Finally, he does the wisest act he can do 
 under the circumstances, he betakes himself to the berth 
 from whence he came, and resigns himself to the inevitable. 
 With an expression of green and yellow melancholy he 
 gazes on the closely packed life-preserving belts in the case 
 over the end of his bed, and though these and the keel of
 
 PROGRESSIVE. 19 
 
 the boat, which he sees through the round window of his 
 cabin, are dismally suggestive of wreck, he feels helplessly, 
 hopelessly indifferent. 
 
 Now he watches listlessly a pair of slippers and a shoe 
 gliding from beneath the opposite berth, and then retiring 
 with the roll of the vessel, like skirmishers, to be followed 
 by the main army, in the form of a smooth portmanteau, 
 which comes forth to assure him that it is "warranted solid 
 leather," and then recedes, reminding him of a gentleman 
 performing in the quadrille the pas seul always so hateful to 
 the bashfulness and awkwardness of youth. 
 
 Then he hears with an angry disgust the loud and vulgar 
 voices of his fellow-men pacing the deck outside, prepos- 
 terously robust, offensively cheerful, smoking like lime-kilns 
 while he shrinks from the whiff of cigarettes, voracious 
 while the very thought of food distresses him literally 
 usque ad nauseam. He supposes that those boisterous, 
 blustering snobs must be encased in oak and lined with 
 metal, like the individual of whom Horace wrote, " robur 
 et <zs triplex circe pectus erat ; " that they must possess the 
 dura messorum ilia, of which the same poet speaks. 
 
 And then those execrable boys, prancing all over the 
 ship, or playing their ridiculous quoits, instead of being 
 well caned at school ; and that stout little man, who is 
 manifestly attempting something quite impossible " against 
 time," and " goes thrashing round the deck like a short- 
 tailed bull in fly-time." 
 
 Amid all these aggravations of his woe, the sad invalid 
 lies supine, changed as Caesar when that voice of his, 
 
 " that bade the Romans 
 
 Mark him and write his speeches in their books, 
 'Alas ! ' it cried, 'give me some drink, Titinius,' 
 As a sick girl."
 
 2O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 But he can neither drink nor eat, and, powerless to retain 
 the chicken-broth and other aliments kindly brought to him 
 by the pitiful steward, he resembles the bath-room oppo- 
 site his cabin, which, by an ingenious arrangement, an- 
 nounces itself on the bolt now as " occupied," and anon as 
 "empty." 
 
 We were a representative crew. Two millionaires from 
 Chicago, one of whom was said to " turn over " double the 
 amount which goes through the same process of evolution 
 at our Army and Navy Stores, and also to be the most 
 beneficent of men. Others in business on a smaller scale, 
 whose talk was of bi-metallism, free-trade, and ship canals. 
 There were importers of corn and cattle ; there were 
 authors in search of new subjects, and artists in search of 
 new scenes ; there was a dramatic contingent of planetary 
 stars ; there were architects and engineers ; there were 
 comely widows, and compassionate, middle-aged men ; 
 there were young men and maidens, who admired the 
 moon a little, and each other much. 
 
 We had a great variety of politicians, from the red-hot 
 Tory to the howling Radical. The red-hot Tory declared 
 that his heart was breaking, and that his existence was 
 made intolerable although no signs of premature decay 
 were observable in his roseate face and hilarious demeanour 
 by the howling Radical with his villainous crew of dema- 
 gogues, dynamiters, and other assassins, incendiaries, teeto- 
 talers, vulpicides, wire-fences, and foreign meat. He dated 
 the decline and fall of England from the introduction of 
 the Ballot and the School Board, the substitution of re- 
 trievers for pointers, croquet for cricket, and cigarettes for 
 cigars. The howling Radical announced himself as filled 
 with joy though he did not look it, being in countenance 
 gloomy and in manner grim as he foresaw the imminent
 
 PROGRESSIVE. 2 1 
 
 abolition of crowns and creeds, armies and navies, nobility 
 and gentry, sports and games. Neither was his behaviour 
 quite consistent on the subject of the peerage. When my 
 lord was absent he alluded to him as a birkie, a baboon, 
 figure-head, hysena, soap-bubble, stuffed peacock, etc. ; but 
 he seemed in his presence to be suddenly oppressed with a 
 sudden awe, behaved as though he were in a place of wor- 
 ship, and was of all the company the most obsequious. 
 
 There was a funny man, with a comic and chronic grin 
 on his countenance, who seemed always about to put his 
 hands into his pockets, with " Here we are again," and 
 "How do yer don't?" A few members were present of 
 the rowdy brigade, inclined to cards, coarse language, and 
 perpetual pipes, but restrained from making themselves 
 offensive by the higher tone of morality which pervaded the 
 ship. They never opened a book save that in which they 
 recorded their bets, and the subject of their conversation, 
 so far as I was favoured with fragments, was always the 
 race-horse and his rider, except when the daily mileage of 
 the ship was made a topic for pecuniary speculation, for 
 lotteries, and " sweeps." Asked somewhat impudently to 
 take part in these proceedings by a principal promoter, I 
 replied, " Sir, I do not want your money, and I will take 
 care that you don't have mine." These were the only com- 
 panions of our voyage who did in no wise add to its enjoy- 
 ment, unless we include two loquacious ladies, who, with an 
 utterance that was high and harsh, persisted in shouting 
 to a deaf brother, when we were seated close by in the 
 delightful library, and were desirous to read or to write, or 
 to have "forty winks" in peace. 
 
 It was my privilege on the Sunday to say the prayers and 
 to preach. The lesson was read by the captain as the 
 Holy Scriptures should always be read, from the heart as
 
 22 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 well as from the lips, reverently, distinctly, the intonation 
 varying in concord with the meaning of the words, and not 
 restricted to a single note, as with some of our more feeble 
 brethren. The purser acted as precentor, found us an 
 excellent amateur organist, and led the congregation, which 
 formed itself into a voluntary choir, the best of all choral 
 associations, promoting unity of worship on earth, and re- 
 hearsing, as it were, "the sound of many voices" which 
 will be heard in heaven. We had an offertory for the Sea- 
 men's Orphanages in Liverpool and New York, and our 
 contributions, with those made two days afterwards from a 
 miscellaneous entertainment, amounted to .50. 
 
 The latter performance was undoubtedly miscellaneous, 
 inasmuch as an oration by the Very Reverend the Dean of 
 Rochester, D. D., was followed by a song from a young 
 prima donna of the music halls, entitled " Little Tottie's 
 Half-crown Shoes ; " and it was made entertaining by some 
 good music and recitals, and especially by the delicious 
 humour of the purser aforesaid, which, communicating itself 
 without apparent change of feature to his countenance, 
 fascinated at once with its subtle power, and prepared us 
 for an enjoyment which never failed. Another performer 
 pleased me much, although the joy was brief. He was an- 
 nounced to repeat the first speech of King Richard III., 
 and, having approached and occupied with ostentatious 
 and pompous deliberation a chair upon the platform, which 
 represented his throne, he uttered the words, "Stand all 
 apart," then rose, and, with undiminished dignity, returned 
 to the audience, who received him first with amazement, 
 and then with loud applause. 
 
 A startling incident, occurred in our mid-voyage, and at 
 midnight. One of our propellers came in sudden collision 
 with some massive obstruction, and for a time the motion
 
 PROGRESSIVE. 2$ 
 
 of the ship was irregular and spasmodic. It was said next 
 morning that a vessel laden with huge blocks of mahogany 
 had gone down in that locality, and that we had struck the 
 derelict ; but an elderly lady confidently affirmed that we 
 had cut through a whale, because at the time of the con- 
 cussion she could smell the oil ! All who heard were 
 politely derisive, but the statement notwithstanding was 
 founded upon fact. The crew of a vessel following in our 
 rear saw the great leviathan, with a terrible gash in his 
 side, dying on the surface of the waves. The sceptic will 
 jeer, as we did, and will repeat our brilliant observation, 
 "Very like a whale," but the evidence has satisfied those 
 who were the most incredulous before they heard it. It 
 was a rare occurrence, a strange sight, to see this monster 
 monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens dying in a red 
 sea, by his own blood incarnadined ! 
 
 The floating derelict is, of course, a much more frequent 
 and formidable cause of collision. A committee appointed 
 by our Board of Trade on the subject has recently issued 
 recommendations that upon arrival in British ports all in- 
 coming vessels shall report any derelict or ice passed 
 on the voyage, and that the information thus obtained 
 shall be published on a special form, a copy of which is to 
 be promptly distributed every week, free of charge, to all 
 mercantile marine officers and to masters of foreign-going 
 ships. The committee does not propose to issue a monthly 
 chart, such as is published in the United States, because 
 they are of opinion that a map showing the position of 
 wrecks reported some weeks previously can be of no 
 possible utility, and may create needless apprehensions.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ARRIVAL. 
 
 AS we entered the harbour of New York, I thought of 
 St. Luke's words in the Acts of the Apostles, " We 
 came unto a place which is called The Fair Havens, nigh 
 whereunto was the city of Lasea." It is indeed a fair 
 haven, as picturesque to the eye of the tourist as it is com- 
 plete in its depth, extent, and security for the exigencies 
 of peaceful commerce or of naval war. Pleasant country 
 homes, and, as we advance, huge cities, Brooklyn and 
 Jersey City, appear to the right and left, and, dominating 
 all, a statue of " Liberty Enlightening the World," one 
 hundred and fifty feet in height, and two hundred and 
 twenty tons in weight, rises from a small island about mid- 
 way from the shores. This gigantic image was presented 
 to the United States by the French Republic some ten 
 years ago, in commemoration of the one hundredth anni- 
 versary of the Declaration of Independence. If one of the 
 objects of this presentation was, as I am constrained to 
 suspect, to depress the Britisher with a sense of awe and 
 aversion, I frankly own that " our lively neighbour the Gaul " 
 has achieved considerable success. It is awe-ful to the 
 Englishman ; it does make his heart sad, but not, as was 
 intended, with the shameful memory of defeat, that 
 wound has been healed long ago, and John Bull knows 
 that he was well and wisely beaten, but with a dread and
 
 ARRIVAL. 25 
 
 dislike of its ugliness, and of its cumbrous incongruity with 
 the scene around. I was informed that by ascending the 
 spiral staircase, which was formed in the granite pedestal, 
 and in the skirt of the goddess (if I may be allowed the 
 expression) I could obtain a beautiful view from the head 
 of the figure, which was capable of accommodating forty 
 persons, but I pleaded my age and size and weight, and 
 that I was more than satisfied with that which I had 
 already seen. 
 
 I remembered a delightful engraving in Punch, which 
 represented the ghost of Napoleon Buonaparte contemplat- 
 ing the equestrian statue of Wellington, not a thing of 
 beauty, then recently erected at the entrance of Hyde 
 Park, and saying, " After forty years I am avenged." 
 So might the spectre of some vanquished hero of the Revo- 
 lution stand before this cumbrous erection, which doth 
 bestride its narrow world like a Colossus, and say, " I am 
 comforted by this vulgar caricature of Liberty, and by its 
 independence of all good taste in Art." 
 
 We had a disgreeable incident at the Custom House, 
 which may serve as a caution to others. A young lady 
 of our party had kindly undertaken to convey two trunks 
 containing clothes and other gifts to the relations of an- 
 other lady, who sent them, one locked without a key, the 
 other with a key but with a broken lock, which could no 
 longer be opened. After much perplexity and delay, the 
 revenue officer, relying upon the assurance that the gar- 
 ments had been worn, and that there was nothing in the 
 boxes prohibited or liable to duty, allowed his benevolence 
 to overpower his discretion, and his strict obedience to the 
 laws of his service, and marked them as examined and 
 passed. A " detective " was watching, and not only in- 
 sisted on forcing the locks and searching among the articles,
 
 26 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 which, of course, were found to have .been correctly 
 described, but immediately reported the misdemeanour. 
 Shortly afterwards the officer, an intelligent man, with 
 attractive manners, came to tell me, with a quiet, brave 
 submission, which commanded all my sympathy, that he 
 had been dismissed. I wrote to the authorities a simple 
 statement of the facts, and pleaded as earnestly as my 
 head and my heart could dictate for his restoration. I do 
 not know whether my intercession had any influence, but 
 I am sure that their ultimate decision was wise and kind 
 and just. They were bound to punish, they had no desire 
 to be cruel. They fined the offender heavily, I think the 
 amount was one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and, 
 after a brief suspension, restored him to his place. He 
 appeared to be much more gratified by the results than I 
 was, when, on my return to England, I was informed of a 
 report, by one who had heard it gravely announced as 
 a fact, that the Dean of Rochester had been fined fifty 
 pounds by the revenue officers at New York on their dis- 
 covery of chemicals used in photography, after his solemn 
 declaration that he had no excisable articles in his posses- 
 sion. Well, it is a merciful provision that though for a 
 time men will lie with such volubility that you would think 
 Truth was a fool, they soon run themselves out of breath, 
 and the adversary whom they had despised and left behind 
 awhile, sound in wind and limb, well trained, and in good 
 condition, passes them in an easy canter, and, in sporting 
 parlance, "romps in." 
 
 Major Pond, whose vocation is to make arrangements for 
 those who propose to give lectures in the States, and who 
 is not only the most successful expert in his business, but a 
 genial companion and trusty friend, met me on landing, and 
 informed me that a conclave of journalists were waiting to
 
 ARRIVAL. 27 
 
 interview me at his office. I may say here that before 
 I left America I was visited by more than two hundred 
 reporters, and found them, almost without exception, clever 
 and well-informed, pleasant in manner, and accurate in 
 their records. The majority took no notes, and yet re- 
 peated almost verbatim a long conversation. A few came 
 at inconvenient hours when I was making myself a C. B. 
 in the morning, or arriving late at night in my hotel. One 
 young gentleman I found calmly seated in the drawing- 
 room of a friend with whom I went to dine. Several met 
 me at the railway stations, and some came into the train. 
 The latter brought to mind the story of the Baptist minister 
 who, having missed Dean Stanley at the station, wrote to ex- 
 press his disappointment, and " his hope to meet him on the 
 Resurrection Morn, where there would doubtless be a much 
 better opportunity for conversation than they could have 
 had in the cars." Occasionally their queries are somewhat 
 two crowded or abstruse for immediate and complete solu- 
 tion. A clergyman of high position in New York told me 
 that he was visited by a pressman, and consented to see 
 him upon the assurance that he would not detain him for 
 more than one minute. " I only wish to ask " he said, 
 on admission to the clerical study " why you belong to 
 the Episcopal Church? What is your opinion of the Old 
 Testament characters compared with those of the New? 
 Whether you expect to meet your friends in a future state 
 of existence, and, if so, on what foundations you have 
 formed this expectation?" 
 
 At the same time their thirst for information seems to be 
 quickly satisfied. The spirit of inquiry is not disheartened 
 by reticence, nor offended by brief, evasive, or incongnious 
 replies, if they are made in good humour. For example, 
 when, on my first introduction to these ready writers and
 
 28 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 speakers, I was asked, "Are you a Home Ruler?" and I 
 made answer, " So far as my wife permits," I evoked no 
 protest of displeasure. The married men tittered their 
 sympathies, and the bachelors laughed loud their scorn. 
 
 As we entered our apartments in the hotel, we were 
 gladdened by graceful gifts and genial words of welcome. 
 Boxes of beautiful flowers roses, carnations, chrysanthe- 
 mums, violets came to us, not only in New York, but in 
 all the great cities of the States. I knew, from fifty years of 
 happy experience, that in my own country there was no 
 sympathy more sure and generous than that of the true 
 florist, the man who loves flowers, not because they are 
 ornamental to his grounds, his rooms, or his coat ; not 
 because his specimens are so rare and costly, he " really 
 would be ashamed to tell you what he gave for that orchid," 
 and is bitterly disappointed when you don't seem to care, 
 but who loves them because they are beautiful. No voca- 
 tion so honourable, no apron so old, no brotherhood so 
 gentle and true, as that of the "grand old gardener." 
 
 On the table with these bouquets were letters announcing 
 honorary membership in several New York clubs, invitations 
 to dinners and receptions, offers of private boxes and stalls, 
 and a pack of visitors' cards. 
 
 The hotels in New York and in the larger cities are very 
 superior, excepting the small cluster of splendid inns which 
 have been recently built in London, and their provincial 
 satellites, to our own on a larger scale, and of a more 
 costly material, marble being largely used, and the charm- 
 ing varieties of American wood elaborately carved. They 
 have, generally, large halls, in which men do mostly congre- 
 gate to talk, read the papers, and smoke ; spacious drawing, 
 reading, and- dining rooms, with electric light. 
 
 In many of these hotels the waiters are negroes, and
 
 ARRIVAL. 29 
 
 upon a first introduction one almost expects a walk-round 
 or a break-down, to hear a conundrum from " Bones," or 
 an exhortation from the head waiter to his troupe, " Sing, 
 darkies, -sing." A black thumb on a white plate is but a brief 
 surprise, and its proprietor is attentive and prompt, with a 
 marvellous memory of every order given. He is cleanly 
 and honest, in no instance suggesting the similarity which 
 has been traced between him and Shakespeare's soft south 
 wind, as " stealing and giving odour." The food which they 
 bring is excellent in quality, abundant in variety, and well 
 cooked. The Britisher does not at once understand the 
 glass goblet of water and ice, which Mark Twain affirms to 
 be the only distinct Americanism, and which invariably 
 accompanies his breakfast, luncheon, and dinner ; but the 
 drier climate and the warmer rooms not only expel his 
 aversion, but tempt him to excess. 
 
 The Americans begin their first meal with some refresh- 
 ing fruit, such as the delicious grape-fruit or shaddock from 
 Florida, oranges, apples, bananas, peaches, melons, etc., 
 and I quite believe in the opinion expressed to me by one 
 of their clever physicians that this wholesome habit was 
 a powerful antidote to gout. The bread, white, from the 
 finest wheat flour, or brown, " Graham bread," from the 
 meal unrefined, the cakes, and the pastry are all of the best 
 quality. I counted some thirty preparations of corn 
 that is, maize and of wheat, including hominy; a most 
 agreeable food. 
 
 The beef, corn-fed, is as good as our own ; the mutton, 
 which rarely appears on the menu, quite inferior. The fish 
 is not so good as on our side the Atlantic, though there are 
 some very palatable varieties, e. g. of black bass, and there 
 is a great admiration of our English soles among those 
 Americans who have crossed the sea. They have a fish
 
 30 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 which they call " the lake lawyer," from his ferocious looks 
 and voracious appetite, even as on the coast of New Jersey 
 they have a bird which they describe as " the barrister," 
 from the enormous length of his bill. Oysters aue good, 
 plentiful, and cheap, and from a tiny crab found therein, in 
 shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an 
 alderman, hitherto thrown away as unedible, the chef now 
 makes for the epicure an expensive soup. The sturgeon, 
 known as "Albany beef," is excellent. 
 
 Other delicacies are prairie birds (the American grouse), 
 quail, "ragout of antelope," venison (not to be compared 
 with our park-fed fallow deer), the canvas-back duck, and 
 terrapin. The canvas-back duck inhabits the Chesapeake 
 Bay and the contiguous streams, feeding upon the wild 
 celery which grows upon their banks, and by its delicate 
 flavour acquiring that high regard, of which the author of 
 " A Pictorial Picture of America " was inspired to sing, 
 
 " That all the folks who love good eating, 
 And think of little else but treating, 
 With pleasure oft their lips will smack 
 When speaking of a canvas-back." 
 
 The terrapin is a species of small turtle, or tortoise. It 
 is said to be common in Connecticut, and in the Atlantic 
 States south of New York, but the demand makes it a rare 
 and costly dish. " It is found," as I read in " Bartlett's 
 Dictionary," " exclusively in the salt water, and always in 
 the neighbourhood of marshes. The most celebrated is the 
 diamond-back ; there are also yellow-bellies, red-bellies, logger- 
 heads, and snuff-boxes." I do not know to which denomina- 
 tion the specimens belonged which were presented to me in 
 pretty little vessels of embossed silver, expressly made for
 
 ARRIVAL. 3 1 
 
 their reception, but I liked none of them, and I indorsed 
 the verdict of an illustrious visitor from Rome, though I 
 condemned the ungrateful rudeness of his words, when, in 
 speaking of this viand to a friend, he said, " They are 
 always giving me that disgoostirf hash" 
 
 One, to me insoluble, mystery I must mention ere I 
 leave the table d'hote of the hotel, in the hope that some 
 kind philosopher may suggest a cause, the fact that the 
 sharpest people use the dullest knives in the world. Babies 
 and lunatics might be safely allowed to play with them. 
 
 Passing from solids to fluids, a stranger, who made his 
 conclusions from the customs of the salle a manger in the 
 hotels and restaurants, might infer that Jonathan had changed 
 his name into Jonadab, and that he had been brought 
 up, as Mr. Richard Swiveller said, with a tone of sad com- 
 passion, of the Marchioness, " in ignorance of the taste of 
 beer ; " but the illusion is dispelled by the first dinner-party 
 in private, where he finds, as in his own country, the " wine 
 that gladdeneth the heart of man," and by the numerous 
 saloons and bars, of which it was said by the only comic 
 teetotaler I ever met, " There the wild asses quench their 
 thirst." 
 
 In no country have nobler efforts been made to diminish 
 the temptations, to prevent the shame and the misery, of a 
 vice which stupefies the head, petrifies the heart, cripples 
 the limbs, and disfigures the face of the vicious ; but 
 common sense, at the same time, has never failed to see 
 that which zeal has hid from the eyes of the enthusiast, 
 not only that alcohol has its use and abuse, but that the 
 latter will never be suppressed by prohibition, parliament, 
 or pledge. Constraint exasperates, evokes opposition, and 
 suggests defiance or deceit. Brandy is served in teapots. 
 " You '11 find a little tap under your dressing-table, Major,
 
 32 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 which will put you into communication with ' the old 
 Rye,' and you can take what you please for yourself and 
 your friends, for there is a meter on the other side of the 
 wall." The child is father to the man, and the schoolboy 
 who enjoyed his clandestine pipe has been known in his 
 manhood to fill his flask with whisky before he entered 
 the watery waste of prohibition, and to find a strange, 
 revengeful relish in its surreptitious joy. 
 
 Smugglers, driven from the seas, have reappeared in the 
 cities, and eggs, which have been sucked and filled with 
 ardent spirits through a tiny aperture cleverly concealed, 
 were at one time largely imported into the State of Maine, 
 and met with a ready sale. 
 
 Of course the law must punish those who transgress it, 
 but it must not condemn the guiltless, nor uproot the wheat 
 with the weeds. It might, in my opinion, deal far more 
 severely with the "drunk and disorderly," and with those 
 who make them so, but it must not prohibit temperance. 
 It must not classify a Christian virtue among the sins of 
 the flesh, as those fanatical bigots who say that the moderate 
 drinker is the best friend of the drunkard. It must not 
 persecute those who, as Milton bade, 
 
 " Observe 
 
 The rule of not too much ; by temperance taught, 
 In what they eat and drink, seeking from thence 
 Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight." 
 
 The punishment, I repeat, might justly be more formidable. 
 The daily reports from our police-courts prove that the 
 five-shilling fine is not a terror to the evildoers, and suggest 
 that a whipping, or a week in jail, might be more efficacious : 
 but no penal, no human laws will abolish drunkenness. 
 They may help, but they can. never originate or sustain
 
 ARRIVAL. 33 
 
 that self-respect and self-command which are taught by the 
 religion of Christ, communicated by the Holy Spirit, and 
 strengthened, through our prayers and the means of grace, 
 by Him who alone can order the unruly wills and affections 
 of sinful men.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 THE ears and the eyes of the stranger, as he leaves his 
 hotel for a first inspection of the city, are astonished 
 and bewildered by the sounds and sights of eager and in- 
 cessant work. The roar of London seems to him as a faint 
 murmur compared with the thunder of New York, and 
 Oxford Street and Regent Street and the Strand and Fleet 
 Street as by-ways and country lanes in contrast with its taain 
 thoroughfares. 
 
 If any man would realise Keble's " loud stunning tide of 
 human care," or Whittier's city, " ever swinging its ponder- 
 ous iron flail," let me advise him to secure an apartment 
 on the ground or second floor of a house in Third Avenue. 
 An elevated railway runs through the centre of this lively 
 spot, with trains passing and repassing at brief intervals, 
 with bells clanging and engines puffing and screaming. 
 Below, on either side, there is not only a tramway for the 
 cable cars, but outside of these a road for carriages drawn 
 by horses. The " side-walks " are generally crowded by 
 pedestrians, so that if the lodger will open wide his parlour 
 window, and look out, he will be in a position to know what 
 business means. Should these surroundings become at all 
 irksome, to timid people from quiet habitations they have 
 suggested softening of the brain, he can at once diversify 
 his experience, and add to his information, by entering and
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 35 
 
 occupying, say for half an hour, one of the tram-cars or 
 omnibuses which go by his door. 
 
 The proprietors and conductors of these vehicles are men 
 of such large benevolence, and so anxious to promote the 
 closest fellow-feeling among their neighbours, that they wel- 
 come all who desire to travel with them. It is a New York 
 proverbial saying that " there 's always room for one on a 
 Broadway car." The result is that not only the sides but the 
 centre of the conveyances are crowded, chiefly with men, 
 who almost invariably surrender the seats to the ladies, and 
 who jolt against each other with polite grins whenever there 
 is a sudden stop. 1 Believers in the ancestral ape may 
 readily imagine, as they hold on by the leathern straps sus- 
 pended from the roof for their support, that they have 
 reverted to type, and are chattering once more among their 
 brother-monkeys, as they cling to the branches of primeval 
 trees. I ventured to remark to an American friend that we 
 had tried this system, this truck system, with our cattle upon 
 the rail, and with a complete success, but that it did not 
 seem to commend itself as a method of locomotion to my 
 brother-men. Mr. Starey, a famous coachbuilder at Notting- 
 
 1 Sometimes the results are more serious, as recorded in the follow- 
 ing extract from an American daily paper : 
 
 " FAINTS WHILE HE HOLDS THE STRAP ! 
 
 " AGED MAN PAYS FARE ON A STREET CAR, BUT is GIVEN No 
 
 SEAT ! 
 
 " S. D. Hinman is little more than eighty years old. That fact, how- 
 ever does not entitle him to a seat when he pays a fare on a Cottage 
 Grove Avenue car. At six o'clock last night he clung to a strap and 
 gasped for breathing room from Madison Street to Twenty-second, 
 and then fainted. He was wedged in the mass of humanity so tightly 
 that he could not fall. A considerate conductor stopped the car, and 
 Mr. Hinman was carried into a drug store, where he soon revived, 
 and walked to his home at No. 2336 Michigan Avenue."
 
 36 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 ham, took for his motto, " Stare super antiquas vias," but 
 his customers were always seated. My friend made no 
 answer, but I saw from the expression of his countenance 
 that he did not think much of " my brother-men." 
 
 Everywhere there is the throng of busy life. I remember 
 that when I went in my boyhood with our gamekeeper, 
 whom I revered as being, next to my father and our clergy- 
 man, the most honourable and important of living men, to 
 fetch for the young pheasants which he was rearing their 
 favourite food, the eggs of the ants, and we came to the 
 edifice which they (the ants) had reared, and he thrust in 
 his cruel spade, I remember how the hillock swarmed 
 with myriads of these tiny insects, hurrying to and fro. I 
 thought of them as I watched the rush and concourse of 
 this larger life, and thought also of Donne's simile, 
 
 " Methinks all cities now but ant-hills are, 
 Where, when the several labourers I see 
 For children, house, provisions, taking pains, 
 They 're all but ants, carrying eggs, straw, and grain." 
 
 It is this manifestation of industry semper ubique et ab 
 omnibus this nobility of labour, which commands an 
 intense admiration of New York as a city of working men. 
 As a thing of beauty, a panorama picturesque to the eye, it 
 cannot be compared with London or Paris, Edinburgh or 
 Oxford ; but there is a grander design than architect ever 
 drew, a fairer sight than cloud-capped towers and gorgeous 
 palaces, man going forth to his work and to his labour 
 until the evening, in obedience to the immutable law of his 
 Maker, " In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." 
 
 Of course the pessimist and the cynic, who, true to his 
 name, grins like a dog and runs about the city snarling and 
 biting when he dare, will say, " It 's only a race and scramble
 
 NEW YORK. 37 
 
 for money, it 's only the worship of the almighty dollar ; " 
 but the accuser of the brethren is also the father of lies. 
 Thousands of these workers are earning their daily bread, 
 providing for their own house. And what is life but a race 
 and a struggle? Are we not bidden so to run that we may 
 obtain, so to fight not as one that beateth the air, to strive 
 for the mastery, to contend earnestly? The idle men are 
 the cowards and deserters, the children of Ephraim, who, 
 being harnessed, and carrying bows, turn themselves back 
 in the day of battle. It is the sluggard of whom Solomon 
 spake as ever sighing, " A little more sleep, a little more 
 slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep, until 
 poverty comes as one that travelleth, and want as an armed 
 man." And what divine injunction is there forbidding men 
 to make money? On the contrary, he was commended by 
 the Master who had gained by trading, and he was con- 
 demned who had not only made no effort to improve his 
 property, but would not even put his talent in the bank. It 
 is not the possession but the abuse of wealth which is de- 
 nounced. Dives was tormented, not because he wore pur- 
 ple and fine linen, but because he never clothed the naked. 
 
 " I dressed, as the nobles dress, 
 In cloth of silver and gold, 
 Silk and satin, and costly furs, 
 In many an ample fold ; 
 But I never remembered the naked limbs, 
 That freeze with winter's cold." 
 
 He suffered, not because he fared sumptuously every day, 
 but because he never fed the hungry. 
 
 " I drank the richest draughts, 
 And ate whatever was good ; 
 Fish and flesh and fowl and fruit 
 Supplied my hungry mood ; 
 But I never remembered the wretched ones 
 That starve for want of food."
 
 38 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 No man is more beloved than the American or English 
 millionaire who is rich in good works, ready to distribute, 
 willing to communicate ; he has the blessing of him who 
 was ready to perish, and he causes the widow's heart to sing 
 for joy ; he has dispersed abroad and given to the poor, 
 and his righteousness remaineth for ever. Endeavouring to 
 promote the spiritual and temporal welfare of his fellow-men, 
 he not only exalts their hopes and relieves their necessities, 
 but he confirms their faith in our Christian brotherhood, 
 teaches them by example to be tender-hearted, and so does 
 more for the unity and happiness of his nation than all the 
 scribes and disputers, who make paper programmes and 
 grandiloquent promises of universal prosperity and peace. 
 
 No one is more despised than the American or English 
 millionaire whose Bible is his banker's book, to whom wor- 
 ship is a bore, sorrow a nuisance, and poverty a crime. He 
 is marvellously shrewd, never outwitted (my friend Nye, of 
 whom more anon, refers to a report that a burglar once 
 broke into the house of Jay Gould and was robbed of his 
 tools before he could summon the police), but he is con- 
 temptible. He who might do the most good does the most 
 harm to the community. He is a monopolist and a Jugger- 
 naut, who will crush all that comes in his way. He will per- 
 secute all competitors undersell and ruin them if he can. 
 Several thoughtful men of business with whom it was my 
 privilege to converse while I was in the States denounced 
 these sordid churls as enemies to progress, and as the objects 
 of a bitter indignation, which might have disastrous issues. 
 
 I recall a charming picture of two street boys. The 
 larger boy is eating an apple, the smaller boy asks for a 
 bite. The reply, " Sha'n't," is followed by a further suppli- 
 cation, " Then please give us the core ; " but all hope, is 
 extinguished by the prompt announcement, "There ain't
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 going to be no core." But retribution will come sooner or 
 later : the core will choke him. 
 
 I have a few more words to say about money, because I 
 have heard some of my compatriots affirm of the Americans 
 that their one object of reverence was an idol of gold, and 
 that, after the manner of the Ephesians, they fell down and 
 worshipped at silver shrines. Beyond the fact, which I am 
 bound to admit, having visited the chief marts of commerce 
 in both countries, boards of trade in America and ex- 
 changes in England, that Jonathan makes more noise than 
 John over his business, " gives tongue " more freely, as a 
 huntsman would say, in his chase, I see no difference 
 between the nations in their high estimate of the precious 
 metals, or in their methods of appropriation. 
 
 Alike on either side of the Atlantic, the prophecy of the 
 wise man is daily fulfilled : " He that maketh haste to live 
 shall not be innocent." I am inclined to think that, in 
 proportion to our numbers, we have a majority of knaves 
 and rogues in England, because we have more dupes and 
 fools ; more foxes, because we have more geese. I do not 
 mean that we are less honest, but we have more young 
 men who, inheriting instead of earning money, do not 
 know its value, and, according to the adage, are soon 
 persuaded to transfer it. 
 
 Again, I have heard it said that the American only values 
 his possessions according to the price which he has paid 
 for them, and that he will give an extravagant sum not for 
 the beauty but for the rarity of his purchase. The infirmity 
 exists. I have positive proof. A rich gentleman in New 
 York was a collector of valuable tapestry, carpets, and rugs. 
 A friend, inspecting, noticed on one of these textile fabrics 
 a conspicuous white card, and, as he stooped to read the 
 writing upon it "$iooo" the proprietor expressed
 
 4O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 his angry surprise that it had been overlooked, and he un- 
 fastened and removed it. The visitor was suspicious, and 
 when he related the incident, a few weeks after his visit, 
 he was not unprepared for the loud laughter which it 
 evoked from his companion, who at once exclaimed, " I 
 was with him yesterday ; the ticket was again conspicuous, 
 and was banished with the same expostulation ! " 
 
 Have we no small manoeuvres of this sort in England? 
 And do they not pale their ineffectual fire, as the glow- 
 worm when the sun is up, before our undisguised manifes- 
 tations, private and public, in proof of a general belief that 
 " the worth of everything is just as much as it will bring? " 
 In May last I attended a magnificent exhibition of plants 
 and flowers in the Temple Gardens. The great attraction 
 was a cypripedium, not because it was the most beautiful 
 specimen in the show, for there were laelias and cattleyas 
 lovelier far, and the queen of all flowers, the rose, but 
 because the owner had been offered eight hundred guineas 
 for his orchid. 
 
 As to the proportion in either country of those who 
 admire that which is admirable in nature and in art for its 
 own sake, I see no difference. In both we have men of 
 culture and refinement coming home from dusty lane and 
 wrangling mart to books by the best authors, pictures by 
 the best painters, to sweet music, intellectual discourse. 
 From both, especially from America, we have intelligent 
 persons going forth to gaze upon the wonders of the world. 
 Some, it is true, from mere curiosity, and not so much for 
 the sake of seeing as in order to say that they have seen. 
 We have heard of tourists " knocking off St. Peter's and 
 doing the Vatican" before lunch; and I remember that I 
 displeased an elderly spinster at Cadenabbia, who informed 
 me that she was occupied in doing Europe, and asked me
 
 NEW YORK. 41 
 
 how long it would take to do London, when I replied that 
 an observant mind might be able to form some adequate 
 conception of the past history and the present affairs of our 
 metropolis in two or three diligent years. 
 
 Although New York has no Westminster Abbey, St. 
 Paul's, British Museum, Houses of Parliament, or Bucking- 
 ham Palace, it has an abundance of handsome and spacious 
 buildings, official, commercial, and educational city halls, 
 exchanges, colleges, hospitals, museums, institutes, clubs, 
 and theatres. Some of these edifices, such as that of the 
 American Tract Society, are three hundred feet in height, 
 and have more than twenty stories. The Hotel New 
 Netherlands has seventeen stories, and is two hundred and 
 ninety feet high. The Waldorf Hotel has eleven stories, 
 and a height of one hundred and eighty-two feet. 1 
 
 Our shops are no more to be compared with New York 
 stores than hawks with eagles. "As well you might com- 
 pare," I heard the principal of my college, Dr. Gilbert, 
 afterwards Bishop of Chichester, say in a sermon, " the 
 solid masonry of University with the meretricious architec- 
 ture of Queen's ! " 
 
 There is one establishment in Broadway which seems to 
 cover more ground than our Army and Navy Stores, and 
 the capital employed in the latter emporium is said to be 
 only half the amount which is "turned over" by Mr. Mar- 
 shal Field, of Chicago. 
 
 I was delighted with the offices of the Century Magazine, 
 with its large, bright, cheerful rooms, story upon story, so 
 commodiously furnished with comfortable chairs, spacious 
 tables, and ample apparatus for the writer that it seemed as 
 though one might sit down, and that the hand would spon- 
 
 1 The position of New York upon an island demands this economy 
 of space.
 
 42 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 taneously " make copy " without study or strain of thought. 
 The president, Mr. Scott, and the chief editor, Mr. Gilder, 
 received me with the kindest courtesy, and showed me the 
 most interesting collection of original pictures, drawings, 
 and photographs which have been used as illustrations. Of 
 these there is a selection circulated, through the kindness 
 of the proprietors, in different parts of the States, for the 
 instruction of young artists. The Century Magazine makes 
 at the present time a monthly sale of one hundred and 
 seventy-five thousand copies, and has reached two hundred 
 and fifty thousand. 
 
 On the other side of Union Square is " Tiffany's," the 
 famous depot for precious stones, bijouterie, and silver 
 work. Here, too, I had a kindly welcome, and saw the 
 venerable head of the house, in his eighty- third year, and, 
 in the penetralia, such costly treasures as a necklace of 
 diamonds of different tints, and another of pearls, each 
 valued at ^20,000, a yellow diamond at the same figure, 
 and two black pearls ^2,000. There is some exquisite 
 china, and a most interesting collection of armour, English, 
 German, and Italian, with cross-bows, match-locks, hal- 
 berds, spears, swords, and shields. 
 
 At Scribner's there is a grand book-room recently built, 
 and here again admitted into the treasury department 
 I saw yet more precious things, which cannot be gotten for 
 gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof, 
 which cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the 
 onyx, nor the sapphire ; no mention shall be made of corals 
 or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. Here 
 I was shown the original edition of Herrick's " Hesperides," 
 1648, the first edition of Butler's " Hudibras," 1663, and 
 fourth, 1678 ; the first edition of the " Vicar of Wakefield," 
 which Johnson took to the publisher and sold for ;io.
 
 NEW YORK. 43 
 
 when the author dared not leave his lodgings for fear of 
 arrest ; Hawthorne's first book, " Fanshawe," suppressed by 
 the writer ; Charles Lamb's manuscript of " Cupid's Re- 
 venge," published in Harper's Monthly, 1858, and Charles 
 Dickens's copy of the first edition of Thackeray's " History 
 of Samuel Titwiarsh." 
 
 Of all the stores in New York, the one which seems to 
 have a supreme fascination though it is small in com- 
 parison, and much resembles an English shop is con- 
 ducted by Mr. Huyler on Broadway, for the sale of candies 
 and chocolates and other confections which the Turks de- 
 scribe as "delights for the throat." I have never seen such a 
 concourse of purchasers, making their exits and their entrances 
 continuously, as there at Christmas-time. They are chiefly 
 young ladies and children, but there comes forth at inter- 
 vals a young man with a bashful countenance, under an 
 apprehension that every one suspects the design of his pur- 
 chase, and that the public survey with a derisive gaze the 
 parcel which he carries "sweets to the sweet" unto 
 his lady-love. I fear that the American maidens, and not 
 a few of the American nutrons, love these candies, pepper- 
 mints, and gums, "not wisely but too well;" that that 
 excessive enjoyment is injurious to health and complexion ; 
 and that the most accomplished dentists in the world owe 
 their success to their experience, and their experience very 
 largely to the premature decay which issues from an intem- 
 perate fondness for " goodies." 
 
 But who, with a clear conscience, shall pronounce sen- 
 tence of condemnation ? Who passes the pretty bonbonniere 
 without making an extract? Who does not take home 
 with affectionate care the beautiful box of preserved fruits 
 which, after certain city dinner-feasts, is presented by the 
 generous hosts to speed the parting guest, prizing the
 
 44 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 generous gift, not for its own sake only, but because he 
 knows that its mediatorial presence will at once suppress 
 any conjugal remonstrance concerning the lateness of the 
 hour? 
 
 I pity the man who has no happy memories of a time 
 when he stirred with perspiring zeal a delicious bubbling 
 compound of sugar, butter, and treacle, testing (always 
 prematurely, that he might have an excuse for tasting) its 
 progress towards completion by dropping small portions 
 into cold water, " to see whether it would set." 
 
 When I told Charles Dickens that as a schoolboy I had 
 devoted half my income, which amounted to sixpence a 
 week, to the purchase of the monthly number of " Pick- 
 wick," and this in defiance of a wily confectioner, who 
 always presented himself with a basketful of temptations in 
 our hour of emolument, the great author was pleased to 
 say that this small incident was a greater compliment than 
 most of the infinite and elaborate eulogies which had been 
 written and spoken in his praise. It was, at all events, 
 a victory of mind over matter, of literature versus lollipops, 
 and suggests the possibility of more books and fewer bon- 
 bons to those of my younger brethren who are passing 
 through the ordeal of choice. They are not incompatible, 
 and Horace assures us that he wins all points who blends 
 the useful with the sweet. 
 
 Happy and instructive hours may be spent in the Ameri- 
 can Museum of Natural History and in the Metropolitan 
 Museum of Art. Indeed, I could have enjoyed days in 
 one department of the former, the charming and complete 
 collection of North American woods given by a citizen, 
 Mr. Jesup. The number of the exhibits, five hundred and 
 twelve varieties of wood, and the artistic mode of exhibition, 
 gave me a thrill of joyful surprise, and Solomon himself,
 
 NEW YORK. 45 
 
 who spake of trees, from the cedar-tree which is in Lebanon 
 even unto the hyssop which springeth out of the wall, 
 would have gazed in an astonishment of delight. Every 
 variety of tree, deciduous or coniferous, which I had seen or 
 heard of, and many of which I had never sight or hearing, 
 were here. Ash, beech, birch, catalpa, chestnut, cedar, dog- 
 wood, ebony, elder, elm, fir, larch, magnolia, mahogany, oak, 
 pines, poplar, walnut, willow. One of the most beautiful 
 examples was a polished piece of lignum-vitse ; and thereby 
 hangs a tale. A country clergyman gave an order to the 
 village carpenter, a skilful workman, but no scholar, for a 
 set of bowls, and when they were completed they were sent 
 home with the claim following : " The ravent master Jones 
 to John Smith, A compleat set of lignum vitey bowels, 14^. 
 6^." About four feet was shown of each specimen, cut 
 from the trunk in its full maturity. This was sawn at the 
 top through the centre for a foot in depth, and, when half 
 of this was removed by a transverse cut, the remainder was 
 left partly in a natural and partly in a polished state. 
 These have been arranged by the man of all best qualified 
 for the work, Professor Sargent, of Brooklyn, and are 
 accompanied with brief but adequate information as to 
 species, habitat, habit, etc. There is a section of Sequoia 
 sempervirens, known more commonly in England as the 
 Wellingtonia, having a circumference of ninety feet at the 
 ground, measuring three hundred and fifty feet in height, 
 and calculated to contain four hundred thousand feet of 
 timber. Adjoining these specimens we find portfolios on 
 stands containing Mrs. Sargent's exquisite pictures of trees, 
 etc., and some excellent photographs here and there of 
 trees remarkable for their beauty, size, or rarity. 
 
 Geology, entomology, ornithology, and archaeology are 
 profusely illustrated. The collection of stuffed birds,
 
 46 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 though it is inferior to that of our museum at Kensington, 
 is extensive and well set up. The ostriches, with their 
 large ball of feathers, and their long thin legs beneath, 
 always remind me of tall children with their frocks tucked 
 up around their waist for a paddle in the shallow sea. 
 
 In the Metropolitan Museum of Art there are many rare 
 and some unique specimens of ancient and modern art, 
 Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, English, and American. 
 The first and the last, Old Egypt and New York, were pre- 
 sented to view in a most striking contrast by a lovely young 
 damsel bending over a shrivelled, colourless mummy, and 
 wearing the last sweet thing in bonnets ! There was some 
 beautiful sculpture, of which I only remember Story's 
 " Semiramis," Farran's " Death of President Lincoln," and 
 Benzoni's " Flight into Egypt." Armour and arms, rare 
 treasures ; pottery, laces, and glass ; and a most extensive 
 and interesting collection of musical instruments, beginning 
 with rude specimens made from sticks and stones and skins, 
 and displaying the intermediate improvements up to the 
 elaborate and ornate piano of our own times. 
 
 I lingered so long in admiration before Rosa Bonheur's 
 magnificent picture, "The Horse Fair," purchased by Mr. 
 Cornelius Vanderbilt for ^10,000, and presented by him 
 to the nation, that I had not time thoroughly to enjoy the 
 Old Masters (to tell the truth, I never thoroughly enjoy 
 them they always impress me, after a brief interview, with 
 an irresistible desire to sit down, or to partake of refresh- 
 ment) and only stayed to examine in the Memorial Room 
 a most interesting collection of engraved portraits, some 
 fifty in number, of General Washington. 
 
 I visited the law courts under the courteous auspices of 
 one of the judges. To an ignoramus, the proceedings and 
 arrangement appeared to be very similar to our own,
 
 NEW YORK. 47 
 
 courts with and without juries, courts of probate, court of 
 common pleas, recalling Hood's irreverent line's, 
 
 " Good Judges in the law are they 
 Of champagne, claret, and tokay, 
 And when their lordships deign to joke, 
 And banish Littleton and Coke, 
 They order that the best old port 
 Shall henceforth be the rule of Court, 
 That care shall be the fate of asses, 
 Their only circuit be of glasses; 
 So, happy on such terms as these, 
 They seem a Court of Common Pleas." 
 
 There may be many differences, but two only came within 
 my observation. There is no distinction, as with us, be- 
 tween barristers and solicitors ; a lawyer can combine and 
 conduct all the operations which in England are divided 
 between the barrister and the attorney ; and there are no 
 wigs nor gowns. I did not miss the former so much as I 
 anticipated, because most of the judicial and other forensic 
 heads had the intellectual expression which usually accom- 
 panies brains, and does not require accessions ; but I retain 
 my faith in these becoming indications of authority and in- 
 signia of office, as conducive to dignity, order, and respect. 
 " Some men," it is well said, " have native dignity, which 
 will procure them more regard by a look than others can 
 obtain by the most imperious command ; " and these others, 
 exceptions to the rule which I have mentioned, that the 
 mind illustrates the countenance, may wisely call upon Art 
 for such assistance, withheld by Nature, as it is in her power 
 to give. 
 
 I was transferred by one judge to another, equally court- 
 eous and communicative, that I might see the police courts, 
 over which the latter had authority, and in which one hun- 
 dred cases are sometimes tried in a day, and also the prison
 
 48 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 known as "The Tombs," somewhat resembling the cata- 
 combs at Rome in their narrow passages and gloom. It 
 was a horrible sadness to walk in " Murderers' Row," read- 
 ing upon the wall the long list of prisoners on trial for 
 homicide, some of the names having the awful words written 
 in red ink against them, " Sentenced to execution." These 
 miserable men are taken to the State prison at Sing Sing, 
 and are there put to death by electricity. I could obtain no 
 information as to the process, and I could but infer from 
 this reticence that it was not altogether satisfactory. 
 
 It seems to be now the universal conviction that it was 
 wise to discontinue public executions, but I remember to 
 have heard from one who had seen more deaths upon the 
 scaffold, before a concourse of spectators, than any other 
 man, the Rev. Mr. Davis, who was chaplain at Newgate 
 for more than twenty years, that in his opinion the trans- 
 fer of these terrible scenes from the outside to the inside of 
 the prison withdrew from the community a very powerful 
 influence for good. He said that while public executions 
 produced many deplorable examples of human depravity, 
 brought together a host of reprobates, having their con- 
 science seared with a hot iron, who neither feared God, nor 
 regarded man, so that you heard on all sides the blasphemy 
 of the multitude, the curses and yells of drunken men, and 
 the idiotic laugh of the harlot ; though there might be seen 
 the disgusting spectacle of persons calling themselves noble- 
 men and gentlemen, paying ten guineas for a window to 
 glut a morbid curiosity and a craving for excitement, yet, 
 when the crisis came, and the cap was drawn over the white, 
 quivering face, and as the drop fell and the living man was 
 changed into a corpse, swaying to and fro, there was a 
 silent awe upon all, and even when there was no pity, the 
 terror of death and "the fear of something after death"
 
 NEW YORK. 49 
 
 seemed to warn the vilest, " Be sure your sin will find you 
 out," and " What will ye do in the end thereof? " 
 
 In the ward set apart for the young prisoners I was 
 sorely grieved to see many who were mere lads, evidently 
 ashamed and distressed by their degradation. As I antici- 
 pated, they had been led into debt by habits of extrava- 
 gance, by corrupt women, and, after a vain endeavour to 
 extricate themselves by gambling and betting, had been 
 finally tempted to steal from their employers. When shall 
 we see a sadder sight than this young life maimed and 
 marred, the athlete, who started so strong and hopeful, 
 down and stunned at the outset of the race. On some of 
 their faces there was a wistful look, which seemed to say, 
 " Will no one give us a kind word who will show us any 
 good?" and I longed to sit down with those lonely lads, 
 to talk to them of better and brighter days, and of the 
 Love which never fails. 
 
 Two sisters of mercy were conversing with the prisoners. 
 Access is freely given to all who earnestly desire to help 
 them ; reformatories are open to receive them when they 
 leave the prison ; so that we have a good hope when we 
 pray, " Let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come 
 before Thee, and preserve Thou them that are appointed 
 to die." - 
 
 Outside the prison I was shown, near the top of the 
 high wall, a piece of recent masonry under one of the 
 windows. The inmate of thfe cell within had secreted some 
 instrument by which he had displaced and removed the 
 stones, got through the aperture, let himself down by his 
 bedclothes, which he had tied together and fastened to the 
 window-bar, so as to reach a long waterspout, and, de- 
 scending, finally succeeded in making his escape. It would 
 indicate a laxity of moral principles to express a sense of 
 
 4
 
 5O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 satisfaction on hearing that the fugitive had not been found. 
 It would not be kind towards those who lived in the neigh- 
 bourhood of a lunatic asylum or a zoological garden to 
 enlarge with admiration on the subtlety which had let loose 
 a madman or a wild beast in their midst ; but who does not 
 feel a brief thrill of sympathy with such adroit and dauntless 
 enterprise? Then comes the sad regret that such power 
 should be perverted, and a blessing turned into a curse. 
 
 Here I may appropriately refer to the subject of " lynch 
 law," and may enlighten the ignorance of some of my fellow- 
 countrymen who think as I thought before my visit to 
 the States that this method of summary punishment with- 
 out judge, jury, or trial, is all but obsolete. Lynch law 
 takes its name from Colonel Lynch, an officer of the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, who, living in a district in Campbell County 
 which was infested by a number of reckless ruffians, robbers, 
 and cut-throats, had some of their leaders apprehended 
 and executed without the tedious and expensive interference 
 of legal proceedings. 
 
 Of course no rational man defends this process as a prin- 
 ciple, but there are cases of brutal cruelty of outrage 
 upon women and children in districts where it is difficult to 
 obtain immediate arrest in which unanimous indignation 
 could not, and cannot, be restrained from punishing the 
 offender with death. This lynch law, however shocking it 
 may appear to Europeans and New Englanders, is far 
 removed from arbitrary violence. According to the testi- 
 mony of careful observers, it is not often abused, and its 
 proceedings are generally conducted with some regularity of 
 form as well as fairness of spirit. What are the circum- 
 stances? Those highly technical rules of judicial procedure, 
 and still more technical rules of evidence, which America 
 owes to the English Common Law, and which have in some
 
 NEW YORK.' 51 
 
 States retained antiquated minutiae now expunged from 
 English practice, or been rendered by new legislation too 
 favourable to prisoners, have to be applied to districts where 
 population is thin, where there are very few officers, either 
 for the apprehension of offenders or for the hunting up of 
 evidence against them, and where, according to common 
 belief, both judges and juries are occasionally " squared " 
 or " got at." Many crimes would go unpunished if some 
 more speedy and efficient method of dealing with them 
 were not adopted. This method is found in a volunteer 
 jury summoned by the principal local citizens, or, in very 
 clear cases, by a simple seizure and execution of the 
 criminal. 
 
 It may be asked, "Why not create an efficient police?" 
 Because crime is so uncommon in many districts, in such 
 districts, for instance, as Michigan or rural Wisconsin, and 
 the people have deliberately concluded that it is cheaper 
 and simpler to take the law into their own hands on those 
 rare occasions when a police is needed than to be at the 
 trouble of organising and paying a force for which there is 
 usually no employment. If it be urged that they are thus 
 forming habits of lawlessness in themselves, the Americans 
 reply that experience does not seem to make this proba- 
 ble, because lawlessness does not increase among the 
 farming population, and has disappeared from places where 
 the rudeness or simplicity of society formerly rendered lynch 
 law necessary. Cases, however, occur in which no such 
 excuse can be offered cases in which a prisoner (probably 
 a negro) already in the hands of justice is seized and put to 
 death by the mob. 1 
 
 However this may be, the Americans in this matter, as in 
 all others, are perfectly competent to boss their own show, 
 1 Bryce, The American Commonwealth, vol. ii., p. 507. "
 
 52 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 and to paddle their own canoe, and they rightly resent an 
 insolence, or regard with a silent disdain the expostulations 
 and prescriptions of bumptious Britons, the sort of people 
 whom Nye describes as " having such enlarged consciences 
 that they are always ready to take in other people's," to 
 whom the message of Luther to Melanchthon might be oft 
 and earnestly repeated : " Tell Philip Melanchthon to leave 
 off thinking that he is going to rub the world." It may be 
 kind when a man thinks that he has attained perfection, or 
 that he lives in a country which has attained perfection, to 
 desire to communicate to others this immunity from sorrow 
 and from sin, but the " others " do not seem to grasp and 
 realise the joy. Mr. Pitt Crawley although, as Thackeray 
 assures us, he was always thinking of his brother's soul, or 
 of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion was 
 never a favourite, and the interference of persons who are 
 only wise in their own conceits invariably provokes distrust 
 and opposition. 
 
 The form of lynch law, and the frequency of its adminis- 
 tration, will be seen from the following extracts. The four 
 cases which I quote occurred within two months, and were 
 reported in the New York Herald, Chicago Tribune, and 
 other principal newspapers': 
 
 "Mount Sterling, Kentucky, January ist, 1895. 
 Thomas Blair, one of the men who ,killed J. L. Bowmar 
 here nearly a month ago, was taken from the jail and lynched 
 at two o'clock this morning. He had been acquitted of the 
 crime, but tried to kill a man named Day last Thursday 
 night, and was serving out a jail fine for this crime. The 
 lynching had evidently been carefully planned, and was con- 
 ducted in a very systematic manner. Jailor J. M. Best was 
 awakened this morning, at 2 A. M., by three men, who, enter- 
 ing his room, seized him, and demanded his keys. These
 
 NEW YORK. 53 
 
 they obtained and passed to their comrades outside, who, to 
 the number of twenty or twenty-five, joined them, took 
 charge of Blair, hurried him to the trestle of the Kentucky 
 and South Atlantic Railway, and there hanged him. Upon 
 the body they pinned a paper, on which was written : ' We 
 find Thomas Blair guilty of the murder of Captain J. L. 
 Bowmar, and hang him this January the first, 1895,^0 avenge 
 the rights of law-abiding citizens. Friends of Captain J. L. 
 Bowmar.' Blair was from Morgan County, and a desperate 
 character. The mob was well organised, and went about 
 its work so quietly that all was over before the citizens knew 
 what was being done. Blair fought desperately for his life, 
 and was beaten into insensibility before he was hanged." 
 
 The next example, which occurred only three days after- 
 wards, is dated Wichita, Kansas, January 4th, 1895, by 
 telegraph to New York Herald: "News comes from 
 Cantonment, a trading point in the Cheyenne and Arapahoe 
 country, to rhe effect that a fight occurred there yesterday 
 between vigilants and horse-thieves. Gus Gaskell and Sy 
 Campbell, two of the vigilants, were wounded, and three 
 thieves captured. The prisoners were promptly run up to 
 the nearest tree, and their bodies filled with lead. The 
 farmers have been robbed of cattle and horses to such an 
 extent that they have determined to put a stop to it, and 
 have formed vigilant committees. In this instance the 
 thieves were chased into the Panhandle of Texas, back into 
 Oklahoma, and finally cornered." 
 
 The third case is from O'Neill, Nebraska, and is dated 
 January 2Oth, 1895: "The body of Barrett Scott, the 
 defaulting treasurer of Holt County, who, while riding out 
 with his family on New Year's Day, was fired upon by a 
 party of vigilants, and, after being wounded, was dragged 
 from his carriage, blindfolded, and carried off by his
 
 54 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 assailants, was f Hind last night in the Niobrara River. A new 
 hemp rope was around his neck, and the end, about three 
 feet long, was dangling in the water. Evidences showed 
 that he was hanged by the vigilants and then thrown into 
 the water. There was a slight wound on the side of the 
 neck, where a bullet had grazed it, cutting through the lobe 
 of the right ear. Coroner Hoover, of Boyd County, took 
 charge of the body, and will hold an inquest." 
 
 The last of these strange, eventful histories of which I 
 made a record comes from Kingston, Mo., February ijth, 
 1895 : "A mob of masked men, supposed to be negroes 
 from Hamilton, surrounded the sheriffs house and jail here 
 at two o'clock this morning, caught and bound Sheriff 
 Goldsworthy, whose deputy was away, took the keys from 
 him, and gained entrance into the jail corridor, with the 
 avowed intention of taking out and hanging George Tracy, 
 a negro, who shot and killed his wife at Hamilton, in this 
 county, the morning of January 3Oth. On the inside the 
 mob was unable to get into the steel cell in which Tracy 
 was confined with two other negro prisoners. Tracy 
 crawled under his bed, and the mob began shooting 
 through the bars of the cell, and succeeded in putting 
 seventeen bullets into his body, killing him instantly. The 
 sheriff made all the resistance he could, but was over- 
 powered. The two prisoners in the cell with Tracy escaped 
 unhurt. Tracy was a bad character, and had lately served 
 a full sentence for shooting a negro. He had some years 
 ago lost both his legs just below the knees, being run over 
 by a train he was trying to board to escape some Kansas 
 officers."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CLUBS AND THEATRES. 
 
 OUT of the dark tunnel, out of the smoke and the 
 smell, into the fresh air and sunshine from igno- 
 rance to culture, from rogues to respectability, from " the 
 Tombs " to the clubs of New York ! An honorary member 
 for a time of several of the societies, I had only time to 
 visit two of them, the Century and the Lotos. The 
 Century is a charming institution, ample and complete in 
 all its accommodations, uniting size with comfort, and sur- 
 rounding its members who seemed to be the klite of the 
 city, professional and commercial with things pleasant to 
 the eye and good for food, books and pictures, nourish- 
 ment for body and mind. This association is not designed 
 for the mere enjoyment of easy- chairs, cigarettes, scandal, 
 chaff, menus, wines, and whiskies, but it is a club "with 
 brains, sir," and can talk about science and art, politics 
 and statistics ; having, moreover, weekly lectures by experts 
 on some interesting and instructive matter, followed by an 
 intellectual discussion and an intelligent debate. 
 
 There is so much white marble in this beautiful building 
 that when I was divested of my overcoat by the attendants, 
 Balfe's lines from the " Bohemian Girl " came to my thoughts : 
 
 " I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, 
 With vassals and serfs at my side," 
 
 and I recalled a small incident in my Oxford days : how 
 one evening, when we were at dinner at the Mitre, in High
 
 56 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Street, important business in the rural districts having made 
 us too late for dinner in college, the leader of a street band 
 came up to inquire if there was any particular music the 
 " gemmen " would like to name, and on my replying 
 "Bohemian Girl" (then in its first bloom of success, circa 
 1842), turned immediately to his subaltern, waiting at the 
 bottom of the stairs, with the_ brief but adequate intimation, 
 " Marble 'Alls, Jim." 
 
 The Lotos Club was established some twenty- five years 
 ago for the social intercourse of those who had literary or 
 artistic inclinations. It is famous for its hospitality, good 
 taste, good speeches, and good dinners. It has entertained 
 J. A. Froude, H. M. Stanley, Wilkie Collins, Charles 
 Kingsley, Richard Monckton Milnes, Ferdinand de Les- 
 seps, General Grant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Irving, 
 Lieutenant Greely, Sir Edwin Arnold, F. Marion Crawford, 
 and Dr. Conan Doyle. I was therefore somewhat per- 
 turbed in spirit pleased at the same time to discover that 
 I had so much modesty left when I received a most kind 
 invitation from the president and members to be their 
 guest ; and I assured them, when I rose to acknowledge the 
 general sympathy with which the toast of my health had 
 been proposed and received, that 1 resembled in my feel- 
 ings, though not much in my features, the beautiful bride of 
 Burleigh when 
 
 " A- trouble weighed upon her, 
 And perplexed her night and morn, 
 With the burden of an honour 
 Unto which she was not born ;" 
 
 and I quoted from Hood's "Up the Rhine" the conversa- 
 tion which took place during a storm at sea between the 
 mate and a lady of quality: "Can you swim?" "Yes, 
 my lady, like a duck." "That being the case, I shall con-
 
 CLUBS AND THEATRES. 57 
 
 descend to lay hold of your arm all night." " Too great 
 honour for the likes of me," said the mate. But I was 
 soon reassured by the hearty welcome and gracious recep- 
 tion, lost all sense of unvvorthiness, and was possessed by a 
 delicious hallucination that I had said something, or done 
 something I knew not when, or what, or where which 
 marked me as a man of genius. It was a proud surprise, 
 like that of the young soldier wounded in the battle, when 
 the surgeon remarked that he could see the brain, and the 
 poor patient exclaimed, " Oh, please write home and tell 
 father, for he always said I never had any." There were 
 some admirable speeches from the president, Mr. Lawrence, 
 from the president of Cornell University, Dr. MacArthur, 
 Mr. Joseph Hendricks, and General Swayne. The last 
 speaker pleased me most when he said that my claim upon 
 their esteem was my love for my fellow-men, and my 
 endeavour to do them good. 
 
 The quaintest story of the evening was told by Dr. 
 Greer, of a tedious, monotonous preacher, who had ex- 
 hausted the patience of his hearers by an elaborate disserta- 
 tion on the four greater Prophets, and when, to their sad 
 disgust, he passed on to the minor, and asked, " And now, 
 my brethren, where shall we place Hosea? " a man rose 
 from the congregation and made answer, " You can place 
 him here, sir. I 'm off." 
 
 From the clubs to the theatres. I saw more dramatic 
 performances in the few weeks which I spent in New York 
 than in a dozen years preceding. It is my privilege to 
 include among my friends two great actors, Mr. Beerbohm 
 Tree and Mr. Wilson Barrett, and both sent me invitations. 
 I repeat my conviction that Mr. Tree's " Hamlet," splen- 
 didly supported by Mrs. Tree's " Ophelia," (by a curious 
 coincidence, her namesake, Miss Helen Tree, afterwards
 
 58 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the wife of Mr. Charles Kean, was equally successful in this 
 most pathetic and difficult character), is the happiest 
 conception and presentation of the Prince of Denmark 
 which has been seen by living man, and it was a very hope- 
 ful encouragement to the actors, and the audience and all 
 outside, who deplore the sensual rubbish too often seen 
 upon the stage, to know that when the prince of all play- 
 wrights, himself a player, has justice done to his plays, one 
 of the largest of the New York theatres was overcrowded 
 twice in one day ! There are few plays except Shake- 
 speare's (longo intervallo, Sheridan's?) which one cares to 
 see or read twice, but Barrett's " Claudian " is one of the few, 
 not only excellent as a drama, but as an impressive sermon 
 upon the text, " Overcome evil with good." 
 
 I had also the gratification of seeing those popular 
 favourites, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, in " Lady Clancarty," and 
 was specially delighted with Mr. Denman Thompson in 
 " The Old Homestead." Towards the end of the play, his 
 manager came to my box with an invitation to an inter- 
 view, and I had the pleasure of thanking Mr. Thompson 
 for his humorous, pathetic, bright, and wholesome per- 
 formance, and of telling him how much he resembled in 
 many ways the the greatest comic actor of his day, Mr. 
 Buckstone. 
 
 Next morning there appeared in the New York Herald 
 a paragraph headed, "A Dean Behind the Scenes," and 
 shortly afterwards I was gently rebuked by a brother 
 clergyman as having imperilled the dignity of my office. 
 As counsel for the defence, I made answer, " Reverend Sir, 
 in the play entitled 'The Old Homestead,' two young 
 fellows, who had been making fools of themselves and had 
 gone to the bad, were brought back to a right mind to 
 their home and duty. They were shown the misery and
 
 CLUBS AND THEATRES. 59 
 
 degradation of vice, and then, in contrast, the happiness 
 and the honour of a righteous life. I went behind the 
 scenes to thank the teacher of that object-lesson, and if 
 you, my brother, will prove to me that by one of your 
 sermons you have persuaded two prodigals to get. away 
 from the husks of the swine and return to their Father's 
 house, I shall rejoice to pay my respects to you in the 
 vestry, or wherever we may meet."
 
 CHAPTER VI. . 
 
 THE PARKS. 
 
 I WAS most anxious to see the famous Central Park of 
 New York, but, as I have always lost my way in a 
 strange country, on foot without a companion, and on 
 horseback without a pack of hounds to guide me, and as 
 I knew very little of the American trees and shrubs, which 
 I chiefly desired to see, I was in perplexity, and almost 
 in despair, when I received an intimation from the super- 
 intendent that he was as willing to show as I was to see 
 the fair grounds in his charge. I welcomed the invitation 
 as a mendicant, lone and hungry in the streets, would 
 welcome the summons of some good philanthropist to 
 come in and dine, and next day I was sitting by the side, 
 and behind the horse, of Mr. Samuel Parsons. 
 
 As nearly as I can calculate, the time occupied in form- 
 ing a friendship between men who really love trees and 
 flowers they are not numerous is about five seconds. 
 The heart goes with the hand. We do not gush at the age 
 of seventy-five, and I make these annotations calmly, on 
 the principle that old men should tell young men their ex- 
 perience of such enjoyments and sympathies as never seem 
 to fail. We two had lived our lives three thousand miles 
 apart ; we differed in age, nationality, habits, and surround- 
 ings, and yet we were as happy and familiar as a couple of 
 schoolboys out for a holiday, before you could have boiled 
 an egg. We had a delightful drive.
 
 THE PARKS. 6 1 
 
 Little more than thirty years ago the site of this Central 
 Park was a waste and desolation, with stagnant marshes and 
 huge boulder stones. The landscape gardener came, and 
 the wilderness and the solitary place were made glad, 
 and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as a rose. The 
 glory of Lebanon was given unto it, the excellency of 
 Carmel and Sharon. Covering an area of eight hundred 
 and forty acres, in length two and a half miles by half a 
 mile in width, it is admirably planned and planted, upon 
 the one true principle, ars est celare artem, to be as like 
 Nature as it can. 
 
 Where it is necessary to economise space and to con- 
 solidate work, it is wise to build a city like New York in 
 straight avenues and rectangular blocks ; but when we go 
 to rest the body and to refresh the spirit with pleasant 
 scenery and purer air, we desire the open spaces, the 
 varied outlines, the graceful curves which Nature every- 
 where supplies. And we have them here in glens and 
 glades, slopes and steeps, groups of trees and large ex- 
 panses of grass, the greenest which I saw in the States. 
 There is water also in reservoirs, lakes, and pools, to the 
 extent of one hundred and eighty-five acres, the larger por- 
 tion being available for boats in the summer and for the 
 skater in time of frost, the smaller being filled with aquatic 
 plants, including large quantities, in great vigour, of the 
 Egyptian lotus, Nelumbium speciosum, Nymphaas, red and 
 white, from India and Zanzibar, lilies from Cape Cod, 
 water hyacinths, etc. There are trees, deciduous and 
 coniferous, in infinite variety, groups of Salisburia adianti- 
 folia, the maidenhair tree, named after Salisbury, an Eng- 
 lish botanist, and nearly forty feet in height. ,< 
 
 But to me the chief fascination was my first sight of the 
 foliage, which makes the splendid glory, the sunset, of
 
 62 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the " Falls," the sumachs, the oaks, the maples, the 
 andromedas ; the combinations of glittering gold and 
 glowing scarlet and vivid crimson (let my poor British 
 brother try to imagine a Poinsettia grown into a tree !) 
 with the darker leafage, and the evergreens, notably the 
 bright privet from California. I was just in time to see 
 this vision of beauty in its wane and eve of disappearance ; 
 and if I were a younger man, I would cross the Atlantic again, 
 early in October, for a longer and more complete fruition. 
 
 Before we leave the Central Park I turn to the super- 
 intendent, and, with my hat in my hand and my heart in 
 my mouth, congratulate him on the attainment of this 
 supreme success. He modestly disclaims the honour, but 
 when he declares that he could never have preserved the 
 park in its present arrangement and condition, against 
 innovations which would have disfigured its beauty and 
 degraded its influence, had he not been generously and 
 earnestly supported by gentlemen of refined taste, position, 
 and means, as well as by that mighty coadjutor the Press, 
 he admits that he has had a battle to fight, and that, in 
 his position as a field marshal, he must have done much 
 to win it. In a large city there is always a multitude who 
 cannot dissociate beer and skittles from their conception of 
 bliss ; who prefer " the weed " to the flower, and believe 
 the banjo and bones to be the most enchanting of all kinds 
 of music. The only trees which attract them are those 
 under which they can sit in the shade and smoke, but all 
 others are disregarded except as " lumber." They are as 
 abstemious in their admirations as a rough sailor who be- 
 came lord of a great estate in our midland counties, and 
 who, when a visitor remarked upon the beauty of the trees 
 in his park, exclaimed, " Well, and what o' that? They've 
 got nothing else to do"
 
 THE PARKS. 63 
 
 All managers of public grounds desiring not only to 
 provide healthful recreation and harmless amusements, but 
 to raise and refine the tastes and habits of the people, have 
 to contend with the baser elements of humanity with 
 those who believe only in gross and sensual gratifications, 
 and are as though they had neither mind nor soul. I 
 remember that when young Sir Robert Clifton offered him- 
 self as a candidate to represent the town of Nottingham in 
 Parliament, and some of the stockingers declared they 
 would not vote for him because he would not permit them 
 to fish in the Trent, which flowed through his estate, he first 
 of all disarmed their hostility and put them in good humour 
 by reproaching them for their ingratitude, because, having 
 heard that some of them were unable to swim, he had done 
 his best to keep them from the river, and the awful danger 
 of a watery grave ; that the mere thought of such a catas- 
 trophe occurring to any one of those whom he loved so 
 dearly was almost more than he could bear ; but that, if 
 they still persisted in their desire, he could no longer oppose 
 them : he would provide life-belts, and they should not 
 only have free access to the stream, but he would build on 
 either side of it for a couple of miles commodious public- 
 houses, not more than a hundred yards apart. He was 
 elected. 
 
 As we drove through the park I met with another 
 novelty, which, though of very small comparative impor- 
 tance, much surprised and pleased me, the American 
 trotting-horse. He is an astonishment to the Englishman 
 who has never seen him, who does not know what trotting 
 means, and has yet to hear that "Pansy McGregor" and 
 "Abdell," yearlings, have trotted a mile in two minutes 
 and twenty-three seconds, and " Nancy Hanks," a six-year 
 old, in two minutes four seconds.
 
 64 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 There is a striking congruity between the horse and his 
 owner the same energy and ambition to do their utmost, 
 go ahead, get over the ground, and let no grass grow 
 under their feet. In England we speak of the various 
 -walks of life, that such an one is conducting, carrying on 
 a concern, and making steady progress ; but in America 
 he runs a business. I have even heard said of a minis- 
 ter that he was running a church. He may gallop his 
 business to death, but to the final gasp on its last legs it 
 must run. 
 
 Not many of these fast trotters cross the Atlantic. Many 
 years ago a great race for trotting-horses was advertised to 
 take place nigh unto a central English town, and a large 
 number of competitors came from all parts. Among them 
 was a gaunt, raw-boned quadruped, wearing an old hood and 
 rug, scanty and torn and patched, with his legs bandaged and 
 his hair in places rubbed off, and accompanied by a biped, 
 lean and ill-favoured also, in a tall hat and a long-tailed 
 coat, with a look of stupid dejection, which seemed to 
 indicate that he was thoroughly ashamed of his horse, 
 himself, and his errand. So far from being offended by 
 the ridicule and chaff of the spectators, he seemed to accept 
 meekly their severe rebuke, and when one of them, on 
 hearing that he came from America, inquired with all the 
 brilliant humour of the race-course, " whether he had 
 brought an old clothes-horse from Washing-town?" he 
 answered humbly, " that his master had sent him, and had 
 paid the stakes, and he guessed he 'd have to go." 
 
 The time came for the race, and there was a sudden 
 metamorphosis. Off went the soiled hood and rug from the 
 horse, the long hat and coat from the rider, and as the 
 latter in his cap and jacket, profusely embellished with stars 
 and stripes, jumped into the saddle, the former seemed to
 
 THE PARKS. 65 
 
 start from his inert and pensive mood, as when the hunter 
 hears in his quiet stable the sound of the coming chase, 
 
 "And faint, from further distance borne, 
 Is heard the clanging hoof and horn," 
 
 and, with a new light in his eye, and a new life quivering 
 in every limb, he sniffs the battle from afar. 
 
 The English horses were strong and fleet, but they did 
 not know their business. They had too much knee action, 
 a superfluous curve ; whereas the American seemed to propel 
 himself straight from the shoulder, and, " stretching for- 
 ward free and far," to cover more ground. He went ahead 
 from the first, and gradually extended the interval, the hiatus 
 valde deflendus, between himself and his pursuers, until he had 
 finished his course, and seemed to stroll in at his leisure. 
 
 The rider returned to weigh amid the cheers of the 
 spectators, but with a solemn expression on his counte- 
 nance which was almost funereal. Some thought they de- 
 tected the ripple of a smile about his lips, and a close 
 observer noticed a contraction of the left eyelid when its 
 proprietor was met by a friend who, as it subsequently 
 appeared, had been taking long odds against " Mr. Brown's 
 Incog." The two departed in the direction of Liverpool, 
 with a thousand pounds ($4,900) in good English gold. 
 
 I admired "the Mall," "the Terrace," "the Bethes 
 Fountain," the countless drives and walks, bridges and 
 arches. The statues are not so depressing as our own. 
 England is represented by Shakespeare ; Scotland by Sir 
 Walter Scott and Robert Burns ; Ireland by Moore ; Ger- 
 many by Schiller, Humboldt, and Beethoven ; America by 
 Daniel Webster. 
 
 In the Central Park you meet, as in the parks of London, 
 every kind of vehicle, from the imposing drag with its 
 
 5
 
 66 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 " four spanking tits," to the wee conveyance which is drawn 
 by goats. The American carriages are of much lighter 
 construction than ours, the wheels being in some instances 
 not much wider than those of a large bicycle. The draught, 
 of course, is easier and quicker, but the wear and tear is 
 sometimes too much for them, and it was a frequent oc- 
 currence, when the streets of New York were filled with 
 frozen snow, to see them by the wayside minus a wheel. 
 And this recalls me to the Central Park, for there can hardly 
 be a more inspiriting or amusing spectacle than that which 
 is there exhibited, when the snow is deep enough for the 
 sleigh, and, in the bright sunshine and keen fresh air, the 
 Kentucky horses, with their smart harness and coloured 
 plumes, and their cinctures of merry bells, go swinging along 
 with the grace and swiftness of a deer. 
 
 Here, in addition to every form of ordinary vehicle 
 transferred from wheels to runners, you have the Russian 
 and Norwegian sleighs, with numerous modern inventions of 
 a fantastic and strange device. One of them seemed to 
 represent a gigantic nest, and a mother with four children 
 attired in fluffy white garments, a swan with her cygnets. 
 The latest fashion was a graceful structure painted in imita- 
 tion of a huge sea-shell, and lined with sea-green silk plush. 
 It was called the " Columbia," because the original sleigh 
 made on this design was first exhibited at the Chicago 
 Columbian Exhibition, and was purchased by Mr. A. H. 
 Moore, of Philadelphia, for $2,400. 
 
 Reluctantly I leave the Central Park, a charming scene, 
 where Art, by following her purest instincts, and by reverent 
 imitations of the Creator's work, has won a sure success. 
 
 We passed by the hill which is to be crowned hereafter 
 by a cathedral worthy of its sacred purpose. There could 
 not be a more appropriate site, and the building, which is
 
 THE PARKS. 67 
 
 to cost some millions of dollars, will be seen from all parts 
 of the city. The corner-stone of this cathedral church of 
 Saint John the Divine was laid on the day of his festival by 
 the Right Reverend H. C. Potter, LL. D., Bishop of New 
 York, and an address was given by the Right Reverend W. 
 C. Doane, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Albany. 
 
 We inspected the monument of General Grant, not yet 
 completed, a massive, square edifice, in stone, to be sur- 
 mounted by a dome. Whence the delay, where there is so 
 much wealth and so much admiration? The coffin rests in 
 a small building close by, and ten thousand times ten thou- 
 sand come to see. 
 
 General Grant was of Scotch extraction, but his family 
 had lived for several generations in the State of Ohio. He 
 was the son of Jesse, and, like David, he slew a mighty and 
 cruel giant. His name was Ulysses, but, as with his illus- 
 trious namesake, the king of Ithaca, his superiority over his 
 brother-men was not discovered until he became a hero 
 through the fiery ordeal of war. 
 
 There is a story that he was sent by his father, when he 
 was only eight years of age, to buy a horse, and that as 
 soon as he met with the seller he accosted him with all the 
 simplicity of youth : " Papa says that I am first to offer 
 you twenty dollars, and, if you won't take it, twenty-two 
 dollars and a half, and, if you still refuse, I am to offer 
 twenty-five dollars ; but I am not to give more." The 
 proprietor of the steed, having carefully considered the 
 proposals, elected to sell at twenty-five dollars, and informed 
 the purchaser, to whom he presented an apple with the 
 receipt, that he hoped to see him again whenever his papa 
 was buying horses. He little thought that this ingenuus 
 puer was destined 
 
 " To witch the world with noble horsemanship,"
 
 68 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 and to ride before victorious armies in all the panoply of 
 war. 
 
 Young Grant was sent to West Point, " the Gibraltar of 
 the Hudson," and the Military Academy of the United 
 States, and there in the riding-schools, none better, except 
 the hunting-field or the back of the buck-jumper, he added 
 to his equestrian skill. 
 
 He entered the army, and having seen some service in 
 Mexico and California, he returned to face the fiercest and 
 most subtle of all adversaries, to suffer for a while the 
 saddest of all defeats, the degradation of manhood by 
 intemperance, and then to achieve the grandest triumph 
 of all, the victory over selfishness and sin. " Poor, much 
 shattered, he essayed farming." 1 Carrying wood to St. 
 Louis did not seem that for which he was created ; neither 
 did planting crops or raising cattle. Tanning is an hon- 
 ourable calling, and, to many, a road to wealth. Grant 
 tried that, but found no gold in the tan-vat. Then he 
 became a listless merchant, a silent, unsociable, and rather 
 moody waiter upon petty traffic. Had Grant died at the 
 tan-yard or behind the counter, the world would never have 
 suspected that it had lost a hero. He would have fallen as 
 an undistinguishable leaf among the millions cast down 
 every year. His time had not come. It was plain that he 
 had no capacity to create his opportunity ; it must find him 
 out, or he would die ignoble and unknown. The oppor- 
 tunity came with that great and terrible war, in which an 
 army of a million on either side met in more than two 
 thousand engagements, and from which, reckoning all that 
 died of wounds, exposure, and sickness, nigh upon a million 
 perished. 
 
 His promotion and success were continuous. In June, 
 1 See Eulogy of General Grant, by Henry Ward Beecher.
 
 THE PARKS. 69 
 
 1 86 1, he was colonel of the 2ist regiment of Illinois in- 
 fantry ; in August he was brigadier-general of volunteers ; in 
 1862 he was made major-general of volunteers, and in 
 1864 having been previously made major-general in the 
 regular army for his victory at Vicksburg, which surrendered 
 on July 4, 1863, with 31,600 prisoners and 172 cannon 
 he was promoted to the grade of lieutenant-general, and to 
 the command of all the armies of the United States. 
 
 His supreme object was the maintenance of the Union, 
 which he regarded, and which all rational men who love 
 America must regard, as inseparable from her national 
 greatness. Happily this maintenance was also inseparably 
 connected, although not in his mind the superior motive, 
 with the emancipation of the slave. 
 
 Grant, like all true heroes, was generous to the van- 
 quished. At the close of the war he sent them home with 
 food, and with horses to use on their farms. When Rich- 
 mond was conquered, he did not enter, but turned aside 
 and went to Washington. When General Johnson, who 
 succeeded Lincoln as President, would have General Lee 
 apprehended, Grant protested against this revengeful spirit, 
 and the proposal was withdrawn. 
 
 Clouds gathered round the setting sun. To increase his 
 income (how was it that the hero of a hundred fights 
 was not provided with abundance ? ) he went into a 
 banking business, was defrauded by two of the partners, 
 and suddenly, when he thought himself a millionaire, was a 
 ruined man. Then he wrote his autobiography, which 
 realised, it is said, half a million dollars. Then cancer 
 came to end this strange, eventful history. Two generals of 
 the Federal army, Sherman and Sheridan, walked on one 
 side of his bier, two generals of the Confederate forces, 
 Johnston and Buckner, on the other.
 
 7O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 It was my privilege to converse with officers who had 
 fought against each other. I was deeply impressed by the 
 reticence which they made their rule, whenever it was pos- 
 sible, with regard to the war; and I shall never lose my 
 admiration of their mutual sorrowful respect when they 
 were constrained to speak, and of the absence of all pride 
 on the part of the victors, and of all bitterness on the part 
 of the vanquished. There was a quiet, solemn tenderness 
 which was most pathetic, and which stirred the soul with 
 pity. There was " the child's heart in the brave man's 
 breast." I was reminded of that touching scene in the 
 Sacred History in which the old prophet brings the body of 
 the man of God for burial in his own grave, and they 
 mourned over him, saying, "Alas, my brother." 
 
 There are wounds which never cease to throb in lone 
 lives and desolate homes, in the memory of widows, and 
 fatherless children, and brotherless sisters, and maidens 
 who were betrothed to the slain, 
 
 " She only said, 'The night is dreary, 
 
 He conieth not,' she said ; 
 She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, 
 I would that I were dead ! ' " 
 
 and from these I heard, in one or two instances, a few hard 
 vindictive words ; but from the men who went through that 
 awful ordeal, who for four years bore the burden and heat 
 of the battle from the soldiers, taught by the suffering 
 which they felt and saw to sympathise with all who suffer, 
 there was no utterance which was not restrained, refined, 
 and dignified by the anxious sense of a grave responsiblity, 
 and by the humble gratitude of a great deliverance. 
 
 Proceeding on our drive, and taking a turn to the left, 
 we come suddenly upon the Hudson River. For me the 
 
 Hudson, 
 
 " Broad and deep, and brimming over,"
 
 THE PARKS. /I 
 
 has a life, a glory, a freshness and energy, which make it of 
 all rivers king. Byron offered due and beautiful praise to 
 the majestic Rhine, as an exulting and abounding river, 
 making its waves a blessing as they flow ; but the width of 
 the Hudson is thrice that of the Rhine, and the antiquities 
 on the banks of the latter stream the crumbling ruins and 
 the dear dirty old towns are only to be preferred by luna- 
 tics to the pleasant homes amid the tree-clad hills, in the 
 new verdure of the spring, the welcome umbrage of the 
 summer, and the vivid splendour of the fall. As to 
 
 " Tiber, Father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray," 
 
 it is difficult pace, Lord Macaulay to believe that the 
 Romans, who were a sagacious nation, could ever have 
 expected satisfactory results from their supplications to this 
 narrow and discoloured stream ; and the insignificant canal 
 which flows through the capital of France, hardly deep 
 enough to drown les miserable*, who afterwards reappear in 
 la morgue, can be regarded only as a subject for condolence ; 
 but what shall I say of our own great river, our beautiful, 
 bountiful Thames, which flows by the most famous school, 
 the most famous university, the most famous palace, and 
 the most famous city in the world, Eton, Oxford, Windsor 
 and London, which passes hundreds of lovely gardens 
 and parks : 
 
 "The stately homes of England, 
 
 How beautiful they stand, 
 Amid their tall ancestral trees, 
 
 Through all the pleasant land. 
 The deer across their greensward bound 
 
 In shade and sunny gleam, 
 And the swan glides past them with the sound 
 
 Of some rejoicing stream."
 
 72 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Which glides, through haunts of tranquil, happy peace, to 
 dockyards crowded with the ships which sail on every sea, 
 to the school of warriors and the factories of war at Woolwich 
 guns and shot and shell which make us think of 
 Longfellow's lines : 
 
 " Were half the power thnt fills the world with terror, 
 
 Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
 But given to redeem the human mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals nor forts." 
 
 How shall we compare this river with the Hudson? Why 
 should we compare them at all? Their charms, their asso- 
 ciations are altogether different and distinct : they do not 
 invite comparison. Some men lose half the enjoyment, the 
 appreciation of the beautiful, by their contrasts and measure- 
 ments : " they have seen, or a friend has seen, larger 
 specimens. There is an example, a hundred miles away, in 
 a better state of preservation." I ask their leave to con- 
 centrate my admiration on that which presents itself to be 
 admired. And though the glorious Hudson transcends in 
 grandeur, and, so far as size is concerned, 
 
 " In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes 
 Of hanging mountains and of sloping greens," 
 
 yet has she charms and associations specially her own. I 
 love them both ; but this I am bound to say, that we have 
 nothing in London and I have seen nothing elsewhere 
 in the same class of scenery, so attractive, with such infinite 
 capabilities of future development, as the New York River- 
 side Park, by which I returned with my friend, the superin- 
 tendent, at the end of a delightful day.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. 
 
 Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, 
 One, who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 
 
 When he called the flowers, all blue and golden, 
 Stars which on earth's firmament do shine. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 I PASS instinctively from the park to the gardens, because, 
 as a rule, they adjoin each other, and because the for- 
 ester and the florist are brothers, inseparable as the twins of 
 Siam. And now my faith in compensation, 
 
 " Good counteracting ill and gladness woe," 
 
 is confirmed by the fact that, although we have not in our 
 English autumn the vivid splendour, the golden, crimson 
 glory of the American trees, and cannot vie from want of 
 sunshine with our Transatlantic brethren in their pro- 
 duction of perfect flowers under glass, we have sweet con- 
 solations in our cloudland, in our milder alternations of heat 
 and cold, in our green fields and lawns, and in the infinite 
 variety of efflorescence which we enjoy for nine months out 
 of the twelve, from the first snowdrop to the last Christmas 
 rose. Even in London, the mart of all things beautiful, the 
 queen of flowers is not to be seen during the winter months, 
 as in New York, in her royal beauty ; but, from the end of 
 May to the end of October, " there is a rose looking in at 
 the window " chiefly of Gloire de Dijon and the old China 
 monthly of the castle and the cottage alike.
 
 74 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 And herein, when I am speaking of rich and poor, I find 
 a further argument for my belief in compensation in the 
 equal distribution*of those gifts which are most essential to 
 our real happiness, and in the ju.st balance of good and evil. 
 Not only in continents and climates and nations, but in our 
 counties and hills and valleys, and to each individual man, 
 to the lord of ten thousand acres and to the peasant with 
 his "rood of ground," there is the same capacity, and 
 however different the surroundings may seem the same 
 sphere of enjoyment. There are thousands of poor folks 
 who love their tiny gardens and their window plants hav- 
 ing little else to love more dearly than the rich their 
 grand parterres ; thousands who have as much delight in 
 " the greenhouse " about the size of a four-post bed 
 as could be had in the huge dome of glass which Mr. Jay 
 Gould has raised on the banks of the Hudson, or in the 
 Crystal Palace itself. 
 
 And now, having said so much, and having so much 
 to say, in praise of my brother- florists, I must anticipate 
 accusations of blind partiality by the confession that our 
 community is human, subject to infirmities and to degrada- 
 tions from those who call themselves gardeners but are 
 unworthy of the name. My wife and a friend returned 
 from their first inspection of the streets of New York with 
 some beautiful chrysanthemums, suffused with a golden hue, 
 unknown, unequalled. In honour of its excellence, so the 
 vender informed his purchaser, it bore the proud title of 
 " Christopher Columbus," and it was indeed a new dis- 
 covery in the world of flowers. We were admiring this 
 treasure when, in appropriate coincidence, Mr. May, from 
 New Jersey, one of the most famous growers of chrysan- 
 themums in the States, was announced, and as soon as we 
 had exchanged civilities we lost no time in introducing to
 
 FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. 75 
 
 our visitor, with all the pride of ownership, our new acqui- 
 sition. We were surprised to see that Christopher evoked 
 no signs of that respectful admiration which is usually 
 expressed for the illustrious mariner. On the contrary, he 
 was surveyed with a disdainful smile, which quickly devel- 
 oped into muffled laughter, and was followed by the brief 
 verdict of condemnation, " Buncombe ! " Then the judge 
 informed us that this flower, originally white, had been 
 dipped in some chemical composition, and had emerged 
 like a bubble blown from soapsuds, even as 
 
 " prismatic glass 
 
 Its gaudy colours spreads o'er every place ; 
 The face of Nature we no more survey, 
 All glares alike, without distinction gay." 
 
 Some of my English readers may ask, " What is Bun- 
 combe?" Buncombe or bunkum is humbug, sham, 
 deception. Many years ago the member from Buncombe 
 rose in Congress to address the House in a speech so 
 vapid, pointless, so full of platitudes and vain repetitions, 
 that there was a gradual exodus, which became general 
 when the orator informed his audience that he should 
 commend rather than censure their departure, as he 
 "was only speaking for Buncombe," the place which he 
 represented. 
 
 Judge Halliburton, of Nova Scotia, the author of " Sam 
 Slick," has informed us that all over America the electors 
 like to hear of their elected as taking part in Congress, and 
 that if there is no report of his speeches they write to inquire 
 whether he is still living, and they thoughtfully add to the 
 direction, " To the trustees, if dead." Should he be still 
 alive, and not in a sinking condition, they would respect- 
 fully intimate that silence does not become the represen-
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 tative of the most enlightened and illustrious city in 
 the world, and that they do not propose to commit the 
 custody of their homes and their property to " dumb dogs 
 that cannot bark." Goaded by this pricking of the spur, 
 and irritated by this shaking of the bit, the sleepy steed is 
 roused into a snort, and feebly essays to prance. He ful- 
 fils Archbishop Whately's definition of a bad speaker, 
 " A man who has nothing to say, and says it," ex nikilo 
 nihil fit. He knows, and everybody knows, that he is 
 talking bunkum. 
 
 " Thus would-be Tullys pompously parade 
 Their timid tropes, for simple bnnkum made; 
 Full on the chair their chilling torrents shower, 
 And work their word-pumps through the allotted hour." 
 
 Bunkum means also misrepresentation, imposture, and 
 fraud ; and I read accordingly in the New York Herald of 
 December 3, 1894, in gigantic capitals, that " CHICAGO 
 ALDERMEN WERE BUNCOMBED. Confidence-man 
 Howard impersonated George W. Turner, agent of the 
 Cigarette Trust, and then got drafts cashed." 
 
 Applied to flowers this form of villainy may be regarded 
 as comparatively harmless ; but it is to the true florist a 
 loathsome profanation, and he groans and writhes to read 
 in a newspaper having a large circulation the solemn 
 announcement that the women and the florists are discuss- 
 ing the question to what extent green carnations and 
 plaided chrysanthemums should be manufactured and 
 worn. A Buffalo " florist " declares that he shall continue 
 to make them as long as the people will buy. He pleads 
 that it is often impossible to supply flowers which exactly 
 match in colour the dress of the lady who requires them, 
 and that in such cases it is quite legitimate to dye the
 
 FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. 77 
 
 flower and produce similarity. What is the harm, he asks, 
 of originating a sky-blue chrysanthemum, or a dappled rose ? 
 Moreover, this barbarian, who 
 
 " Would paint the lily, 
 
 Or throw a perfume on the violet," 
 
 proudly boasts that he can supply societies and institutions 
 with their colours, however mixed, in flowers, and states 
 that at a recent wedding the young couple were from two 
 different colleges, and that in the floral decorations their 
 colours were arranged in combination, each flower being 
 divided into four parts, with their representative tints in 
 alternation ! Happily for the honour of Buffalo, the 
 writer who makes record of this abomination goes on to 
 inform us that other florists in the town, much to the dis- 
 appointment of the women, who like fads, and much to the 
 satisfaction of those who like flowers, object to these per- 
 versions, and decline either to daub or to drug. 
 
 There are, have been, and always will be a number of 
 persons who regard themselves as specially qualified to 
 touch up, improve, counterfeit, and change the workings of 
 the Creator. Like the old Roman Topiarius, they trans- 
 form their evergreen shrubs into ridiculous and impossible 
 peacocks and other silly distortions. Designs in flowers, 
 as a rule, are ludicrous. I read in the chronicles of the 
 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 1 of which I have the 
 great privilege of being an honorary member, that when 
 prizes were offered at an annual exhibition, for the best 
 floral design, there were displayed by the competitive can- 
 didates a temple, a Gothic monument, a Chinese pagoda, 
 
 From a most interesting address made by Mr. Marshal P. Wilder, 
 ex-president of the society, at the Semi-Centennial Anniversary in 
 1879.
 
 78 A LITTLE TOUR IN A AI ERIC A. 
 
 each from fifteen to eighteen feet high, with smaller 
 arrangements, such as a harp, a plough, and a Newfound- 
 land dog, colored with pressed black hollyhocks and gray 
 moss, and carrying a basket of flowers ! 
 
 I had thought, before reading of this monstrosity, that 
 no imagination could have dreamed of anything more dis- 
 gusting in dogs than our British poodle, shaven and shorn 
 in places so as to introduce a series of penwipers on his 
 shivering carcass, a tippet on his neck, and a tag on his 
 tail, and to impart to his tout ensemble an expression of 
 imbecile deformity which sickens the spectator, and makes 
 the victim himself, as it seems to us, painfully aware of his 
 degradation ; but when I try to realise this awful hound, 
 done in black hollyhocks and moss, and to see him, as he 
 must have appeared when the fading of the flowers sug- 
 gested a visitation of mange and a general break-up of 
 the constitution, I at once give him precedence over all 
 other deformities, and could almost find it in my heart 
 to pat the poodle.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 
 
 IT was not possible to accept, as I longed to do, the 
 numerous invitations which I received to visit the 
 gardens of my brother florists, both amateurs and growers 
 for sale, and the welcome which I received, and the sights 
 which I saw, added largely to my regret. My first visit 
 was, by ferry, over the Hudson, and thence by rail, to 
 " The Summit," New Jersey, where Mr. John May has a 
 charming home, which his family have occupied for three 
 generations, and very extensive houses for the cultivation 
 of flowers, roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, violets, etc., 
 etc., under glass ; and it was a most refreshing sight to 
 find at the beginning of winter such a preparation and 
 promise of beautiful flowers in abundance to brighten 
 countless homes in New York and elsewhere, and to " cheer 
 the ungenial day " when all the flowers of the garden lie 
 lifeless beneath their shroud of snow, 
 
 " And on the rude and wintry soil 
 
 To feed the kindling flame of Art, 
 And steal the tropics' blushing spoil, 
 To bloom on Nature's icy heart." 
 
 Roses in thousands, without an aphis, or a leaf curled by 
 mildew ! The varieties which are best adapted for forcing 
 are American Beauty, a grand, vigorous, and well-shaped 
 rose, though it did not succeed in England, where it was 
 known as Madame Ferdinand Jamain, American Belle, 
 Bridesmaid, La France, Catherine Mermet, Madame de
 
 8O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Wasteville, Niphetos, Mrs. C. Whitney, Perle des Jardins, 
 Safrano, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, Pierpoint Morgan, a 
 striking double tea-rose, a seedling from Madame Cusin, 
 and many other hybrid perpetuals and teas raised by Mr. 
 May. 
 
 Rosarians will be interested in the process by which, in 
 consequence of the demand, climatic advantage, and cul- 
 tured skill, their favourite flower is produced in the neigh- 
 bourhood of New York during the winter months more 
 successfully than in any other part of the world. The 
 plants are struck from cuttings in the late autumn in a 
 bottom heat of 65 to 70, potted when they have made 
 roots, in three or four weeks, and, as their roots increase, 
 and before they become "pot-bound," they must have 
 more room, until in June or July they require a six-inch 
 pot. They must be syringed daily, and fumigated weekly, 
 to protect them from red spider, green aphis, and all 
 manner of flies. They may then be transferred from the 
 pots to the benches, which are filled with soil to the depth 
 of five inches, placed four feet from the ground and about 
 six feet from the glass, and having a free drainage. I need 
 hardly add that the soil must be the best which can be had ; 
 for the Queen of the Garden does not "prey on garbage," 
 and should have a liberal addition of some approved fer- 
 tilising manure. The plants should be set about ten or 
 twelve inches apart on all sides, and must be watered over- 
 head and at the roots, in accordance with a constant and 
 careful observation, which will prevent them from being sod- 
 den, as well as from being parched by drought. Tobacco 
 must be used freely, by the usual fumigations, before efflor- 
 escence, and when the roses are in bloom, by placing it 
 on the pathway under the benches, or in the evaporating- 
 pans over the hot-water pipes. It is desirable also to give
 
 THE CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 8 1 
 
 these pipes an occasional coat of sulphur, the best antidote 
 to mildew. 
 
 The Americans cut their roses with much longer stalks 
 than we do, twelve to sixteen inches in length, and thereby 
 obtain a much more varied and graceful arrangement. 
 
 Carnations are also grown at "The Summit" in the full 
 integrity of their form, fragrance, and colour. These are 
 struck from cuttings in the open ground, and brought under 
 cover in October. A beautiful new yellow variety, not yet 
 " sent out," was named, to my honour and delight, " Dean 
 Hole." 
 
 The chrysanthemums were huge, incurved, recurved, 
 quilled, native, Japanese, and their gay tints make them 
 specially welcome for home decoration, when there is a 
 dearth of flowers ; but they become somewhat monotonous 
 when you see them by the mile, in stacks, and it may be 
 that recollections of " Christopher Columbus " 
 
 "repressed my noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of the soul." 
 
 So I turned to enjoy the perfume of some splendid speci- 
 mens of tree mignonette, and to other innumerable attrac- 
 tions in the houses around. 
 
 I saw everything, even to the cool, darkened room in 
 which the roses are retarded from a sudden development, 
 which would diminish their value in the market ; and here 
 fond memories came to me of a time when, on the eve of 
 some great Rose Show, I cut and carried under an um- 
 brella into dens and caves of the earth, outhouses and 
 cellars, certain precious but somewhat precocious specimens, 
 with which I hoped to win the cup. 
 
 Then I rejoiced to find, in a bowling-alley and a read- 
 ing-room, sure evidence that there were other attachments 
 
 6
 
 82 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 besides the paying and receiving of wages between the 
 master and his men, recreation for the body and instruc- 
 tion for the mind. And then, after the genial converse 
 and courteous hospitality of a happy Christian home, I bade 
 farewell to "The Summit." 
 
 My next visit was to the oldest and most famous of the 
 New York horticultural establishments, that of Peter Hen- 
 derson, world-known as a king, a second Peter the Great, 
 among gardeners. He was a man, as his countryman, Dr. 
 John Brown, would have described him, " with brains, sir," 
 and he not only originated and developed a most extensive 
 nursery business, but was an author and an accepted 
 authority on practical horticulture, " Gardening for Profit," 
 " Gardening for Pleasure," and a comprehensive " Hand- 
 book of Plants." He detested humbugs, and when an 
 imposter from Paris advertised and exhibited coloured 
 plates of " blue moss roses," a brief visit from Peter was 
 followed by an immediate " rogue's march " abiit, excessit, 
 evasit, erupit. 
 
 Henderson's denunciation of shams and counterfeits was 
 exasperated by the fact that he had been himself a victim, 
 " buncombed " in his youth. "Dutch Peggy " sold seeds in 
 Washington Market, and persuaded him to purchase a 
 packet of the "new red mignonette." It germinated_and 
 grew vigorously, and in due course presented the proprietor 
 with a blooming little patch of robust red clover ! All 
 sense of shame or feeling of resentment gave way to his 
 delight in the humorous, and with the inconsistency to 
 which we are all so prone, he, whose severe indignation was 
 aroused by the blue moss rose, made merry over the red 
 mignonette. On matters of more grave importance he 
 acted solely upon the evidence of facts. His good judg- 
 ment and strong common sense would never permit him
 
 THE CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 83 
 
 to accept without investigation the dictum of any man, 
 however eminent, on any subject that properly came within 
 the field of his profession. We therefore find him taking 
 issue with Darwin's statement l that certain plants, such as 
 the Drosera, or Sundew, and the Carolina Fly-trap (Dion&a 
 mtiscipula) , are fed by the insects which their wonderful 
 structure enables them to catch. He made a thorough 
 and exhaustive experiment in his greenhouses with four 
 hundred plants of the Carolina Fly-trap, one-half of which 
 were so protected by fine wire netting that, while they had 
 all the necessary light and air, it was impossible for them 
 to receive any sustenance except that derived from the 
 atmosphere and the soil. The remainder of the plants 
 were not only regularly " fed " by hand with flies and other 
 insects, but were also so exposed that any insects in the 
 greenhouse were liable to be entrapped by them. The 
 result was that the most careful comparison failed to show the 
 slightest difference between those that were fed and those 
 that were not fed, and this satisfied him that, if the plants 
 digested the insects placed in the leaf-traps, the food was 
 by no means beneficial. 
 
 Henderson also disputed Mr. Darwin's theory of what he 
 called " graft hybrids," that there was an amalgamation of 
 the stock and the graft, adducing this with other argu- 
 ments, that during the past quarter of a century millions 
 upon millions of pears and apples had been grafted upon 
 millions of stocks, and yet to-day are as true as grapes or 
 strawberries perpetuated by runners or cuttings, and not one 
 of them in any way changed from what it was when it first 
 appeared, unless by the temporary accidents of soil or 
 climate. He expressed his conclusion thus : " I believe 
 that the smallest or the greatest of God's creations has a 
 1 See Memoirs of Peter Henderson, p. 30.
 
 84 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 separate and distinct individuality ; that they cannot be 
 blended except by generation, and that the product of gen- 
 eration whether in the lowest microscopic germ or in the 
 highest type, man has an individuality distinct and separate, 
 that it cannot attach to another." 
 
 I was conducted through the numerous houses, chiefly 
 used for the propagation of plants and the cultivation of 
 roses for the market, by the clansman and namesake of my 
 old friend the Bishop of Brechin, Alexander Forbes, and 
 afterwards presented with copies of Mr. Peter Henderson's 
 books by his son Alfred. 
 
 The next adventure of my " love among the roses " was 
 on the banks of the Hudson. Having lunched at Ardsley 
 Park, the home in which Cyrus Field, the chief promoter of 
 the Atlantic telegraph, 1 received so many distinguished men 
 of his day, and which is still occupied by his daughter, we 
 were conveyed through Irvington and by Washington Irving's 
 house, covered with ivy sent by Sir Walter Scott from 
 Abbotsford, and stayed for a few minutes upon the spot 
 where Major Andre 4 , invited by Benedict Arnold, a traitor 
 to his country, to visit the American lines, was captured on 
 his return, and was afterwards hanged as a spy. Arnold 
 was a brave and accomplished soldier in command at West 
 Point, but is supposed to have been in despair as to ultimate 
 success, and to have distrusted the alliance with France. 
 He therefore made secret proposals to Lord Clinton for the 
 betrayal of his post, and Major Andr was sent to arrange 
 the plan of procedure, which was found in his possession by 
 his captors. His death was deplored with a lamentation 
 which could not be comforted, seeing that he held a very 
 
 1 In the Art Museum, Central Park, New York, the visitor will find 
 a screen covered with most interesting delineations of the laying of 
 the first Atlantic telegraph.
 
 THE CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 85 
 
 high position in the British army, was universally beloved, 
 and was denied " a soldier's death ; " but his mourners 
 seemed to forget the righteous indignation of those who 
 punished him, not only as a spy but as a clandestine con- 
 spirator, as the chief ally of a base, despicable traitor, who 
 was deliberately attempting the defeat of a great army in 
 which he held high command, and the disgrace of a great 
 nation which had the first claim on his love. In 1821, 
 mainly through the intervention of Mr. James Buchanan, 
 then British Consul at New York, I had the pleasure of 
 meeting his grandson on board the Majestic, and of much 
 interesting conversation, the remains of Major Andr6 were 
 removed to Westminster Abbey, and a tablet erected to 
 his memory. Another memorial, which was raised on the 
 spot by Mr. Cyrus Field, after a visit paid to him by Dean 
 Stanley, met with a very different reception, having been 
 shattered into fragments by some explosive material a few 
 nights after its completion. 
 
 Leaving this scene of tragedy, we went on to Scarborough, 
 to Mr. Pearson's nurseries, and all sad thoughts of grim- 
 visaged war and the villainous smell of saltpetre were expelled 
 by the beauty and the fragrance of his flowers ; and we saw 
 the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York 
 united in perpetual peace. Nine houses, each three hun- 
 dred feet in length, were filled with roses in various phases of 
 growth, but all of them in flower and bud and foliage, strong 
 and clean ; some twenty-five thousand plants, from which, 
 last year, over a million roses were cut. 
 
 I have said enough to show that the cultivation of roses 
 under glass during the winter months is, in America, a 
 special and complete success, the result of a combination of 
 sunshine with industrial skill, and impossible when either is 
 absent.
 
 86 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 In the management of the orchid, stove, and greenhouse, 
 we have nothing to learn from our Transatlantic brethren, 
 and in the variety and endurance of hardy flowers we have 
 climatic advantages which they do not possess ; but there 
 is another form of floral production in which, though the 
 capabilities seem to be equal, America takes precedence, 
 the cultivation of aquatic plants. Their enterprise is all 
 the more honourable because it is in most cases beset 
 with difficulty and liable to disastrous issues. The artificial 
 formation of lakes and ponds has not seldom been attended 
 by results which have failed to gratify the organs of sight 
 and smell. In times of flood they have overflowed their 
 banks, and, retiring when the rains abated, have left slimy 
 deposits on the surrounding flower-beds and lawns ; and in 
 times of drought they have gradually disappeared, until life 
 was only possible to the eels in their moist residuum of mud. 
 
 Against these depressing liabilities my friend Mr. William 
 Robinson, who has worked so hard and happily for horti- 
 culture, has done little to enlarge, though he has done so 
 much to encourage and instruct, in his treatise on " the bog- 
 garden," the culture of aquatic plants. Whereas in the 
 parks, public gardens, and cemeteries of the great cities of 
 the States, we find them flourishing in ponds and tanks and 
 basins, with all their charming attractions of colour, fragrance, 
 and form. Of course there must be, first of all, the water 
 naturally or artificially supplied without fear of failure ; and 
 then success depends upon obedience to the one immutable 
 law, " In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." 
 There must be a determination to overcome all obstacles, 
 failures, and disappointments, a keen, continuous observation 
 and patient work. Some aquatic plants are perfectly hardy 
 if grown in congenial soil ; some are half-hardy, like our 
 " bedding plants," and must be taken under cover and
 
 THE CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 87 
 
 " tubbed " in the autumn ; some tender, and can only be 
 placed "out-of-doors" during the warmest weather. To 
 appreciate their exquisite loveliness, the grandeur, the fra- 
 grance of the Nelumbiums and Nymphaas, the royal mag- 
 nificence of the Victoria Regia, with leaves from five to six 
 feet across, and to learn the best methods of cultivation, 
 the traveller who loves flowers should visit from New York 
 the nurseries of Messrs. William Tricker and Co., Clifton, 
 New Jersey, and should obtain from Mr. S. C. Nash, Clifton, 
 New Jersey, " Eighteen Views in a Water Garden." 
 
 The happiest hours which I spent in America were 
 those in which I was entertained by my brother florists, 
 who came not only from New York and the neighbourhood, 
 but from distant parts of the States, the President, Mr. 
 Barry, from Rochester, the Vice-President, Mr. Craig, from 
 Philadelphia, at a dinner in the Savoy Hotel. The large 
 room in which we met was a bower of roses. " The tables, 
 they groaned with the weight, not of the feast, for it was 
 carved elsewhere, but of the flowers." The menu, supplied 
 by Messrs. Tiffany, was worthy of their artistic fame, with 
 roses in the foreground, and in the distance the old deanery 
 of Rochester, and the cathedral roofs beyond. 
 
 I saw for the first time nearly all the faces which were 
 assembled. Many of them were strangers to each other, 
 but where the hands meet which have sown the seed and 
 struck the cuttings, which have grafted, budded, inarched, 
 and hybridised, which have pruned and watered, tended 
 and trained ; when the eyes meet which love to gaze with 
 reverent admiration upon leaf and blossom and bloom, upon 
 " all the green things of the earth," from the moss and the 
 lichen and the hedgerow flower to the sequoia and the 
 orchid, the hearts meet also. I make no claim for my 
 brother gardeners of exemption from immoral debilities,
 
 88 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 "We are the sons of women, Master Page," but I do 
 affirm, from a life's experience, that among true florists 
 ignoring the crowd of pseudonyms there is a reciprocity, 
 sudden but sincere, which I have not seen in any other 
 association. 
 
 I am only a dean, and therefore cannot speak with the 
 infallibility of a pope ; but I believe that there is more 
 reserve and jealousy with authors, Artists, and sportsmen, 
 than there is among gardeners, amateur and professional. 
 
 Moreover, as was said by Mr. Charles A. Dana, described 
 in the published account of our meeting as the leading 
 editor and the leading horticulturist in America, " the 
 zealous florist finds not only flowers, but friends," wherever 
 he may go. Enough to add that we realised from first to 
 last how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell 
 together in unity. Many genial words were spoken, and 
 the most acceptable and appropriate compliment which 
 kind feeling and good taste could have devised was grace- 
 fully offered, when Mr. Craig, with a lovely rose in his hand, 
 informed the company that it was a new debiitante, a 
 seedling tea-rose raised by Mr. John H. Taylor of New 
 York, and that it was to be called "Dean Hole." 1 All 
 too soon came the singing of " Auld Lang Syne," and the 
 separation which was to be final here ; but no distance 
 can dispel the memory or the hope : 
 
 " You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang o'er it still." 
 
 1 I must here express my admiration of another recent introduction 
 to the maids of honour and ladies-in-waiting in the court of the queen 
 of flowers La Belle Siebrecht, in complexion of an exquisite vivid 
 pink, graceful in form, with long tapering buds, fragrant, vigorous, 
 and distinct.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS AT NEW YORK. 
 
 "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side ; 
 Some great cause, God's true Messiah, offering each the bloom or 
 
 blight, 
 
 Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, 
 And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light." 
 
 ON the eve of the municipal election at New York, 
 and of a most momentous crisis in its history, I was 
 ruminating, as I drove along the banks of the Hudson, 
 upon the recent revelations of tyranny and villainy, of cor- 
 rupt and abominable wickedness in high places, which were 
 not only tacitly acknowledged by the culprits, by the silence 
 which gives consent, but by evidence as foul and nauseous 
 in its details of guilt as it was conclusive in its condemna- 
 tion of the guilty. A system of corruption, bribery, and 
 blackmailing, which had grown worse and worse. Both 
 political parties had resorted to it so largely in the past 
 that each was expected to neutralise the other, and it 
 seemed as though men thought that the elections would 
 become pure by an antithetical quality of crime. 1 
 
 This open conspiracy and comfortable collusion was 
 occasionally interrupted by the protests of honest men, 
 but these were but as boulders in a stream, which divert 
 for a moment the current of the water, but do not weaken 
 its power. Sometimes a mistake was made in the selection 
 
 1 From a speech made by the Hon. St. Clair McKelway at a dinner 
 of the Chamber of Commerce in New York, 1893.
 
 90 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 for office of a man who unexpectedly developed a con- 
 science, and made himself offensive by suggesting a certain 
 amount of discrimination between good and evil, and by 
 exhibiting a perverse disinclination to tell the more elaborate 
 lies ; but honour, as a rule, was considered to be squeamish, 
 and the vilest stratagem was condoned by success. Fraudu- 
 lent registrations, votes subtracted and others substituted 
 by tampering with the ballot-boxes, were artifices in com- 
 mon vogue. Large sums were paid for appointments ; but 
 all this was harmless and venial when compared with the 
 foul enormities which, when I arrived at New York, had 
 raised the righteous disgust and indignation of all honest 
 men, who had not hitherto believed in such rank atrocities, 
 or had been deterred by their reluctance to take part in 
 public affairs, or by some personal motives, from making 
 ready for the battle. When they were convinced by the 
 evidence given before the public committee of inquiry that 
 large sums were systematically received from those who 
 were violating the law, for immunity from its punishments, 
 by those who were authorised and paid to enforce them ; 
 that levies were made by the police on those who kept 
 houses of ill-fame ; that numerous warrants were issued by 
 police justices and officials against persons who were accused 
 of performing criminal operations, but that none of them 
 were convicted or ever brought to trial ; that one doctor 
 declared that he had paid $2,825 within six weeks, 1 to 
 extortioners receiving the wages of iniquity, they awoke 
 at last in an amazement of shame and fear. 
 
 The report made by the Lexow Committee, and adopted 
 
 by the Chamber of Commerce of New York, not only 
 
 affirms that in a very large number of the elections of the 
 
 city almost every conceivable crime against the election 
 
 1 Quoted in the New York Herald, November 4th, 1894.
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS AT NEW YORK. 91 
 
 franchise was either committed or permitted by the police, 
 invariably in the interest of the dominant democratic organi- 
 sation, commonly called Tammany Hall, but that they had 
 been guilty of brutality, blackmailing, receiving bribes from 
 disorderly houses and abortionists, violating the excise laws, 
 waste of the public money, and of connivance with almost 
 every species of corruption and of crime. 
 
 So it had come to this, as Dr. Parkhurst said in one of 
 the most eloquent and powerful sermons I ever read, and 
 which he preached on the Sunday before the election, 
 standing between the dead and the living, that the plague 
 might be stayed, that " the election on Tuesday would be 
 practically neither more nor less than a vote on the Ten 
 Commandments." It was between God and Satan, Christ 
 and Antichrist. It was not only a battle for the honour or 
 dishonour of New York, of America, it was a contest be- 
 tween civilisation and barbarism, rule and disorder, religion 
 and infidelity, of tremendous interest and supreme impor- 
 tance to the world. 
 
 But what, . or who, was Tammany? The Tammany 
 society was named, no one knows why, after a famous 
 Indian chief of the Delaware tribe, and was originally con- 
 stituted for social and charitable purposes, assuming a dra- 
 matic form, having " sachems " and a " grand sachem," 
 wearing their distinctive orders and insignia of office. 
 Gradually it became political, democratic, a ring, a caucus, 
 tyrannical, corrupt, unscrupulous. 
 
 Mr. Bryce, in his standard work on " The American Com- 
 monwealth," gives an exhaustive history of its proceedings 
 from its rise to its fall. It includes a remarkable illustra- 
 tion of the power which human genius possesses to exalt 
 itself from the lowest to the highest positions. Fernando 
 Wood, who became the most influential demagogue, and
 
 92 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 ultimately the mayor of New York, was currently reported 
 to have entered that city as the artificial leg of an elephant 
 in a travelling show ! 
 
 I was musing about these matters on the banks of the 
 Hudson, and its weeping-willows reminded me of the trees 
 by the waters of Babylon, with the silent harps of the chil- 
 dren of Israel hanging upon their boughs. I was thinking 
 of a captivity far more miserable than theirs, of prisoners 
 tied and bound with the chain of their sins, when, looking 
 onward and upward, I saw an eagle soaring above us, as 
 though it had risen from the city, and was mounting 
 heavenward ; and it seemed to me, and to those who were 
 with me, a most auspicious omen, and indicative of the 
 victory which next day was won, the Bird of Freedom, 
 released from his filthy cage, to return to his royal throne 
 on the mountains, 
 
 "... and, unblenched, 
 Bathe in the bickerings of the noontide blaze." 
 
 The deliverance thus prefigured came on the morrow. 
 The priests blew with the trumpets, and the walls of 
 Jericho fell down. From the people and from the press 
 there came a shout, so long suppressed that it was like the 
 roar of a lion, and Tammany Hall collapsed in ruin. 
 " New York," in the words of one of its foremost news- 
 papers, "was delivered from the most demoralising and 
 corrupt misrule that ever cursed a great city, and was 
 emancipated from official abuses which have oppressed its 
 citizens and blighted its material interests beyond the limit 
 of endurance. 
 
 I shall never forget the solemn impression which was 
 made by that election on the minds of thoughtful men. 
 By mere partisans it was only regarded as a political success,
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS AT NEW YORK. 93 
 
 and they exulted in the discomfiture of their opponents. 
 The foolish shouted until they were hoarse, and drank until 
 they were drunk ; but the wise were restrained in their 
 rejoicing by the exposure of an infamous degradation, by 
 their sudden escape from the thraldom of the oppressor, 
 and by their responsibilities to amend and reform. They 
 seemed to feel, as many of us have felt when we were 
 brought by some strange accident face to face with death, 
 and, when the peril was past, we saw how near and terrible 
 it had been in the light of the Love which had come to 
 save. 
 
 I called on Dr. Parkhurst, having been assured of a wel- 
 come, to express my respectful sympathy. His character, 
 his courage, his oratory, had won for him troops of friends ; 
 but adversaries, like fat bulls of Bashan, surrounded him on 
 every side. He who goes in pursuit of skunks must be 
 prepared for offensive odours ; and it was not only the 
 abjects at the corners of the streets, who were on the out- 
 look for plunder, nor the knaves and rogues, who were 
 already in enjoyment, who mocked and jeered and imputed 
 evil motives, the only motives they know; nor was it 
 only the sceptics and the sensualists, who affected, like 
 Gallic, sublime indifference ; not only those who declare 
 that all men and women are vendible at a price, and that 
 there should be free trade without protective duties in vice, 
 but professors of religion, and virtuous philosophers, and 
 citizens of the highest respectability, remembered engage- 
 ments in an opposite direction when the trumpet called 
 them to the battle-field. 
 
 Dr. Parkhurst anticipated the animosities, the hindrances, 
 the disappointments, which he was sure to meet, and he 
 made his preparations. He knew that false witnesses 
 would be suborned, who were not averse to perjury, and
 
 94 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 " would lie with such volubility that you would think truth 
 was a fool." So he went, with a companion, and with a 
 brave, sad heart, to see and hear for himself, into the 
 haunts of the defiled and the drunken, that he might speak 
 that which he had seen, and testify that which he knew, of 
 mad orgies and filthy revels, which were permitted by the 
 police and those who had control of the police, on payment 
 of a bribe. His conduct was denounced as indelicate, un- 
 becoming the dignity of his ministerial office ; but he did 
 not heed, remembering that he was the servant of One who 
 sat down with publicans and sinners, and told His disciples 
 to go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and seek 
 that which was lost. As well might they have protested 
 against a physician visiting the fever wards of the hospital, 
 an advocate of temperance intruding into the home of the 
 drunkard, a sanitary commissioner examining sewers, or an 
 analyst detecting poison. 
 
 When the battle was won and the tyranny overpast, 
 which had made the very name of Tammany a synonym 
 throughout the civilised world of corrupt politics and 
 riotous abuse, which had debauched the public service, 
 blighted the material interests, and sullied the fair fame of 
 New York, I had the privilege, as I have stated, of offer- 
 ing my congratulations to him who had been foremost in 
 the fight. He was free, as I foresaw, from all pride of 
 conquest ; very thankful, but more anxious about the future 
 than jubilant as to the past, confiding chiefly in the right- 
 eous disgust and indignation which this exposure should 
 evoke in the hearts of all honest men, and especially in the 
 nobler ambitions and purer morality of the rising generation. 
 
 I have referred to Dr. Parkhurst as the most prominent 
 champion against the vile corruptions of the Tammany 
 tyrants at the time of the annual municipal elections. I
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS AT NEW YORK. 95 
 
 need hardly add that all true Christians were on his side. 
 Bishop Potter, of New York, had long ago denounced the 
 conspiracy with all the earnest, eloquent vigour of his zeal, 
 and the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church of Amer- 
 ica were of one heart and voice and vote. 
 
 My American friends well know, and I desire to assure 
 my American readers, that I am not posing as a virtuous 
 foreigner, startled and distressed by iniquities unknown in 
 my native land. I am not oblivious of Acts of Parliament 
 for the -prevention and punishment of bribery ; of elected 
 members who have been unseated on account of an indis- 
 creet and exuberant generosity to those who secured their 
 election ; of titular honours conferred upon stupid people, 
 and lucrative appointments upon idle folks, because they 
 were keen partisans. I affirm, nevertheless, and all the 
 more boldly, because the Americans have again and again 
 made the same declaration, that the reckless greed of 
 political power and selfish appropriations had never wrought 
 such infamous abasement ; and that by both nations, and 
 by the world, this history of the Tammany fraud should be 
 remembered by all who, dressed with a little brief authority, 
 are tempted to abuse and defile it.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 WE were taught, and it was one of our earliest and 
 wisest lessons, that our faculty of criticism was 
 designed for personal as well as for general application, and 
 that householders who throw stones in a street imperil 
 their own windows. John and Jonathan live in houses of 
 glass, and if they take to missiles, to slings and catapults, 
 "there will be the glazier to pay." We have no 
 records of municipal corruption so gross as those of the 
 Tammany Ring, and the members of our House of Com- 
 mons have a fairer reputation than the members of Congress 
 with regard to compensations in cash ; but though the galled 
 jade wince, our own withers are not unwrung, and we can- 
 not present ourselves as accusers of the brethren when we 
 remember the brisk business which we have done in the 
 buying and selling of votes, appointments, and honours. 
 
 It will probably be affirmed by both nations that we have 
 the higher political standard, that the Americans are not as 
 a rule represented by their best men, because their best 
 men have not the same ambition; but in other matters 
 connected with morality there is, so far as my impressions 
 convinced me, a strong family likeness. And if I am asked 
 what my impressions are worth, I can only make answer 
 that, although I was little more than four months in the 
 States, I was continually where men most do congregate, 
 in large hotels, at public receptions, on the rail, and on 
 river boats, and that I kept my eyes and my ears open.
 
 EDUCA TION. 97 
 
 I do not accept as an absolute rule the maxim fronti 
 nulla fides, having a large faith in physiognomy, but I did 
 not draw my conclusions from superficial amenities, being 
 aware that the case and face of a clock may be kept in a 
 high state of polish, and that its hands may be accurately 
 adjusted from time to time in accordance with the time of 
 day, however worthless may be the works within, and 
 having known from boyhood that the big strawberry at the 
 top of the pottle is not to be regarded as an exact sample 
 of the contents of the cornucopia. 
 
 There are three special cases in which a visitor to New 
 York might be deceived by hasty and partial observation. 
 He might infer, from the absence of intoxicating liquors at 
 the luncheons and dinners in the hotels and restaurants, a 
 natural dislike and disuse of alcohol ; he might suppose, 
 from the absence of military costumes, I do not remember 
 to have seen a soldier in uniform when I was in the States, 
 that the American knew nothing of war ; and he might 
 hope, when he saw, to the honour of this great city, no 
 courtesans in the streets, that there was an immunity from 
 sexual vice : but he must be convinced too sadly and too 
 soon that the infatuation of drunkenness is poisoning the 
 blood, enfeebling the reason, pauperising the condition of 
 multitudes alike on either side of the Atlantic ; that no 
 nation, unless it be France, has suffered so much in modern 
 times from the horrors of war as America, and that, though 
 she possesses but a diminutive army in proportion to her 
 possessions, " it is capable " as I once heard her ambas- 
 sador to this country say, with just the suspicion of a smile 
 upon his face " it is capable of enlargement ; " and he is 
 compelled to bewail, had he no other evidence than that 
 which was attested before the Lexow Committee, that the 
 depraved, if they do not meet with temptation, will go in 
 search until they find. 7
 
 98 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 It must be added that no nation has been more vehement 
 in its denunciations of drunkenness or more energetic in 
 attempts to suppress it, and that, although in America, as 
 in England, the larger facilities for divorce seem to have 
 increased the number of applicants, there is no country in 
 which conjugal infidelity evokes a more fervid indignation, 
 especially in the case of public men. 
 
 I came to the conclusion that, while taking into consider- 
 ation the difference in our surroundings and temptations, 
 neither of us could say, " Stand by ; I am better than 
 thou ; " that in both cases the area for improvement is 
 infinite, and that the method by which this waste can be 
 reclaimed, and this desert made to blossom as the rose, is a 
 system of culture which is the only one sure to succeed, 
 and the only complete education. In this matter, the most 
 important of all, there came to me the one great disappoint- 
 ment of my visit to the States. Christianity is not taught, 
 as a rule, to the children of those who profess and call 
 themselves Christians. Parents and teachers unite, like 
 the Gadarenes, in beseeching the Divine Master to depart 
 out of their coasts. 
 
 So far as secular education is concerned, the administra- 
 tion is admirable, and the appliances are perfect. It is 
 delightful to visit the kindergartens, the public schools, the 
 high schools, the technical schools, the normal schools for 
 the training of teachers, the colleges, and the universities j 
 but it is disheartening to find again and again that there is 
 no religious instruction, no prayers, no place for worship. 
 
 There is a noble and generous enthusiasm for the mental 
 and physical training of the young. In 1867 George 
 Peabody established a fund of $2,100,000, increased in 
 1869 to $3,500,000, to be devoted to education in the 
 Southern States of the Union. In 1882 Mr. John F.
 
 EDUCATION. 99 
 
 Slater, of Connecticut, placed in the hands of trustees the 
 sum of $ i, 000,000, for the purpose of uplifting the lately 
 emancipated population of the Southern States and their 
 posterity. This is magnificent, so far as it goes ; but if, as 
 we Christians believe, man, made in the image of his Maker, 
 has also a Trinity in Unity, his body, mind, and soul, 
 this education is imperfect, and "a vast machine, supported 
 at a public charge, is engaged in educating the children of 
 the nation to ignore religion." 
 
 These latter words are of American utterance, 1 and I am 
 thankful to express my convictions in the language of 
 those who cannot be accused, as strangers might be, of 
 ignorance, presumption, prejudice, or haste. " The igno- 
 rance of the Bible among students in our public schools 
 and colleges furnishes a curious illustration of the inad- 
 equacy of our educational machine to meet the require- 
 ments of life. It is significant also of a deeper miscarriage 
 of our social and political life. We seem to be astonished 
 that we cannot have public virtue without private virtue, 
 and that a fair legislative and executive machine will not 
 produce an honest and temperate community. We have 
 got into a habit of looking to legislation for everything, and 
 if legislation will not answer, then to a change of the 
 organic or constitutional law. The first thought that occurs 
 to us about any evil in the social body is that we ought to 
 legislate about it, and it does not often strike us that the 
 only real cure is personal and individual reform. We 
 know, in an oratorical sense, that we cannot have a good 
 state without good citizens ; but at the same time we think 
 that we can reform political corruption, the shameless 
 traffic in votes and in offices, that we can cast out the lobby 
 from our legislative halls, and stop the members of the 
 1 The Century Magazine for June, 1895.
 
 IOO A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Legislature from taking money for passing laws or for re- 
 jecting bills, or for voting for senators and other officers, 
 by some other method than by making voters and legislators 
 honest and honourable. The reform of the individual must 
 take place before there is any real reform. Nor can we 
 escape the analogy between our political and educational 
 schemes. There is a defect somewhere that is the common 
 root of the lack in both. Take this matter of ignorance of 
 the Bible, so great that the pupils are unable to under- 
 stand many of the allusions in the masterpieces of English 
 poetry and prose. The Bible is in itself almost a liberal 
 education, as many great masters in literature have testified. 
 It has so entered into law, literature, thought, the whole 
 modern life of the Christian world, that ignorance of it is a 
 most serious disadvantage to the student." 1 Disadvan- 
 tage ! Say rather darkness, with no lantern, no light upon 
 the path. The time comes, Lord Bacon wrote, when every 
 man must leave the pinnace of mere reason and embark 
 upon the ship which has the true sea-needle. To take 
 the Bible from the school is nothing less than to take 
 chart and compass, helm and anchor, from the soul. 
 
 It is argued that the main object of education was to 
 produce an intelligent vote, seeing that all alike are voters, 
 and that it was the interest as well as the duty of a govern- 
 ment to make the best of its citizens ; but " if it is the 
 primary right and duty of the State to give whatever educa- 
 tion is necessary for good citizenship, it is self-evident that 
 it is its primary right and duty to give education in moral 
 principles, and training to the moral impulses and will. 
 Few agnostics of any sort can be found who will aver that 
 good citizenship can be developed by educating the in- 
 
 1 Harper's Magazine, March, 1895.
 
 EDUCATION. 10 1 
 
 tellect and leaving the animal propensities unregulated by 
 the conscience and the will. 1 
 
 Are we then to substitute morality for religion? Are we 
 to revert from the revelations of the gospel to the reason- 
 ings of the philosophers on virtue and vice? Are we to 
 exchange the creeds of the Church for the disputations of 
 the Epicureans and Stoics, to leave the Saviour for " the 
 unknown god?" Morality may be only a sentiment, an 
 admiration without an effort, an arm-chair aspiration, which 
 satisfies itself with a sigh. It may be a policy without a 
 principle, mere worldliness, fear of exposure, or hope of 
 recompense. Unless you have a very large income, or 
 influence, you must have, or seem to have, a considerable 
 amount of morals for success. You cannot be a member 
 of Parliament, or a mayor, or a curate, or a butler, or a 
 policeman, without them. They are often constitutional, 
 climatic, conventional. "What will people think? What 
 will the world say? Is it genteel? Will it be in the news- 
 papers ? " Mere morality passes quickly from confidence 
 to despair, because it is self-reliant. It lacks the high 
 motives, the steadfast faith, the sure and certain hope, the 
 unselfish charity, the divine instructions and communions, 
 which Christianity alone can confer. 
 
 I do not think that our kinsmen over the seas are less 
 religious than we are, or less reverent at heart, though they 
 may be so superficially, with regard to sacred things ; but I 
 am quite sure that on either shore there is an immediate 
 and momentous need of the only education Christian 
 education which can realise the design and dignity of 
 our manhood, and can establish upon secure foundations 
 the true grandeur and happiness of a nation. There are 
 great difficulties, because there are great differences in the 
 1 The Rev. Lyman Abbott.
 
 102 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 minds of men as to matters of doctrine and discipline ; but 
 they are not insuperable, and might be removed by an 
 equitable adjustment, organised in a spirit of mutual for- 
 bearance by those who are sincerely anxious that children 
 should be taught, in the school as well as in the home, the 
 vital truths of their faith. 
 
 Denominations are as numerous as with us. There are, 
 for example, thirteen varieties of Baptists and seventeen 
 of Methodists. Religious animosities are as rife, the odium 
 theologicum as bitter. The following oath is taken by a new 
 member of "The American Protective Association," which 
 announces that it has two million names on its enrolment : 
 " I do most solemnly promise and swear that I will not 
 allow any one, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 knowing him to be such, to become a member of this 
 order ; I will not employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity 
 if I can procure the services of a Protestant ; I will do all 
 in my power to retard and break down the power of the 
 Pope ; and I will not countenance in any caucus or conven- 
 tion the nomination of a Roman Catholic for any office in 
 the gift of the people." 
 
 On the other hand, the Romans tacitly ignore all other 
 Christians, on whom St. Peter, with the keys, has shut the 
 gates of the holy city, and left them out in the cold, 
 although we do not always find within the walls that perfect 
 peace and congruity of which there is so much proclama- 
 tion, nor behold how good and joyful a thing it is for 
 brethen to dwell together in unity. I read in the Denver 
 Republican of January 29, 1895, in a paragraph headed 
 " Bloody Fight at a Grave," that a funeral party occupying 
 seven carriages arrived at the Cemetery of the Holy Sepul- 
 chre, which belongs to the Church of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment at New Rochelle, on the preceding day, and that one
 
 EDUCATION. 103 
 
 of the mourners finding that the sexton, in consequence 
 of some obstructions in the soil, had dug a temporary 
 grave away from the place assigned to the family, de- 
 nounced him so furiously that the man lost his self- 
 command and struck his assailant, whereupon the funeral 
 party pulled out the wooden crosses from the surrounding 
 graves, and a general fight ensued. The combatants were 
 finally separated by the drivers and other spectators. 
 
 There as everywhere we find extremists, from those who 
 misrepresent religion, and make it a burden which neither 
 we nor our fathers were able to bear, to those who ignore 
 all its obligations, and only accept its name ; from the 
 stern, " gloom-pampered " Puritans, the descendants of 
 " Bruise-them-with-a-rod-of-iron-and-break-them-in-pieces- 
 like-a-potter's-vessel Jenkins," " Wash-our-footsteps-in-the- 
 blood-of-our-enemies Smith," " Let-their-wives-be-widows- 
 and-their-children-vagabonds Brown," to those who, if they 
 dare, would make a jest of religion, and would say, 
 
 " I du believe in special ways 
 O' prayin' and convartin' ; 
 The bread comes back in many days, 
 And buttered tu, fer sartin ; 
 I mean in preyin' till one busts 
 On wut the party chooses, 
 And in convartin' public trusts 
 To very privit uses." 1 
 
 But between these extremes between fanaticism and 
 unbelief, between the Quixotes and the Falstaffs, between 
 the wild skirmishers, the Bashi-Bazouks, and the camp- 
 followers who wait upon an army as sharks and sea-gulls on 
 a ship, there is a great company of Christian soldiers ; and 
 it is that these may learn as recruits the only complete 
 
 1 Lowell's Biglow Papers, No. VI.
 
 IO4 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 discipline, that they may be armed with the best weapons 
 and know how to use them, that they may be endued with 
 the only courage which has no fear of death, that they may 
 be more than conquerors, because their victory will win an 
 eternal peace, it is for this that we desire in our hearts 
 and demand from those in authority the one thing needful, 
 a religious education.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 THERE are, of course, in America as in England, a 
 great number of theological colleges and church 
 schools. To the first in origin and importance of these 
 institutions, the "Theological Seminary of New York," I 
 was most kindly escorted by one of its professors on 
 November 14, 1894 ; and I mention the date because by 
 one of those coincidences which occur not infrequently, but 
 always seem phenomenal, mysterious, and strange on that 
 very day, ten years ago, my companion and I had met at 
 Aberdeen to commemorate the consecration of his great- 
 grandfather, Samuel Seabury, as the first bishop in the 
 United States. 
 
 I have assisted at many interesting ecclesiastical func- 
 tions, and I have witnessed the gorgeous ceremonies of the 
 Romans at Rome ; but I was never more solemnly im- 
 pressed than when a devout multitude of bishops and 
 priests, learned doctors of divinity and professors of the- 
 ology, and noble lords of high degree, and other earnest 
 laymen, were gathered together from all parts of the world, 
 from Africa, America, England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
 in the cathedral Church of St. Andrew, at Aberdeen, to 
 celebrate the centenary of the consecration, in the place 
 where he was consecrated, of Samuel Seabury, the first 
 American Bishop. Men whose homes were more than
 
 106 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 four thousand miles apart, but who had the same spiritual 
 sympathies and the same instincts of brotherly love, met 
 each other as though they had been friends for life. It 
 was like a family party assembled at Christmastide. Brother 
 clasped the hand of brother in that dearest of all homes, 
 the church. Great was the company of the preachers : 
 Bishop Doane, of Albany, who inherits the eloquence and 
 energy of his episcopal father, George, Bishop of New 
 Jersey, and of whom I have more to say ; Bishop Whipple, 
 of Minnesota, the Apostle of the Indians ; Bishop Williams, 
 of Connecticut, the fourth from Seabury ; Dr. Seabury, 
 his great-grandson ; Dr. Morgan Dix ; and, among the 
 speakers, the Bishops of Maritzburg, Winchester, Edin- 
 burgh, Aberdeen, St. Andrews, Gibraltar, Meath, Down, 
 and Connor; Lords Lothian, Nelson, Aberdeen, and 
 Glasgow. . 
 
 The chief subject of thankful congratulation was the 
 marvellous increase and organisation of episcopal authority 
 which had followed the consecration of Seabury. The 
 Marquis of Lothian said : " There is not a square mile in 
 any part of the United States, with the sole exception of a 
 portion of Alaska, that is not embraced in the episcopal 
 jurisdiction of a diocese or a missionary episcopate." 
 
 The Bishop of St. Andrews said : " In representing for 
 the moment our Scottish Church, and looking to our 
 daughter church as it now exists in America, I fancy my- 
 self like old King Priam and his fifty sons, all married, and 
 each with a numerous and prosperous family, quin- 
 quaginta illi thalami ; spes tanta nepotum ! The spes tanta, 
 the so great hope, has been more than fulfilled. The fifty 
 thalami are represented by sixty dioceses, besides missionr 
 ary sees. The number of nepotes has increased during the 
 century to four thousand clergy and to four hundred thou-
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 sand communicants ; while in one thalamus, with which we 
 feel the closest and dearest interest, I mean Connecticut, 
 the clergy have increased to nearly two hundred, and the 
 lay members to upwards of sixty-five thousand. We may 
 suppose that Priam was proud of his grandchildren ; it is 
 certain that we are proud of ours." 
 
 The Bishop of Minnesota testified that five thousand 
 miles away from Scotland, in the Western forests, there 
 are congregations of red men under native pastors. " Hun- 
 dreds of those whom we met as painted savages are 
 Christian men. The work of conversion had been made 
 more difficult, as elsewhere, by the inconsistent living of so- 
 called Christians, men who are the first to disparage the 
 missioners'whom they oppose. I have had Indians ask me 
 if the Jesus I told them about was the same Jesus my white 
 brothers spoke to when they were angry or drunk. It is 
 not always easy to silence those who thus plead our ex- 
 ample. During our Civil War I was horrified by witness- 
 ing a bloody scalp-dance near our mission. I went to 
 Wah-ba-sha, the head chief, and said : ' You asked me for 
 a mission ; I gave it to you. When I come to see it, my 
 heart is sick to find a horrible scalp-dance. What does the 
 Great Spirit think of people whose hands are red with 
 blood?' Wah-ba-sha took his pipe from his mouth and 
 smiled. 'White man go to war with his own brother 
 kills more than Wah-ba-sha can count on his fingers all his 
 life ; Great Spirit looks down and smiles, says, " Good 
 white man ; " gives white man big book ; keeps good place 
 for white man when he dies. Indian no book ; goes to 
 war, kills one man, has scalp-dance ; Great Spirit very 
 angry Wah-ba-sha don't believe ///' ' 
 
 But Bishop Whipple, beloved by all, whatever be the 
 colour of their skins, has taught them that offences must
 
 IO8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 come, although woe be unto him by whom the offence 
 cometh ; has convinced their reason, and has won their 
 hearts. A married man, like St. Peter, he found a help- 
 meet for him in the Master's work ; and when he laid the 
 corner-stone of a church at the Birch Coulee Mission, the 
 chief, " Good Thunder," brought him a paper, signed by all 
 the Indians : " Father, we were once wild men we are 
 Christians. You led us to the light. You have been our 
 father. Your wife has been our mother. You are to lay 
 the first stone of a ' tipi wakou ' (sacred house). We ask 
 you to name it after the woman we love so well, St. 
 Cornelia." A few weeks after, Mrs. Whipple died ; and 
 the church bears the name, St. Cornelia. The incident 
 is told in simple verse by " Elizabeth R. Burns " : 
 
 " Like saints of old, she laboured 
 
 For the dear Lord above 
 She ffd and clothed the needy, 
 She cheered with words of love. 
 
 " She taught us and she helped us 
 
 With tender, loving care. 
 We ask for her, O Father, 
 To name our house of prayer. 
 
 " So on the Western prairie, 
 
 Where dwell the Indian bands, 
 A church in loving memory 
 Of St. Cornelia stands." 
 
 One of the most affecting ceremonies of this happy con- 
 gress was the interchange of gifts between the mother and 
 daughter. The bishops being assembled, prior to a cele- 
 bration of the Holy Communion, a magnificent chalice and 
 paten of silver, exquisitely carved, was presented by an 
 American priest on behalf of the clergy and laity of the
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 109 
 
 diocese of Connecticut to the celebrant, as representing 
 the Church of Scotland ; and, having been solemnly 
 offered upon the altar, it was used in the Eucharistic Ser- 
 vice. On a subsequent occasion the Bishop of Aberdeen 
 presented to the Bishop of Connecticut a pastoral staff of 
 ebony and silver, beautifully adorned with sacred emblems 
 and with figures of St. John, St. Andrew, St. Ninian, St. 
 Augustine of Canterbury, and of Bishops Kilgour and Sea- 
 bury. These mutual tokens of brotherly regard and unity 
 were given and received with very earnest words and very 
 evident signs of a pure affection ; and every man who was 
 privileged to join in the sacred and social intercourse of 
 these two great nations went away, I am sure, with a 
 stronger faith, a brighter hope, and a larger charity. 
 
 For many years, while America was under British domin- 
 ion, and was classified as belonging to the diocese of 
 London, the members of the Church pleaded oft, earnestly, 
 but in vain, for a bishop from England. Although Arch- 
 bishop Laud was said to have designed a plan for planting 
 the Episcopate, 1 and Lord Clarendon had prevailed upon 
 his royal master to appoint a bishop in Virginia, with juris- 
 diction over the other provinces, and he was named but 
 never consecrated ; and although early in the eighteenth 
 century the efforts of the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel, supported by Archbishop Seeker, obtained the 
 heartiest sympathy of Queen Anne and the royal assent for 
 the foundation of four bishoprics, two for the continent 
 of America and two for the islands, all ended in failure. 
 The Queen died ; political oppositions, financial difficulties, 
 religious dissensions, worldly indifference, thwarted and 
 crushed. 
 
 1 See Bishop Leighton Coleman's admirable History of the 
 American Church.
 
 1 10 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 There was bitter hostility in America also from those who 
 were no longer in communion with the Church of England, 
 and who regarded bishops either as emissaries of the Pope 
 or new encroachments and usurpations of British authority, 1 
 or feared them, because they foresaw in their spiritual juris- 
 diction and their apostolic claims to obedience a further 
 development of the principles to which they were opposed. 
 Puritans of an advanced type, with that exquisite sweetness 
 of temper which shrinks from the prolongation of strife, 
 and with that keen sagacity which discerns in a moment the 
 quickest and most effectual solution of dispute, expressed 
 their intention to submerge in the Atlantic any person of 
 episcopal rank who proposed to visit their shores, and a 
 well-authenticated account has been transmitted by Bishop 
 Griswold of " a very intelligent and pious young man, who, 
 while reading a newspaper, dropped it suddenly, and, turn- 
 ing to a friend, exclaimed, ' I am a dead man,' and when 
 asked for an explanation, replied, in a state of great agita- 
 tion and horror, ' Read that article.' The paragraph to 
 which he pointed was in an English journal, and announced 
 as it afterwards appeared without authority that in the 
 ensuing month a certain doctor of divinity would sail in a 
 certain ship both named to discharge episcopal func- 
 tions as the first Bishop of New England. ' But I do not 
 see in this,' the friend said, after he had read it, ' any cause 
 for your extreme emotion and distress.' ' No cause ! ' cried 
 the Puritan. ' Why, I tell you that if that man sets foot on 
 Long Wharf, Boston, as Bishop of New England, I will 
 
 1 " The dread that the British Government might establish bishops 
 among them was a vital apprehension, and such an establishment was 
 regarded as a probable instance of the exercise of that tyrannical 
 power which the writers and orators of the day were beginning to 
 denounce." Life of Seabury.
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. Ill 
 
 shoot him dead ; and the next moment I will surrender 
 myself into the hands of justice, with the certainty of being 
 hanged. But I shall feel that I am doing God service. 1 " 
 
 Nevertheless, the craving for the primitive administration 
 and universal polity of the Catholic Church increased its 
 efforts and its power. The Mother Church seemed at first 
 to be as anxious to bestow as the daughter to receive the 
 gift, because both believed " that it was evident unto all 
 men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient 
 authors, that from the apostles' time there have been these 
 orders of ministers in Christ's Church, bishops and priests 
 and deacons." But it was not until the year 1783 that 
 Samuel Seabury, elected by the clergy of Connecticut to be 
 their bishop, sailed for England, bearing with him a letter 
 of commendation, and urging his immediate consecration. * 
 He had interviews with the two English archbishops and 
 with the Bishop of London, and these all expressed their 
 earnest sympathy, but they were extremely cautious. They 
 could not act without the authority of the State, though we 
 are not informed that apostles asked permission from the 
 civil authorities to ordain elders in every city. They were 
 not sure that a bishop would be popular in Connecticut, 
 though St. Paul does not seem to have inquired whether 
 Timothy would be a persona grata at Ephesus, or Titus at 
 Crete, and was not only the most unpopular man of his day, 
 but persisted in going where he was most disliked. They 
 saw no hope of an adequate income ; the idea of a bishop 
 without four horses, and a coachman in a bag wig, was pre- 
 posterous. Lastly, they expressed their opinion that he 
 could not be consecrated without such an oath of allegiance 
 to the sovereign as he could not conscientiously take, 
 although a majority of the judges and crown lawyers were 
 1 The Church in America, p. 819.
 
 112 A LITTLE TO UK IN AMERICA. 
 
 of opinion that they might safely proceed, as if none 
 but British subjects could hold high office in the service of 
 the King of kings ! 
 
 Seabury remained in England for sixteen months ; but the 
 timidity of the bishops, " letting ' I dare not ' wait upon ' I 
 would,'" and the political oppositions and animosities of the 
 State, at last constrained him to transfer his hopes, and to 
 seek elsewhere for his church and nation that which England 
 should have been proud to bestow. Application was made 
 by him to the bishops in Scotland, and they, like Barnabas, 
 the son of consolation, took him and brought him to the 
 apostles, holding out to him the right hand of fellowship. 
 On Sunday, November 14, 1784, Dr. Samuel Seabury 
 (Oxford had conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity) was consecrated in the chapel belonging to Bishop 
 Skinner at Aberdeen, by the Primus of Scotland. As a 
 young man he had studied medicine in the famous Edinburgh 
 schools, and from Scotland he took his diploma, and went 
 forth like Luke the Evangelist, as a " beloved physician "of 
 the soul. It was my privilege to attend the centenary meet- 
 ing in commemoration of this joyful event, and, as I have 
 said, there I met the great grandson of the bishop ; and ten 
 years afterwards, on the very day of the consecration, we 
 joined hands on American soil, and went to see the Theo- 
 logical Seminary of New York. 
 
 It began in the year 1817, with six students : it has now 
 nearly one hundred and fifty, with a property of one and a 
 half million dollars. Since the first. permanent buildings were 
 erected, in 1825, it has matriculated over two thousand 
 students, of whom forty-eight have been bishops, * and at 
 the present time the applications for admission exceed the 
 accommodation. The seminary forms a quadrangle of 
 1 History of the Church in America, p. 304.
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 113 
 
 massive and stately proportions, with admirable arrangements 
 for its educational purpose. It has a board of trustees, 
 including forty-four bishops, and other distinguished clergy- 
 men and laymen, a most efficient staff of professors, instruc- 
 tors, and tutors, and numerous scholarships richly endowed 
 by generous benefactors. Of all its donors the present dean, 
 the Very Reverend Eugene Augustus Hoffman, has been, and 
 continues to be, the most munificent. The last precious 
 gift which, with the liberal aid of Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
 he has presented to the library, already containing twenty- 
 five thousand volumes, is a collection of Latin Bibles, made 
 by Professor Copinger, and believed to be the largest in the 
 world. It consists of five hundred and sixty-five editions, 
 in fourteen hundred and fifty volumes ; which exceeds the 
 number in the British Museum by ninety-one, in the Bodleian 
 Library, Oxford, by three hundred and seventy-three, and in 
 the University Library, Cambridge, by three hundred and 
 ninety-eight editions. Very many of these are extremely rare, 
 and some are absolutely unique. In nearly every instance the 
 books are in excellent preservation. Many of them are in the 
 curious original bindings, with metal bosses and silver clasps, 
 sometimes with leather tags to facilitate turning over the 
 pages and protect the edges of the leaves. The old printing 
 and paper are alike excellent in condition, and many of them 
 are enriched with curious and beautiful woodcuts and engrav- 
 ings by such eminent artists as Bellini, Holbein, and others. 
 
 There is a school for music, wherein these candidates for 
 holy orders may learn to sing and give praise with the best 
 member that they have, and to teach and lead others also. 
 
 While I was in New York an excellent lecture was given 
 to the students on " The Importance of Musical Knowledge 
 to the Priesthood of the Church," by the Rev. James Levett 
 Steel, who kindly sent me a copy. He argued convincingly 
 
 8
 
 I 14 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 that church music comes not under the head Doctrine, nor 
 under the head Discipline, but under the head Worship, and 
 that with the matter of worship they of the priesthood had 
 much to do daily ; that they must bear in mind that music 
 in the worship of the church is to serve as the vehicle of 
 man's adoration of God, and not as a pleasing accompani- 
 ment to an otherwise tedious formality; and that in the 
 musical portion of our service we have an opportunity of 
 expressing in relation to God and His worship every emo- 
 tion and sentiment of the human heart. 
 
 And I would respectfully suggest to the University of 
 Oxford, of which I am a member, that some similar instruc- 
 tion in the sacred harmonies might hereafter be as profitable 
 to those who are preparing for the priesthood, and as con- 
 ducive to the dignity of public worship, as the " Alcestis " 
 of Euripides or the " Odes " of Horace. In my under- 
 graduate days there were scores of us who had irrepressible 
 instincts and talents of a remarkable order for music. Our 
 teachers must have been conscious of these proclivities, 
 because some of our solos and all our choruses were audible 
 throughout the college ; but they expressed no admiration of 
 these melodious outbursts, and, instead of educating them 
 to nobler adaptations, surrendered them to the praise of 
 feminine beauty and the glorification of field sports. 1 
 
 1 We ought to have in our universities some such statute as that 
 which was ordained in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massa- 
 chusetts, in the year 1817: "Sacred music, and especially psalmody, 
 being an important part of public social worship, and" as it is proper for 
 those who are to preside in the assemblies of God's people to possess 
 so much taste and skill in this sublime art as at least to distinguish 
 between those solemn movements which are congenial to pious minds 
 and those unhallowed, trifling, medley pieces which chill devotion, 
 it is expected that serious attention will be paid to the culture of 'a true taste 
 for church music in this seminary, and that all students therein who 
 have tolerable voices will be duly instructed in the theory and practice oj
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 115 
 
 Again, as regards instrumental music, who can tell how 
 much genius discouraged and untaught was stamped 
 out, or, rather, blown out through long tandem horns, or in 
 those abortive efforts to perform our National Anthem upon 
 the cornet, which seemed, from their infinite repetitions, to 
 satisfy the performer, but which well-nigh drove his hearers 
 mad, in one instance to a madness which was followed by 
 great searchings of heart, by noble resolutions, by hard work 
 and lofty ascensions. 
 
 There is a tradition at Oxford that a member of Queen's 
 College was ultimately made an archbishop because he had 
 knocked down an angel. The explanation was this : in 
 rooms not far from his own another undergraduate, by name 
 Angell, began to teach himself the key-bugle. The power 
 of his lungs was abnormal, but his manipulation was dilatory 
 and erratic. The results would have been eminently suc- 
 cessful, if they could have been utilised as a process of scar- 
 ing away crows from corn, but considering 
 
 " The cause why music was ordained, 
 Was it not to refresh the mind of man ? " 
 
 they were a failure. So far from having any " power to 
 soothe the savage breast," they made it more savage than 
 before, and attached a stomach-ache. I remember in my 
 own Oxford days that, in the long vacation, I began to play 
 upon the flute. I was supposed to be reading hard for my 
 degree, but, as my small study was at the top of the house 
 and my father's room far away, it never occurred to me 
 that the dulcet tones would reach and announce to the pa- 
 rental ear that, to use a Midland saying, I had " run my job." 
 
 this celestial art ; and whenever it shall be in the pmver of either of the 
 said professors, it shall accordinglv be his duty to afford the necessary 
 instruction ; and whenever this shall not be the case, it is expected that an 
 instructor shall be procured for this purpose."
 
 Il6 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 He told me in after years he was too kind to tell me at 
 the time that the resonance was heard distinctly ; that my 
 rendering of " Auld Lang Syne " was the most doleful and 
 depressing performance within the range of his recollection ; 
 that he generally left the house after the first five minutes, 
 in search of outdoor relief, being convinced that ten min- 
 utes would soften his brain, and that a quarter of an hour 
 would suggest suicide. He reluctantly confessed that on 
 one occasion, during a special concourse of discords, he had 
 bestowed a monosyllabic malediction upon " Auld Lang 
 Syne," (he spoke as though " Lang Syne " was a person 
 of infamous character, a brigand or a fiend), which 
 he had regretted ever since, and that he never heard the 
 melody without a transient qualm. Judge, then, if the distant 
 utterance of the milder music could so painfully incense the 
 cool tranquillity of middle age, how must the proximate 
 intonations of sounding brass have fired the ardour of 
 the youthful spirit, sudden and quick in quarrel. And so, 
 after angry interviews and vain expostulations, the exasper- 
 ated hearer knocked the bugler down. 
 
 The musician, after a brief survey of his antagonist, who 
 was of an athletic type, abandoned the idea of single com- 
 bat in favour of an appeal to the college authorities ; and as 
 the offender happened to be at variance with his judges on 
 certain questions as to discipline and study, he was severely 
 punished, and threatened with expulsion. This crisis in- 
 duced serious meditation, and, reminding him that his future 
 success depended mainly upon his present exertions, and 
 that he was abusing his talents and wasting his time, evoked 
 a new ambition. He took high honours in the schools, 
 became a fellow and tutor of his college, a bishop and arch- 
 bishop in the church. 
 
 But it is time for me to return from Old to New York,
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 and to pass from the music school in the Theological Semi- 
 nary to the chapel, one of the fairest because at present, 
 sad to say, one of the rarest sights to be seen in the States, 
 a beautiful place of worship, consecrated and set apart in 
 a place of education. It is a building worthy of its sacred 
 designations, prayer and praise, the administration of the 
 sacraments, and the preaching of the Word. It inspires 
 reverence with its altar of alabaster and its windows of 
 coloured glass. 
 
 As we entered, one of the professors was giving a lecture 
 to some young students on the subject of sermons. I was 
 asked, as an old preacher, to give my experience, and con- 
 densed it to the best of my power as follows : That there 
 was only one source of real success, hard work ; and that 
 in the holiest and most responsible of all work they were 
 bound to do their very best. That their best, preceded by 
 prayer, would have the help which never fails. That they 
 should always have some definite object in preaching, and, 
 when their subject was fixed, should think, read, and write 
 about it. That the best commentary on the Bible was the 
 Bible itself, the marginal references attached to the verse of 
 their text, and the further help of a concordance. That, 
 after the Divine example, they should teach their hearers 
 from the surroundings and incidents of their daily life fa- 
 miliar to them all, and this, like the greatest of human 
 preachers, not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but 
 using great plainness of speech. That, having committed 
 their sermons to memory, they should speak, not read 
 them. That, above all, the preacher should remember 
 always that the best sermon he could preach was a good 
 example, that the only true faith was that which worketh 
 by love, and the only pure religion to visit the fatherless 
 and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 
 from the world.
 
 Il8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 I spoke as anxiously and as earnestly as I could, because 
 a new voice sometimes evokes a new interest, suggests a 
 new meaning and importance to some truth which has been 
 accepted as a precept, but not obeyed as a rule ; and when 
 I remember the eager, attentive look upon those bright 
 young faces, I try to hope that my anxiety was not altogether 
 in vain.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CHURCHES. 
 
 I WENT to the services in several of the New York 
 churches; and though, as with us, there are diversi- 
 ties of gifts and differences of operations, I liked them all. 
 The sacred edifices are not to be compared with our 
 ancient or modern churches, but many are fair and stately, 
 and all well proportioned and well built. The administra- 
 tion is excellent. The Episcopate maintains the high 
 character which was assigned to it by Archbishop Trench 
 when he said, at the time of a Pan-Anglican Conference, 
 " The American bishops seem to me about the ablest body 
 of men I have met." The priests and deacons are well- 
 taught, well-trained, kind pastors, and able preachers ; the 
 worship is reverent, the congregations are devout. 
 
 The music is impressive sometimes, as with us, too 
 elaborate and sensational, sometimes inappropriate as an 
 accompaniment, for example, to the Lord's Prayer 1 and 
 the Creed ; but, as a rule, sweet, solemn, and impressive. 
 This is the more honourable to those who originate, in- 
 struct, and sustain the choirs, because, owing to climatic 
 influence, the material for their formation, the vocal power, 
 is much less abundant in America than in England. More 
 than one organist who has been in both countries has 
 
 1 The American who remarked, when he first heard this praver 
 said in monotone, " that if any child of his ever asked a favour in that 
 key, he should let him have the stick," would have resented yet more 
 the addition of music.
 
 120 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 assured me of a fact which is indicated, even within the 
 close boundaries of our little isle, by the eminent supe- 
 riority of our northern to our southern people in their 
 power of voice and in their love of song. In Yorkshire 
 and Lancashire the factories resound with the sweet, clear 
 voices of " the hands," the Nottingham stockingers make 
 soft harmonies in catch and glee, the Midland farm lads 
 sing and whistle at the plough ; but no music comes to us 
 from the hop-gardens and the orchards from the hills 
 and valleys of Kent. 
 
 I was surprised at a strange incongruity which exists in 
 nearly all the American churches, even in those which 
 have good music in abundance, the Psalms are read. I 
 am aware, of course, that, together with the Canticles, they 
 may be said or sung may be said when they cannot be 
 sung ; but surely a psalm is, as Dr. Johnson defined it, " a 
 holy song," and becomes a misnomer when it is not sung. 
 
 Some of the churches have beautiful ornamentation. 
 In that to which we went first, being the nearest to our 
 hotel, the Church of the Calvary, there is a most impressive 
 representation, behind the altar, of the Crucifixion. In many 
 the reredos is of alabaster, exquisitely carved. In the 
 Church of the Ascension there is a grand picture, by La- 
 farge, of that glorious Exaltation, and some windows of 
 painted glass by the same artist, rich in colour, but inferior 
 as to design and devotional treatment to those of our most 
 successful experts, of whom I venture to assert that my 
 friend, Mr. Kempe, is chief. 
 
 Until the new cathedral is complete, the Church of the 
 Holy Trinity must be regarded as the mother church of 
 New York, and it may well be said of her, 
 
 " Sons she bad, and daughters fair, 
 And days of strength and glory,"
 
 THE CHURCHES. 121 
 
 in the bright sanctuaries affiliated and under her care, 
 sons, in the churches of SS. John, Luke, Paul, Augustine, 
 Chrysostom, Cornelius, and a comely daughter in that of 
 St. Agnes. Trinity Chapel, with its bright services and 
 cultured choir, must also be included in the family circle, 
 outside of which a multitude of poor relations have been 
 and are most generously dealt with in the matter of build- 
 ing, income, education, hospitals, and other charitable 
 undertakings. 
 
 Famous men, whose praise is in the churches, have been 
 rectors of Holy Trinity Church : Charles Inglis, afterwards 
 the first Bishop of Nova Scotia ; Samuel Provost, afterwards 
 consecrated, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, by the two 
 Archbishops of England and by the Bishops of Bath and 
 Wells and Peterborough, first Bishop of New York ; Benja- 
 min Moore, afterwards Bishop-coadjutor of his diocese ; 
 and John Henry Hobart, his successor and third bishop in 
 1 8 1 6, but none more highly esteemed in love for his work's 
 sake than the present rector, Dr. Morgan Dix. 
 
 The church has great size and dignity, but the east 
 window is somewhat appalling, and altogether incongruous 
 with the admirable altar and reredos offered by the Astor 
 family in memory of their father. The ritual is solemn, 
 without fantasy or ostentation ; the music is reverently sung 
 by a powerful and well-trained choir ; and the best sermon 
 which I heard in New York, as teaching the catholic faith 
 from the thoughts of a devout and loyal churchman, as the 
 composition of a scholar and the utterance of an earnest 
 and tender heart, was preached by the rector. I have lis- 
 tened to preachers far more vehement and excited, who 
 seemed in the flesh to occupy a pulpit, but in the spirit, 
 a balloon carried about high above the heads of their con- 
 gregations with every wind of doctrine, and altogether
 
 122 A LITTLE TOUR IiV AMERICA. 
 
 uncertain, aeronauts and spectators alike, when and where 
 it would come down. 
 
 In one of the New York churches, wherein the altar was 
 represented by a box or table about the size of a Saratoga 
 trunk, and the pews were so narrow that it was almost im- 
 possible to kneel, I heard Plato and Socrates and Carlyle 
 and Peter and Paul all bracketed together as co-equal ; 
 and in others I was told there are, as in London and else- 
 where, preachers who, not having faith by patient continu- 
 ance and well-doing to seek glory, essay to make themselves 
 conspicuous by novel speculations, vague theories, doubtful 
 disputations ; and, therefore, there is the greater need of 
 men to lead us in the old paths where is the good way, 
 and to assure us, not only with their lips but by their lives, 
 that in quietness and confidence shall be our strength. 
 
 As St. Paul's Cathedral looks down on Lombard Street, 
 so Trinity Church looks down on Wall Street, the two 
 greatest money markets in the world, and both seem to 
 preach the same " sermons in stones " : "If riches increase, 
 set not your heart upon them " ; " He that maketh haste 
 to be rich shall not be innocent " ; " To do good and to 
 distribute, forget not " ; " He hath dispersed abroad and 
 given to the poor, and his righteousness remaineth for 
 ever," 
 
 " And wisest is he in all this strange world 
 
 Of hoarding and growing gray, 
 For all you can hold in your cold dead hand 
 Is what you have given away." 
 
 The melodious soft chimes of Grace Church were playing 
 the tune of Keble's hymn, " New every Morning," as we 
 admired the goodly building from without and entered the 
 pleasant courts within for a very helpful service and a very 
 interesting sermon from Dr. Huntington. The day on which
 
 THE CHURCHES. 123 
 
 it was preached was known as " Prisoners' Sunday," and was 
 originated by wise heads and tender hearts to enlarge that 
 Christian sympathy with the inmates of our jails, which should 
 visit, or appoint others to visit, them in prison, and should 
 help them, when their term of punishment is over, to make 
 a fresh start and earn an honest living. 
 
 Where shall we find a brother, as we call him, so forsaken 
 and forlorn as he who stands upon the steps of his prison 
 door in the same blank despair which cried : " I looked 
 on my right hand and saw there was no man that would 
 know me. I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared 
 for my soul." I doubt whether any of our church workers 
 are doing more good in England to-day than those who 
 wait upon prisoners just discharged, convincing them with 
 gentle words that God has sent them a friend, offering them 
 a place of refuge and the hope of restoration to the respect 
 of their fellowmen. And in this goodly fellowship I would 
 include those agents of the Church of England Temperance 
 Society who attend at our police courts and reason with 
 the drunkards, as Paul with Felix, of righteousness, temper- 
 ance, and judgment to come. 
 
 At Grace Church I heard Bishop Bickersteth's sweet 
 psalm of solace, beginning, " Peace, perfect peace, in this 
 dark world of sin," most affectingly sung, the first line of 
 each verse by a female having great musical power and 
 tenderness of tone, " tears in the voice," and the rest 
 by the choir and congregation. This hymn, so helpful to 
 sorrow and so hopeful to faith, was written by the author 
 on his return from visiting a sick friend, to whom he had 
 repeated the words of Isaiah, " Thou wilt keep him perfect 
 in peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he 
 trusteth in Thee." 
 
 A great work, of the best kind which churchmen can do
 
 124 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 for the Church, is making successful progress through the 
 energetic zeal of the clergy and laity of the Church of St. 
 George in New York. In the first place, they seem to be 
 fully persuaded in their minds that the house of One who 
 is no respecter of persons should not be made a house of 
 merchandise for the accommodation of those who can 
 afford to pay for it. They do not hold with Luther that 
 St. James wrote "an epistle of straw," but that he was 
 divinely taught to warn us against awarding precedence to 
 gay clothes and jewellery, to those who love the uppermost 
 rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues. 
 Wherefore St. George has thrust his spear through the 
 dragon of arrogance, and his church is " free and open," 
 albeit his pews are somewhat narrow for those who kneel 
 in prayer. 
 
 The rulers, believing that the labourer is worthy of his 
 hire, and that they who preach the gospel should live of 
 the gospel, rely upon their offertories to make good the loss 
 of the pew-rents, to defray the expenses of their common 
 worship, and so give something more than that which costs 
 them nothing to Him who giveth all. 
 
 We precede our American brethren in these appreciations 
 of Christian equality. We are ashamed of the wrong which 
 has been done, of the bitterness and the estrangement which 
 have been caused by exclusiveness in our Church ; we are 
 becoming more and more democratic, yearning, praying, 
 and working that it may be said once more, " The common 
 people" the masses "heard Him gladly," and that 
 without money and without price the poor had the gospel 
 preached to them. 
 
 Not only within the Church of St. George, but outside 
 its walls, not only on Sunday but through the week, these 
 principles are in evidence. " The ministry of communica-
 
 THE CHURCHES. 12 
 
 tion," on which I heard a sermon from the chief minister, 
 Dr. Rainsford, is at work among the men and boys at the 
 docks, in classes of instruction, and in social gatherings of 
 all sorts and conditions of men. 
 
 I must add that, although as to equality in our churches 
 and missionary enterprise among workingmen we are some- 
 what in advance of our Episcopal kinsfolk on the other side 
 of the Atlantic, they are not to be surpassed in their kind- 
 ness of heart, in their charity towards all. Let me just tell 
 two little incidents in proof. I went one Sunday to the 
 Church of the Holy Cross, in Avenue C, where the clergy, 
 aided by some of our Clewer Sisters, are ministering in the 
 slums, and as soon as the service very reverent and real, 
 though it might be too ornate for those who are strange or 
 averse to "high ritual" was over, a priest came and 
 invited me to join them at their midday meal ; and on the 
 following Sunday, in "the little church round the corner," 
 the Church of the Transfiguration, subscriptions were 
 invited towards a Christmas dinner for the poor, and an 
 announcement was made from the altar startling to the 
 ear, but gratifying to the heart that three himdred turkeys 
 had been already purchased ! These are small indications 
 of a large benevolence which comprehends all classes, and 
 has a special grace in entertaining strangers. 
 
 Always I shall remember with gladness of heart the genial 
 words of welcome and compliment (though they tried my 
 humility), and the generous hospitality (though it tried my 
 digestion), which I received in the States, not only from 
 my brother churchmen, but from the members of other 
 Christian communities. Among the Presbyterians espe- 
 cially I found gentlemen of great intellectual power, highly 
 educated, and so courteous and amicable that I oft repeated 
 to myself the words, " What is presbyter but priest writ
 
 126 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 large?" and longed more than ever for the time when 
 Episcopus and Presbyter shall shake hands. 
 
 Of course I did not presume to look up, de profundis, 
 from the depths of heresy, schism, and excommunication, 
 for the faintest smile of Christian charity from the holy 
 Romans, who 
 
 " Sit on a throne of purple sublimity, 
 And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity," 
 
 if they do not fall down and worship. But I was abun- 
 dantly consoled by the words of one of their own poets : 
 
 " That the love of God is broader 
 
 Than the measure of man's mind, 
 And the heart of the Eternal 
 Is most wonderfully kind. 
 
 " But we make His lave too narrow 
 
 With false limits of our own, 
 And we magnify His strictness 
 With a zeal He will not own." 
 
 And, more than this, I heartily admire their enthusiastic 
 zeal, which has in America more than ten thousand churches, 
 and more than six million members. Not only are their 
 buildings the most beautiful, there is no church in New 
 York to compare with the Cathedral of St. Patrick, but 
 they are used far more frequently for their sacred purposes 
 than the other places of worship. Although there were 
 three American bishops at work before the first Roman 
 bishop (John Carroll) arrived, the Roman Church has so 
 far made ten times the progress of our own ; and this in 
 spite of various accretions to the Faith, infallibilities, immac- 
 ulate conception, compulsory celibacies and confessions, 
 with other fond things vainly invented, without the author- 
 ity of an (Ecumenical Council. With an encumbered
 
 THE CHURCHES. 12 J 
 
 creed, and among a people, so far as the Anglo-Saxon 
 element is concerned, neither superstitious nor servile, they 
 have established far and wide that form of Christianity 
 which demands the most from imagination and credulity, an 
 autocracy which insists on a severe obedience, not only to 
 its local officers, but to a foreign potentate in Rome. This 
 consummation has been attained by long, laborious, and 
 united effort, by those noble sacrifices of time and money 
 which rarely fail to succeed. When the clergy and laity of 
 " the Protestant Episcopal Church of America " shall more 
 fully realise and rejoice in the truth that it is Protestant 
 because it is Catholic, and shall claim as their own, and not 
 surrender to the Romans, that glorious title ; that it is 
 Protestant because it is Scriptural and primitive, and a's 
 such repels innovation ; and when faith in the power, and 
 thankfulness for the blessings, conferred upon their church, 
 are practically expressed in self-denial and service, worship 
 and works of mercy, we cannot doubt that, as being the 
 more pure and apostolic, it will have the stronger growth, 
 and will stretch out its branches unto the sea and its 
 boughs unto the river. 
 
 That this development is making sure progress I had 
 abundant proof from what I saw and heard as I went 
 through the States ; the belief in the Church as a Divine 
 institution, in the apostolic succession and the grace of 
 holy orders, in the inspiration of the Bible and the power 
 of the Sacraments, which has always animated and encour- 
 aged the most enlightened and energetic of her sons, is 
 everywhere increasing ; and the hope grows brighter every 
 day that, travelling in the greatness of her strength, she will be 
 empowered to teach those principles which have made Eng- 
 land, and can make America, the greatest nation of the world.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RAILWAYS. 
 
 THE American railways are on a much grander scale 
 than ours. In extent of metal there are in America 
 sixty thousand more miles than in Europe. 1 The engines 
 and trains are much larger, more massive in construction, 
 and run more smoothly. The speed is much the same as 
 ours; and in the records of the fastest runs made by 
 locomotive engines there is little to choose. 
 
 The compartments for passengers are much higher and 
 longer than ours, elaborately ornamented with carving and 
 gilding, and lighted by electricity. The parlour-cars are 
 furnished with luxurious revolving chairs. Iced water is 
 supplied from a tap in most of the carriages. Venders of 
 newspapers, magazines, books, candies, peppermint, and 
 chocolates pass at intervals through the trains, but are not 
 importunate, sometimes leaving a few volumes for inspec- 
 tion, and collecting them without comment. 
 
 There is a laudable custom of announcing the name of a 
 station on arrival, and shortly afterwards of that next on the 
 line, and there is a custom strange to the Britisher of 
 occasionally placing a ticket in the band of his hat to notify 
 his destination. 
 
 The railway servants I beg their pardon, there are 
 no servants in America, I mean the lords-in-waiting 
 
 1 From Mulhall's Table of Statistics of the Railways of the 
 World.
 
 RAILWAYS. 129 
 
 have been much maligned as morose and disobliging. They 
 may not be quite so pleasantly attentive as some of our 
 English guards, and certainly they are not given to super- 
 ficial politesse. The word "sir" is not in their vocabulary, 
 and they may not salute every man with a moustache as 
 "General; " but they reciprocate kindly approaches, and 
 the respect which is due to men on duty (even Napoleon 
 could say, " Respect the burden," when they bade some 
 poor man, heavy laden, to move out of his way), and I had 
 pleasant converse with them. 
 
 More than once or twice I found in this vocation Eng- 
 lishmen who were " born gentlemen " (I have seen a great 
 number of babies, but was never able to make this discrimi- 
 nation) , who, having come to the States under the erroneous 
 impression that, if you were nice looking and well dressed, 
 and had a few hundred pounds, you had only to emigrate 
 and you became a millionaire, had sorrowed over a dis- 
 solving view of their hopes and of their gold, and had 
 finally been constrained to accept occupation which would 
 keep them healthfully and honestly employed. 
 
 In the night intervals, when they had nothing to do, 
 they were interested in anecdotes connected with the rail, 
 told by one who had seen Puffing Billy ^ the sire of all the 
 iron horses in the world, and The Rocket, a marvellous 
 improvement by George H. Stevenson, which, to the aston- 
 ishment of the beholders, drew a carriage containing thirty 
 passengers at the rate of thirty miles an hour ; who remem- 
 bered the opening, in 1830, of the first important railway in 
 England, the Liverpool and Manchester, and the sad 
 death from collision with an engine of Mr. Huskisson, who 
 had been Secretary of State for the Colonies ; who, travel- 
 
 1 Puffing Billy is now in the Patent Office. 
 9
 
 130 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 ling in the dark, had become suddenly aware that the train 
 had left the metals, and then, hurled down a steep embank- 
 ment, in a carriage turned topsy-turvy, and within two or 
 three feet of the flooded Trent, had awaited extrication ; 
 and who this pleased them most had a large acquaint- 
 ance with working railway men, and had addressed them 
 by hundreds in the railway sheds, with the lads perched on 
 the rafters of the roof and singing hymns lustily and with 
 a good courage from the white leaflets in their coal-black 
 hands. 
 
 Apropos of accidents, I saw in some of the cars axes and 
 hammers, available in case of a smash, and, like the life- 
 belts on the Majestic, unpleasantly suggestive, the more 
 so because, in continuous journeys, sometimes where the 
 construction of the line has almost baffled the skill of the 
 engineer, there must be a contingency of peril, and it is 
 out of the power of human wisdom to prevent the dis- 
 astrous results of a mistake, of a flaw, a fracture, or, as in 
 the instance to which I have referred, in the sudden sub- 
 sidence of the soil. In spite of all the improvements and 
 precautions, the number of deaths and injuries is appalling. 
 It is stated in a " Report of Railway Accidents in the 
 United States," made by the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission, Washington, D. C., that in the year ending June 
 30, 1893, 7,346 persons were killed and 40,393 were in- 
 jured. The total number of passengers carried was 
 593,560,612. 
 
 But we were never, so far as we knew, within sight of 
 danger, and were only incommoded at times by the exces- 
 sive heat of the cars, and this was modified upon our 
 courteous entreaty, although the American is not so sensi- 
 tive on the subject of ventilation as we are, and they who 
 have the care of the carriages and their costly furniture
 
 RAIL WA YS. 131 
 
 are of course unwilling to admit more smoke and dust 
 than may be reasonably excluded. 
 
 Nevertheless, though I travelled so many hundred miles 
 without danger and almost without discomfort, I passed 
 through an ordeal of much mental and physical perturba- 
 tion on the rail, and I shall never forget the first night 
 which I spent in a sleeping-car. By ingenious adaptation 
 and addition, the seats used by day are converted at night 
 into an upper and lower cubicle, not unsuitable for those of 
 moderate dimensions, but oppressively limited for a bulky 
 giant nearly six feet four in height, and in weight over 
 sixteen stones. Thus cabined, cribbed, confined, I felt, as 
 I drew my curtain, about as happy as a sea-gull in a canary's 
 cage. More miserable, in fact, because a sea-gull has no 
 gaiters, with twelve buttons for each leg, to put on or off; 
 no small properties, moneys, letters, keys, watch, to transfer 
 from his pockets he knows not where ; no devotions to be 
 said kneeling. I became involved, entangled, confused, 
 oppressed ; and when I was at last in a position to rest from 
 my exhaustion, I found it impossible to assume the usual 
 attitude of slumber, and I thought, reverently but ruefully, 
 of Isaiah's words, " for the bed is shorter than that a man 
 can stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower than 
 that he can warm himself in it." Long time I traversed 
 my couch in a vain pursuit of sleep, and then I dreamed 
 that we were playing hide-and-seek as in childhood at the 
 old house at home, and that in " the lumber-room," and in 
 an old oak chest containing ancient family raiment, in 
 which we delighted to " dress up " and to gratify the 
 dramatic instinct innate in all, I had secreted myself with 
 a sure success, when suddenly the lid fell and the click of 
 a spring lock amazed me with a terrible apprehension that 
 I should perish like young Lovell's bride. Happily I
 
 132 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 awoke while making frantic but futile efforts to com- 
 municate with my friends through the key-hole like 
 Childe Harcld in his pilgrimage, "awaking with a start, 
 the waters heave around me," not to mention a miscellane- 
 ous mixture of bright scarlet rugs, with my customary suit of 
 solemn black, sheets and shirts, hats and shoes. 
 
 The morning investment was quite as incommodious as 
 the unrobing at eve, and whenever, to expedite the opera- 
 tion, I ventured to put out a leg, some vulgar pedestrian 
 rushed by, thrusting it aside, and then grunting his dis- 
 pleasure. I do not wonder that the potentates of the rail 
 make very different provisions for their own comfort ; that 
 they prefer real beds to boxes and bins, and cosey sleeping 
 apartments, elegantly and luxuriously furnished, to the 
 ordinary sleeping-car ; that they elect to have special trains 
 of their own, or special accommodations, when they conde- 
 scend to march with the ordinary rank and file. It seems 
 to me, although complaints are made, that they have a 
 perfect right, these presidents and receivers, managers and 
 chairmen of the railway companies being, as a rule, among 
 the ablest, the most energetic and enterprising, as well as 
 the wealthiest of their nation. The chief management of 
 one of these great American lines requires such a sagacity, 
 diversity of information, keen, patient observation, coolness 
 and courage, as are very rarely bestowed upon one man ; 
 but, as a rule, that one man is found. He is autocratic 
 of course he is ; he is admired, he is famous, he wins 
 golden opinions from all sorts of men of course he does ; 
 but he is too wise (I was introduced to him), he has too 
 much common sense, to be bumptious. He does not pro- 
 pose to go into that business he says it 's overcrowded. 
 
 Different words are used in speaking of railways and 
 their surroundings :
 
 RAILWAYS. 133 
 
 They say, 
 
 We say, 
 
 Railroad. 
 
 Railway. 
 
 Track. 
 
 Line. 
 
 Car. 
 
 Carriage. 
 
 Baggage. 1 
 
 Luggage. 
 
 Depot. 
 
 Station. 
 
 Engineer. 
 
 Engine driver. 
 
 Fireman. 
 
 Stoker. 
 
 Conductor. 
 
 Guard. 
 
 Switches. 
 
 Points. 
 
 Freight train. 
 
 Goods train. 
 
 Ticket office. 
 
 Booking-office. 
 
 Here it may be opportune to notice some other idioms, 
 differences in verbal descriptions of the same thing, set 
 down in order as I heard them : 
 
 In England, In America, 
 
 Letters are posted. They are mailed. 
 
 Tradesmen sell their wares 
 
 in shops. In stores. 
 
 Boots and shoes are 
 
 polished. They are shined. 
 
 We make inquiry. Inquiry. 
 
 We talk about goloshes. They are called gums. 
 
 " Mother is wiping her 
 gums on the door-mat." 
 Our children are born and 
 brought up. They are raised. 
 
 1 The American system is better than ours in this matter of bag- 
 gage, though sometimes it is very roughly handled. Reserving such 
 articles as you require during your journey in a portable box or bag, 
 you transfer the rest of your belongings to the officials at the depot, 
 receiving checks, which you produce on reaching your terminus, and 
 this luggage is sent to your hotel.
 
 134 
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 In England, 
 
 We express astonishment 
 
 with Goodness gracious ! 
 
 Well, I never f 
 Be'fsteak 
 We carry on, we conduct, 
 
 a business. 
 We say immediately ', at 
 
 once. 
 
 First floor 
 Biscuits 
 Cut wood 
 The lift 
 A good deal 
 
 Somewhat early 
 
 $uii,k, nimble, clever 
 
 To give 
 
 Racing 
 
 A race-course 
 
 A commercial traveller, or 
 
 bagman 
 Influenza 
 Sweets 
 
 Street pavement 
 The driving-reins 
 We shall be there in time. 
 A wooden house 
 To make a collection. 
 To carry. 
 
 In America, 
 They exclaim, Oh my / 
 
 Is tenderloin. 
 It is run. 
 
 They say right dway. 
 Is parlour floor. 
 Are crackers. 
 Is lumber. 
 Is the elevator. 
 I s pretty m uch . Quite a good 
 deal. 
 
 Is pretty soon. 
 
 Is spry. 
 
 Is to donate. 
 
 Is speeding. 
 
 Is a speed-track. 
 
 Is a drummer. 
 Is grippe, as in France. 
 Are candies. 
 Is sidewalk. 
 Are //? lines. 
 We shall be there 0;/ time. 
 Is a. frame house. 
 To /<7&? ?// a collection. 
 In Virginia and elsewhere is 
 to /0te. 
 
 " De possum and de coon are safey as you please, 
 Since all de hunting dogs was toted off by fleas ; 
 De measles A?/**/ off all de cunning little Nigs, 
 And de soldiers of de army have toted oft de pigs." 
 
 The chairman opens the 
 meeting. 
 
 The chairman calls the meet- 
 ing to order.
 
 RAIL WA YS. 
 
 135 
 
 In England, 
 
 To place 
 
 A horse jibs. 
 
 The man who is called a 
 spooney, greenhorn, nin- 
 compoop 
 
 To aim straight 
 
 Improvements in cultiva- 
 tion, etc. 
 
 When we say Indeed? 
 Really f 
 
 Bank notes 
 
 An idle man 
 
 To move away 
 
 Some time 
 
 Straightforward 
 
 A mean person 
 
 Papa and mamma 
 
 A good many. 
 
 A cabby 
 
 Hired carriages 
 
 A travelling bag 
 
 A vicious horse 
 
 A dandy, or masher, 
 
 He who does not vote with 
 
 his party a turncoat 
 A deception, a sell, chouse, or 
 
 swindle 
 
 To get into trouble 
 A downright good fellow 
 
 In America, 
 
 Is to locate. 
 He balks. 
 
 Is known as a tenderfoot. 
 Is to dfrtfw bee-line, straight 
 as a bee returns to its hive. 
 
 Are betterments. 
 
 They say, Is that so ? 
 
 Are greenbacks, first issued 
 
 during the Civil War ; the 
 
 Confederate notes were blue. 
 
 Is a loafer. " I do not call 
 
 him a thief, but if I was 
 
 a chicken, and I saw dat 
 
 nigger loafing round, I 
 
 should roost high dat's 
 
 all." 
 
 Is to make tracks. 
 Is quite a while. 
 Is right away. 
 Is a scrimp. 
 
 Are poppa and momma 
 Quite a few. 
 Is a hackman. 
 Are hacks. 
 Is a grip. 
 Is a mean horse. 
 Is a dude. 
 
 Is a bolter. 
 
 Is a fake. 
 
 Is to wake snakes. 
 
 Is clear grit.
 
 136 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Reverting to the rail, I was sorry to see the same field 
 advertisements (it is a relief to know that the dishonour 
 of introducing them belongs to the Jewish nation) so 
 common in my native land. I am prepared for any num- 
 ber of announcements in the cities and towns of articles on 
 sale, or performances on view, which " bang creation " 
 and which " stump the world." I gazed with admiration 
 at a huge banner, some twenty feet in length, rising from 
 a gilded dome, and gracefully floating above the houses in 
 Union Square, at first supposing that it surmounted some 
 great national institution, or intimated the anniversary of 
 some great historical event, but discovered on a closer 
 inspection that it was only an invitation to purchase " the 
 Crawford Shoes." I delighted in the solemn pedestrians 
 who walked the Broadway attired in sacks, on which the 
 public were informed in large letters that " Professors 
 Jenkins and Moon, Chiropodists," were available for con- 
 sultation. I was inclined, when the snow was thawing in 
 the streets, to "Try our nobby Romeo Rubbers," though 
 I had not noticed that Sir Henry Irving wore them when 
 he appeared under the bilconv of Juliet. I was glad, as a 
 father, to know that " Papa's Panfc would do for Willie, if 
 they were altered and dyed with Diamond Dyes, the great 
 home money-saver," and that "children's clothes the 
 faded cloak, wrapper, or dress could be made to look 
 like new at a cost of only 10 cents, and no experience 
 needed." I never presumed to doubt the proclamation 
 made on the outside of a store, that " the man who 
 exclaimed, ' Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! ' 
 would have felt no surprise, and would never have uttered 
 such an imbecile observation, could he have foreknown the 
 stupendous Fall in Prices which would take place in this 
 Establishment on Monday next, and during the week"
 
 RAILWAYS. 137 
 
 I could not say with the tender-hearted elephant in the 
 American " ysop," when, having trod on the mother 
 partridge, she beheld the wee chicks close by, " I am a 
 mother myself," and sat down on the callow brood ; but 
 I did not question for a moment the powers of " Payne's 
 Celery Compound to restore health in a few weeks to those 
 daughters who, owing to rapid growth or absorbing study, 
 have a waxy, bloodless look, and are suffering from nervous 
 languor." I stayed to listen to the brass bands which 
 preceded vociferous heralds of " Ruinous Sacrifice ! " and 
 " Slaughter prices ! " I watched the procession of men with 
 brooms which symbolised " the Sweeping Sales ! " I assented 
 to the statement " that if any lady or gentleman felt as if 
 rats were gnawing the coats of their stomachs, these rodents 
 might be quickly expelled by the Shaker Digestive Cor- 
 dial, originally invented by the Society of Friends." And, 
 finally, I beheld with almost a childish glee the illuminated 
 letters, traced in glowing lamps of crimson and gold, which 
 defied the darkness of the night and all who passed through 
 Madison Square to deny or disprove that " Paul Jones's 
 Pure Rye has No Equal," or conferred elsewhere effulgent 
 honours on " The Admiral Opera Cigarettes." 
 
 But I draw a line when I am procul negotiis, far from 
 the madding crowd, and protest against these ugly inno- 
 vations, which, when I would forget the streets and the cars 
 and the mart, and would enjoy the country and inhale the 
 purer air, advise me, in letters big enough for Brobdignag, 
 to take ".Carter's Little Liver Pills," or " Schenk's Man- 
 drake" ditto, while I simultaneously sucked "Adams' Pep- 
 sin Tutti-frutti as the best aid for digestion," played on 
 " Slanter's Piano," and smoked " General Bull Tobacco." 
 I do not want to be told in hideous yellow delineations 
 upon a black ground that " Children weep for Pitcher's
 
 138 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Castoria," even as in England they mourn for Mr. Pears's 
 soap and Mr. Ridge's nutritious food. It gives me no 
 pleasure to be assured that " Julius Saul, of Albany, is the 
 World-Beater for Children's Clothes," that " Dodd's Liquid 
 Fish Glue Mends Everything," and that " Salve Cea Kills 
 Chilblains and Frostbites and Stops Itching at once."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 E advertisements suggest the newspapers, and the 
 X newspapers the American newspapers suggest 
 a perplexity. I have to express my hearty appreciation of 
 the kind words which were written in them wherever I 
 went, and simultaneously to declare my conviction that they 
 are altogether unworthy of a great nation. I was inter- 
 viewed by more than two hundred journalists of both sexes, 
 old and young, and so far from being bored by their tedious 
 dulness or exasperated by their inquisitive curiosity, as 
 certain false prophets foretold, I was almost invariably 
 pleased by their courtesy and instructed by their informa- 
 tion. Surprised, moreover, by their retentive memories, 
 which often, without making a note, would publish the 
 details of a twenty minutes' conversation almost verbatim ; 
 and if, as in two or three cases, recollection failed, imagina- 
 tion, less accurate but always kind, built up the broken 
 wall. The lady interviewers were especially bright in con- 
 versation and clever in eliciting the communications which 
 they desired. The editors and sub-editors are, as a rule, 
 men of superior ability and intelligence. Their articles on 
 political, commercial, social, and international topics are 
 thoughtfully argued and lucidly expressed ; but they pander 
 to that morbid craving for the terrible which, like the 
 ghoul or the horse-leech, thirsts for blood, gloats upon the 
 ghastly corpses spread out in the morgue, and makes a col- 
 lection of murderers, robbers, and ruffians of all denomina-
 
 I4O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 tions, to which Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors is 
 by comparison a bower of innocence and beauty. I am 
 emboldened to make this protest, not only because I know 
 it to be in accord with the convictions of those Americans 
 whose judgment has just claims on our respect, but also 
 because, when I freely spoke my disappointment to the 
 journalists themselves, none dissented or disputed, and only 
 defended on the plea of expediency the people loved to 
 have it so populus imlt decipi, et decipiatur. 
 
 When Charles Dickens first visited America he wrote the 
 most severe and scathing denunciation of the corrupt por- 
 tion of the American press which indignation could suggest 
 or eloquence utter. He described it as a monster of de- 
 pravity, accused it of rampant ignorance and base dis- 
 honesty. He ridiculed the " New York Sewer," the " New 
 York Stabber," the "New York Family Spy," the "New York 
 Private Listener," The "New York Peeper," the " New York 
 Plunderer," the " New York Keyhole Reporter," the " New 
 York Rowdy Journal," " as containing particulars of the last 
 Alabama gouging case, the interesting Arkansas duel with 
 bowie-knives, and the extensive account of a flagrant act of 
 dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he 
 was eight years old now communicated at a great expense 
 by his own nurse." He testified, at the same time, to 
 journals of character and credit, from which, conducted as 
 they were by accomplished gentlemen, he derived both 
 pleasure and profit. He said that among the gentry of 
 America, among the well-informed and moderate, in the 
 learned professions, at the bar and on the bench, there was 
 but one opinion of these degraded journals. He affirmed 
 that these were, nevertheless, in an overwhelming majority, 
 and that their name was legion ; and yet on his second visit 
 to the States, although he had made no retraction, he was
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 141 
 
 invited to a public dinner by two hundred representatives 
 of the press, and at the banquet itself only modified his rail- 
 ing accusation by saying that there had been " changes in 
 the press, without whose advancement no advancement can 
 take place anywhere." 
 
 One of these changes is happily manifest in the cessation 
 of bitter, hostile, and contemptuous words about the mother 
 country ; and we read no more of the British lion having 
 his talons eradicated by the noble bill of the American 
 eagle ; that he may be taught to play upon the Irish harp 
 and the Scotch fiddle that music which is breathed in 
 every empty shell that lies upon the shores of green Colum- 
 bia. But there is no improvement with regard to accumu- 
 lation from all quarters of criminal incidents and the minute 
 exposition of their details ; and the attempts to justify are 
 as feeble as they are few. 
 
 It has been stated that these revolting particulars create 
 a disgust, aversion, and decrease of crime. The police 
 reports bear evidence, on the contrary, that in many 
 instances they have suggested imitation, and put sharp 
 weapons in the madman's hand. It is said that the public 
 will have these records, gruesome and unclean. What a 
 charming home it would be in which the children were 
 permitted to eat and drink whenever and whatever they 
 fancied, and the youths and maidens to go where and with 
 whom they pleased. 
 
 The press, with its infinite power, should elevate and not 
 debase. There is no praise of religion or virtue it might 
 evoke jealousy, or annoy the worldling. There is no men- 
 tion of the many benevolent societies, and the charitable 
 work which they do. There is no outburst of righteous 
 anger at villainy, no tenderness of pity towards those who 
 suffer, no hope of remedy, no idea of reform. As though
 
 142 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 you were serving on an inquest, you are to view the body 
 smashed, scorched, pierced by bullet or knife, without 
 shroud or coffin without a sigh or a tear. That 1 may 
 nothing extenuate or aught set down in malice, I quote 
 illustrations. The first five are the more remarkable ex- 
 tracts from a single copy of a daily paper, published in one 
 of the largest cities : 
 
 BENT ON BLOOD! 
 
 Man Shoots his Wife, her Sister, and Himself. 
 
 WIFE DIES, OTHERS WILL DIE. 
 
 Martin V. Strait, of Elmira, Commits Three Murders. 
 
 FIVE MEN COOKED! 
 
 Mud Drum Burst, and the Contents Strike a Number of 
 Workmen. 
 
 MUNCIE, IND., Nov. 16. The large mud drum under 
 the boilers at the Muncie Muckbar Mill burst last night and 
 five men were drenched with hot mud and scalding water. 
 This stuck to them and cooked the flesh. The victims 
 are : John Gainer, Valentine Gibson, John Curtis, Lenzie 
 M. Tyler, and John Bowers, all over forty years and 
 married. The flesh on their hands, faces, breasts, and 
 legs is cooked. When Gainer's clothes were removed the 
 flesh dropped off in places. He cannot recover. The 
 other men are suffering terribly, but will not die. The mill 
 was slightly damaged.
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 143 
 
 RAIDED 
 
 Dozens of Houses of Prostitution Pulled. 
 
 HUNDREDS AT THE STATIONS. 
 
 Every Place in the ist, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Precincts 
 Visited. 
 
 Supt. Bull gave the Order at Eleven o'Clock Last Night, 
 and the Patrol Waggons were Kept Busy for Three 
 Hours. Women were Brought In by the Score. 
 Scenes at the Station-houses. 
 
 WHITWORTH IS DYING! 
 
 He is said to have been a Defaulter, and this may have 
 been the Cause of his Crime. 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN., Nov. 16. George K. Whitworth, 
 who killed Chancellor Allison, is not dead, but is sinking 
 rapidly, and there is no hope of his recovery. 
 
 "RED DUCHESS" IS DEAD! 
 
 She Raced Horses under the Name of " Mr. Manton," and 
 was a Notable Figure in the Racing World. 
 
 LONDON, Nov. 16. Caroline Agnes Beresford, dowager 
 Duchess of Montrose, known in the racing world as " Mr.
 
 144 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Manton," and also as the " Red Duchess," is dead. The 
 duchess died at her London house, No. 45, Belgrave 
 Square, S. W. 
 
 The following are from other sources, samples from an 
 infinite bulk : 
 
 WITH A WRENCH. 
 
 Money-lender Short Murderously Assaulted in his Office. 
 
 Rest charged with the Crime. Motive was Robbery. 
 Short had $1800 in a Wallet in Front of Him. An 
 Exciting Chase. 
 
 KUKLUX CRIME. 
 
 Thrown Wounded into a Pit Sixty Feet Deep. 
 
 Rescued after Five Days of Terrible Suffering, and Returns 
 to Bring his Assailants to Justice. Remarkable Tale 
 told on the Witness-stand. 
 
 TRIED A BIG JOB. 
 
 Desperado Waylaid and Attempted to Kill a Party of Thir- 
 teen People who were Witnesses against him.
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 145 
 
 Dr. Reigle Objected to the Attention His Wife Received 
 from Her Cousin, William Bebler. 
 
 EMPTIED THEIR PISTOLS. 
 
 Each Fired Six Shots at the Other, and Both were 
 Wounded, though Not Seriously. 
 
 CLINCHED ON A HIGH BANK. 
 
 The Doctor Fell to its Bottom, One Hundred Feet, but 
 Landed in a Big Snowdrift. 
 
 (By Telegraph to the "Herald."} 
 
 BLOOMSBURY, N. J., Dec. 31, 1894. Dr. E. Lear Reigle 
 and William Bebler fought an impromptu duel here in the 
 snow on Sunday morning. Each fired six shots, all there 
 were in the revolvers, at each other at close range, and 
 each was wounded, but not seriously. 
 
 Their pistols emptied, they clinched, and the doctor fell 
 down an embankment a distance of one hundred feet into 
 a deep snowdrift, and his antagonist fled. The affair was 
 caused by a woman, and she the wife of Dr. Reigle. 
 
 10
 
 146 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 HE KICKED MRS. MINNIE LEE. 
 
 Wine Agent Julius Kauffman First Knocked Her Down in 
 the Park Casino. 
 
 BECAUSE SHE REPROVED HIM. 
 
 He also Struck at " Bud " Ellis and Missed, but Succeeded 
 in Felling Landlord Isaacs. 
 
 AMID A WRECK OF DINNERS. 
 
 Grovelled for Mercy. 
 
 Eye-witnesses of the scene that followed speak eloquently 
 of the details, but the policemen themselves are modest 
 about it. Kauffman, flushed with the triumph of kicking a 
 woman and pummelling a genial boniface, was promptly 
 and effectively humbled. 
 
 Crusted with the remnants of overturned dinners, and 
 bleeding from sundry swift blows on the nose, the humil- 
 iated Kauffman was finally dragged from the Casino like a 
 bag of potatoes, and right across lots to the Arsenal. Land- 
 lord Isaacs, attended by a party of well-known gentlemen, 
 witnesses of the disgraceful fracas, appeared there as com- 
 plainant, charging Kauffman with assault, disorderly con- 
 duct, and drunkenness. 
 
 The diversity of subjects in these sensational paragraphs, 
 sometimes in close proximity, and passing suddenly from 
 the sublime to the ridiculous, is startling, as when " Stun- 
 ning Bonnets at the Lyceum " is followed by " Fifty Persons 
 Drowned in the Flood ; " or " Fight between Corbett and 
 Fitzsimmons to come off in Florida " by " A Meeting of 
 the Roman Catholic Synod, and the Pontifical High Mass." 
 But rarely, in continued sentences, is such an antithesis to
 
 NE WSPAPERS. 1 4; 
 
 be found, such a swift transition from the pulpit to the play- 
 house, such a sudden association of the preacher and the 
 pugilist, as in the following extract : 
 
 TALMAGE A NEW YORK PREACHER. 
 
 Henry Eyre Brown, the organist of the old Tabernacle, 
 and Prof. Peter Ali, who played the cornet for so many 
 years in Dr. Talmage's Brooklyn church, furnished the 
 music yesterday. As soon as Dr. Talmage left, the theatre 
 carpenters went to work to set the stage for the regular 
 Sunday night vaudeville show which Mr. Billy Brady, mana- 
 ger of Pugilist Corbett, gives. 
 
 Sometimes they are humorous. I select two examples 
 from leading New York papers, which would mightily aston- 
 ish the readers of the Times : 
 
 SHE KILLED THE MOUSE. 
 
 THE CAPTOR HURRIED HOME FROM CHURCH WITH THE 
 CREATURE CLUTCHED FAST IN HER DRESS. 
 
 Serious trouble arose during morning service yesterday at 
 St. George's Episcopal Church, in Rutherford-place, that 
 fashionable house of worship presided over by the Rev. Dr. 
 William S. Rainsford. The cause of the trouble was small, 
 but it created much uneasiness until it was removed. For- 
 tunately, the excitement was confined to two persons, and 
 the creature to blame for it was forced to give up its life as 
 a penalty for its boldness. St. George's Church was filled 
 by the customary fashionable congregation at morning ser- 
 vice. Among them was a woman-parishioner who is well 
 known in social circles, and whose husband is a business 
 man of prominence. During the singing of the Te Dciun,
 
 148 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 she suddenly arose and made a hasty retreat. The ushers 
 looked concerned, but the lady passed quickly through the 
 door which was held open for her and asked no aid. 
 
 She went swiftly up the street, convulsively grasping a por- 
 tion of her dress, and, when she arrived at her residence, 
 frantically rang the door-bell. 
 
 " Oh, Ann, Ann ! " she exclaimed in tones of anguish to 
 the maid who opened the door, " I came out of church 
 with a mouse. I felt it while the Creed was being said, but 
 it kept quiet through the Psalter and part of the First 
 Lesson, and I had almost thought I was mistaken ; but pres- 
 ently I felt it again, and I clutched it. I thought possibly 
 I could manage to hold it fast, and remain throughout the 
 service, because I wanted to hear the sermon. ' But sup- 
 pose it should get away? 'I thought. That decided me. 
 I could n't sit out the sermon, so here 1 am ; and now, while 
 I hold the horrid little animal tightly, you catch hold of 
 its tail." 
 
 The servant declared she could see no mouse, and said 
 she believed the animal only existed in her mistress's imagi- 
 nation. The servant continued her investigation, however, 
 and in a few moments exclaimed, 
 
 " Why, sure enough, it is a mouse, after all ! But you Ve 
 squeezed the breath out of it. You must have gripped it 
 awfully hard to have killed it." And she drew from her 
 mistress's dress the little animal squeezed flat. 
 
 MANY OFFERS OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 SCORES OF WOMEN WRITE TO THE NINE UNMARRIED HATTERS 
 WHO WERE DISCHARGED IN WATSESSING. 
 
 The Postmaster of Watsessing, N. J., is seriously consider- 
 ing the propriety of asking the postal authorities for an
 
 NE WSPA PERS. 1 49 
 
 increase of salary. His work has increased to such an extent 
 during the last few weeks that he has great trouble in hand- 
 ling it. Curiously enough, most of the letters which make 
 up the increased mail matter are addressed to nine young 
 men who were recently discharged from the hat factory 
 owned by the Ellor Brothers & Hall. 
 
 It became necessary not long ago to reduce the working 
 force in the factory. The proprietors carefully considered 
 the matter, and decided that the married men in their employ 
 should not be disturbed. Then they told nine unmarried 
 men that, as no one was dependent upon them, their services 
 would be dispensed with. 
 
 The story of the sad fate of the unmarried men of Wat- 
 sessing was widely published, and then the postmaster's 
 troubles began. Many unmarried women read the story and 
 sympathized with the unfortunates of Watsessing. They 
 made known their sympathy in writing. So many women 
 wrote letters that the mail pouches left at Watsessing, for- 
 merly easy to carry, became well filled and difficult to 
 handle. 
 
 Nearly every letter received by the young men contains 
 an offer of marriage. In some of them, financial induce- 
 ments are presented, which lend an additional attraction in 
 view of the fact that the men are out of work. Four young 
 girls who are employed in a factory in a Central Ohio town 
 wrote a joint letter, in which they offered to become the 
 wives of four of the unmarried hatters. They added a post- 
 script, in which it was intimated that the railroad fare of the 
 young men to the Ohio town would be paid if the hatters 
 accepted the proposal without delay. 
 
 An Omaha girl, who wishes to aid one of the hatters, is 
 not willing to take any of them " with her eyes shut," but 
 has written that she would like to have a photograph of each
 
 I5O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 from which to make a selection. Several widows have 
 written that, in addition to marrying the young men, they 
 will give them a half interest in their farms. 
 
 Most of the letters are written by girls and widows in 
 Western towns. The people of Watsessing will not be sur- 
 prised if the nine young hatters leave within a short 
 time, to select wives from among the charming letter- 
 writers. 
 
 Such chronicles may be regarded as silly and insipid, as 
 beneath the notice of those who write, and as wasting the 
 time of those who read newspapers ; but beyond this they 
 are harmless. Such viands have not much aliment, but they 
 are easily digested. They do not create those diseases of 
 the heart and the brain the acrid humours, the restless 
 fevers, the bad dreams which wait "upon the rich sauces 
 and highly seasoned dainties composed to stimulate a 
 morbid appetite no longer able to relish wholesome food. 
 The public press should be prescriptions of a wise physician, 
 advising healthful diet and exercise, not a menu wherein the 
 palled appetite of the epicure may find new incitements to 
 gluttony, indigestion, and gout. 
 
 Of these poisonous preparations I cite, in conclusion, that 
 which seemed to me the most noxious of all, the description 
 in the Chicago Tribune of January 16, 1895, of a drinking 
 bout of thieves and prostitutes held in the lowest haunts of 
 vice and corruption, to celebrate the return of one of their 
 gang from penal servitude. The proceedings are minutely 
 detailed, in a spirit of facetious levity, as though crime were 
 little more than a jest. A few sentences will demonstrate 
 the shameless and offensive character of an article which 
 occupied a column of the paper, and was accessible for 
 perusal to all the wives and daughters in Chicago :
 
 NE WSPAPERS. 1 5 I 
 
 IS BACK IN THE FOLD. 
 
 RECEPTION TO MINNIE WILLIAMS ON HER RETURN FROM 
 JOLIET. 
 
 Distinguished Company of People whom the Police Delight 
 to Honour with their most Assiduous Attentions. 
 Some of those Present. 
 
 The guest of honour was Minnie Williams, formerly con- 
 vict No. 3158 of the Illinois State Penitentiary, but now of 
 Chicago. Miss Williams, after an absence of eleven months 
 from the city, was joyously received by her old friends, who 
 spent much good money and drank much questionable 
 wine in expressing their welcome. The only drawback to 
 the entertainment was the enforced absence of one of the 
 most distinguished of Miss Williams's old friends. This was 
 Miss Lilly Vale, who is now being cared for by the State 
 on a sentence of seven years recently imposed. 
 
 We are then informed of the enthusiasm with which she 
 was received, and a long list is given of the names of the 
 women present, with a description of the dresses which they 
 wore : 
 
 Among the men present were : "Dandy" Nugent, petty 
 thief and " grafter ; " Frank Quirk, known as Dora Done- 
 gan's right hand; Ed. Clancey, nothing in particular; 
 Thomas Roach, ex-convict, burglar, and sneak thief; Ed. 
 Newberry, petty thief; Charles Harlow, given to petty 
 larceny and pocket-picking ; James Johnson, undistin- 
 guished ; Ed. Long, street-car " worker ; " Charles Hanson, 
 who says he has " thieved some ; " Tom Allen, general 
 thievery and confidence work; Tom Donovan, Highway-
 
 152 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 man; Charles Peters, "tin horn" gambler and race-track 
 " tout." 
 
 After the guests had eaten and drunk their way through 
 the menu, and had reached coffee, Miss Williams was called 
 on for a speech. She is not accustomed to making ad- 
 dresses except in court, but her words were well received. 
 She spoke of the accommodations at the county jail, and 
 compared them unfavourably with those of Joliet. The jail, 
 she said, was one of which Chicago ought to be ashamed. 
 In this view she was heartily supported by most of those 
 present. After the speech, there was wine galore, and the 
 popping of corks continued for several hours. 
 
 All who love America must protest against these degra- 
 dations, these abuses of a predominant influence, the power 
 of the public press. 
 
 Facility of production has established a cheap and daily 
 circulation of millions of newspapers. In a most interesting 
 lecture addressed to the students of Cornell University, Mr. 
 Dana, the editor of the New York Sun, informs us that, 
 before the invention of the new printing machinery, an old- 
 fashioned press that could turn out six or seven hundred 
 copies a day was the best there was in the world, but that 
 now it was possible to turn out at one impression large 
 sheets of eight, ten, or twelve pages, and deliver twenty 
 thousand papers in an hour. But the great revolutionary 
 agent, he said, was the cheapness attained in the cost of 
 paper. At first paper was made from rags, and the demand 
 became greater than the supply. Then a Frenchman in- 
 vented a method of making paper from rye-straw, and the 
 value of that article rose in the State of New York from 
 $6 to $20 a ton ; but the paper thus made had a silicious 
 surface, which in three months wore out the types. Then
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 153 
 
 the inventor left the field for the forest, and now all print- 
 ing paper that is used in newspapers is made out of wood, 
 and when you pick up your paper in the morning the prob- 
 ability is that you are picking up a piece of spruce-tree 
 from Norway, 1 or taken out of the Adirondack country, or 
 wherever in North America the spruce is grown. That 
 which is now universally used is made out of spruce-trees 
 or pine-trees, or almost any other soft wood. It is put into 
 a mill and ground to powder as fine as flour, and then it is 
 converted into pulp, and from that the paper is made by 
 the mile and circulated by the million. 
 
 According to the latest statistics, the number of news- 
 papers in the United States is now 1,855 dailies, and 14,077 
 weeklies. 2 The editors and their staffs are, as a rule, men 
 of brains and culture, work hard, and well deserve their 
 remuneration, stated to be on an average as follows : 
 Managing editors $5,000 per year, equal to the average 
 salary of bishops of the various churches, and only $500 less 
 than that of brigadier-generals of the army. In New York 
 City the salaries are higher than anywhere else, because of 
 the superior standard of proficiency, and partly because the 
 cost of living is greater than in any other large city. The 
 editor-in-chief has the same salary as the President of the 
 United States, $50,000 per year, and others receive from 
 $10,000 to $12,000, or more than members of the Cabinet ; 
 editorial writers (recurring to the average) $3,500, equal 
 to the salary of an Assistant Secretary of State at Washing- 
 ton, and more than the average salary of college presidents ; 
 city editors $2,500, only a little less than the salary of a 
 
 1 " In Norway a new industry, the paper pulp trade, has in a few 
 years become extremely important, and the manufacture of it is carried 
 on entirely by cheap water-power, derived from considerable falls on 
 the glacier-fed streams." W. C. UN WIN. 
 
 2 From The Forum, January, 1895.
 
 154 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Secretary of Legation at one of the leading courts ; news 
 editors, copy-readers, and space-writers, $1,800, matching 
 the pay of a captain in the army or a junior lieutenant in 
 the navy; and reporters $1,200, as much as the average 
 income of those engaged in commerce. For cities of over 
 200,000 and less than 400,000 inhabitants these averages 
 have to be lowered from 10 to 15 per cent., and for cities 
 of less than 200,000 about 25 per cent. The average pay 
 of journalists of all the dailies is to be put at $1,500. 
 
 Such being their attainments, in capacity and income, 
 there is no excuse for the piling up of the agony, for the 
 proclamations in huge and hideous type of the most abomi- 
 able crimes, for a procession of bad men and bad women on 
 the front of the stage, as though these actors were of all the 
 most important, and as though this " rogue's march " down 
 hill to perdition were much more interesting to the public 
 than the march of intellect, the progress of industry, the 
 advancements of science, the ascents of religion and of truth. 
 Moreover, this protrusive accumulation of horrors, with all 
 their ghastly details, leaves a false impression upon the mind 
 of the stranger, not taking into account the immense area 
 from which they are collected, that America has precedence 
 in the crimes so conspicuously and constantly recorded ; 
 and all of us who know and admire her true character must 
 feel righteous indignation that it should not have the uni- 
 versal appreciation which some few of her children affect, 
 but cannot afford, to despise. This sensational system, this 
 appeal to the lower instincts, will be discarded, and mean- 
 while it is consolatory to know that the effort, the ambition 
 which inspired the fat boy in Pickwick when he said, " I 
 wants to make your flesh creep," is defeating its own 
 purpose, the appetite is sated to repletion, and the 
 digestive organs are beginning to decay.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. WORCESTER CITY. 
 
 AS the young rook before he flies abroad to the woods 
 and fields exercises in brief migrations from twig 
 to twig and from tree to tree his powers of volitation, as 
 the jockey takes his preliminary canter before he rides his 
 race, or as the bowler takes advantage of the " trial balls " 
 before he attacks the wicket, so, before I went forth to 
 deliver my lectures in the great cities of the States, I had 
 the privilege of addressing smaller audiences in the neigh- 
 bourhood of New York, of encouragements from sympathetic 
 hearers, instead of the frigid, silent stare foretold by false 
 prophets, and also of instruction as to the subjects which 
 pleased them most. For example, when I was informed 
 by a clergyman who invited me to lecture in his district 
 that the subject which I had chosen, " Fifty Years in the 
 Church of England," did not evoke any sympathy, and 
 that my audience had never heard of Pusey, Newman, or 
 Keble, I did not repeat the offence, although in other 
 places an affectionate interest was often expressed in the 
 history, past and present, of the Mother Church, and even, 
 on the occasion referred to, the kind approbation which 
 the lecturer received excluded any signs of indifference to 
 the subject. 
 
 One of my earliest and happiest experiences on the 
 platform was at Brooklyn, where I addressed, by invita- 
 tion, the members of The Twentieth Century Club. I did 
 not inquire whether this title was chosen to denote that
 
 156 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the society was somewhat in advance of the age, being 
 abundantly satisfied with the fact that it was one of the 
 charming coteries which had been formed in the chief 
 cities for the social and intellectual intercourse of those 
 who desire to unite the amenities of friendship with the 
 acquisition of knowledge and the accomplishment of art. 
 I have not seen brighter assemblies. They are held in 
 large houses, with all the adornments of a refined and 
 wealthy taste albeit, the portly Britisher in his eighth 
 decade is somewhat perturbed by a steep ascent to a 
 bedroom on the second floor for the deposition of his hat 
 and overcoat, which he had been accustomed to leave in the 
 hall, with a da capo movement when he departs suggesting 
 a negro melody which we sang fifty years ago at Oxford, 
 " Such a gettin' upstairs I never did see," amid things 
 pleasant to the eye and good for food, amid faces beauti- 
 ful and thoughtful, gay costumes, sparkling gems, pictures 
 and flowers. 
 
 The most remarkable figure in the company at Brooklyn, 
 the most unlike the others, yet admired of all, venerable in 
 the simple garb of widowhood, with no decoration save the 
 ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, was Mrs. Beecher, the 
 wife of the famous preacher, the Spurgeon of the States. 
 The greatness and the goodness of Henry Ward Beecher 
 were never duly recognised in England, and his reception in 
 this country was rarely cordial, and was sometimes hostile. 
 The faithful members of the Church of England are fully 
 persuaded in their own minds of the truth of her doctrines, 
 and do not go to hear those who contradict them, and for 
 the more highly educated portion of our countrymen there 
 was a lack of the reverence, refinement, and scholarship 
 which they admire in the sermons of Mr. Beecher. When 
 the Duke of Argyll and Mr. Gladsone were asked to con-
 
 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. 157 
 
 tribute to a volume of tributes to his memory, they both 
 declined on the plea that they had not sufficient personal 
 knowledge, although the former testified to the noble work 
 done by Beecher and " his illustrious sister, my old friend, 
 Mrs. Beecher-Stowe," in the great contest against slavery, 
 and the latter referred to his undying fame. Archdeacon 
 Farrar was far more enthusiastic in his declaration that it 
 was impossible to hear him without being struck by his 
 great power, and that he had rarely listened to any man 
 who seemed to have a more powerful hold upon his 
 audience, or a more generous sympathy with all sorts and 
 conditions of men of every race under the sun. The Rev. 
 Newman Hall expressed " his sorrowful and strong dis- 
 approval of some of Mr. Beecher's theological utterances in 
 later years," but he added that this in no degree interfered 
 with his admiration of his genius, his unrivalled eloquence, 
 and his labours as a philanthropist. 
 
 These are, I believe, the only contributions of eulogy 
 from men of note in England to " the Beecher Memorial," 
 whereas in America his death not only evoked the highest 
 praise of his worth and his work from many, of her most 
 distinguished men, but a general, almost a national, grief. 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes remembered his visit to Pittsfield, 
 thirty years ago, and how he had dispelled the gloom of a 
 day which, though it was not known in his household by its 
 Jewish name of the Sabbath, was observed in the old 
 Puritan fashion. On Saturday all playthings were put away 
 at "sundown," all voices were hushed, and all features 
 subdued and sobered. When Mr. Beecher appeared, joy- 
 ous and radiant, it seemed as if the leaden cloud which had 
 hung over the day for so many years had given way to a 
 burst of sunshine. No long faces, no melancholy tones, no 
 fear of a smile, or even a laugh ; no constraint, but, on the
 
 158 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 contrary, a wholesome, natural, cheerful welcome to the 
 day of rest. In the pulpit he had a gift of fervid eloquence, 
 which swayed the multitude before him as the wind sways 
 the leaves of the forest. He never addressed men as if 
 they were convicts, born rebels, and would-be devils, but as 
 brothers to be helped, to be led, to be raised upwards. 
 What a comfort it was, after hearing a bloodless invalid 
 preaching " as a dying man to dying men," to hear a sound, 
 strong-bodied minister of the gospel speak with virile force 
 and ringing accents as a living man to living men. He was 
 a mighty power in the land. 
 
 Whittier wrote : " Apart from his unequalled pulpit 
 successes, our country owes to him, as a great moral and 
 political force in his day and generation, a deeper debt of 
 gratitude for his noble services in the dark days of the 
 Rebellion." 
 
 The President of the United States, Mr. Grover Cleveland, 
 expressed " his appreciation of the loss which he and his 
 country had sustained in the death of the great preacher, 
 whose friendship, based upon acquaintance and personal 
 contact, had. been to him a source of the greatest satis- 
 faction. He never met Mr. Beecher without gaining some- 
 thing from his broad views and wise reflections." 
 
 Generals, and admirals, and millionaires brought wreaths 
 and laid them on his grave. The famous soldier, Sherman, 
 spoke of his most warm friendship with a national man, 
 grasping all the thoughts and feelings of a continent, whose 
 writings would carry hope and consolation to millions. 
 Admiral Porter affirmed that, as a theologian, orator, lec- 
 turer, or citizen, his vacant place was not likely to be filled, 
 and that as a speaker he could only be compared to Niagara, 
 sweeping all before it; to the Himalaya, overtopping all 
 other mountains ; or to the leviathan, compared with whom
 
 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. 159 
 
 the common herd are but as a shoal of minnows. Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie declared that in the death of Mr. Beecher 
 America lost her greatest citizen, and the world her greatest 
 preacher. That he resembled Shakespeare and Burns in 
 this, that he was without prototype, and would remain 
 without a successor. 
 
 Authors praised him, Will Carleton with a sweet, pa- 
 thetic poem upon an incident in his life ; Bill Nye with a 
 bright, earnest encomium. Actors testified. It could not 
 be said to Ward Beecher as by one of their community to a 
 vapid preacher who inquired, " Why do I fail and you suc- 
 ceed with an audience? " " Because we represent fiction 
 as though it were reality, and you treat reality as though it 
 were fiction." Edward Booth remembered " that on one 
 of the saddest occasions of his life Mr. Beecher had sent him 
 such a message of hope and encouragement that he ever held 
 him in grateful and affectionate esteem." Dion Boucicault, 
 to whom Mr. Beecher had frankly confessed that he had 
 learned, among other truths, how wrong he had been in the 
 prejudice he had entertained, and the attacks which he had 
 made, against the stage, suggested an epitaph : " Beecher 
 fills a grave ; but no man can fill the grave which he has 
 left in the world, above the sod, and under the sun." 
 
 If it be urged that they who write these obituary notices 
 are tempted, sometimes from a desire to gratify the living, 
 and sometimes from a desire to demonstrate their powers 
 of composition, to be too effusive, and that the authors of 
 these panegyrics are apt, as in the Himalaya simile, " to 
 pile it up a little too mountainous," I would make answer, 
 " Go to America, and hear, as I did, from those who knew 
 Beecher best, what sort of a man he was." This, the 
 strongest evidence of all, convinced me that, though he 
 had, like all public men of superior talents, many jealous
 
 l6o A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 opponents ; though, like all men who denounce vice and 
 preach righteousness, he was derided by the sensual and 
 doubted by those who, finding no good in themselves, cannot 
 believe in its existence elsewhere ; though he sometimes 
 startled and sometimes irritated his friends, " was," as Wendell 
 Holmes said, "uncomfortably hot to meddle with, shot up 
 into extravagance," and, as General Sherman said, " occa- 
 sionally kicked over the traces;" though he was attacked 
 by railing accusations, and passed through a protracted 
 and painful ordeal before he was acquitted ; though he did 
 not leave as monuments of his charity any great and costly 
 institutions, such as the college and the orphanage estab- 
 lished by Mr. Spurgeon ; he was beloved and honoured by 
 those who were the most closely associated with him, and 
 was acknowledged by all as a man who, having extraordinary 
 gifts, devoted them to the honour of his nation and the 
 benefit of his fellovvmen. 
 
 No one, I believe, outside his own home, knew Mr. 
 Beecher more thoroughly than his friend, and my friend, 
 his agent, and my agent, Major Pond, of New York. He 
 was often with him for consecutive weeks, by themselves, 
 and in company. He heard him preach and lecture, and 
 listened continually to those revelations of the inner man 
 which find utterance in private conversation. He was with 
 him in seasons of great success and of great disappoint- 
 ment. He was with him in those dark years of terrible 
 anxiety, when he was suspected, hooted, and reviled. He 
 saw him re-established in the love and confidence of the 
 people. For thirteen years he was the friend that loveth 
 at all times, and the brother born for adversity. Then he 
 was summoned to stand by his death-bed and to weep be- 
 side his grave. Eight years afterwards, when his friendship, 
 if it had depended upon pecuniary advantage and mere
 
 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. l6l 
 
 mutual accommodations, would have been forgotten, Major 
 Pond seemed to keep it perpetually " in memory's fondest 
 place," and was constantly referring to Mr. Beecher's ser- 
 mons and speeches, his patriotism, his philanthropy, his 
 courage, his truthfulness and sincerity, his hatred of shams, 
 his tenderness and gentleness, his love for the children, his 
 cheery humour, his sympathy and sorrow, his delight in his 
 flowers and trees, 1 his admiration of all things beautiful. 
 The major kindly presented me with some of his friend's 
 sermons full of common sense and striking illustrations 
 and his "Patriotic Addresses," containing memorable 
 arguments and splendid eloquence. 
 
 The child was father to the man, and there was an early 
 development of his wit. One day his sister took him aside 
 to a private apartment, to drill him in the rules and defini- 
 tions, which caused much perplexity. "Now, Henry," she 
 said, "you must remember that a is the indefinite article, 
 and must be used only with a singular noun. You can say 
 a man, but you must not say a men." " Oh, yes, I must," 
 replied the boy " at the end of my prayers. Father 
 always says so." Then he was called upon to decline he, 
 nominative he, possessive his, objective him. "You see, 
 his is possessive ; you can say his, not him book." " But I 
 do say 'hymn-book,'" exclaimed the pupil with a merry 
 grin, "and take it with me to church." Finally, when his 
 attention was invited to an explanation of the difference 
 between the active and the passive voice, and his sister 
 
 1 He was an enthusiastic and successful gardener. " I went to In- 
 dianapolis," he wrote, " in the summer of 1839, and here I built a 
 house and painted it with my own hands; here I had my first garden, 
 and became bishop of flowers for the diocese ; here I first joined the edi- 
 torial fraternity, and edited the Farmer and Gardener." He read Lou- 
 don and Lindley, even as in theology he read Barrow, South, and 
 
 Butler. 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 remarked, " You see, Henry, I strike is active, because if you 
 strike, you do something ; but / am struck is passive, because 
 if you are struck, you don't do anything, do you?" He 
 promptly protested, "Oh, yes, I do. I hit him again." 
 
 I lectured in Flushing, a bright and pleasant town, "a 
 goodly place," and we had "a goodly time" under the 
 hospitable auspices of Mr. Robert Parsons. He resides in 
 a modern mansion with charming grounds, and with two of 
 the tallest tulip-trees I ever saw, guarding, like gigantic 
 warders, his entrance door ; but he is also the owner of one 
 of the most ancient if not the most ancient habita- 
 tions in the States, the old Bowne homestead, which he 
 inherits as representing the seventh generation in descent 
 from him who built it. It is a privilege, I think, to live 
 where our forefathers have lived for centuries ; to play, 
 and to see our children it may be our children's children 
 play amid the same surroundings ; to worship where they 
 worshipped ; and if, in our mid-life, we have work to do else- 
 where, 
 
 " We still have hope, our long vexations past, 
 Here to return, and die at home at last." 
 
 But beyond this I see no advantage in knowing the Chris- 
 tian names of our ancestors, unless they were men of re- 
 nown ; and, under any circumstances, rational people will 
 smile at the claims of long descent, unless noblesse oblige, 
 and honest men will have nothing to do with that fabrica- 
 tion of pedigrees which is not uncommon with our nouveaux 
 riches, and is in some cases almost as ludicrous as the 
 claim supposed by a vivid imagination to have been 
 made by the Queen of the Sandwich Islands, " that she had 
 English blood in her veins, because one of her forefathers 
 had partaken freely of the remains of Captain Cook." 
 Nevertheless, a genealogical tree with seven " rings " is, in
 
 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. 163 
 
 these days of sudden splendour and eclipse, by no means 
 common in the old country, and, of course, more rare in 
 the new; and it was interesting to inspect "the house," 
 not "with seven gables," but with seven owners, who were 
 kinsmen in sequence, accompanied by the present pos- 
 sessor. It is one of those unpretentious but comfortable 
 houses with its low ceilings and small windows, its simple 
 furniture, its cleanly sweetness, its huge fireplace in which 
 the American pines burned with an exhilarating glow and 
 warmth which no other fuel gives ; its snug recesses in the 
 lower chimney, wherein, when the snow lay deep upon the 
 Broadway, the goodman smoked his pipe and the good 
 dame sat at her spinning-wheel ; with doors on either side, 
 through one of which the ox brought in his load of logs, 
 and, having no room to turn, went round the long dining- 
 table, and so passed in and out ; such an abode as was 
 occupied a hundred years ago by our substantial yeomen, 
 before fine clothes, and mirrors, and bad champagne were 
 regarded as essential to human happiness, and a thing, 
 which sauntered about with its hands in its pockets, was 
 supposed to be a gentleman. 
 
 There is, however, an explanation of the plainness, with- 
 out and within, which involves a much higher principle 
 than that of thrift or propriety. The builder was the leader 
 of the Society of Friends, who were numerous in Long 
 Island. He came from England in 1651, and in 1661 
 erected this house. 
 
 The British forces were encamped in the neighbourhood 
 during the war, and I saw the aperture which had been 
 made in one of the walls for the secretion of plate and 
 other valuable articles. During their occupation of the 
 place, it is recorded to their credit that, when they ap- 
 proached the meeting-house, and found that it was the time
 
 1 64 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 of service, "with commendable courtesy -they stacked their 
 arms in the porch, and. waited until the worship was con- 
 cluded, before they took possession." 
 
 George Fox, the founder of the Society, who in his youth 
 was a shepherd-boy like David, and passed his early years 
 among our grand Leicester sheep, and who afterwards, 
 when he went forth on his sacred mission, resembled in his 
 costume one of the greatest of preachers, the Baptist, being 
 known I do not write in ridicule as " the man with 
 the leather breeches," Fox, " the Quaker," the world is 
 quick to disparage with derisive terms the enthusiasm, the 
 zeal, the earnestness and piety which rebuke its apathy, and 
 it was said of the Master, whom he served so truly, " He is 
 beside Himself," mistaken in many ways, as most of us 
 believe, was, nevertheless, apostolic in his self-denial, for he 
 left all and went forth with his Bible in his hand more 
 than apostolic, Christ-like, for there were times when he 
 had not where to lay his head, and slept in the open air, 
 Christ-like in his poverty, in his love of the poor, in his 
 endurance of persecution, despised and rejected of men ; 
 George Fox visited Flushing some two hundred and thirty 
 years ago, and Mr. Parsons showed me the site of the last 
 of " the Fox Oaks," under which he preached, and which 
 had perished little more than a year ago. 
 
 Mrs. Parsons related to me a catastrophe in her family 
 history, so tragic and so strange that I asked and received 
 permission to repeat it in her own words : 
 
 "Theodosia Burr, daughter of Aaron Burr, married 
 Governor Alston of South Carolina. A great sorrow came 
 upon her in the death of her son, and her husband sug- 
 gested that she should go to New York to join her father, 
 hoping that the change of air and scene would be of ser- 
 vice. My grandfather, Mr. T. R. Green, at that time prac-
 
 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEW YORK. 165 
 
 tising as a lawyer in New York, was called south to consult 
 with his brother, Dr. Green, at Columbia. After attending 
 to his business, he passed on to Charlestown, whence he 
 was soon to embark for New York ; and being a friend 
 of Aaron Burr, he was asked by Governor Alston to take 
 charge of his wife. The vessel on which their passages 
 were secured was called the Patriot. She had been a pri- 
 vateering cruiser, her guns being stored below. The voy- 
 age to New York took five or six days. The vessel started 
 in the month of December, 1812, and nothing more was 
 heard of her! until many years afterwards, so the story 
 goes, a man, who lay dying in an almshouse in Michigan, 
 expressed his desire to see a minister of the gospel, and to 
 a Methodist, who complied with his request, he made the 
 following statement : ' I was a lad, about twelve or four- 
 teen, and was employed on a pirate ship. Before the 
 Patriot sailed, we noticed that she had a rich cargo on 
 board, and it was known that Mrs. Alston was taking with 
 her a great deal of silver and jewellery, which our captain 
 meant to have. We sailed after her, overtook, and boarded 
 her in mid sea. The captain, crew, and passengers were 
 made to "walk the plank." Mrs. Alston was a very beau- 
 tiful woman. She asked permission to go down into her 
 cabin, and shortly returned, dressed in white, with her Bible 
 clasped upon her breast. Sailors are superstitious, and she 
 hoped to move their hearts. The command was given, but 
 the man to whom it was spoken refused to obey, and I was 
 ordered to tip the plank, and dared not refuse. I have 
 never forgotten the look of that face ; it has haunted me all 
 my life. Mr. Green perished in the same way.' 
 
 " Aaron Burr and my grandfather waited, hoping 
 against hope for tidings of those whom they had loved and 
 lost, but though he lived for many years after that disastrous 
 voyage he died in 1836 no tidings came.
 
 1 66 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 " In the house of one of the Burr family there was a por- 
 trait of the beautiful Theodosia Alston. One morning, 
 when the family came down to breakfast, the picture was 
 gone ; it had been cut out of the frame. It was ultimately 
 discovered, such is the tradition, in the cabin of a sailor." 
 
 Then, when my " young muse had waved her joyous 
 wing," I took a longer flight, to Worcester, in the State of 
 Massachusetts, and of its cities the second in size, a fair 
 city of well-built houses, and wide streets, and avenues of 
 trees, which with their bright leafage and pleasant shade 
 refresh the wayfaring man. 
 
 Here I had a most genial reception from the Rector of 
 All Saints ; and after we had knelt side by side in his beau- 
 tiful church, two priests dwelling more than three thousand 
 miles apart, but one in faith and doctrine, one in charity, 
 and I had admired the arrangements not only for worship, 
 but for education also in the large school attached to the 
 church, and we had inspected some pieces of carved stone, 
 which had been sent from Worcester in England during the 
 restoration to Worcester in America, with the same filial 
 love and reverence for her who is the Mother of us all, we 
 had a delightful drive through the city, and then a charm- 
 ing panoramic view from the top of Newton Hill. We 
 saw the public offices and institutes and schools, and a very 
 effective group of figures known as the Soldiers' Monument. 
 There are magnificent libraries, as in all the great cities of 
 the States, the American Antiquarian Society and the Public 
 Free Library each possessing more than sixty thousand 
 books. 
 
 We had a sprightly little congress at dinner, including two 
 members of the Senate, and some humorous talk about 
 humour. We were of one mind that a majority of the most 
 laughable stories were those of impossible exaggeration,
 
 WORCESTER CITY. 1 67 
 
 solemnly narrated as established facts, which the most 
 incredulous sceptic had never dared to doubt ; or of a 
 combination of disparities and juxtaposition of extremes, 
 a fusion of the incongruous, of the minute with the mag- 
 nificent, the silly and the sublime ; of complications and 
 accidents by which our dear fellow-creatures are suddenly 
 brought into situations of discomfort painful and perilous to 
 them, but ludicrous to the spectator; or of some adroit 
 exposure of humbug, some rebuke and prostration of Bump- 
 tious folk. 
 
 I should cite, as an example, the ancient history of the 
 wise and affectionate dog who, when his blind owner 
 stumbled and fell as they crossed a railway, saw the express 
 in the distance, tore the red neckerchief from the throat of 
 his master, twisted it round a forepaw, stood on his hind 
 legs, and, with this impromptu signal of danger, stopped the 
 train ; or the more modern account of the intense heat in 
 Arizona, which necessitated a constant supply of broken ice 
 in the poultry yards to prevent the hens from laying their 
 eggs hard-boiled. 
 
 Among contrasts which provoke our innocent mirth, 
 all the more enjoyable because it may not be expressed, 
 may be included a gigantic wife arm-in-arm with a tiny 
 husband, a very fat man with a red face (I saw him in the 
 booth of some strolling players at a country fair sixty years 
 ago) playing " Romeo " in the tightest of " tights," strained 
 to the uttermost, and evidently designed for a lover youth- 
 ful and slim ; and I remember that at a great ecclesiastical 
 function I, the largest person of the company, was told by 
 an insane ceremonarius that I was to walk in procession 
 with the smallest of my brethren, because he was a digni- 
 tary, and that I rushed at the most substantial curate I 
 could see, and besought him not to leave me. Had I taken
 
 1 68 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the place assigned to me, the effect would have been as 
 though by some confusion a giraffe and a goat, a turkey and 
 a torn-tit, had walked side by side into the ark. 
 
 Asked for proofs of the gleeful and unpardonable satis- 
 faction with which we contemplate the sufferings of our 
 fellow-men, I desire to mention those falls in the hunting 
 field, those submersions of the horse and his rider in the 
 brook, which, without waiting to ascertain whether our 
 brother's neck is broken, or helping him out of the water, 
 we regard with peals of laughter. 
 
 I met a gentleman once by " the sad sea wave " who, 
 from motives of economy or privacy, had retired far from 
 the madding crowd and the machines to bathe. Some 
 naughty urchins had watched him from the cliffs above, 
 descended, removed and secreted his clothes. He was 
 furious. He forgot that his denunciations and anathemas, 
 when he had nothing on, and was in a lonely place where 
 there were no police, were not calculated to inspire awe. 
 I lent him my overcoat, and shall never forget his language 
 or his legs (they were in form of the order which I have 
 heard a rustic describe as "bad uns to stop a pig in a 
 gate," and resembled in substance those of a colonial 
 bishop of whom it was said that he ought to have been 
 apprehended as a vagrant having no visible means of sup- 
 port) as we walked together towards a cottage on the 
 beach. 
 
 At intervals we were greeted with derisive sounds, which 
 came to us from the rocks above, and increased in volume 
 whenever my companion halted to look upward, and shake 
 his fist, like Ajax defying the lightning, at his jubilant and 
 inaccessible foes. Finally he was struck by the comedy of 
 the situation, which from the first had oppressed me with 
 an ecstasy or, rather, with an agony of enjoyment
 
 WORCESTER CITY. 1 69 
 
 which was becoming intolerable, and he gave me the 
 opportunity of opening the floodgates of a reservoir which 
 had well-nigh burst its banks. 
 
 Who does not admire the transcendent power of humour 
 in the demolition of shams, in the pricking of windbags, in 
 the removal of masks and wigs, the nudification and flagel- 
 lation of rogues? Charles Dickens, the king of humourists, 
 made a wise selection when he placed the representation 
 of old Weller sousing " the Shepherd," after a long series 
 of preliminary kicks, in the horse-trough, for in that history, 
 as in the histories of Pecksniff and Uriah Heep, he preached, 
 and preaches, to millions of men such sermons as have 
 helped them all to despise hypocrisy, and to love sincerity 
 and truth. In these various phases of humour it seems to 
 me that, since Dickens died, the Americans have taken 
 precedence, and when such brains as I possess are on 
 strike, and I am wearied by work, I find alteratives and 
 tonics not only in " Pickwick," " Nickleby," and " Copper- 
 field," but in Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and Nye, of 
 the latter more when we meet. 
 
 The nations of the world do not yield the priority in 
 imaginative power without a struggle. The Frenchman in 
 whose family there had been so many field-marshals that 
 their batons were used as firewood, the Irishman who saw 
 so many hares in a field that some of them had to sit on 
 the gate, and the Englishman who, on hearing a visitor from 
 New York criticising as well he might the inferiority 
 of our provincial hotels, inquired whether the traveller had 
 seen " The Black Swan at Falmouth," and assured him, on 
 receiving a negative answer, that after such an inspection 
 he would certainly have modified his views because the 
 dining-room at this hotel was the largest in the world, 
 and all the waiters went about on horseback these, all
 
 I/O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 of them, were men of genius. Moreover, we have some 
 splendid artists in humour, such as Burnand and " Jerome," 
 Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carroll ; nor has Punch a 
 rival in the States ; and yet I am inclined to believe that 
 the first prize for terse, smart, ready wit in conversation 
 and in public speaking must be awarded to Jonathan. 
 Here is a sample : A proud Britisher, who had forgotten 
 history, was conversing with an American upon a subject 
 then under the discussion of the two nations, and, losing 
 his temper, foolishly said, " If you fellows don't know how 
 to behave yourselves, we shall have to come over and 
 teach you." The threat only evoked two words of meek 
 expostulation, " What, again!"
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 NIAGARA. 
 
 IF I were asked to name, according to my knowledge, 
 the most wonderful place in the world, I should make 
 answer, " Niagara Falls." Wonderful, because no other 
 sight which I have ever seen so surprises with awe and 
 admiration, so subdues the spirit to a reverent adoration of 
 Him, who, repeating the miracle of the Red Sea, has 
 "made the waters to stand upon an heap; " so wonderful, 
 that no poet, no painter, can present to the imagination 
 or the eye the grandeur or the beauty of that scene ; but 
 also wonderful as being the site of a scientific enterprise, 
 which promises to be the chief achievement of engineering 
 skill in the creation and adaptation of electric power. Few 
 subjects are more interesting than the discovery in the 
 materials which surround us of a force, hitherto unknown, 
 its transfer from natural sources, and its appliance to 
 machinery, its introduction as a new and precious tool into 
 the great workshop of the world. 
 
 What a development there has been in the last sixty 
 years of this scientific success ! What revelations to patient 
 study, to the experiments of men undaunted by failure, 
 to hard, persevering work. I remember in those blissful 
 days of boyhood, when I went a-fishing on the banks of the 
 brook to the old mill pool at Norwell, and my face flushed, 
 and my heart throbbed in anxious ecstasy, as the new float, 
 all aglow with vermilion and bright green, danced awhile 
 upon the surface, and then dipped into the flood. I 
 remember when that float was quiescent, in those oppor-
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 tunities for reflection which are so abundantly bestowed 
 upon anglers, how impressed I was by the revolutions of 
 the great wheel, notwithstanding the ravages which had 
 been made in its timbers by damp and by decay : that I 
 regarded this stoppage and subjugation of Nature as magni- 
 ficent, but almost profane ; and that I believed the miller, 
 although of a snappish disposition, and somewhat offensive 
 in the expression of his views as to my early enjoyment of 
 tobacco, to be the greatest of living engineers. 
 
 My thoughts reverted to the old mill when I saw, sixty 
 years afterwards, the wheel at Earl's Court, and again when 
 I gazed on Niagara Falls, and recalled Professor Unwin's 
 calculation that " they represent theoretically seven million 
 horse-power, and for practical use, without appreciable 
 diminution of the natural beauty, several hundreds of 
 thousands of horse power." The reference to a diminu- 
 tion of natural beauty caused a shudder when first I read 
 it, but the agitation was brief as it was chill. There 
 has been always, and is now, the most reliable evidence 
 that, so far as human wisdom can provide there shall be 
 no diminution, no disfigurement of the glory of Niagara 
 Falls. 1 
 
 The contrast which I have drawn as to the motive power 
 of water suggests an incident which, as a philanthropist, I 
 am constrained to repeat. It was told to me and others 
 some time ago by my friend Dr. Conan Doyle, and I run 
 the risk accordingly of evoking from the critic who knows 
 
 i The State of New York and the Province of Ontario have made 
 every provision and taken every precaution for the safe custody of 
 the falls, by the appointment of superintendents with subordinate 
 staffs. No less a sum than $157,000 was paid on the American side 
 at one deposit for the purchase and removal of paper mills, etc., 
 which marred the beauty of the scene.
 
 NIAGARA. 173 
 
 all stories the accusation, so odious to the author, espe- 
 cially when it is applied to a dear little anecdote of his own 
 composition, of " Chestnut, chestnut ; " but it is unknown 
 to most men ; and so, in the sure expectation of their 
 gratitude, I provide an ointment of my wound : 
 
 One who was born and lived close by the cataract, of course 
 saw nothing extraordinary about it, but took it as a matter 
 of course, and as a probable appurtenance of all villages. 
 When he came to manhood he had the opportunity of read- 
 ing Southey's poems, and the well-known verses on the water- 
 fall of Lodore excited his curiosity. " Ah ! " he sighed as he 
 put down the book, " what if some day I might see Lodore ! " 
 That day came. He crossed the Atlantic, and hurried from 
 Liverpool to the Lakes, made inquiries at Ambleside, and 
 followed directions given ; but he could neither see nor 
 hear Lodore. Wearied by his wanderings on the hills, he 
 sat down on a bank, and seeing a countryman approach, 
 he addressed him : " Friend, I have come between four 
 and five thousand miles to see your famous cataract. Tell 
 me where oh where ! are the great waters of Lodore ? " 
 And the rustic drew nigh and said, " You be a-sitting on 
 it! but," he added, noting, it may be, a look of disap- 
 pointment on the countenance of the pilgrim, " it '11 be all 
 right when the rain comes, and it comes reg'lar." The 
 American replied with complete composure, and in a gentle 
 tone, that, being in a somewhat delicate state of health, he 
 thought that the exhibition might be almost more than he 
 could bear. So he returned to the States, and persuaded a 
 disagreeable neighbour, who had done him an injury, and 
 whom he much disliked, to save up his money, and go and 
 see Lodore. 
 
 We elderly gentlemen have been, and are, eye-witnesses 
 of many other inventions and improvements which are now
 
 1/4 ^ LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 culminating in the application of electric power. I recall 
 the dreary dimness of the oil lamps in the streets of Newark 
 on the Trent when I was a schoolboy in that fair and loyal 
 town, and took a prominent part in the elections though 
 I never received any recognition of my services by shout- 
 ing, " Red for ever ! " whenever I saw a bit of blue ribbon, 
 thus subjecting myself to much menace and many missiles, 
 followed not seldom by vigorous pursuits with a view to 
 habeas corpus, the latter always a source of high delectation, 
 seeing that I was swift-footed as Achilles, and knew every 
 yard and alley in the town. 
 
 How we exulted, how sure we were that we had attained 
 to perfection as we walked in the glare of the gas, and the 
 slow movements of the watchman in his cumbrous raiment 
 were exchanged for the more brisk activity of the spruce 
 policeman. 
 
 Again I see the huge vans of Pickford crawling on the 
 roads, and remember my yearnings as a child for admission 
 into the small apartment, half filled with straw, at the end 
 of the carriage, " to play at houses," and at travelling in 
 foreign lands, with the little Pickfords, who, as I supposed, 
 had no other habitation. 
 
 And the mail coaches ! the guard in scarlet splendour, 
 with his long horn oh one side, and his great blunderbuss on 
 the other. Providentially these guards were not called upon 
 to discharge their hideous artillery. I only remember one 
 exception. Some mischievous young fellows, so the story 
 ran, dressed up a dark hirsute figure, and, propping it against 
 a wayside hedge, fired a pistol from the bank below as the 
 mail went by in the moonlight. The result was that the 
 guard was knocked off his perch by the recoil of his own 
 blunderbuss, which he duly extricated and let off at a dis- 
 tance of one hundred- and fifty yards from his object, that 
 the horses ran away, and that, finally, no one was hurt.
 
 NIAGARA. 175 
 
 Then there were the ordinary coaches, piled at Christ- 
 mastide with pyramids of white wooden barrels containing 
 the delicious "natives" from Messrs. Lynn and Pirn, at 
 weep, Epicurus, 
 
 " Tears from the depth of some divine despair, 
 While thinking of the days that are no more " 
 
 something like six shillings a barrel. I have seen these 
 pyramids sway to and fro more than once, when some young 
 swell has tipped the coachman, and Phaeton, with the sun 
 in his eyes and an erratic leader, has not been master of 
 his team. 
 
 The iron horse superseded the four spanking tits, and, 
 though the devious driver and his boon companions sang 
 lustily 
 
 " Let the steam pot hiss till it 's hot, 
 Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot," 
 
 the coach, as a public institution, with all its enjoyments of 
 fresh air, exhilarating motion, pleasant scenery, and cheery 
 conversation, and with all its miseries biting sleet and 
 nipping frost, scorching sun and choking dust, on the moor 
 and on the mountain, the crowding and the cramps, the 
 umbrellas dripping into the nape of your neck, until you 
 felt, like Miggs, " as though water were running aperiently 
 down your back ; " the incessant putting on and taking off 
 of skids, the man whose hat was always blown away as we 
 descended the hill, and the tipsy man who sang rude songs 
 with rasping discords, and fell asleep and snored, and 
 seemed as though he would fall from the coach, but dis- 
 appointed us, at every lurch, the coach, I say, as a con- 
 veyance for travellers has been expelled, with all its joys 
 and sorrows, by the locomotive power of steam. It has 
 been revived, nevertheless, in its most attractive form as an
 
 1/6 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 equipage of the rich, and a few enthusiasts still, as when we 
 harnessed our younger brother and sisters with tapes and 
 curtain rings, play at coaches. 
 
 Some think that steam, as a motive power, will ere long 
 be superseded by electricity. I remember a remark which 
 Sir Richard Owen made to me as we stood by the railway 
 at Richmond : " The time will soon come when all this 
 will be done by electricity." Babbage wrote more than 
 sixty years ago that the source of steam-power the fuel 
 was limited in quantity, and that a time might come when 
 the coal-mines would be exhausted ; and he spoke of the 
 tides as an inexhaustible source of energy if means could be 
 found for utilizing tidal action. This gigantic scheme, sug- 
 gestive of an Atlantic Company Limited, makes the Niagara 
 project to look " mean and poky," as Martha Penny said 
 of the Protestant religion in Hood's " Up the Rhine," but 
 it is not at present within the range of practical politics, 
 whereas the work goes on at the Falls. 
 
 Qui va piano, va sano ! And the engineer who is too 
 ambitious may be hoist on his own crane or submerged in 
 his ship-canal. All the splendid consummations of skill and 
 industry which appear to some so novel in conception and 
 so rapid in completion, have been won by a combination of 
 many minds, in many years, after many failures and mis- 
 takes. We stand upon the graves of those who discovered, 
 and explored, and planned, and felled, and builded, and 
 mined, and we say, " My arm, and the power of my might, 
 hath gotten me this wealth." 
 
 The Rev. William Lee, vicar of Calverton, in the county 
 of Nottingham, watched his wife knitting stockings, there 
 seems to have been a time in England when all our ladies 
 did some useful work, and her manipulations and her 
 needles gave him the first idea of that " spinning-jenny "
 
 NIAGARA. 177 
 
 which was afterwards brought into successful operation by 
 the Hargreaves, Arkwrights, and others. And so, in this 
 matter of the utilization of water for the production and 
 transmission of electric-power, we are informed by Colonel 
 Turrettini, President of the Municipality of Geneva, and 
 director of its public works, 1 that the town of Schaffhausen, 
 on the Rhine, was the first in Switzerland to endeavour to 
 use the river passing through it to procure power for driving 
 the machinery of the manufacturers in the neighbourhood. 
 At that time twenty-one years ago no other means of 
 transmitting power were known than that of wire-ropes ; and, 
 for that purpose, very costly apparatus was set up in the 
 middle of the river, the Rhine being dammed up so as to 
 procure a fall to drive a set of turbines. About 1500 horse- 
 power was obtained in this way, and was distributed to neigh- 
 bouring workshops. Three years ago three new turbines 
 were added, of 300 horse-power, driving dynamos which 
 distribute the electric-power. 
 
 A few years later, an English company established a 
 water-power plant, amounting to several thousand horse- 
 power, at Belle Garde, on the Rhone; in 1878, at Zurich, 
 and, about the same time, at Fribourg, companies were 
 formed, and similar work was undertaken ; but the chief 
 enterprise was suggested by Colonel Turrettini himself, 
 namely, the utilising of the whole power of the Rhone as it 
 issues from the Lake of Geneva and passes through the 
 town. He made a special study as to the best system of 
 distribution. Wire-rope transmission of power had been 
 condemned by experience ; transmission by compressed 
 air gave unsatisfactory results ; and transmission by elec- 
 tricity had not, in 1882, reached the degree of perfection 
 
 1 See Gassier 's Magazitte for July, 1895 "Niagara Power" 
 Number. 12
 
 1/8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 which it has since attained. The only system which re- 
 mained was that of water under pressure, and, though its 
 efficiency in ordinary cases might have been inadequate, in 
 this it was a satisfactory success. The water of the lake is 
 absolutely pure, and could, therefore, be used as drinking 
 water, as well as for general industrial purposes and motive- 
 power. The same water-mains could also be applied for 
 town purposes and for working private turbines. A credit 
 of two million francs was voted by the Municipal Committee, 
 1883 ; and, in less than nine years from the starting of the 
 machinery, seventeen turbines out of the eighteen contem- 
 plated have been erected, and the eighteenth is now being 
 constructed. Financially, the work has done well, render- 
 ing in 1894 a net profit of z\ per cent, after deducting 
 3^ per cent, for the interest on capital and the sinking fund 
 for wear and tear of machinery. New works are, accord- 
 ingly, in progress on an extensive scale, and will soon be 
 completed, making another 18,000 horse-power available, 
 and will be the most important in existence after those of 
 Niagara Falls : " but " to quote the modest words of the 
 chief factor " they will be very far from being rivals." 
 
 The power of electricity which might be generated and 
 distributed from Niagara Falls seems to have been suggested 
 to Sir William Siemens when he saw them in the autumn of 
 1876. We read in his biography, by William Pole, that in 
 all his many journeys in different countries, nothing made 
 such a deep impression on him as this wonderful natural 
 phenomenon. The rushing of mighty waters filled him 
 with fear and admiration ; but he saw in them something 
 far beyond that which was obvious to the multitude, for his 
 scientific mind regarded it as an inexpressible manifestation 
 of mechanical energy. And he at once began to speculate 
 whether it was absolutely necessary that the whole of this
 
 NIAGARA. 179 
 
 glorious magnitude of power should be wasted in dashing 
 itself into the chasm below ; whether it was not possible that 
 at least some portion might be practically utilized for the 
 benefit of mankind. He had not long to think before a 
 possible means of doing this presented itself to him. The 
 dynamo-machine had just then been brought to perfection 
 by his own labours ; and he asked himself, Why should not 
 this colossal power actuate a colossal series of dynamos, 
 whose conducting wires might transmit its activity to places 
 far away? This great idea, formed amid the thunderings 
 of the cataract, accompanied him all the way home, and 
 was a chief subject of his reflections long afterwards in the 
 quiet of his study. 
 
 Ultimately, in 1877, he submitted to the public the 
 results of his meditations in an address to the Iron and 
 Steel Institute, of which he was president. He pointed 
 out the dependence of the iron and steel manufacture on 
 coal as a fuel. He alluded to the gradual diminution in 
 the stores of the earth of this valuable commodity owing to 
 the vast consumption of it for steam-power, and he urged 
 that other natural sources of force, such as water and wind, 
 ought to be made more use of. He said that although the 
 immense advantage of water-power was not at present 
 appreciated, it might, sooner or later, be called into re- 
 quisition. They might take the Falls of Niagara as a 
 familiar example. The amount of water passing over this 
 fall has been estimated at 100,000,000 tons per hour, and 
 its perpendicular descent maybe taken at 150 feet, with- 
 out counting the rapids, which represent a further fall of 
 150 feet, making a total of 300 feet between lake and lake. 
 But the force represented by the principal fall alone 
 amounts to 16,800,000 horse-power, an amount which, if it 
 had to be produced by steam, would necessitate an expen-
 
 180 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 diture of 266,000,000 tons of coals, at four pounds per 
 horse-power per hour. In other words, all the coal raised 
 throughout the world would barely suffice to produce the 
 amount of power which daily runs to waste at this one great 
 fall! 
 
 The tremendous power obtained must be distributed, 
 the district being devoid of mineral wealth, or other natural 
 inducements for the establishment of factories, and must 
 be conveyed through large metallic conductors, and then 
 be made to impart motion to electro-magnetic engines, to 
 ignite the carbon points of electric lamps, or to effect the 
 separation of metals from their combinations. A copper 
 rod, three inches in diameter, would be capable of trans- 
 mitting 1000 horse-power a distance of, say, thirty miles, 
 an amount sufficient to supply one quarter of a million 
 candle-power, which would suffice to illuminate a moderately 
 sized town. 
 
 America may well rejoice in the practical realization of 
 these great ideas, but Mr. Stillwell, who had under his 
 supervision the entire installation of electrical apparatus at 
 the Falls, candidly declares, 1 that " she is in no position to 
 claim exclusive credit." In the plans for the hydraulic 
 plant, Switzerland, the land of water-powers, shows the way, 
 while in the design of the great electric generators, the 
 most powerful as yet produced, Great Britain is represented 
 directly in the excellent general form of construction adopted, 
 which was proposed by Professor G. Forbes, and indirectly 
 in the works of Hopkinson, Kapp, Thompson, Mordey, and 
 others, who have done so much to make possible the de- 
 sign of a machine far beyond the range of actual experience 
 in full confidence of success. 
 
 1 Casst'er's Magazine, Niagara Number, p. 253.
 
 NIAGARA. l8l 
 
 Were it possible to trace to its true source each one of 
 the great number of ideas embodied in the complete in- 
 stallation, it is probable that we should find nearly every 
 civilized nation represented England, America, Switzer- 
 land, France, Italy, and Germany some in greater degree, 
 some in less, but all co-operating to achieve what is beyond 
 question one of the most significant triumphs of engineer- 
 ing skill in this nineteenth century. 
 
 There are delightful walks in the groves, avenues, and 
 islands, 1 with ever-changing views of the rapids and the 
 great cascades, the best being, from the American side, 
 ' Hennapin's View," so called after Father Hennapin, of 
 whom tradition records that he was the first white man who 
 saw Niagara Falls, in 1678. He described them as "a 
 vast and prodigious Cadence of Water, which falls down 
 after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that 
 the Universe does not afford its parallel. The Waters which 
 fall from this horrible Precipice do foam and boyl after the 
 most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous 
 noise more terrible than that of Thunder." The reverend 
 father seems to have been in an irreverent mood, with 
 neither eye nor tongue for the sublime, and I have only 
 heard one other disparagement of this magnificent creation, 
 and that was drawled by an insipid youth with a receding 
 forehead, who affirmed that " for the life of him he never 
 could see what that sort of thing was for." Had he been 
 aware that " the thing " was capable, by a somewhat elabo- 
 rate and expensive process, of supplying a light for his 
 cigarette, he might have criticised less severely. 
 
 1 Goat Island, eighty acres in extent, is said to contain a greater 
 variety of flora than any other locality of the same area, but when I 
 was there those beauties were asleep beneath their counterpane of 
 snow.
 
 1 82 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 The traveller must cross the Suspension Bridge into 
 Canada " when the sun is westering," to enjoy the most 
 comprehensive and impressive view of the American and 
 the Horse-shoe Falls. But they are always beautiful, in 
 winter frozen into glaciers, in spring and summer with 
 verdure clad. 
 
 When I first saw the American Falls a gorgeous rainbow 
 spanned them with its arch from bank to bank, without a flaw 
 or dimness, like a bridge made of precious stones ; and 
 solemn thoughts came to me of the waters abating, and the 
 great flood going down, of the promise of mercy, and of 
 the token of the covenant, and the rainbow of glory around 
 the throne of God. 
 
 At Prospect Point the visitor stands at the summit of the 
 American Falls, close to the very brink, with only a low 
 wall between. Here the waters of four great lakes Erie, 
 Huron, Michigan, and Superior fall suddenly a hundred 
 and sixty-seven feet. The first thought which occurs to 
 the mind is of the swift destruction which must ensue to 
 all life which reaches that boundary, and we are reminded, 
 as we gaze upon the scene of the tragedy, of the pathetic 
 story which tradition tells, how, in the old time, the 
 Indians worshipping the great cataract offered yearly, with 
 other sacrifices, the most beautiful maiden of their tribe. 
 She was launched upon the rapids in a white canoe, de- 
 corated with flowers and laden with fruits, and was swept 
 away to certain death. The last victim was the daughter of 
 the chief of the tribe, a man of great renown and honour. 
 When the selection was announced, he made no protest and 
 showed no sign of grief, but when the time came for the 
 sacrifice, and his child, lovely and beloved, went forth to 
 meet her cruel doom, another canoe was seen to leave the 
 bank for the rapids, and almost at the same moment the 
 father and the daughter went down the Falls.
 
 NIAGARA. 183. 
 
 Then the French took these districts from the Indians, 
 and then the English took them from the French, and then 
 the Americans took them, to a large extent, from the Eng- 
 lish. Peace prevails, but there are still tragic associations 
 connected with Prospect Point. Not a few of le s miserables, 
 shattered in mind, body and estate, have here ignored their 
 apprehensions of the " something after death," and have 
 hoped to end their woes by suicide. 
 
 From the Canadian side, and on the Horse-shoe Falls, 
 a strange weird sight was seen on the 2gth of December, 
 in the year 1837.* During the rebellion organised by the 
 party calling themselves " the Patriots," against the ruling 
 powers in Canada, there was a very strong suspicion among 
 the English that arms and ammunition were supplied to the 
 insurgents by their American neighbours. It was asserted 
 and believed that a small steamer, called the Caroline, 
 under pretext of conveying passengers from Buffalo to the 
 encampment of " the patriots," was furnishing them with 
 weapons of war. A plan of retaliation was arranged, and at 
 midnight on the date named, as the vessel was lying in 
 dock, she was surrounded by six boats filled with British 
 soldiers sent from Chippawa by Sir Allan McNab, was 
 boarded, and, when her crew had been ejected, was cut 
 adrift, set on fire, towed out to the middle of the river, and 
 launched on her last voyage. "A glorious sight viewed 
 merely from a scenic standpoint : ablaze all along her 
 decks, her shape clearly outlined by the flames, she 
 drifted grandly and swiftly towards the Falls. Reaching 
 the rapids, the waves extinguished most of the flames ; but, 
 still on fire, racked and broken, she pitched and tossed 
 forward to and over the Horse-shoe Falls." This in- 
 
 1 See Mr. Porter's " Niagara in History," Cassitr's Magazine, 
 p. 380.
 
 1 84 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 flammatory proceeding had well-nigh kindled a conflagra- 
 tion ; there was a wrathful outcry for war between America 
 and England ; but the counsels of wise men prevailed. 
 
 We saw the deep waters below Goat Island Cliff into 
 which Sara Patch, the diver, thrice leaped from a height of 
 a hundred feet ; the whirlpool rapids in which Captain 
 Webb was drowned ; and the heights from which Blondin 
 crossed, in the presence of the Prince of Wales. 
 
 I did not visit the Cave of the Winds, Rex sEohis Antro. 
 I met a man, attired in a suit of tarpaulin, who had recently 
 passed through. He was a good man, a man of honour 
 and veracity, superior to that silly self-conceit which will 
 never acknowledge that it has made a mistake or been 
 subject to imposition. So when I asked him what sort of a 
 tenement the winds had taken, he simply said it was 
 "beastly;" and he added, with appropriate and accurate 
 humour, " that he would be blowed if he ever went there 
 again." Blinded by mist and spray, he had seen nothing, 
 but had felt much from continual collisions with the rock 
 along which he crawled. 
 
 Ever since, I have respected that man, girt about with 
 tarpaulin and truth, for there are few periods in our 
 existence in which we feel so intensely our degradation of 
 manhood, and realize so painfully our imbecilities of judg- 
 ment, as those in which we find ourselves, when we have 
 paid, and paid dearly, to be placed in situations of wretched 
 discomfort, and are expected to bubble over with tears of 
 thankful joy. I mean when we are laid out in a boat, and 
 told that if we raise our heads we shall be scalped by the 
 jagged roof above (I make one exception in favour of the 
 " Blue Grotto " at Capri) ; when we are driven on a crowded 
 coach, having previously noticed severe abrasions on the 
 leader's knees, with two of the wheels on the rim of a
 
 NIAGARA. 185 
 
 precipice ; when we are creeping along some mauvais pas, 
 or climbing among huge slippery boulders, with continual 
 invitations to skip from one to the other as though we were 
 goats, or with kind but ignominious offers to take the hand 
 of the guide. 
 
 I went, when I was a long lad, with my father through a 
 cavern, dark and low, nigh unto Castleton, in the county of 
 Derby. We passed through that miserable tunnel in the 
 form of two notes of interrogation ?? Water dripped 
 copiously upon us, and the man who wrote that objection- 
 able line, " Let some droppings l fall on me," would have 
 been more than satisfied. When we emerged, stood up- 
 right, and breathed the air, my father turned to our con- 
 ductor and inquired, " Well, my man, and what are we to 
 have for this?" Nevertheless, the man got his half- 
 crown. 
 
 I did not hear that any human being who had gone down 
 the Falls had survived ; but many animals dogs, cats, 
 and even pigs have recovered. Dr. Rosenmuller, the 
 Rector of Niagara, showed me a photograph of " Bismarck," 
 a cocker-spaniel, who, jumping at a bird by the riverside, 
 fell into the water, and was whirled down the cascade. No 
 hope was entertained of his reappearance ; but ten days 
 afterwards he came back to the Rectory, unchanged, with 
 the exception that he took no further interest in birds. 
 
 It only remains for me, ere I leave Niagara, to express 
 my gratitude to the Honourable Mr. Welch, the Superintend- 
 ent of the Reservation, for all his courteous consideration. 
 Never shall I forget the sight which I saw when, after our 
 descent on the inclined railway, he turned and bade me 
 " look to the left," and the great wall of waters rose heaven- 
 ward close to my feet. 
 
 1 More recently amended to " drops."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 TORONTO, DETROIT, WHITEWATER, MILWAUKEE. 
 
 I RAISED my hat with "God bless the President," as I 
 left the States, and lifted it again with " God save the 
 Queen," as I entered her dominion, and long may the two 
 great nations behold how good and joyful a thing it is for 
 brethren to dwell together in unity. America, so far as my 
 information goes, has no wish to annex Canada, having, 
 like other great landowners, quite as much on her own 
 hands as she knows how to manage ; and Canada has no 
 desire to be annexed. If ever, in the ages to come, she 
 should be unanimous in seeking independence, England 
 will remember the 4th of July. 
 
 I had a most happy reception at Toronto ; the bishop 
 welcomed me at the station, the governor sent me a cour- 
 teous message by his son and secretary, and a deputation of 
 my brother-florists awaited my arrival at the hotel. So that 
 Toronto was indeed to me, as the word means, " a place of 
 meeting," with much kindness and many friends. After 
 the usual interviews with the gentlemen of the Press, who 
 were always in attendance and always kind, the bishop took 
 me to see the choir of his new cathedral, a stately building 
 with clever carving in stone and in wood, and good painted 
 glass by Heaton and Butler, and after dinner introduced me 
 to a sympathetic audience of fifteen hundred people. A 
 well-trained choir of a hundred and fifty voices discoursed
 
 FROM TDK ONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 1 87 
 
 excellent music at intervals, and Gounod's " Send out Thy 
 Light and Thy Truth " was exquisitely sung. Among those 
 who came to see me when the lecture was over were three 
 emigrants whom I had baptized and taught forty years ago, 
 in the little village of Caunton, who had never been more 
 than six miles from their home before they set forth to 
 travel between four and five thousand on land and sea, with 
 just enough money to pay the costs of the journey, and only 
 the assurance from some friend who had gone before that 
 there was work to be had. They seemed to be doing well ; 
 but they h.id a wistful look as we talked about old times 
 and companions, and the lips quivered and the eyes glis- 
 tened when we shook hands at parting. It was manifest in 
 these, as in other cases, that, whatever had been the priva- 
 tions or provocations in the "old country," and whatever 
 had been the prosperity in "the new," there were pensive 
 yearnings for home. 
 
 I spent but a few hours in Canada, and left Toronto by 
 order of my director who had to arrange my lectures as 
 best he could by the midnight train from Detroit. 
 
 Detroit is a fine city, the chief city in Michigan State, 
 with more than two hundred thousand inhabitants, with 
 spacious streets, avenues, squares, and, in addition to a 
 great public park, an abundance of trees. 
 
 The grass-plots in front of the houses, which are watered 
 at the public expense, are a pleasing refreshment to the eye, 
 and here, as elsewhere in the States, the absence of pali- 
 sades and walls and fences of all denominations, is much to 
 be admired, and an example which might be advantageously 
 followed by many of my fellow-countrymen, who seem to 
 think that their possessions are desecrated if visible to a 
 neighbour's eye, and who immure themselves accordingly in 
 genteel and lofty jails.
 
 188 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 The lighting of the city is unique and effective, the elec- 
 tric lamps being placed at the top of metallic columns a 
 hundred and fifty feet high. 
 
 I was amused to read in the newspaper notices, the morn- 
 ing after my lecture, an article headed, " Dean Hole's 
 Calves," in which my form, features, air, and wearing 
 apparel were minutely described, and my general appear- 
 ance was represented as that of a " Christian athlete, a 
 whole-souled, genial, jovial man, an English Phillips 
 Brooks." 
 
 More important topics were discussed by those inter- 
 viewers who had asked my opinions, and now reported 
 them, on subjects, which were at that time under anxious 
 discussion at Detroit. " Did I approve of the raid which 
 had been made only a few nights ago, upon the houses of 
 ill-fame at Buffalo? 1 Should I advise a repetition at 
 Detroit?" I replied that though the motive and intention 
 had my hearty sympathies, I had no confidence in the 
 method or results. By this sudden and cruel process of 
 dragging women from their homes, what victories are won 
 for Virtue ? Is it not rather that in scattering the vicious, 
 men are diffusing vice, dismissing the inmates of an hospital 
 for infectious disease, instead of making new efforts to pre- 
 vent and cure ? To these, who seek rather to destroy than 
 to save, the reproof is written, " Ye know not what spirit ye 
 are of." They are wanting in tenderness as well as in dis- 
 cretion, there is something wrong both with the heart and 
 with the head ; they need patient continuance in well-doing 
 as well as indignant zeal, love for the sinner as well as 
 hatred of the sin. They must be asked, "Before trying 
 such extreme severities, what Ras been done as to the 
 reformatory and rescue work? What if Mary of Magdala 
 
 1 See page 143.
 
 FROM TORONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 189 
 
 had been driven out of Jerusalem ? And are these women, 
 whom we Christians call our sisters, to be expelled with no 
 shelter but a prison, while they who betrayed them, and 
 bribe them still, are free from hindrance and rebuke?" 
 Surely these words of Tennyson should cause great search- 
 ings of heart, 
 
 " One had deceived her and left her 
 Alone in her sin and her shame ; 
 And so she was wicked with others 
 On whom will you lay the blame?" 
 
 " It is impossible to apprehend," so writes a great English 
 divine, " the evil which may follow from one single 
 seduction." 
 
 Then my interviewer asked me " what I thought on the 
 subject of Sunday Closing." I answered that I was an 
 earnest advocate for the closing of drinking saloons on 
 Sunday, but that I would insist on the same treatment for 
 rich and poor, and that it should be as possible for the 
 working man to get a jug of freshly drawn beer for his 
 dinner at home as for the rich man to sip his whisky and 
 soda or his liqueur at his club. 
 
 From Detroit I travelled to Whitewater, a pleasant little 
 town with the broad breezy roads in which you can move 
 and breathe, with their boulevards for beauty and summer 
 shade, evoking envious admiration from the stranger, who 
 is doomed to dwell in lanes and narrow streets sometimes 
 described as " High," but having nothing high about them 
 except their smell. 
 
 Here I was cordially welcomed by a most congenial 
 brother-priest, Dr. Moran, the Rector, and by Mr. Salis- 
 bury, the Principal of the First State Normal College, which 
 has its spacious buildings and complete staff and appliances
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 for the training of schoolmasters and mistresses on the high 
 ground adjoining. 
 
 I have previously spoken of the astonishing transforma- 
 tions which have been made in this great country during 
 the last sixty years, and there can hardly be a more 
 remarkable example than that which we find at Whitewater. 
 Sixty years ago, where this College is at work on the dis- 
 tribution of scientific and useful knowledge (would that I 
 could add of religious knowledge also !) with all the latest 
 additions and helps to learning, there was no white man to 
 be seen. Julius Berge was the first pale-face born here 
 some fifty-four years ago. 
 
 The Indians have been displaced, but they are not, 
 neglected. If there was ever any truth in the ancient 
 accusation that the pilgrim fathers first fell on their knees, 
 and then fell on the aborigines, there is no suspicion of any 
 such unkindness as concerns their descendants. Lo ! the 
 poor Indian's untutored mind is now taught the industrial 
 arts, and to dig, and plough, and sow, and to speak the 
 English tongue. But somehow or other civilisation by 
 itself does not seem to suit him. He is not happy in 
 trousers, and seems to endorse the general opinion that 
 this form of raiment is the most unsightly as yet designed 
 by the tailor. Be this as it may, it is sad to see how he 
 droops and fades, like some field-flower, uprooted, potted, 
 and turned into a window plant, or some wild animal, 
 caught and caged, an eagle in a box with iron bars, or a 
 fox in a barrel with a chain. 
 
 Mr. Salisbury presided at my lecture, and sent a carriage 
 next morning to my hotel, showed me the school, intro- 
 duced me to the teachers, and then taking me to a large 
 bright room, filled with the students, invited me to give 
 them an impromptu address. I complied, of course, but
 
 FROM TORONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 191 
 
 refrained from uttering the first thought which arose in my 
 mind, as I stood before that mixed audience of young men 
 and maidens, all of that susceptible age which may at any 
 moment be persuaded that there 's nothing half so sweet in 
 life as Love's young dream, namely, that there might be 
 continual altercations between Venus and Minerva, and that 
 the goddess of wisdom would get the worst of it. I was 
 afterwards assured that such an antagonism did not inter- 
 fere with the success of " the Co-educational System " (as 
 it is termed) ; the familiarity of constant intercourse and 
 the perpetual routine of study seem to suppress the more 
 tender emotions ; and I therefore considered it my duty 
 to frown upon a flippant young man who suggested, on a 
 subsequent occasion, that ^<?-education would be a more 
 appropriate term. But what was I to say to the students ? 
 You may have been accustomed for years to preach and 
 speak without notes, but there is ever a perturbation and 
 chill when you are invited to orate without a minute's 
 preparation, a temporary sinking, until Faith whispers, 
 "Aide toi, Dieu faidera" and Hope pats you on the back. 
 
 I dare not turn away from such an opportunity, and I 
 told them the reason why. Because, having visited my 
 village school, when I was a country vicar, every morning 
 of my life, when at home, for more than thirty years, I felt 
 like a veteran among young recruits, and that I could tell 
 them something about the scene of action, and the opera- 
 tions of war, about their allies and their adversaries, success 
 and failure. 
 
 They had chosen a vocation which had its special trials 
 and temptations, which was irritating to the impatient, and 
 wearisome to the faint-hearted, but which had infinite 
 encouragements of recompense and reward to those who 
 were brave and dutiful.
 
 192 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 I told them how John Trebonius, the great schoolmaster, 
 took off his hat when he appeared among his pupils, because 
 he said there might be one in their number who would 
 afterwards win great honour and renown ; and how Michael 
 Angelo had paused before a block of common marble, 
 "because," he said, "there was an angel in that stone ;" 
 and I endeavoured to show that by a true education they 
 might produce the greatest and best of men men who 
 should be not only good patriots, good citizens, good sons, 
 good husbands and fathers on earth, but should be with 
 the saints in heaven. For what was true education? It 
 was not only the development of intellectual, scientific, 
 technical attainments, it was the formation of character, of 
 a Christian gentleman ; and that can only be taught by 
 " the wisdom that is from above, gentle, full of mercy, and 
 good fruits." That only gives " the gentleness which, 
 when it weds with manhood, makes a man," which keeps 
 the child's heart in the brave man's breast ; that only knows 
 a chastity of honour, which feels a stain like a wound, 
 which cannot deceive others, nor degrade itself. 
 
 Let them train athletes and rear philosophers, but let 
 them " try to endue the one with a strength which never 
 fails, and to convince the other that knowledge puffeth up, 
 but charity edifieth." 
 
 I ventured to remind them of their great responsibilities, 
 and of the question which we must all answer, " Where is 
 thy flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?" and 
 finally I exhorted them never to despair of those pupils who 
 seem to be irrepressibly wild and mischievous, because I had 
 already met two of these mauvais sujets, who, almost driven 
 from their homes, and emigrating to the States had pre- 
 sented themselves, with their wives, to my most hearty 
 congratulations, as industrious and prosperous papas ! You
 
 FROM TORONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 193 
 
 will find, if you seek, something good in all, and with this 
 little leaven you may transform the whole. 
 
 Dr. Moran spoke very hopefully of the progress of the 
 Episcopal Church in the diocese of Wisconsin, of the great 
 increase in the number of clergy, 1 and of the popularity of 
 the bishop, Nicholson. A rough working-man came to him 
 at a station and said, " We like you, bishop, we all of us 
 like you you make yourself the darnest commonest chap 
 we know." Could he have received a more welcome en- 
 couragement ? By such men, full of sympathy and affection, 
 not appraising their neighbours by their dollars, but regard- 
 ing all as brethren, and trying to make their lives happier 
 and better, by such men is taught the only true and lasting 
 Socialism, the only real union of hearts. 
 
 I had the privilege next day of making his acquaintance 
 at Milwaukee, and of a personal share in his benevolence. 
 He brought a carriage to my hotel, and introduced me 
 before my lecture to an audience of 1,500 people. 
 
 In one of the kind notices which appeared next morning 
 in the Milwaukee papers it was stated that " when the Dean 
 came forward to speak it was seen that he wore the knicker- 
 bockers of his forefathers and the other garments of the 
 traditional dress of a Church of England clergyman. The 
 talk was not deep, but nevertheless memorable and telling. 
 He set the audience laughing with good stories, wit, and 
 droll remarks, and then, almost while the laugh was going 
 on, he thrust in a sermonette, an impressive little moral 
 deduction or lesson." 
 
 The Rev. Dr. St. George, to whom I had an introduction, 
 
 1 It is stated in the American Church Almanac and Year Book for 
 1895, " that the total number of clergymen in 4,323 organised parishes 
 and missions is 4,870; and the present number of communicants 
 580,507 ; an increase of 17,429 over the previous year. 
 
 '3
 
 194 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 took me for a most enjoyable survey of the city and its 
 surroundings, and to me it seemed that Milwaukee, on this 
 lovely bay of Lake Michigan, was rightly named " the Cream 
 City," not only with reference to the colour of the bricks 
 of which it is largely built, but because it is creme de la 
 crime. We went to the cathedral, which had originally 
 belonged to the " Congregationalists," but had been trans- 
 formed, after purchase, for the requirements of a Catholic 
 worship. We drove through the fair avenues Prospect 
 Avenue, the West Grand Avenue to North Point Tower 
 and Park. We saw the Custom House and the County 
 Court House and the enormous elevators which are said to 
 hold 3,500,000 bushels of corn, and we saw, three miles 
 from the city, the home for a thousand disabled soldiers in 
 its extensive grounds and park. 
 
 But the most notable sight to be seen in Milwaukee is 
 the brewery of Frederick Pabst. Imagine a dozen of the 
 largest Lancashire factories collected and connected to- 
 gether, greatly improved as to architectural design and 
 finish, and covering thirty-four acres of ground ! There is 
 a most charming and clever history of this the biggest 
 brewery in all the world, published anonymously, with ex- 
 cellent photographic illustrations, and no author could have 
 written more enthusiastically or attractively on his theme, 
 however great, than he who has undertaken in these records 
 to " chronicle small beer." 
 
 The fascinations of " nut brown ale," the praises of 
 " John Barleycorn, who yields his blood for England's good 
 and Englishmen's renown," have been told in poetry and 
 prose, and an awful doom has been pronounced upon any 
 person in authority if he tries to rob a poor man of his beer. 
 When I was at Oxford, the poetical members of my college 
 were annually invited to compete on the subject of " Brasen-
 
 FROM TORONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 195 
 
 ose Ale," l and every effort was made by the candidates to 
 write from a persevering study and a full very full ex- 
 perience ; but I can recall no success to be compared to 
 that of this treatise on " Pabst." There is a solemn humour, 
 a romance of reality, a decoration of facts, which either per- 
 suades the dull that the preparation and sale of beer is the 
 noblest ambition which can occupy the heart and employ 
 the brain, or leads him to believe that the whole account 
 is an imposition ; but which delights the spry, those who have 
 a sense of the ludicrous, entertaining their fancy, and at 
 the same time enlarging their knowledge. 
 
 " Fifty years ago, in the village of Milwaukee, now a city 
 of two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, Philip Best 
 and Sons had a tiny brew-house. What to them was the 
 result of a year's enterprise has now become the product 
 of a single hour, and every ten seconds of the ticking clock 
 equals in its results the effect of his longest day. The 
 slowest of us can but admit that the world moves. Philip 
 Best succeeded his father, and inheriting from him the 
 sterling characteristics which impel the descendants of the 
 Teutonic race to lay a solid foundation, on which shall rest 
 the superstructure of coming progress, he taught the world, 
 the virtue of an honest drew, and won the respect and 
 esteem of all who knew him. Industry, steadiness of pur- 
 pose, and firm convictions actuated the development, which, 
 in the previous sixteen years, had begun to prophesy the 
 mighty future which awaited the child of their creation, 
 and, after four years of tireless work, the two or three 
 hundred barrels on which Jacob in early years had looked 
 
 1 Brasenose has been said to derive its name from Brasen Aus (King 
 Alfred's brew-house). If that learned monarch knew no more about 
 brewing than he did about baking, there must have been some wry 
 faces over the royal "cakes and ale."
 
 196 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 with pride became dwarfed beside the five thousand which 
 was the honest brew of 1864. 
 
 " Destiny, with inexorable precision, marks for greatness, 
 and Fate finds the man who shall minister to it ; yet by the 
 blending of happy circumstances in the advent of Fred Pabst 
 into the brewing industry we can say with Schiller, Fate had 
 no voice but the hearfs impulses, and he became the son-in- 
 law of Philip Best! 
 
 "Name a genius, and I will designate a self-made man. 
 A youth, endued with ambition, and blessed by the free- 
 dom of America, crowned with noble purposes and high 
 ideals, may climb to any altitude, and thus we find the self- 
 sustaining boy of twelve the unimpeachable protege of Cap- 
 tain Ward at fifteen, the mate on a Goodrich steamer at 
 nineteen, and captain and part owner of the Sunbeam at 
 twenty. In 1865 Captain Fred Pabst, as head of the firm 
 of Philip Best and Co., showed the same unconquerable 
 energy, industry, and business genius which had character- 
 ised his boyhood, and in 1873 tne output of the company 
 had reached a hundred thousand barrels ! In 1889 the 
 five hundred thousand barrel mark was left far behind, and, 
 in recognition of a quarter of a century of tireless effort, and 
 by a unanimous vote, the Philip Best Brewing Company, 
 like the blushing bride of years before, with deep affection, 
 proudly changed its name to Pabst! In 1892, the capital 
 stock was increased to $10,000,000, and, distancing all com- 
 petitors, the race for the million barrel mark was passed, 
 and the Pabst Brewing Company was proclaimed to be in 
 all respects the greatest in the world ! " 
 
 These records are followed by a quaint little allegory, 
 which has some of the prettiness of Rudyard Kipling's 
 style. It is " the Story which the Malt Told " to a gentle- 
 man, who, after enjoying a glass of " the amber beverage
 
 FROM TORONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 197 
 
 tipped with its snowy crown of foam," fell asleep, and 
 dreamed a dream of the courtship of the elegant Miss Hop 
 by John Barleycorn, and of the matrimonial alliance which, 
 although it brought bitterness into his life, gave him charac- 
 ter and a great success. 
 
 " In the spring of my life," said the Malt, " I grew 
 rapidly, and rose in the world, and when my beard was 
 grown I bowed and nodded to my companions, held recep- 
 tions when the wind blew, and went through all the 
 formalities of social life. One of my neighbours, named 
 Hops, had a daughter, who had just blossomed into woman- 
 hood, and was tall and graceful as a vine. Our eyes met 
 through a dear little bush which intervened. I fell des- 
 perately in love, and was seized with an irresistible desire 
 to kiss her, when her father, a veritable old thistle, stood 
 directly in the way. 
 
 " One day, however, with the assistance of the dear old 
 wind, whom we all admired, though sometimes, like other 
 travellers, he was noisy and gave himself airs, I leaned 
 over and saluted the lady of my love. Unfortunately her 
 father witnessed the interview, and blossomed out, all red 
 with rage. 
 
 " Next day he had his revenge. I was cut down and 
 bound. I was shocked, and not many days after I was 
 threshed and deprived of my beard, and, having been 
 clipped like a convict, was cast into a prison, called an 
 elevator, but in my case most depressing. Then, in 
 accordance with prison discipline, we had a bath of cold 
 water, and became so clean and shiny that we began to 
 swell and grow fat. But joy's full chords oft prelude woe, 
 and our pride had a sudden fall to a great hard polished 
 floor, on which we were laid prostrate. Pretty soon I 
 began to feel mighty good, just warm enough to be comfort-
 
 198 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 able, and when the heat became unpleasant from our close 
 proximity we were turned over by a kind gentleman with 
 a big shovel. We actually began to grow, but we were on 
 the eve of a terrible ordeal. We were transported to a 
 chamber called a kiln, and placed upon a wire floor per- 
 forated with holes. The very look of the place took the 
 starch out of me. Then the heat began to rise, and then 
 the whole floor turned over and we fell upon another 
 floor where it was fairly scorching. I became parched and 
 dry, and thought that I must perish from combustion (any- 
 thing but spontaneous), when I heard the head maltster 
 say to a friend ' You see when barley sprouts all the starch 
 which it contains is transposed, so that it will become malt 
 sugar when put in warm water, and the dry heat is applied 
 to prevent any further change. The process is called 
 malting.' 
 
 " And so we had become malt without knowing it ; but 
 our troubles were not over. We went through a long con- 
 veyor to the ground, crushed between rollers, which broke 
 and tore our very hearts. We lost consciousness until we 
 found ourselves in an enormous kettle, after having been 
 tossed and turned, as I heard the brewer say afterwards, in 
 a wash-tub, where we boiled, bubbled, and danced in 
 ecstasy. 
 
 " Here I met again, to my intense delight, the beautiful 
 Miss Hops ! Words are inadequate to express our felicity. 
 We were united. We were in a state of fermentation. 
 Then, after a temporary coolness we realised our mutual 
 dependence upon each other, our congenial dispositions, 
 our power to make others happy, and we sparkled and 
 effervesced with joy ! " 
 
 The manufacture of cold from anhydrous ammonia, dis- 
 tributed in a liquid form over the storage cellars through
 
 FROM TORONTO TO MILWAUKEE. 199 
 
 some two hundred miles of four-inch pipes, the process of 
 bottling (one hundred and fifty thousand barrels), and the 
 corking and labelling were admirably ingenious. 
 
 One hundred men are employed in washing the barrels. 
 The fire department is complete in all its details, and the 
 firemen are regularly drilled. Visitors are received daily, 
 guides are provided, and every part of the brewery is open 
 to inspection. 
 
 When it is stated that the population of Milwaukee 
 amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand, and that some 
 two-thirds are Germans, it will be patent that the home 
 consumption of Pabst's excellent lager beer is extensive. 
 Tacitus informs us that even in his day the German nation 
 had discovered the refreshing qualities of beer. " They 
 make a drink of barley," he writes, " which has some 
 similarity to wine."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 BLESSED be the winds that come over Lake Michigan to 
 murky, grimy, choky Chicago ! And yet more blessed 
 would the arrangement be if, ever and anon, the lake 
 itself, like the beneficent Nile, would overflow its banks, 
 and notice being sent to such inhabitants as deserved 
 the compliment to make for the first floor would give 
 the city a swill ! Even if certain tenements were sub- 
 merged for a few hours, with their tenantry, there would 
 be solace and compensation. 
 
 The main streets of Chicago resemble a numerous com- 
 bination of New York Sixth Avenues. The rumble and the 
 roar, the tolling of the locomotive bells, seem never to 
 cease. Wake when you may in the night, you will hear the 
 wheels in the street. 
 
 "The forges glow, the hammers are all swinging, 
 
 Beneath its smoky veil 
 The city, in its restless toil, is swinging 
 Its ponderous iron flail." 
 
 Chicago is a very large, and a very lively, but it is not 
 a nice child, and nobody wants to fondle it much. It 
 is a dirty child. It is a dark-complexioned child, and 
 thereby hangs a tale, wherewith the reader may amuse 
 himself at the expense of some impressible friend :
 
 CHICAGO. 201 
 
 "At the time of 'The World's Fair,' a large room was 
 set apart, with attendant nurses, for the reception of babies, 
 while their mothers were inspecting the Show. On one 
 occasion a matron returned at a late hour to the creche, 
 when all the other mothers had departed, and being anxious 
 lest owing to the number of deposits any mistake 
 might have been made, eagerly inquired for a child. It was 
 produced, after some little delay, and lo ! it was jet black!" 
 
 Here, having related the history with solemnity and 
 emotion, with the pathetic intonation which the French 
 call " tears in the voice," you will pause to give your listener 
 an opportunity to express the sympathetic sorrow which 
 does so much honour to his Christian heart ; and then you 
 will remark slowly, and smiling sweetly, " The mother was 
 also black." 
 
 Mr. Stead has told us, in his elaborate and eloquent essay 
 " If Christ came to Chicago," that this child is abnormally 
 black, naughty, and vicious. I should not myself venture 
 to assert this pre-eminence in sin, because I believe that if 
 such an investigation as that which Mr. Stead made 
 and such as was never made before were to take place in 
 New York, in London, Paris, or Naples, or any other great 
 city, the scrutator would have revelations to make which, 
 though varying in form, would be in every instance terrible ; 
 and it seems to me, moreover, that the degrees of guilt can 
 only be determined by the Omniscient, Who knows all the 
 surroundings, and to Whom the secrets of all hearts are 
 revealed. None the less in proving as he has proved 
 that this great metropolis of the world .is corrupt and 
 abominable, Mr. Stead has not only shown to those who 
 live in it their peril and their responsibility, but he has re- 
 minded all Christian men of their duty to bear one another's 
 burdens, and to overcome evil with good.
 
 202 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 It is the easiest thing in the world to expel our applica- 
 tion of such details to our own conscience by declaring 
 that Mr. Stead exaggerates in denouncing Chicago as the 
 cloaca maxima of the world ; that he was rude to the 
 ladies, and personal in naming the men ; that he gives way 
 to maudlin sentimentalism ; that we don't want to hear 
 details about vermin and disease, tramps and rogues, 
 drunkenness and prostitution, blackmailing and bribery ; 
 that, after all, this misery and disgrace is the sure result and 
 just retribution of sin ; that it is a matter for parliament, 
 parsons, and policemen ; and that it seems too universal, 
 too hopeless, for any individual effort. The simple question 
 is, Is it true? And if as we know it is true, dare we 
 say, " I will do nothing to prevent or to reform " ? We 
 may, but we must not call ourselves Christians. When the 
 poor man lay half dead on the road, the priest said, " I 
 shall be late for service ; " and the Levite said, " It is no 
 affair of mine ; " and the Samaritan might have said, " It is 
 only a Jew," but he believed in Brotherhood and in GOD. 
 
 Mutual compassions and mutual recriminations supply 
 us with convenient facilities for escaping from self-con- 
 demnation. New York and Chicago, for example, or 
 Manchester and Liverpool, Sheffield and Birmingham, will 
 furnish you with ample evidence that in making bargains 
 which are not severely honest, in what is called " sailing close 
 to the wind," there is no similarity whatever between them. 
 Nathaniel is without guile, but Barabbas is a robber. There 
 was a man in New York, I was told in Chicago, who was 
 voraciously greedy of gold. It might have been said of 
 him, as of Sam Brooks, when Brunei, the engineer, swallowed 
 the half-sovereign, " Send for Sam ; if it 's gold, he '11 have 
 it." He was the autocrat of the breakfast and every other 
 table. He was a lion in his house, a bear to his wife, and
 
 CHICAGO. 203 
 
 so harsh and unkind to his children, that at last one of his 
 boys, who was high-spirited and sensitive of wrong, could 
 no longer endure the tyranny, and ran away from home. 
 Nothing was heard of him for many years, and then his 
 father received a letter from him, in which he stated that 
 he was dangerously ill, and desired to see him before he 
 died. They met, and the son informed him that he had 
 asked for the interview not only with a view to reconcilia- 
 tion, but because he was most anxious that his father should 
 promise to grant his last request, assuring him at the same 
 time that no expense would be incurred in the fulfilment of 
 his wish. 
 
 The father solemnly pledged himself to comply ; and 
 then the son went on to say that he had been very prosper- 
 ous in business, and had accumulated a large amount of 
 wealth, but that he had seen so much of the evils of cov- 
 eteousness, of the waste and abuse of riches, that he would 
 have all his money to be buried with him. The father 
 again certified that he would follow his instructions, and 
 saw his face no more. 
 
 By some means this strange agreement became known to 
 others, and no long time after the funeral the father was 
 accosted by one of Jiis neighbours in New York with, 
 " Well, Nabel, I just guess you 're about the tallest fool in 
 the States." And when an explanation was asked, it was 
 given to the effect that no man in his right mind would 
 bury money in the ground. " Perhaps," said the sire, with 
 a grin on his cruel face which made him look like a 
 gurgoyle, " I 'm not quite such a fool as you think. I paid 
 it by cheque to his order ! " 
 
 There was a man in Chicago, I was told in New York, 
 who came one morning to his office with such a radiant 
 smile upon his countenance that his partner could not
 
 2O4 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 refrain from inquiring the .cause of his exuberant joy. " My 
 dear fellow," he replied, " my doctor, as you know, has 
 ordered me to walk here from my house, and this very 
 morning I have been able, in consequence, to do three 
 splendid acts, enough, surely, to make any man happy. 
 As I was passing one of the churches I saw a poor woman 
 with a baby in her arms, weeping bitterly on the steps of 
 the approach. I inquired the cause of her sorrow, and 
 she told me that she had brought her little darling to be 
 baptised, but that the priest said she must pay 'a dollar, 
 and that she had no money. I told her that I had nothing 
 in my purse but a ten-dollar note, but that she might take 
 it to the priest, and I would wait outside for the change. 
 She brought it, with such profuse expressions of gratitude 
 and praise that in my modesty I hurried away. Hear now 
 what I have done, and refrain from envy, if you can. I 
 have dried a poor woman's tears ; I have placed her little 
 one upon the heavenly road ; / have passed a false ten- 
 dollar note, and have got the change in my pocket!" 
 
 " But the stars shine o'er the cypress trees," however 
 gloomy be the grove. In the first place, Chicago is not 
 the place wherein to estimate the American character, and 
 if any visitor will be at the trouble of perusing the police 
 reports, he will be struck with the number of offenders 
 whose names unmistakably announce that they belong to 
 another nation. 
 
 And then, as there is much that is beautiful to the eye 
 in the surroundings of smutty Chicago, in its spacious parks 
 and pleasant boulevards, its lakeside avenue, its public build- 
 ings, sacred and secular, its private habitations, so is there 
 much to admire not only in its industrious zeal, but in the 
 refinements of society, and in the generosities of wealth. 
 
 I have seldom seen a brighter company of " fair women,
 
 CHICAGO. 2O5 
 
 and brave men," whether judged by their appearance, their 
 manner, or their conversation, than I met in the house of 
 Mr. George Pullman, when I gave a lecture to the " Cen- 
 tury Club," and also at a reception given to us by our Con- 
 sul, Colonel Hayes Sadler, and elsewhere, nor will you find 
 in the social institutions of Pall Mall, and its neighbourhood, 
 more agreeable or able companions than in the Chicago 
 Club.. 
 
 As to generosity, there is only too much truth in the 
 remark made by a working man, " Wealth has subjugated 
 everything; it has gagged the Press, and bought up the 
 Legislature ; " and, with a righteous pride, I read Mr. 
 Stead's remarks in favour of aristocracy, when compared 
 with plutocracy, as to liberality in helping others and in 
 recognising its obligations ; but we may not forget that the 
 fewer men the greater share of honour, and, knowing as 
 we do the terrible power of money to make men misers or 
 spendthrifts, we should be inclined to magnify rather than 
 to disparage the offerings of the rich. 
 
 Whatever difficulties and disagreements may have en- 
 sued, I am convinced that Mr. Pullman, in building the 
 town which bears his name, as when Sir Titus Salt in Eng- 
 land built Saltaire, was influenced by an unselfish philan- 
 thropy, and by a sense of duty, to provide for his workmen 
 such commodious and healthful homes, such abundant 
 means of recreation and instruction. 
 
 Of Mr. Marshall Field's munificence I heard from many 
 sources, and of Mr. Armour's I shall have to speak. Such 
 examples should be set on high, as the number of the 
 hymns to be sung by a congregation, that more voices may 
 join in the melody. One good deed dying tongueless 
 slaughters a thousand waiting upon that, but new efforts 
 follow appreciation and applause, and help to prove that
 
 206 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 a man's life, his true life, his honour and his happiness, 
 consist not in the abundance of the things which he pos- 
 sesses, but in his use of them. They expedite the time, 
 the good time coming as we pray and hope, to Chicago, 
 to America, and to the world, when men will have dis- 
 covered that they may buy gold too dear, and that just in 
 proportion as they injure or help their neighbours, they injure 
 or help themselves. 
 
 I went with Mr. Goodhart, a resident in Chicago, and 
 the son of an old college friend, to see, under special and 
 intelligent guidance, the Union Stock Yards, the great 
 cattle market of Chicago, extending over four hundred 
 acres of ground, and to Mr. Armour's famous slaughter 
 and packing houses, in which he employs eight hundred 
 men and five hundred clerks. Five thousand pigs and 
 three thousand cattle were daily killed and prepared for 
 exportation ! Huge refrigerating carriages stood upon the 
 railway outside. 
 
 I went, believing that the clergy should take a practical 
 interest in sanitary matters, caring for the bodies as well as 
 the souls of their flock as a member of the Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty, and also the Society for the Pro- 
 motion of Kindness, to Animals, to ascertain whether the 
 process was as free as it could be made from cruelty and 
 unnecessary pain, and with the hope of acquiring informa- 
 tion which might be acceptable across the Atlantic. 
 
 From want of supervision, accommodation, and expert- 
 ness, from ignorance, haste, and ill-temper, much suffering 
 is inflicted which might be prevented upon the animals 
 slaughtered for food. I was speedily assured that, except 
 by electricity or some deadly poison, both of which would 
 injure the meat, no more humane plan could be adopted 
 than that which I saw in operation.
 
 CHICAGO. 207 
 
 In a few seconds the pig, fastened by a chain on the 
 hind leg, is raised by a pulley to a pole, which slopes over 
 a large tank to the butcher. One blow severs the throat, 
 and the life seems to go out with the copious outpour of 
 blood. I only saw in one instance a spasmodic twitch, but 
 the carcass must have been insensible to pain ere it was 
 plunged without delay in a cistern of boiling water, di- 
 vested of its bristles, scraped, cleansed, and passed on for 
 future dissection, and for gradual adaptations in various 
 forms to the taste of the eater and the convenience of the 
 cook. 
 
 The beasts became beef by a method yet more sum- 
 mary. They were driven into a narrow passage, between 
 thick boards of wood, and a strong man standing above 
 with a pole-axe, watching his opportunity, knowing the spot 
 on which to strike, and hitting it with unerring aim, at one 
 blow struck them dead, procumbit humi bos, and, by a 
 mechanical contrivance, the floor on which they lay was 
 lowered, and they rolled down the incline to be at once 
 removed to the Company of Skinners. 
 
 There is no waste. The blood is used for manure, the 
 horns and hoofs for glue, the superfluous fat for butterine 
 and oleomargarine. 
 
 I commend the consideration of this important subject, 
 in its connection with health, economy, decency, and 
 mercy, to Parliaments, to the Boards of Trade and Agri- 
 culture, County Councils, Church Congresses, Magistrates, 
 Inspectors of Nuisances, and to private observation, and to 
 public protest. 1 
 
 1 The public interest in this matter is rapidly increasing. During 
 the Church Congress at Norwich in October, 1895, I was asked by 
 the butchers of that city, as Vice Chairman of the Church Sanitary 
 Association, to witness an experiment and attend a Conference. A
 
 208 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 ' There is a pathetic incident ever recurring in the es- 
 tablishment of Mr. Armour. Where the cattle reach a 
 certain part of the premises, not far from the place of 
 slaughter, there used to be from time to time a sudden 
 panic and stampede. This has been prevented by the 
 training of a huge and ugly steer to wait for the procession, 
 place himself at the head, and slowly lead them on. Arriv- 
 ing at the entrance, he turns suddenly to a small space by 
 the side, and the rest, pressing upon each other, pass on 
 to their doom. 
 
 He is called "Judas," and reminds me of some toper 
 enticing young men to drink, some gambler luring green- 
 horns to bet and play, Fagin, assisted by the Artful Dodger, 
 teaching boys to pick pockets, the old decoy drake quack- 
 ing at the entrance to the enclosure. 
 
 On one occasion Judas in his meditations went a little 
 too far, they do sometimes, these traitors, and was 
 irresistibly impelled to annihilation. 
 
 The Armour Institute, built, furnished, and sustained 
 without restriction as to cost, is as perfect as money and 
 brains can make it. The main object, described some- 
 what effusively in the words " to co-ordinate the theoretical 
 principles underlying the work with practical exposition," 
 
 beast was killed by a new instrument, " Greener's Humane Cattle- 
 Killer," which, exploding noiselessly, sent a bullet through the brain 
 to the spinal cord, and the animal fell without pain (in the opinion 
 of the surgeons who were present), although there was some convul- 
 sion among the limbs. The butchers, nevertheless, did not see any 
 advantage over the old method of killing with the pole-axe, when it 
 was properly handled. They admitted at the same time, that there 
 are some incompetent performers and some inconvenient places of 
 slaughter, and expressed their desire that these should be removed 
 by authority. They rightly objected to interference, though not to 
 supervision, when the premises were commodious and the work well 
 done.
 
 CHICAGO. 2O9 
 
 is pursued by the students, who must be over twenty years 
 of age, and must have passed through some course of 
 higher education, with every possible advantage. They are 
 taught by the most accomplished tutors, professors, and 
 lecturers, and with every appliance which can promote a 
 thoroughly technical and mechanical education. They 
 learn languages, Latin, French, and German ; histories, 
 Greek, Roman, English, and American ; algebra, geometry, 
 biology, physics, chemistry. 
 
 In the latter department we heard with indignant disgust 
 that certain youths (not Americans) had been, as it after- 
 wards transpired, to the Institute to learn the manufacture 
 of explosives with a view to their destructive use. 
 
 There is a department, over which an expert presides, 
 with a most complete modern apparatus, whereby young 
 ladies can learn an art which will bring gladness to their 
 homes, and which alone can satisfy a desire ever foremost 
 in a father's, in a husband's mind, the art of cookery. 
 
 There is another department, the gymnasium, in which 
 the scholars may combine mens sana cum corpore sano, 
 and where a robust Englishman, who had served in our 
 " Guards," was giving instruction in drill and gymnastics. 
 He was risibly affected by an incident which occurred, on 
 a scene which he knew so well, that of a small boy, looking 
 through the tall palisades which surround the Wellington 
 Barracks, and addressing a young officer, not much bigger 
 than himself, but wearing the tall bearskin head-dress 
 peculiar to his regiment: " Now just you come out of that 
 'ere hat. I know you 're in it, I see your legs a-dangling" 
 
 The Armour " Elevators " for the stowage of corn should 
 be inspected. During the year 1894, the company handled 
 approximately 60,000,000 bushels of grain and flax-seed. 
 
 We went to the headquarters of the Fire Brigade, which 
 
 14
 
 2IO A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 has the reputation of being the best in the world. Chicago 
 has learned, from a terrible experience, that '' a burnt child 
 dreads the fire," and has indeed beheld " how great a 
 matter a little fire kindleth." From the fall of a kerosene 
 lamp the flames spread among the wooden houses, and the 
 timber piled in the yards, sweeping all before them, raging 
 for three days, October 8, 9, and 10, 1871, and extending 
 over an area of more than three square miles. The 
 number of buildings destroyed was 17,450 ; of persons who 
 were homeless, 98,500; of persons killed, about 200. It 
 is estimated that the total loss occasioned by the fire was 
 $190,000,000. Of this, 30,000,000 was recovered by 
 insurance, but 57 insurance companies were ruined. 
 
 The marvellous energy and the indomitable courage of 
 the people rose to the occasion. While the fire was still 
 smouldering in the ruins, they began to rebuild. Business 
 was resumed before Christmas in temporary wooden struc- 
 tures, and in private dwellings, which had escaped the fire. 
 In a year a large portion of the city had been rebuilt, stone 
 being largely substituted for wood, and it was calculated 
 that, during the rebuilding, so rapidly was the work carried 
 on, that one brick, stone, or iron edifice, four to six storeys 
 in height, and with a frontage of twenty-four feet, was 
 completed every hour. 
 
 We were highly favoured in being permitted to see the 
 telegraphic and telephonic system by which the number 
 and street of any house or building in which a fire breaks 
 out is immediately communicated. We saw in a few 
 seconds after the signal sounded a pair of horses and half 
 a dozen men attached to the engine, and starting away at 
 a gallop. Then we witnessed the agility of the firemen 
 with the light ladders, which they moved from window to 
 window, until they reached the highest chambers of the
 
 CHICAGO. 211 
 
 house, with other exercises and appliances for escape and 
 rescue. 
 
 I had been present at a series of similiar operations, 
 conducted under the superintendence of Captain Shaw, of 
 the London Fire Brigade, and it seemed to me that the 
 only superiority in the American tactics (but it was a 
 superiority of momentous importance) consisted in the 
 rapidity and certainty with which the danger was an- 
 nounced. 
 
 One of the officials who accompanied us told me of a 
 scheme, which was new to me, by which the action of fire 
 on the ceilings, specially prepared, would set free the con- 
 tents of large cisterns placed above them, and extinguish 
 the flames ; but neither he nor I were much impressed by 
 the project. 
 
 Verily, these brave firemen may say " My soul is always 
 in my hand." Not many days after our visit, I read in a 
 New York paper that two of their leaders, Battalion Chief 
 Bresnan and Assistant Foreman Rooney, had been buried 
 in the ruins of a fire, and eight other men seriously injured. 
 
 I have many pleasant memories of Chicago of the 
 reception committee, on which were more than fifty clergy, 
 with the bishop at their head, nearly the same number of 
 eminent laymen, and twelve distinguished ladies; of the 
 welcome with which the florists greeted me, and their 
 beautiful gifts of roses, lilies, and chrysanthemums ; of kind 
 approbations from those who listened to my lectures ; of 
 carriages and horses placed at our disposal, three hand- 
 some vehicles, each with a pair, came to take us to church 
 on Sunday, and best of all, of hearty individual kindness. 
 But I have in special remembrance a very happy evening 
 which we spent, on the invitation of -the president and 
 members, with the " Chicago Church Club."
 
 212 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 This society was formed some half-dozen years ago, 
 under the auspices of the bishop, for the promotion of 
 social intercourse between the members of different parishes 
 and an increased interest in Church work; and, as a 
 Churchman, I can think of no consummation more de- 
 voutly to be wished than such a practical and at the same 
 time agreeable effort to unite the clergy and the laity in 
 goodwill and good works. 
 
 The expostulation, " Sirs, ye are brethren," is often in 
 these days opportune, and they who speak of candidates 
 for holy orders as " going into the Church," suggesting that 
 all but clergymen are outside, and have not been received 
 into fellowship, are affectionately taught by such meetings 
 as these that we are all members one of another. 
 
 Monthly meetings are held, at which papers are read 
 and subjects are discussed. There are committees for the 
 promotion of ecclesiastical, educational, and benevolent 
 institutions, and for literary and historical studies. Two 
 banquets are held during the year; and at one of them, 
 kindly postponed for our convenience, we were welcomed 
 with that perfect sympathy which exists only between those 
 who are " one in faith and doctrine, one in charity." 
 
 And it should be noted here that another beneficent 
 purpose of this society is to entertain strangers, and their 
 club-room at the Masonic Hall * is ever open to their trav- 
 elling brethren. At this dinner there was a new adventure. 
 Ladies were invited for the first time in the history of the 
 club. They were not only the most ornamental, but, taking 
 into account their opportunities and influence as compared 
 with those of men engaged in business, the most useful 
 members of our company. 
 
 Excellent speeches were made by the president, Mr. E. 
 
 1 Masonic Hall at Chicago.
 
 CHICAGO. 213 
 
 P. Bailey ; by the secretary, the Rev. T. H. Snively ; and 
 an eloquent oration, humorous and instructive, by Mr. 
 Sherman Boutell. He pretended to believe that the cor- 
 dial treatment of Englishmen by Americans had its origin 
 in the secret pride derived by the host in exciting the envy 
 of his guest as he set before him the astounding magnifi- 
 cence of the country which he was permitted to see. " We 
 like to get our visitor," he said, " by our hearthstone, with 
 his feet under our mahogany, and to call his particular and 
 intelligent attention to our splendid achievements. To 
 inform him that we are seventy millions of people, and in 
 possession of enormous wealth. That, while we claim an 
 equal share in all the triumphs of the old country, he has 
 nothing whatever to do with the splendid accomplishments 
 of the new. And we say to him, ' Really now, don't you 
 wish nobody at home can hear you don't you wish 
 that some ancestral spirit of roving had led your forefathers 
 to settle in Massachusetts or Virginia two hundred years 
 ago?'" 
 
 The guest is constrained to make an evasive answer, like 
 the traveller in the Far West to the cow-boys, 1 or Mr. 
 Samson Brass, when Quilp made him smoke strong tobacco, 
 and asked him, as he was slipping off a three-cornered 
 chair, whether he did not feel like the Grand Turk. And 
 Mr. Brass said that no doubt he did, but thought at the 
 same time that, if such were the case, the feelings of that 
 potentate were not of an enviable description. 
 
 Then he Mr. Boutell, not Mr. Brass went on to state 
 that it was never too late to mend, to be annexed by natural- 
 isation, and that he thought Dean Hole would make an 
 excellent citizen of Chicago, a city which he described as 
 being in area and population the largest city in the country, 
 
 1 See page 13.
 
 214 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 although this information does not seem to have reached 
 the editor of "The World Almanac and Encyclopaedia," 
 who assigns to New York a trifling majority of more than 
 700,000 inhabitants, and predicts the addition of another 
 million or so for the " Greater New York," now in contem- 
 plation, as the city which has more miles of railroad, 
 more vessel tonnage, more freight, larger parks, dirtier 
 streets, a sootier atmosphere, a more malodorous river, 
 more gamblers, more good things, and more bad things, 
 than any other city. 
 
 The speaker then revealed himself, without pedantry, as 
 being thoroughly conversant with Rochester history not 
 only of the cathedral, but of the castle. He told how, in 
 the reign of William Rufus, Gundulph Bishop of Rochester, 
 who was a famous builder, in order to secure a certain estate 
 for his Church in perpetuity, was required by the king to 
 build a tower for Rochester Castle. It was to be 70 feet 
 square at the base, the walls 12 feet thick, and 150 feet 
 high, and the cost was to be ^60. Is it not written in the 
 "Textus Roffensis," and is not the great tower still stand- 
 ing? " Now, structures having a strong resemblance to this 
 Gundulph erection are in great demand at Chicago ; and if 
 Dean Hole will show us how to raise these towers at ^60 
 apiece, I will promise, on behalf of Chicago, not only to 
 restore his cathedral, but, in a new club-house of unparal- 
 leled size and splendour, to reserve a magnificent apartment 
 for his use, his heirs and assigns forever." 
 
 Next he spoke of the grafting and the growth of that 
 branch of the Catholic vine which we venture to call the 
 Church of America ; of early missionaries from England in 
 Puritan, busy Massachusetts- and in Catholic Maryland and 
 Massachusetts; of their toil and privations. One clergy- 
 man wrote that he preached every month in five different
 
 CHICAGO. 215 
 
 places, one hundred miles apart ; another, that he had no 
 food save that which he raised or caught, and no fuel save 
 that which he cut for himself. 
 
 In Virginia, where there was a wealthier class of people 
 many of them English emigrants the Anglican services 
 were generally adopted ; and there is a quaint picture of 
 an old-fashioned Federalist, with powdered hair and long 
 cane, three-cornered hat and top-boots, who remarked, in 
 the course of a speech mad.e to the Virginian Legislature, 
 that "of one thing he was quite sure, that no gentleman 
 would choose any road to heaven but the Episcopal" a 
 remark which reminds me of a similar utterance made by a 
 lady in New York to a friend who, on hearing that she pro- 
 posed to leave the Christian community to which she 
 belonged, and to join the Episcopal Church, had remon- 
 strated, and asked an explanation, " Well, you see, it is 
 so toney" 
 
 Alas, there 's pride in religion as in everything else, down 
 
 to the street-urchin delineated by Leech, and making, evi- 
 
 dently to her own satisfaction, whatever may happen to the 
 
 less enlightened, her declaration of faith, " Me and Mary 
 
 Jane is Puseyites." 
 
 Mr. Boutell referred, in conclusion of his excellent speech, 
 to the want of sympathy shown in times past by the mother 
 country, and to the consecration in Scotland of the first 
 American Bishop, Dr Seabury of Connecticut, to which I 
 have referred at length, 1 and which provoked the feeble 
 sarcasm, " You Yankees have to go to Scotland for oatmeal, 
 snuff, and bishops." And he spoke with faith and in hope, 
 and with impressive eloquence of the Episcopal Church of 
 England and America, as the future church of the English- 
 speaking people of the world, and that it was meanwhile 
 1 See page 105.
 
 2l6 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 their noble mission to foster and to increase those senti- 
 ments of mutual esteem and affection which ought to bind 
 together the two greatest nations upon earth. 
 
 I must say no more about the church in Chicago, and 
 yet I could not conscientiously refuse to share with my 
 readers the enjoyment which I derived when I was told 
 that a Roman priest, who had witnessed one of our ser- 
 vices, in which the ritual was elaborate and dramatic, 
 replied, on being asked what he thought of the ceremony, 
 " that it was very beautiful, but that on the whole he pre- 
 ferred his own simple worship"
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CINCINNATI. 
 
 WENT from Chicago to Cincinnati, of which Long- 
 fellow wrote : 
 
 " And this greeting 
 The winds and the birds deliver 
 
 To the Queen of the West, 
 
 In her garlands dress'd, 
 On the banks of the beautiful river." 
 
 Again I was welcomed by flowers and florists, and one of 
 the latter, an enthusiastic lady rosarian, took me in her 
 carriage, after I had hastily inspected the grand fountain in 
 Fountain Square, and seen from Eden Park the charming 
 views of the city and the valley of the Ohio, to the famous 
 Rookwood Pottery. I had an introduction from Mr. 
 Alfred Parsons to Mr. W. H. Taylor, who presided over the 
 works ; and he most kindly and lucidly explained to me, as 
 we watched the whole process of manufacture, and then 
 showed me the exquisite results in every variety of size and 
 shape and colour, not to mention two hundred and twenty- 
 five teapots, all of different patterns, from Japan. 
 
 I remembered the delight of the great poet whom I have 
 just quoted when he saw in his boyhood the vessels formed 
 by the hands of the potter at the old pottery in Portland, 
 near Deering's Wood. I thought of Bernard Pallissy's
 
 2l8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 genius and intense devotion. I repeated the quaint 
 lines 
 
 " No handicraftsman's art 
 
 Can with our art compare. 
 We potters make our pots 
 Of what we potters are." 
 
 And I mused on that wonderful verse of the prophet, in 
 which we have the history of Paradise Lost and Paradise 
 Regained, of the Fall and the Redemption : " The vessel 
 that He made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter ; 
 so He made it again, another vessel, as seemed good to 
 the potter to make it." 
 
 As soon as we had finished our most enjoyable tour of 
 inspection, Mr. Taylor inquired what form of vessel I 
 thought to be most suitable for the reception of cut roses, 
 and when I replied, "The circular," and gave him dimen- 
 sions, he at once instructed a workman to mould the clay 
 accordingly, and in three or four minutes he produced the 
 model which, when I had traced my signature with a 
 pointed instrument upon the soft material, with the date of 
 inscription, was designated by authority as " Dean Hole's 
 Bowl for Roses." On my return from the States I received 
 two specimens, highly finished and tastefully painted, and 
 the proud proprietor or rather his wife has filled them 
 with roses during the summer months, and has lost no 
 opportunity of exciting and exasperating the envy of his 
 friends. 
 
 At a luncheon afterwards we had a lively interchange of 
 reflections and experiences, grave and gay, and I made a 
 note of a short poem in which tragedy and comedy are 
 combined, and which I had not previously heard. Its title 
 was
 
 CINCINNA 77. 2 1 9 
 
 "LITTLE WILLIE. 
 
 " Little Willie from his mirror 
 Sucked the mercury all off, 
 Thinking, in his childish error, 
 It would cure his whooping-cough. 
 
 " At the funeral, Willie's mother 
 
 Smartly said to Mrs. Brown, 
 'T was a chilly day for William 
 When the mercury went down.' 
 
 Chorus 
 
 " ' Ah, ah, ah ! ' said Willie's mother. 
 ' Oh, oh, oh ! " said Mrs. Brown. 
 ' 'T was a chilly day for William 
 When the mercury went down.' " 
 
 " I think it right to add," said the reciter, when we had 
 dried our tears and suppressed our sobs, " as an American 
 and as a patriot, in the presence of this distinguished 
 Britisher, and lest he should have erroneous impressions as 
 to a want of affection in our American mothers, and as to 
 their unseemly behaviour at the grave, that* the incident 
 which you have just heard with such visible and audible 
 emotion is absolutely unique, and must not for a single 
 moment be regarded as a sample." 
 
 I solemnly assured him that, though his zeal for the 
 honour of his country, which I had noticed in two or three 
 other instances, was greatly to be admired, it was super- 
 fluous on the present occasion. That I had not met with 
 any similar incident during my travels through the States, 
 and that I was convinced that it was without precedent in 
 this country, as also in the British dominions, Guernsey, 
 Jersey, Alderney, and Sark (it seems desirable now and 
 then to introduce these additions, in the presence of those 
 who have such immense possessions that they are apt to
 
 220 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 form imperfect conceptions as to the extent of their 
 neighbour's property, and the list may be occasionally 
 enlarged by including the Isle of Wight and the Islands of 
 the Upper Lake of Killarney, trusting that at such a dis- 
 tance no one will be aware that many of the latter are about 
 ten feet in diameter) ; and that I knew a multitude of 
 mothers in both countries who regarded their little Willies 
 as unrivalled in goodness, intellect, and beauty, and had 
 believed it ever since they were born. 
 
 Not only from friends in private, but from the public 
 press, I had at Cincinnati a most hearty greeting. Was it 
 not written in a daily paper : " Dean Hole is certainly the 
 finest specimen of Elizabethan ecclesiastical architecture 
 that England has ever sent to this country " ? In another 
 that " The reverend gentleman, seventy-five years old and 
 over six feet tall, walked up two flights of stairs to his room 
 in the hotel with the hardy appearance and exact posture of 
 a young Indian, in preference to using the elevator, notwith- 
 standing that he had just endured the exhaustion of a ride 
 from Chicago. He is as remarkable a man to look at as 
 he is in the Church affairs in England, and his long gray 
 hair is combed back from a strong Scotch cast of features." 
 While a third described me as " large and ruddy, with white 
 hair and very keen, kindly, quizzical eyes that are perpet- 
 ually smiling, even when the rest of his face is serious."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 \\ TE passed through a most picturesque country from Cin- 
 * * cinnati to Washington, when the sun revealed it to us, 
 pilgrims of the night ; " woods and cornfields and the 
 abodes of men scattered at intervals ; " solitary farms, and 
 villages with tiny churches ; cottages, with little niggers 
 papooses, pickaninnies grinning at the doors, and remind- 
 ing us of a man in "the Midlands" of whom it was said by 
 a sarcastic neighbour, " They had some thoughts of widen- 
 ing his mouth, but they found that it would be necessary to 
 move his ears, so they gave it up." 
 
 There is confusion in many minds as to the meaning of 
 terms applied to the " darkies " Creoles, mulattoes, quad- 
 roons, etc. A creole is very commonly supposed to be an 
 intermixture of the white and black race ; but the word 
 denotes, in the Southern States, one born of European 
 parents. A mulatto is the offspring of a white and a negro ; 
 a quadroon one-fourth white of a white and of a 
 mulatto. 
 
 A propos of colour, there is a very charming contrast on our 
 present route between the bright red and yellow soil and the 
 dark- green foliage of the evergreen and the russet tints of 
 deciduous trees. Indeed, it seemed to me, as I woke in 
 the morning light, and looked out from my cubicle upon the 
 pleasant slopes, the woodlands and the plains, the hills and
 
 222 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 dales, the flocks and herds of Virginia, to be the most attrac- 
 tive site which I had seen in the States for a peaceful, rest- 
 ful home ; and this impression was afterwards confirmed 
 when, engaged to give a lecture at Charlottesville, wherein 
 is the University of Virginia, I spent two delightful days in 
 the country house of Mr. Sackville Caldbeck. Were I con- 
 strained to end my days in America, and the choice was 
 where the end should be, " Carry me back to Old Virginie " 
 would be the burden of my song. 
 
 Enjoying, not long ago, one of the happiest of human 
 enjoyments, a prowl round the shelves of a well-filled, well- 
 chosen, well-warmed, well-lighted library, when the winds 
 blow and the rains pour outside, I found a most interesting 
 volume of travels in America, written by Archdeacon 
 Burnaby, the great-grandfather of my host and brother-in- 
 law, not long before the War of Independence. He describes 
 Virginia as producing, in its natural state, great quantities 
 of fruits and medicinal plants, with trees and flowers of 
 infinitely various kinds. " Tobacco and Indian corn were 
 the original produce of the country. Grapes, strawberries, 
 hiccory-nuts, mulberries, chestnuts, and other fruit grow 
 wild spontaneously. 
 
 " Besides trees and flowers of an ordinary nature, the woods 
 produce myrtles, cedars, cypresses, sugar-trees, firs of 
 different sorts, and no less than seven or eight kinds of oaks. 
 They are always adorned and beautified with red-flowering 
 maples, sassafras-trees, dogwoods, acacias, redwoods, scar- 
 let-flowering chestnuts, fringe-trees, flowering poplars, 
 umbrella-trees, magnolias, yellow jasmines, daphnes, Kalmias, 
 pacoons, atamises lilies, May-apples, and innumerable other 
 sorts, so that one may reasonably assume that no country 
 ever appeared with greater elegance or beauty. 
 
 "The rivers are stored with incredible quantities offish ; in
 
 VIRGINIA. 223 
 
 the mountains there are rich veins of ore ; the forests abound 
 with game, hares, pheasants, turkeys, woodcocks, and 
 partridges ; in the marshes are found soruses, a particular 
 species of bird more exquisitely delicious than the ortolan 
 snipes, also ducks of all kinds. 
 
 " In the woods there are a variety of birds remarkable for 
 their singing and their beauty : the mocking-bird, the red- 
 bird or nightingale, the blue-bird, the yellow-bird, the hum- 
 ming-bird, the Baltimore bird, the summer duck, the turtle, 
 and many others. The fruits introduced here from Europe 
 succeed extremely well, particularly the peaches, which have 
 a very fine flavour, and grow in such plenty as to serve to 
 feed the hogs in autumn. 
 
 " The horses are fleet and beautiful. 
 
 "The established religion is that of the Church of England, 
 and there are very few Dissenters. There are at present 
 between sixty and seventy clergymen, men in general of 
 sober and exemplary lives. They have each a glebe of two or 
 three hundred acres of land, and a salary, established by law, 
 of 1 6,000 Ibs. of tobacco, and an allowance of 1 700 Ibs. more 
 for shrinkage. This is delivered to them in hogsheads, 
 ready packed for importation at the most convenient ware- 
 house. The diocesan is the Bishop of London. He is also 
 the Chancellor of the College of William and Mary, the only 
 public place of education. 
 
 " The inhabitants are indolent, easy, and good-natured, 
 extremely fond of society, and given to individual pleasures. 
 The progress of the arts and sciences is inconsiderable. 
 
 " The women are, generally speaking, handsome, and though 
 fond of society, and especially of dancing, are industrious 
 and domestic also, spending their days in sewing and in 
 household duties, like the Roman matron, domum mansit, 
 lanam fecit, and make as good wives and as good mothers
 
 224 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 as any in the world." Their husbands, according to the 
 archdeacon's experience, were always in a position to speak 
 with great boldness to their enemies in the gate. " We 
 called," he writes, " at the plantation of Colonel Symes. 
 His wife, a very beautiful woman, was said to have just 
 attained her twenty-first year, and was at that time the 
 mother of seven children, all living." 
 
 Then follows a most significant and suggestive passage : 
 " Their authority over their slaves makes them vain and 
 imperious. In regard to the Indian and the negro, they 
 scarcely consider them of the human species, so that it is 
 almost impossible, in cases of violence, or even of murder, 
 committed upon those unhappy people by any of the planters, 
 to have the delinquents brought to justice. 
 
 " They are haughty, and jealous of their liberties, impa- 
 tient of restraint, and can scarcely bear the thought of being 
 controlled by any superior power. Many of them consider 
 the Colonies as independent States, not connected with 
 Great Britain otherwise than by having the same Queen, 
 and being bound to her by natural affection." 
 
 Do we not see in these characteristics the fuel and the sparks 
 of that terrible conflagration, the American Civil War? It 
 may be said that the War for Independence was a rebellion 
 against authority ; bu,t it was righteous and inevitable, for 
 that authority was overstrained, and its maintenance impossi- 
 ble. " Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." 
 America, moreover, was almost unanimous in her desire and 
 determination ; but, in the war between the Northern and 
 Southern States, her unity was broken. A man's foes were 
 those of his own house, for brothers fought against each 
 other, and one chief cause of this deadly disunion which 
 brought desolation to thousands of happy homes, to the 
 mothers, the widows, the loving maiden hearts, which flooded
 
 VIRGINIA. 225 
 
 the land like a red Niagara with blood, so that everywhere 
 was heard the poet's wail, 
 
 " There 's not a flock, however watched and tended, 
 
 But one dead lamb is there ; 
 There 's not a household, howsoe'er defended, 
 But hath its vacant chair ; " 
 
 one main argument for the continuance of this suicidal 
 strife was the defence of slavery ! 
 
 I heard in Virginia, wherein the bitterness of all that 
 hatred and suffering still sours the spirit of those on whom 
 it was entailed and as I looked upon the statue of the 
 soldier in the uniform of the Southern army, in the centre 
 of the burial-ground at Charlottesville, surrounded by hun- 
 dreds of his comrades slain in battle, I felt that so it must 
 be until the mourners were gone to those whom they 
 mourned, and that cruel severance had ceased to throb 
 I heard in Virginia, as I had heard elsewhere, that, before 
 the war, the slaves were content and happy ; that during 
 the war, so far from righting for their emancipation, they 
 sympathised with their masters ; and that, before the statue 
 to which I just now referred was publicly unveiled, a negro 
 came to the committee who were making the arrangements, 
 and informed them that he would die in resisting any at- 
 tempt which might be made to raise the flag of the Stars 
 and Stripes upon that ground. Some maintain that the 
 negroes were happier before the war than now. It was so 
 in many of the plantations. Successive generations of kind 
 masters were beloved by their willing slaves, and they were 
 as one family together. There were cases in which slaves, 
 to whom freedom had been given for good conduct, re- 
 turned and entreated that they might continue their work. 
 These arguments were asserted by many, before and during 
 
 15
 
 226 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the war, as an insuperable answer to the accusations brought 
 against slavery, and to them we are indebted for Lowell's 
 caustic lines : 
 
 " It 's coz they 're so happy, that when crazy sarpints 
 
 Stick their nose in our business we get so darned riled; 
 We think it 's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints 
 That the last crumb of Eden on earth sha'n't be spiled." 
 
 " Says John C. Calhoun, sez he, 
 
 ' Ah I ' says Dixon H. Lewis, 
 ' It perfectly true is, 
 That slavery 's earth's greatest boon,' sez he." 
 
 The same author had previously described Uncle Sam of 
 the United States as " the loudest boaster of liberty and the 
 largest owner of slaves." 
 
 Many, nevertheless, would not listen to the rebukes of 
 ridicule or of scorn ; and some still speak as though all 
 that has been written and spoken and preached against 
 slavery was mere verbiage and vain imagination, Lincoln's 
 eloquence, Longfellow's pathetic verse, Dickens's denuncia- 
 tion of " that most hideous blot and foul disgrace," and 
 Beecher's " Patriotic Addresses " were mere romance ; and 
 the great multitudes who heard and read and glowed with 
 righteous indignation, or shed tears of sorrow and of shame, 
 were all under a delusion. There are some who to this 
 day will tell you that " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was a fiction 
 and nothing more. 
 
 It is true that thousands of slaves were kindly treated, 
 and well fed, and danced and sang. But were there no 
 markets in which they were bought and sold, grouped for 
 inspection, as cattle now, lauded by the auctioneer, criti- 
 cised and depreciated by the buyers, jeered at by the 
 crowd? Were there no manacles, no cruel overseers ever 
 repeating the cry of the Egyptian taskmaster, " Ye are idle,
 
 VIRGINIA. 227 
 
 ye are idle"? Were there no drivers' whips, no bruises, 
 and no sores? Might it not have been said in bitter 
 mockery that the banner of those bondmen was Scars and 
 Stripes? 1 
 
 It is true that slavery was not the first provocation at the 
 beginning of the war, 2 though it became afterwards insepa- 
 rably associated ; but there are many who regard the war as 
 the retribution of Slavery. At the Lincoln banquet, held in 
 Colorado Springs, February 12, 1895, Mr. Grafton said, 
 " God's ways are not our ways, and His instruments and in- 
 strumentalities are not of our choosing. His wrath was not 
 to be appeased except by sufficient sacrifice. The wealth 
 piled up by the bondman's unrequited toil had to be de- 
 stroyed. The young men just budding into manhood, the 
 flower of the land, their blood alone could wash the guilt 
 away. The sacrifice had to be as great as the sin." 
 
 It is a common question, What will become of the 
 negroes? According to the census of 1890, their number 
 in the States is 7,638,360. They seem to have no desire 
 to return 
 
 " Where Afric's sunny fountains 
 Roll down their golden sands," 
 
 1 The flag of the Stars and Stripes was adopted by Congress on 
 the I4th of June, 1777, when it was resolved "that the flag of the 
 Thirteen United Colonies be thirteen stripes, alternately red and 
 white, and that of the Union thirteen stars, white in a blue field, re- 
 presenting a new constellation." Some have thought that the arms of 
 Washington, which contain three stars in the upper portion, and three 
 bars across the escutcheon, may have suggested the American flag. 
 
 2 It was maintained by the Southerners that America was not one 
 nation, but a number of nations, of States, united for convenience, 
 but each having a right to secede. The Northerners denied this 
 right, and declared it to be every man's duty to preserve the integrity 
 of the empire, and to obey the Supreme Authorities.
 
 228 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 but rather to have adopted the Hanoverian motto, Vestigia 
 nulla retrorsum : " " We don't intend to go back again." 
 It is better so than that they should fret themselves with a 
 desire so hopeless as an exodus to their native land. Never- 
 theless, the good Bishop of Sierra Leone reminds us, with 
 a righteous zeal, " that these black people were transported 
 forcibly and utterly against their will, and that it was only 
 to be expected that an impossible state of things would 
 sooner or later be created. The true solution," he affirms, 
 " is repatriation. Why talk of planting British Indians in 
 Africa, when so many expatriated Africans will colonise it 
 far more satisfactorily? I contend that limited repatriation, 
 wisely directed, can be made a success." 
 
 There is no probability of amalgamation between the 
 blacks and whites ; no hope that the negro can be raised 
 to the intellectual platform of the American race, although 
 his education might be greatly improved. What, then, 
 should be done? I have heard another suggestion, but it 
 was made by a gentleman whose theories seemed never to 
 present themselves in working order, that the negroes should 
 have a State assigned to them, with special privileges and 
 adaptations, and with the sole restriction that they never 
 emerged beyond their boundaries. Encouraged by applause 
 (of a fictitious character), he proceeded to enlarge our 
 conceptions, and to illuminate the future with a further reve- 
 lation of his political schemes, announcing his conviction 
 that it would be for the mutual advantage and accommoda- 
 tion of all parties if a separate and spacious allotment 
 could also be apportioned and awarded to the Irish nation, 
 in which all its ancient glory should be revived, and there 
 should be no more Saxons, no more landlords, no more 
 policemen, but an absolute freedom from restraint, and 
 " Home Rule," with the slightest possible modifications
 
 VIRGINIA. 229 
 
 such, for example, as a friendly consultation with the 
 Federal Government in case of any differences of opinion 
 which might arise, and which were not unknown to close 
 students of history even among the peaceful, unimpassioned 
 brethren of United Ireland. 
 
 I was not much impressed by the architectural present- 
 ments of the University of Virginia. The Rotunda is pleas- 
 ing, but the dormitories adjoining are small and low. 
 Nevertheless, the undergraduates who occupy them are 
 a bright, cheery brotherhood, and the learned and genial 
 professors were most kind and hospitable to me. The 
 University and I are coeval, for it was founded by the 
 famous Jefferson, whose home and grave are at beautiful 
 Monticello, four miles away, in the year 1819. 
 
 After my lecture to a congenial audience, 1 I was con- 
 versing with one of the " potent, grave, and reverend " 
 Dons of the University, and was making the most of my 
 classical reminiscences, affectionately referring to the Greek 
 and Latin authors, as though they had been the playfellows 
 of my boyhood, the dearest friends of my manhood, and 
 were now the sweet solace of mine age ; I was earnestly 
 eulogising the " Agamemnon " of ^Eschylus (what an exhi- 
 bition I should have made if he had produced a pocket- 
 edition, and had solicited my views upon certain lines of the 
 chorus, which I had not seen for half a century, and which 
 always brought my Pegasus down ! ) ; and I was declaiming 
 upon the superiority of the Greek over the English language, 
 in the musical grandeur of its tones, contrasting in proof 
 
 1 I was more fortunate than Emerson, of whom we read that he 
 went to lecture to the literary societies of the University of Virginia, 
 and that there was so much noise that he could not make himself 
 heard, and, after contending with the din for half an hour, con- 
 cluded.
 
 23O A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the account of the Greek tragedian of the lighting of the 
 beacons, which announced the taking of Troy to the sen- 
 tinel at Argos, with the verses of Macaulay (splendid as 
 they are), upon a similar illumination on the Spanish 
 Armada, when a pleasant voice addressed me with, " Dean 
 Hole, we know that you are a sportsman, and we propose 
 to have a special meet of the hounds to-morrow morning in 
 your honour." 
 
 " Agamemnon " vanished, and my good friend, the pro- 
 fessor, reminded me that we should meet at supper, as I 
 suddenly and joyfully transferred my thoughts from the 
 stage to the stable, from the mournful drama to the merry 
 horn. I had been interested in the country as I travelled 
 on the rails, not only by its beauty, but by its relations pro 
 et contra for the chase (every man who has ridden to 
 hounds for many years of his life amuses himself now and 
 then with imaginary runs beside his train, and feels himself 
 personally aggrieved when, having distanced all competitors 
 and taken a commanding lead, he is suddenly confronted 
 by a broad river, a tunnel, or a town) and I had come to 
 the conclusion that the irregular arrangement of the 
 wooden fences in Virginia would require the careful hand- 
 ling of a clever horse, when lo ! I was face to face with the 
 secretary and manager of the hunt. I could not accept his 
 complimentary and congenial invitation, for I was a guest 
 that tarried but a day, but we had a most refreshing though 
 brief conversation (remember, dear reader, that the Very 
 Reverend the Dean had only just .concluded an effort to 
 raise funds for the restoration of his cathedral, so that busi- 
 ness went first and pleasure after), and he told me that 
 though, as I saw, the country, with its continuous wood- 
 lands and immense spaces of uninclosed land, had neither 
 the facilities nor the excitements of the English fox-hunt,
 
 VIRGINIA. 23 1 
 
 with its miles of pasture and every variety of obstacle in 
 hedges and ditches, banks and brooks, rails of strong wood 
 and walls of stone, that they had nevertheless some capital 
 sport, plenty of foxes, red and gray, and a goodly company 
 of fair dames and gay cavaliers. 
 
 The American gentleman is somewhat heavily handi- 
 capped as to the enjoyment of field sports. As a rule he 
 devotes his energies to business, and has only just begun to 
 discover that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, 
 and that if you apply no oil to the wheel the friction may 
 set it on fire. When I gave up hunting years ago that I 
 might devote myself more exclusively to ecclesiastical and 
 literary work, my health failed, and my doctor commanded 
 " horse-exercise." So 1 invested in a stout high-stepping 
 cob, and I called him " Taraxacum," for he was as 
 medicine to my liver, and as a tonic to all around. 
 
 If the millionaires and all who can afford the recreation 
 would leave their Wall Streets, their banks, and bureaux for 
 a gallop once a week after hounds, they would do as much 
 work as before in a shorter time, that is with a constant 
 supply of new vigour both to body and mind. 
 
 In England all the surroundings are favourable to the 
 hunting of the fox. The landowner is a sportsman, with a 
 few melancholy exceptions (the vulpicide and the man who 
 puts barbed wire in his fences occupy about the same 
 position in the esteem of his fellow-countrymen as a gar- 
 rotter or a ticket-of- leave man), and he has woods and 
 coverts, sometimes specially made for the comfortable 
 reception of the fox. and he and his tenants are of one 
 mind that the sacred animal shall be strictly preserved 
 until the time comes when he must meet that which the 
 old huntsman declared to be his "natural death." In 
 America the land is occupied by its owners, sometimes to a
 
 232 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 small extent, and any one of these proprietors may of course 
 forbid and oppose the sport. 
 
 Against these disadvantages the American, inheriting 
 such a love of horses and of sport that he has shown us in' 
 the far West, and in England by the performances of 
 Colonel Cody and his troupe, the most difficult of all horse- 
 manship, the breaking and the riding of the buckjumper, 
 and has bred the fastest trotters in the world, is now 
 developing a vehement desire for the chase. Developing, 
 not originating, for there has long been fox-hunting in various 
 parts of the States. 1 Lord Fairfax and George Washing- 
 ton kept a pack of hounds in Virginia, and not only in 
 Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia has there 
 always been a more or less unorganised fox-hunting by 
 farmers and others, but Philadelphia and Baltimore have 
 also an ancient renown. There are twenty-five American 
 and Canadian hunt clubs of various dates, chiefly modern, 
 and yearly increasing. They have been established and 
 are supported by wealthy citizens, who, having sporting 
 proclivities, thoroughly enjoy their holidays in the happy 
 hunting-grounds not far from their cities. 
 
 The men turn out in the good old style, in " pink " and 
 in "tops," and though their steeds may not be quite so 
 highly bred or highly groomed as in England, and their 
 hounds may not be quite so shapely or so swift as the 
 " Belvoir " or the " Quorn." and the calvacade may consist 
 of twenty instead of two-hundred horsemen, the tout ensem- 
 ble, as faithfully represented by photographs, fully satisfies 
 the sportsman's eye. The easy "seat" of the man who 
 
 1 A most interesting article on " Country Clubs and Hunt Clubs in 
 America," with excellent illustrations, appears in Scribner's Magazine 
 for September, 1895.
 
 VIRGINIA. 233 
 
 can ride, the caps and coats of the huntsmen, the well- 
 made habit of Diana, all are there. 
 
 Fox-hunters are inclined to be sternly severe in their 
 condemnations of those who hunt a drag, and philosophers 
 have declared that a millionaire, riding as for his life, after 
 a red herring, was mad, and should be under restraint. 
 There is some argument in both these allegations. There 
 is an element of comedy in the anxious, elaborate, and 
 costly preparations for the chase of a fox, in the feverish, 
 frantic excitement evoked by his appearance, and it can 
 hardly be denied that the sudden presentation to a for- 
 eigner, having no previous information, of a gentleman 
 on horseback, clad in scarlet, and shouting " Tally-ho ! " 
 (meaning of the words unknown to linguists) at the top of 
 his voice, would suggest insanity. But has not the Latin 
 poet said wisely, Dulce est desipere in loco life cannot be 
 all philosophy? As to hunting a drag, there is a perfect 
 unanimity on both sides of the Atlantic that it is a process 
 very inferior to that of hunting the fox, and that it more 
 resembles a race of horsemen than a run with hounds. 
 The American sportsman and the American fox have the 
 same esprit de corps (the words admit a double translation 
 with reference to the fox) as the English ; but what is to 
 be done in districts where the wily animal cannot be in- 
 duced to leave the great woods, in which there are no 
 roads, or in districts where he is not to be found? And so 
 it comes to this, " recte si possis" hunt the fox if you can ; 
 "si non y quocunque modo" but if this be impossible, hunt 
 something. 
 
 The American man of business has no time to waste in a 
 tedious and uncertain search for his quarry, which may end 
 in a " blank day," and so he gets the best sport and exer- 
 cise within his reach, just when and just where he pleases,
 
 234 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 and just as much as he likes. And in this latter arrange- 
 ment he inherits from his forefathers their relish for a 
 moderate amount of danger, a few of those impediments 
 which we love the most when we arrive on the other 
 side. 
 
 The most scrupulous sportsman, who retains his nerve, 
 will not deny, when he has tasted them, the fascinations of 
 the drag, although he may doubt their orthodoxy ! In my 
 college days, when we felt it to be a duty which we owed to 
 our country, to our parents, and to ourselves, to keep our 
 minds and bodies unimpaired by excessive study and close 
 confinement ; when there were no near meets of the hounds, 
 and yet we knew that strong exercise and pure air was 
 absolutely essential to health, we were wont to organise a 
 drag. We had about four couple of hounds, principally 
 contributed by the sons of the M. F. H., to the great joy of 
 the kennel huntsman, who was thus relieved of his repro- 
 bates. They were not to the eye of the connoisseur what 
 is termed a " level lot," because we could not afford to 
 repudiate beagles, and, therefore, our pack somewhat 
 resembled the army of a country theatre, low and lanky, 
 emaciated and obese. They were weak in those " points " 
 which are required at a hound-show, but they were strong 
 in their resolution, and they would run, and they would eat, 
 any mortal thing. 
 
 A curious incident occurred in connection with our drag. 1 
 As a rule we confined our recreation on horseback to sev- 
 eral farms over which we had permission to ride, covenant- 
 ing to pay for damages, which were very rarely laid to our 
 charge, as the farmers were sportsmen also ; but on one 
 
 * I wrote a full account of this small drama in an early volume of 
 Once a Week, and it was accompanied by one of the cleverest illustra- 
 tions which John Leech ever drew.
 
 VIRGINIA. 235 
 
 occasion our dragoman had diverged into adjoining fields, 
 and was caught in the very act of trailing his odoriferous 
 compounds (chiefly aniseed) by the owner and his game- 
 keeper, who were shooting in a wood hard by. The pro- 
 prietor, a retired colonel, was furious, and astutely ordered 
 the unhappy trespasser to accompany him, still learing a 
 line of scent, to the Hall. Poor old " Badger Bowles," the 
 superintendent of the drag, used to delight us afterwards with 
 vivid representations of his captors, the colonel marching 
 along as straight as a plumb-line, turning round from time 
 to time to scowl and sneer and sniff, and exclaiming, " Bah ! 
 Beastly ! Cursed impudence ! Have 'em all expelled ; " 
 and his keeper, with a gun under each arm, " trying to 
 look as if he 'd never smelt nothing stronger nor cowslips, 
 and had never cut up a putrid 'os for his dogs." Bowles was 
 taken to an unoccupied coach-house, and was locked in. 
 
 By-and-by the hounds, having astonished the master and 
 his company by racing over a private park, and past a 
 stately mansion, rushed at full cry into the stable-yard, and 
 besieged with howls of angry disappointment the coach- 
 house door. Then the colonel appeared upon the scene, 
 and, raising his hat, with a politeness which bordered on 
 humility, and speaking with a suavity of tone which was 
 almost feminine, he asked, " to whom was he indebted for 
 the honour and the privilege of that most charming inter- 
 view?" But this dramatic effort was too much for him, 
 and without any further sparring, he went for our highly 
 esteemed but depressed master, and let his thoughts flow in 
 impassioned language. In still amazement we heard our 
 revered leader (idol of his college, heir to a peerage, and a 
 thorough sportsman) denounced as an electro-plated im- 
 postor, a pestiferous poacher, and a disgrace to the Univer- 
 sity, from which he hoped to remove him at the earliest
 
 236 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 available date. "As for your delectable friend," he remarked, 
 in conclusion, " the skunk in the coach-house, he will be 
 prosecuted according to law. And now, sir, I must demand 
 your card" it was given with profuse apologies "and 
 ask you to remove your elegant retinue, so that these prem- 
 ises may be fumigated without delay." 
 
 Now comes the strange denouement. Our dejected chief 
 had scarcely gone a mile on his homeward way when a 
 groom came galloping up, with a note in his hand, and 
 therein was written, " Come back at once. Know your 
 father. All a mistake." He returned to an enthusiastic 
 welcome. " So sorry, my dear boy. I see from your card 
 that you are the son of my dearest friend in the Guards 
 together, fought side by side. Come in ! Dobson, take 
 some food into the dining-room. Bottle of champagne. 
 Young fellows like champagne. Let me introduce you to 
 my wife and daughters." 
 
 The Country Club is a more recent and rapid develop- 
 ment of American delight in al fresco exercises, on horse- 
 back and on foot, in the winter and in the summer also. 
 The club-house is a large, commodious building, with 
 rooms for reception, dancing, dining, dressing, and billiards. 
 Outside there are lawns for tennis, golf-links, grounds for 
 races, steeple-chases, polo, and base-ball. The club is sit- 
 uated within the distance of a drive from the city and its 
 suburbs, and gives to the coachman as well as to the rider 
 and the athlete, every opportunity for the display of his 
 equipage and his skill, his four-in-hand, his tandem, or 
 his trotting steed. It is a centre of cheerful, healthful, 
 social intercourse, and so far it has not been degraded by 
 the paltry and cruel practice of shooting pigeons from 
 traps. 
 
 Reverting to the negroes when they " get religion "
 
 VIRGINIA. 237 
 
 they are much more serious in their demeanour and devout 
 in their worship. Some of their hymns, strange not seldom 
 and unsound in doctrine, quaint sometimes in their language 
 and in their association with common things, are stirring, 
 pathetic, and harmonious. For example : 
 
 DE GOSPEL TRAIN. 
 
 " De Gospel Train 's a-coming, I hear it ju>t at hand, 
 I hear clem car-wheels movin', and a-rumblin' through the land; 
 1 hear de bell and whistle she 's a pulling on de curb; 
 She 's playing all her steam-power, and she 's straining every nerve. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 " Get on board, children ; get on board, children ; 
 Get on board, children, for dere 's room for many more. 
 
 " No signal for another train to follow on that line 
 Oh. sinner, yon 're for ever lost, if once you 're left behind ! 
 She 's nearin' now the depot, O sinner, don't be vain, 
 But go and get your b.iggage checked, and be ready for the train. 
 
 " De fare is cheap, and all can go, de rich and poor are dere. 
 No second-class aboard dem cars, but all go first-class fare ; 
 And all alike are equal, .and all alike are free, 
 And de white man and de black man is all one familee. 
 
 " Dere 's Moses, Noah, Abraham, and all the prophets too, 
 Our dear departs are all aboard, O what a happy crew ! 
 We soon shall reach the depot, how den we shall sing, 
 And vvid all the heavenly armies, we'll make the roofin' ring! " 
 
 In appropriate sequence I transcribe an epitaph from 
 the grave of an engineer (our English term is engine- 
 driver), named Valentine, who was killed on the Chesapeake
 
 238 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 and Ohio Railroad in Virginia, and was buried in Holly- 
 wood Cemetery, Richmond : 
 
 " In the crash and fall he stood, and gave his life that 
 he might save many." 
 
 " Until the brakes are turned on time, 
 
 Life's throttle-valve shut down, 
 He waits to pilot in the crew 
 
 That wear the heavenly crown. 
 On schedule time, on upward grade, 
 
 Along the homeward section, 
 He land his crew at GOD'S round-house 
 
 The morn of Resurrection. 
 His time all full, no wages docked, 
 
 His name on God's pay-roll, 
 And transportation through to Heaven, 
 
 A free pass for his soul." 
 
 Some may regard these analogies and expressions as 
 verging on profanity, but to the pure all things are pure. 
 
 Another epitaph engraved upon a tomb in Virginia is 
 remembered as having evoked a brilliant repartee. A 
 famous author resident in that State was bereaved of his 
 wife, and inscribed upon her gravestone, "The light is 
 gone from my life." Time not only modified his distress, 
 but kindly and wisely suggested a renewal of conjugal bliss. 
 An acrimonious neighbour had the bad taste to banter him 
 on his engagement, and to express a surprise that he had 
 so soon forgotten his words of lamentation. " So far from 
 forgetting them," he replied, " I remember and repeat 
 them now, as originating and confirming the intention 
 which you are pleased to criticise. I declared that the 
 light was gone from my life, and it is for this reason that I 
 propose to stnke another match" 
 
 There are in Virginia a few of the crazy folk who go by
 
 VIRGINIA. 239 
 
 the name of Spiritualists. One of them died, and his 
 relations, who were rational beings, and Christian people, 
 buried him with his fathers. But when his brother lunatics 
 were informed of the fact they were filled with indignation, 
 and hastily convened a committee of inquiry to consult with 
 the spirit of their departed friend, to ascertain his views 
 upon the subject, and to act accordingly. An answer was 
 returned by the usual process from the deceased, " That no 
 attempt had been made to ascertain his wishes, that he had 
 had nothing whatever to do with the arrangements, and 
 that " (as the Scotchman said at his execution) " he was 
 disgusted with the whole affair." Whereupon a deputation 
 waited on the officiating minister (I do not remember his 
 denomination), and assailed him in opprobrious terms. 
 He listened patiently, until they had exhausted their 
 ammunition and ceased firing, and then said, " Ladies and 
 gentlemen, for a long period of years I have conducted 
 funerals in strict accordance with the usual order and 
 services, to the satisfaction and consolation of the survivors, 
 and this is the first time that I have ever been sassed by the 
 remains / " 
 
 And yet another memoir ministerial: An elderly 
 village dame was talking to her neighbour in disparagement 
 of their pastor, who was a good farmer but a bad preacher. 
 " Well," replied the counsel for the defence, " I guess he is a 
 bit dry in the pulpit, but in the grasshopper and caterpillar 
 season he 's mighty in prayer /" 
 
 Farewell, beautiful Virginia ! Peace be in your kind 
 hearts, and health in your happy homes, bright as the sun- 
 shine on your hills and dales !
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 A RCHDEACON BURNABY, from whose "Travels in 
 f~\ North America," published some 130 years ago, I 
 have already quoted, was the friend of Washington, and was 
 his guest at Mount Vernon more than once. " From Col- 
 chester," he writes, " we went about twelve miles to Mount 
 Vernon. This place is the property of Colonel Washington. 
 The house is most beautifully situated upon a high hill on 
 the banks of the Potomac, and commands a noble prospect 
 of water, cliffs, woods, and plentations." And again, " On 
 the i gth of December, 1759, being on a visit to Colonel 
 Washington at Mount Vernon, upon the river Potomac, 
 where it is two miles in breadth, I was greatly surprised to 
 find it entirely frozen over in the space of one night, when 
 the preceding day had been mild and temperate." 
 
 He relates to us an incident in the early life of Washing- 
 ton which indicates, as clearly as the dawn the day, the 
 rise and splendour of his fame. " On the ist of November, 
 1753, Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie, having informed the 
 Assembly in Virginia that the French had erected a fortress 
 upon the Ohio, it was resolved to send a messenger to M. 
 St. Pierre, the commander, to claim that country as belong- 
 ing to his Britannic Majesty, and to order him to withdraw. 
 Mr. Washington, a young gentleman of fortune, just arrived 
 at age, offered his service on this important occasion. The
 
 WASHINGTON. 24! 
 
 distance was more than four hundred miles, two hundred 
 of which lay through a trackless desert, inhabited by cruel 
 and merciless savages, and the season was uncommonly 
 severe. Notwithstanding, Mr. Washington, attended by one 
 companion only, set out upon this dangerous enterprise, 
 travelled from Winchester on foot, carrying his provisions 
 on his back, executed his commission, and, after incredible 
 hardships and many providential escapes, returned safe to 
 Williamsburg, and gave an account of his negotiation to 
 the Assembly on the i4th of February following." 
 On July 27, 1 761, he wrote this letter to his friend : 
 
 From GEORGE AUGUSTUS WASHINGTON, 
 
 (Afterwards President of Congress, and Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Forces of the United States of America.) 
 
 To ANDREW BURNABY 
 
 (Archdeacon of Leicester. Of Baggrave Hall, in the County 
 of Leicester, Great Britain.} 
 
 MOUNT VERNON, 2-]thJuly, 1761. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Your obliging favour of the Hth of April I had 
 the pleasure to receive about the roth inst. The news of your 
 safe arrival in London was often confirmed to me by the Gov- 
 ernor and others, or else I should have felt a very singular 
 pleasure in the account of il. from yourself. If apologies are 
 necessary, I certainly have the greatest reason to make one, 
 for my silence till now a silence really occasioned from the 
 doubts entertained here of your returning again, or with more 
 justice I might have said, from a belief that you certainly would. 
 I must own, that after the Death of the poor Commissary 
 and other changes which both preceded, and followed that 
 
 16
 
 242 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Event, I was in hopes that something had cast up Introductory 
 to your return ; but as I am perswaded your resolution's of 
 remaining in England are founded upon very solid motives 
 your Friends in Virginia must acquiesce to the loss of your 
 Company, and endeavour to avail themselves of an Epistalory 
 Correspondence with you. This is my plan, and in your 
 power to render it effectual. 
 
 I deal little in Politic's, and what to advance under the article 
 of news I really know not ; This part of the Country as you 
 know, affords few occurrences worthy of remark, and as to the 
 Transactions of Climes more distant, but let me speak more 
 intelligibly of our neighbouring Colonies, you have letters 
 transmitted to you with more regularity and certainty than we 
 have, tho' perhaps with not quite so much Expedition The 
 perfidious conduct of our Neighbours the Cherokees, have 
 occasioned the sending Major Grant with a detachment of His 
 Majesty's Troops, and what Forces the Carolinaens coud Mus- 
 ter into their Country on that side; while Colonel Byrd with 
 the Virginia Regiment is ordered to penetrate it on this what 
 may be the Event of these Expedition's is difficult, and perhaps 
 may be improper to conjecture ; but they afford matter of 
 speculation, and while some think the Indian's will make the 
 most abject submissions rather than come to blows, there are 
 others of very different opinions, and fearful of the Conse- 
 quences ; but so it is in all doubtful matters of Importance. 
 
 His late Majestys Death having occasioned a general Elec- 
 tion of Burgesses in this Colony, many new members are 
 chosen ; among whom Col. Mercer supplies the place of my 
 late Colleague Col. Martin, who thought proper to decline. 
 Phil: Johnson turns out Ben Waller Bernd : Moore, and 
 Cartr : Braxton, Peter Robinson and Harry Gains; and so with 
 many others whom you know. 
 
 You must in some measure Sir have misunderstood my 
 account of the Cavern near Winchester ; or I greatly aggravated 
 the Circumstances in giving a Relation of it true it is, that 
 within 16 miles of Winchester to the North East hand of it, in 
 a plain flat Country no ways contigious to any Mountain or 
 constant running Water, there stands a natural Cave or Well,
 
 WASHINGTON. 243 
 
 which at times a Person may go down into, to the depth of 
 100 or 150 Yards, and at other times the Water rises to the Top 
 and flows of plentifully, but I never observed any regular Flux 
 or reflux, or that this happened at any fixed periods ; on the 
 contrary, I always concluded, and have been so informed, that 
 the dry and wet Season's was the Sole and only occasion of 
 these Changes However, as it lyes within two mihs of my 
 Plantation in Frederick I will, when next I go up there, make 
 a more minute Enquiry of the most Intelligent People of the 
 neighbourhood, and give you a further account thereof in my 
 next ; and this journey I propose to undertake so soon as my 
 health will permit, which at present is in a very declining way, 
 and has been so in spite of all the Esculapian Tribe, eversince 
 the Middle of May ; occasioned by a violent Cold I then got 
 in a Tour to Winchester etc. I have found so little benefit 
 from any advice yet received that I am more than half of the 
 mind to trke a trip to England for the recovery of that invalu- 
 able Blessing Health. but enough on this subject for the 
 present. Mrs. Washington, who takes pleasure in hearing 
 of your Welfare, desires her Compliments may be presented, 
 along with the sincerest wishes of 
 
 Dear Sir 
 Your most obedient and most humble Servant 
 
 Go: WASHINGTON. 
 
 P. S. Your little white horse departed this life soon after 
 you did the country. 
 
 How strangely the words sound now, " I deal little in 
 politics . . . think of taking a trip to England" ! 
 
 Englishmen are reticent in the presence of Americans as 
 to their estimate of Washington, not because in a just cause 
 he defeated their armies, but because they fear lest their 
 praise should seem to be exaggerated by a courteous desire 
 to please ; and I sometimes doubt whether the depth and 
 sincerity of our admiration is realised by our Transatlantic
 
 244 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 friends. Be this as it may, we believe, with our historian, 1 
 that " no nobler figure ever stood in the foreground of a 
 nation's life." Washington was grave and courteous ; his 
 manners were simple and unpretending ; his silence and 
 the severe calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self- 
 mastery; but there was little in his outer bearing to 
 reveal that grandeur of soul which lifts his figure with all 
 the simple majesty of an ancient statue out of the smaller 
 passions, the meaner impulses of the world around him. 
 It was only as the weary fight went on that the colonists 
 learned, little by little, the greatness of their leader, his 
 clear judgment, his heroic endurance, his silence under 
 difficulties, his calmness in the hour of danger or defeat, 
 the patience with which he waited, the quickness and hard- 
 ness with which he struck, the lofty and severe sense of 
 duty which never swerved from its task through resentment 
 or jealousy, that never through war or peace felt the touch 
 of a meaner ambition, that knew no aim beyond that of 
 guarding the freedom of his fellow-countrymen, and no 
 personal longing save that of returning to his own fireside 
 when that fruition was secured. It was almost uncon- 
 sciously that men learned to cling to Washington with a 
 trust and with a faith such as few other men have won, and 
 to regard him with a reverence which still hushes us in the 
 presence of his memory. Even America barely recognised 
 his true greatness till death set its seal on " the man first 
 in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow- 
 countrymen." 
 
 Of all the tributes of praise and gratitude expressed by 
 his own countrymen, I like the best, so far as I have read 
 them, that of Jefferson, who knew him intimately and 
 
 1 Green's " Short History of the English People." Illustrated 
 Edition, vol. iv. p. 1700.
 
 WASHINGTON. 245 
 
 thoroughly. While he does not hesitate to speak of him 
 as " slow in action, though irritable in temper, sometimes 
 tremendous in his wrath, in conversation not above medi- 
 ocrity, called upon for sudden opinion unready and em- 
 barrassed," he declares him to have been " incapable of 
 fear, inflexible in justice, in every sense of the word a wise, 
 a good, and a great man, warm in his affections, handsome 
 in his appearance, graceful in his manner, the best horse- 
 man of his age ; and it may be truly said that never did 
 Nature and Fortune combine more perfectly to make a 
 man great. It was his singular destiny and merit to lead 
 the armies of his country successfully through an arduous 
 war to the establishment of its independence, and to con- 
 duct its councils through the birth of a government until it 
 had settled down to order and peace." 
 
 The city which bears his name is worthy of it, with its 
 beautiful avenues and squares and parks, its stately public 
 buildings, Government offices for the State, War, Navy, 
 Treasury, Patent and Postal departments, its galleries, 
 museum, and monuments, the Washington Obelisk, said to 
 be the highest masonic structure in the world, 555 feet (I 
 did not ascend the nine hundred steps, having acquired 
 during my sojourn in the States a strong preference for the 
 elevator system), made from the white marble of Maryland 
 at a cost of $1,300,000; and, dominating all, the magnifi- 
 cent Capitol, with a frontage of 750 feet, its grand Chamber 
 of Representatives, its splendid library with nearly half a 
 million books, and erected. at an outlay of $16,000,000. 
 Further improvements are in progress or contemplation, 
 and when these are completed, and a park supersedes the 
 buildings which now occupy " the Division," it will take 
 that precedence in appearance as well as in authority which 
 becomes the capital of the United States.
 
 246 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Compared with New York or Chicago, Washington, 
 though it is full of animation and energy, is a city of rest 
 and peace. The inhabitants do not rush onward as though 
 they were late for the train or the post, or as though the 
 dinner-hour being past they were anxious to appease an 
 irritable wife who was waiting at home for her food. The 
 ear is not deafened by the clanging of bells, the roll of the 
 cars, and the tramping of feet which never seem to pause. 
 It was a busy day (December 3) on which we arrived, the 
 first day of the meeting of Congress after vacation, and we 
 had come from the tranquillities of a village in Virginia, but, 
 though there was a great gathering of Representatives, there 
 was no commotion nor din. 
 
 As to politics, I failed signally to grasp the divergent 
 opinions which separate the Democrats from the Republi- 
 cans, and, unable to identify myself with either party, I 
 became what in America is called (it is not a pretty or 
 euphonious title, and I do not propose to place it on my 
 visiting-card) " a Mugwump." The etymological deriva- 
 tion is obscure, but the term is applied to persons who, not 
 having been persuaded by satisfactory arguments to attach 
 themselves to one side or the other, maintain their right to 
 vote as they please, for measures and not for men, for 
 principles and not for parties. In England the Mugwump 
 would be denounced as "a Trimmer," and in America he 
 has a second title, being sometimes known as " a Bolter." 
 
 The information which I received on this subject from 
 gentlemen both competent and willing to give it was 
 meagre. The chief differences seemed to be, that after 
 the Revolution the Democrats were very zealous for State 
 rights and independence, the Republicans were more 
 anxious for the unity and honour of the nation ; but that 
 since the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, and the settle-
 
 WASHINGTON. 247 
 
 ment of the Constitution, there have been no very special 
 questions to emphasise the division of parties. At present 
 the Republicans are said to be the advocates of Protection 
 and the Democrats of Free Trade, but it was observed 
 that, when the latter had the power and opportunity for a 
 definite and practical manifestation of Free Trade princi- 
 ples, there was such a complication of different interests 
 among producers and manufacturers that nothing was done. 
 These two great political parties do not seem to be led, as 
 with ours, by men pre-eminent above their fellows, whose 
 names are familiar in our mouths as household words 
 Salisbury and Balfour, Devonshire and Chamberlain ; but in 
 other features there is a strong family likeness. Both 
 parties are alike convinced that the greatness of the nation 
 depends upon their supervision, and that the moment they 
 leave the helm of government the ship drifts away to the 
 rocks. 
 
 Washington represents the characteristics, as well as the 
 constituencies of America. In a population of 230,000, 
 there are 18,000 persons foreign born, a very small propor- 
 tion compared to other great cities ; and, as in our House 
 of Commons, these characteristics are displayed in a variety 
 of types and phases. Of course, the representatives are as 
 a rule of a high class, as to culture and deportment, but 
 exceptions may be introduced from distant States, and 
 these, with their wives and daughters, may require in 
 Washington, as in London, some slight adaptations to the 
 refinements of modern society. Many years ago the 
 " Guards " quartered in Dublin gave a ball, which created 
 a great sensation. Mothers came with their fair daughters 
 from remote parts of the country, in which the serene ele- 
 gance and the severe etiquette of the elite were altogether 
 unknown, and during one of the dances a mamma was seen
 
 248 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 to approach her daughter, and was heard to say, " Jump, 
 Judy, jump, the Guards are looking at yer." 
 
 I could not have hoped, at that busy season of the open- 
 ing of Congress, for an interview with the President of the 
 United States (Mr. Cleveland) had I not been highly favoured 
 by a letter of introduction from His Excellency (some of 
 my readers may object to titles, but all who know the man 
 will agree that in this instance the prefix is strictly accurate) 
 the American Ambassador in London. This secured for us 
 a most genial reception at the White House from one of 
 the most able, reliable, hard-working rulers of the world. 
 When I was asked the usual question, " What sort of a man 
 does he look?" my answer was, " He looks the sort of man 
 who would give all his mind and heart and soul to those 
 questions which seemed to him to be of chief importance 
 to his nation, would study the statistics, and weigh the 
 evidence, and then would fearlessly act in accordance with 
 his convictions, whether thwarted by friend or foe." On 
 fixed and frequent dates he welcomes all alike, and, in 
 proof of his popularity, has had as many as six thousand 
 visitors a day. He mentioned that Mrs. Cleveland had 
 found these receptions too fatiguing ; and when I told him 
 that I had the pleasure of meeting that lady not long ago 
 in New York, he seemed perplexed, as well he might be, 
 for the simple reason that she had not been there. He 
 was amused by the explanation Mr. Sarony, long famous 
 as an artist in photography, has cleverly discovered a 
 method by which he secures a pleasant expression on the 
 countenance of his " sitter." He places in his view a like- 
 ness of Mrs. Cleveland, one of the most beautiful women of 
 her day, and a smile of admiration at once illumines the 
 lineaments of the spectator. 
 
 The White House, or " Executive Mansion, " does not
 
 WASHINGTON. 249 
 
 display any special grandeur without or within. It is a large, 
 substantial, handsome building, but, with the exception of 
 some most interesting portraits of former Presidents, and 
 the spacious conservatories adjoining, there is no remarkable 
 ornamentation. It is in every way suitable to the purposes 
 for which it was designed, but men of rank and of riches 
 have built far more stately homes. Nevertheless, there is a 
 simple dignity, an intimation of power, a reality of business, 
 which impresses some minds as forcibly as " the divinity 
 which doth hedge a king." 
 
 After my interview with the President, and after my lec- 
 ture in the evening, I had another memorable introduction, 
 namely, to Edgar Wilton sometimes called " Bill " Nye. 
 Does there seem to you, my readers, a startling antithesis, a 
 great gulf between these two men, the statesman and the 
 humourist? Let me suggest that it is not so great as it seems. 
 While we give all due precedence and highest honours to 
 those who lead us with a faithful and true heart, and rule us 
 prudently with all their power, to those who govern us, think 
 for us, fight for us, instruct us in knowledge, science, and 
 art, let us not forget that they, too, are our benefactors who 
 expose cowardice and meanness and idleness and ignorance 
 to ridicule, to shame, and scorn, and who make sunshine in 
 this dreary, doleful world with their bright imaginations and 
 their sparkling wit. It is written, moreover', let the righteous 
 be merry and joyful, and the best men whom I have known, 
 inclusive of most reverend and reverent divines, have been 
 cheered and have cheered others with this joy. And when 
 the mind is dull, and the spirit depressed by long and labori- 
 ous efforts, what a relief and refreshment we find in the 
 writings of the humourist ! A chapter of Dickens, a poem of 
 Hood or of Lowell, a lecture by Artemus Ward, doeth good 
 like a medicine ; and in all the Pharmacopoeia of comic
 
 250 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 literature I find few tonics so invigorating as " Bill Nye's 
 History of the United States of America, with coloured illus- 
 trations by F. Opper." Let the man who is not moved by 
 the humour of that book write me down an ass, but let it 
 never be my misfortune to spend a day with the scribe ! It 
 would resemble a like period of time referred to in a corre- 
 spondence between father and son. The son, desirous to 
 enlighten his father (having previously finished the education 
 of his grandmother as to the most enjoyable method of 
 sucking eggs), and to instruct him in virtuous living, exhorted 
 him to abstain from all alcoholic stimulants, and assured him 
 that in addition to many other blessings, teetotalism would 
 prolong his days ; and the father replied that, while he 
 failed to recognise the force of the preceding arguments, he 
 promptly and heartily accepted the final plea. He was 
 convinced that total abstinence would prolong his life he 
 had tried it for a day, and it was the longest he ever spent ! 
 Next morning I had a visit from the Historian, and we 
 parted as sincere and faithful friends. Some weeks after- 
 wards I received from him the following letter, which ex- 
 presses so exactly and incisively the justification of humour 
 which I have tried to confirm that I asked and received his 
 permission for publication. 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, WASHINGTON, 1894. 
 
 MY DEAR DEAN HOLE, Your very welcome " Memories" 
 are here, and I have already enjoyed one volume, with the other 
 in reserve. 
 
 You do not realise, perhaps, that you had a mission to 
 America, which I am going to appropriate mostly to myself. 
 
 I have always sort of wondered why "the children of a king " 
 should "go mourning all their days," and I have often tried to 
 settle in my own mind the question why the clergyman and the 
 man who rides a bicycle should never smile.
 
 WASHINGTON. 2$ I 
 
 It seems to me that if I could be as good as many preachers 
 appear to be, I would be radiant with gladness all the time. 
 
 You have proved to me that a clergyman may have a good 
 time, good health, and long life, without injury to his piety. 
 
 It is fully as unjust to put down all clergymen as enemies to 
 humour as it would be to assume that all humourists were desti- 
 tute of religion. So, you see, my dear friend, that the general 
 public has a wrong idea of us both. 
 
 I have rebelled more perhaps over this assumption than 
 'most any other. Why should one who sees and describes the 
 ridiculous side of life be necessarily vulgar and Godless ? 
 
 On the other hand, why should one whose mission it is to 
 proclaim the gladdest of all glad tidings, as did the angels 1894 
 years ago, be habitually dejected and bilious ? 
 
 To me your life, as revealed in your " Memories," seems almost 
 ideal, and I am proud and happy if, along with those delightful 
 friends of whom you write, on the shelf devoted to your Ameri- 
 can acquaintances, you may find room for 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 EDGAR WILTON NYE. 
 
 We know, of course, that there are surroundings, such as 
 difference of climate and .of scene, as well as innate diversi- 
 ties of disposition and temper, which stimulate or suppress 
 hilarity and humour. The Scotch, for example, are said to be 
 obtuse in their appreciations of comedy, though this does 
 not agree with my own experience, and E. W. Nye told me 
 that he was gratified by an illustration of this defect, 
 solemnly related by a member of the Savage Club in London, 
 at a social meeting which he joined as a guest. 
 
 The narrator stated that a report had reached him (not 
 having travelled from afar, because every one knew that it 
 had originated in his own imagination) that our beloved 
 Queen had been recently afflicted by a sudden, strange, and 
 incessant monomania. " From morn to noon, from noon 
 to dewy eve," her Majesty gave utterance to an infinite
 
 252 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 variety of puns and jokes, so sadly inconsistent with her 
 usual dignity and habit that the Court was astonished and 
 alarmed. The Lords and Ladies in Waiting were distressed 
 beyond measure, because they had to listen, and it was not 
 etiquette to yawn, to sigh, or to gasp. They were men of 
 truth and maids of honour when they declared openly that 
 they had never before heard the like, and when they added 
 inwardly that they would rather not hear it again. Every 
 effort was made to arrest and to divert the stream, but the 
 flood was irresistible and carried all before it. The doctors 
 prescribed in vain, until one, more sagacious than his breth- 
 ren, discovered the remedy. " We can readily persuade her 
 Majesty," he said, " to reside for a time in Scotland, and 
 there this habit will not be noticed." His treatment was a 
 rapid and complete success. The puns and the jokes went 
 on for a time, but Scotland did not move a muscle. There 
 was no perception, and therefore no acknowledgment, of 
 humour. It was not even suspected that the Queen meant to 
 be funny ; and when she had to do all the laughing herself, 
 and there was no sympathy, no surprise, no opposition or 
 interruption, the river subsided, and gradually dried up as 
 in times of drought. 
 
 I made another pleasant friendship while I was in the 
 States and, as friend after friend departs, it is a solace, 
 as welcome as it is rare, to find some new congenial 
 presence in their vacant place with Monsieur Paul Blouet, 
 a brave soldier, who fought and well-nigh lost his life for 
 his country in the Franco-Prussian war, a scholar, a most 
 successful writer and lecturer, a brilliant, caustic, but 
 kindly humourist, the author of "John Bull and his 
 Island "and "Jonathan and his Continent," commonly 
 known as " Max O'Rell." We had cheerful conversations, 
 in which he reproduced, with a dramatic and delicious
 
 WA SHING TON. 2$ 3 
 
 fidelity, the incidents of his long and large experience. 
 He may require them for his own use, but he has such 
 a vast accumulation that I cannot resist two small pecula- 
 tions. 
 
 He was travelling in the gold diggings, and seeing the 
 advertisement, I think it was at Bendigo, of a meeting of 
 Irishmen, to be addressed by some famous agitator, he 
 joined the assembly. It was presided over by an elderly 
 gentleman, small in stature, meek in demeanour, low and 
 slow in utterance, wearing spectacles of an abnormal size. 
 He called upon the famous orator and noble patriot, Mr. 
 Rory O'Something, and O'Something proceeded to roar. 
 The usual " Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not," " the 
 bloody Saxon tyrant," "the bloated Saxon thief," "the 
 virtuous, suffering Celt," "must rise as one man," "break 
 chains," " hurl oppressor into the sea," etc. When he had 
 finished, and the acclamations had ceased, the chairman, 
 adjusting the big spectacles with much deliberation, and 
 with a voice which sounded after the oration and the 
 uproar like a sparrow chirping after a thunderstorm, 
 inquired whether any other gentleman was desirous to 
 address the meeting. The invitation was immediately 
 accepted, but the new speaker had only got so far as to 
 say that he differed entirely with some of the statements 
 which they had just heard, when an excited individual rose 
 from his seat, rushed at him, and knocked him off the 
 platform ! He was badly hurt, and was taken in a dilapida- 
 ted condition to the hospital, but during his removal, and 
 for some time afterwards, there was such a shouting, shov- 
 ing, struggling, striking, and general scrimmage as none 
 but Home Rulers can organise and sustain. At last, from 
 the interference of the police and from a general feeling of 
 fatigue, order was restored, and once more the diminutive
 
 254 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 president assumed the large binoculars, and, smiling 
 sweetly, " wished to know whether any other gentleman 
 was anxious to speak." The company seemed to think 
 that it was about time to go to bed and they went. 
 
 Petty larceny No. 2. He related that, in a certain city 
 in which he was giving a lecture, the head-mistress of a 
 large school of girls was informed by his agent that the 
 pupils would be admitted at half-price, and the governesses 
 without payment. At the commencement of his lecture, 
 and surveying his audience, he saw that four scholars and 
 eleven teachers had availed themselves of his invitation, and 
 it struck him, as a man of keen perceptive power, that the 
 number of the shepherdesses was excessive in proportion 
 to the lambs ! 
 
 Max O'Rell keeps his friendships in good working order. 
 We were together in a large town when, as he was alone in 
 his private room, his solitude was suddenly invaded by a 
 biped, evidently under alcoholic influence, and smoking 
 a cigar. " I 'm told that you are a friend of Dean Hole," 
 he began, abruptly. " I am," replied Max O'Rell. " Tell 
 him," said the invader, " that we don't like that dress of his, 
 and advise him to change it." " Dean Hole is a free man, 
 from a free country, and can dress as he pleases." " Oh, 
 indeed our opinions seem to clash." " Yes," said my 
 friend, " and our bodies will clash also if you don't leave 
 this room." And then, noticing a doubt in his intention 
 and a debility in his locomotive endeavours, he assisted and 
 expedited the departure.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PITTSBURG, BALTIMORE. 
 
 DR. CONAN DOYLE, another delectable companion, 
 who was also giving lectures in America, but whom 
 I only met for very brief interviews, too few and far 
 between, declared Philadelphia to be by far the finest 
 city in the States. He saw it in its best clothes, on Thanks- 
 giving Day, when all were keeping festival, and when his 
 brother athletes (grand athletes ! eleven of whom after- 
 wards defeated in one innings a like number of our Oxford 
 and Cambridge cricketers) were contending on the football 
 field ; but I venture to doubt whether, seen in its ordinary 
 aspect, and regarded as a place of permanent residence, 
 he would have so readily awarded this supremacy over 
 Washington or Boston. 
 
 Greatly to be admired at all times, and by all, is this 
 Quaker city, the city of brotherly love. Founded by 
 William Penn, from England, some two hundred and fifty 
 years ago, this acorn has grown into a gigantic oak. At 
 the beginning of the last century it had between four and 
 five thousand inhabitants ; now it has over a million, the 
 largest population in the country, except those of New 
 York and Chicago. In 1725 the places of worship were 
 three Episcopalian, three Quakers, two Presbyterian, one 
 Roman, one Lutheran, one Swedenborgian, one Anabaptist, 
 and one Moravian. Now there are five hundred churches, 
 so called ; and these seem true to their title of Philadel- 
 phians, and in brotherly love to agree to differ. At the
 
 256 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 lecture which I gave in their city, there were assembled on 
 the platform the bishop of the diocese and many of the 
 clergy, a Roman Catholic priest, several Presbyterian 
 ministers, a Methodist " bishop," and a Jewish rabbi. 
 
 Bishop Whitaker entertained us affectionately in his 
 "Episcopal Rooms" in Walnut Street several of the 
 streets have the names of trees, Walnut, Chestnut, Spruce, 
 and Pine, as if, as Longfellow suggests in " Evangeline," 
 
 "As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they 
 molested," 
 
 and lovely bouquets, and tall pyramids, and bountiful, 
 beautiful boxes of roses awaited me in his happy home and 
 on the platform from which I spoke. And I may mention 
 a small incident which pleased me much. As I was leaving 
 the hall after addressing a large audience, " with a broad 
 English accent," according to a newspaper report, a dollar 
 note was placed as unobtrusively as possible into my hand, 
 and the donor said, sotto I'oce, " I 'm only a working man, 
 but I come from the old country, and should like to give 
 a trifle to your restoration work." 
 
 Next day, there was a fresh outpour of this brotherly 
 kindness. Dr. Edwards, a friend's friend, with a couple 
 of carriages and pair, came to show us the city and subur- 
 ban sights. The great City Hall, covering a larger space 
 (4 acres) than any other building in the States ; the 
 stately tower surmounted by the colossal statue of William 
 Penn ; the post-office, the custom-house, and mint ; and 
 interesting above all, and famous for ever in the history of 
 nations, the hall wherein was read on July 4, 1776, the 
 Declaration of Independence, 1 which was afterwards pro- 
 claimed from its steps. 
 
 1 " That these United colonies are, and of a right ought to be, 
 independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PITTSBURG, BALTIMORE. 2$? 
 
 The first sensation of the Britisher as he contemplates 
 this eventful scene somewhat resembles that of a hunting man 
 who goes at his leisure to survey a fence at which he got, 
 during the heat of the chase, " a tremendous cropper." 
 His collar-bone has been skilfully adjusted, his other bones 
 have ceased to ache, his flesh is no longer discoloured, and 
 the slight feeling of discomfort induced by the recollec- 
 tions of his disaster is quickly superseded by the conscious- 
 ness that he was the victim of his own temerity, and that he 
 was riding for a fall. 
 
 We drove to Fairmount Park, which is said to be the 
 largest city park in the world, eight miles in extent, and 
 might be the most beautiful. We passed the pretty Eliza- 
 bethan house built for the English officials at the Centen- 
 nial Exhibition in 1876, the Memorial Hall and Museum, 
 the Grand Horticultural Hall, which contains one of the 
 best, if not the best, collection of stove plants, both as to 
 selection and culture, which I have ever seen palms, 
 musas, alocasias, marantas, cyanophyllum, et id genus ornne ; 
 but of all the ornaments which adorn that fair city, the 
 brightest and the purest are those which make her most 
 worthy of her name her charitable institutions, her hos- 
 pitals and homes, her asylums and penitentiaries for the 
 sick and the poor, for widows and orphans, for the de- 
 mented and the fallen. May this charity which never 
 faileth bring upon Philadelphia not only the blessing of 
 him that was ready to perish, but that promise of a far 
 more glorious benediction, which was given to the city 
 which first bore her name, when Saint John wrote to the 
 Churches. 
 
 to the British Crown; and that all political connection between 
 them and the States of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 
 dissolved." 
 
 17
 
 258 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 Pittsburg would be more enjoyable as a home if the 
 inhabitants were favoured with occasional glimpses of the 
 sky, but it is at present to be more admired for its industry 
 than for its atmospheric surroundings. But there are 
 
 " Smiles which make a summer 
 Where darkness else would be," 
 
 and these I received from episcopal, floral, and other 
 friends, with wreaths of roses which might have been 
 more appropriate, but could not have been more appre- 
 ciated, if they had been offered to a young debutante 
 instead of to an ancient Dean. Bishop Whitehead most 
 kindly presided at my lecture, and next morning "my horti- 
 cultural allies conveyed me on a tour of inspection to the 
 Allegheny Court House, said to have cost half a million 
 pounds ; to the magnificent library, museum, etc., nearly 
 completed and built by Mr. Andrew Carnegie for presen- 
 tation to his fellow-citizens. "The. Iron King," who has 
 mounted step by step from the ground to the throne, 
 " Every American," writes my friend Nye, " except Dr. Mary 
 Walker, was once a poor boy," has a royal munificence 
 (American and English millionaires, "please copy"), and 
 has written a splendid treatise, which he calls "The 
 Gospel of Wealth." In this essay he asserts, and he has 
 reason and Revelation on his side, that it is disgraceful for 
 a man to heap up riches and to die, instead of dispensing 
 them abroad and giving to the poor and lightening the 
 burdens of his fellow-men. Whereupon, it is reported that 
 he received a letter from a sarcastic neighbour, in which 
 the writer stated that, having read "The Gospel of Wealth," 
 he was so overpowered by the terrible apprehension that 
 the preacher, whom he greatly revered, might be removed 
 by some sudden vicissitude before he could extricate him-
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PITTSBURG, BALTIMORE. 259 
 
 self from his accumulations, and so might himself incur the 
 dishonour which he had denounced, that he lost no time 
 in offering to relieve him of $500,000, and if the sum named 
 was inadequate he had friends on whom he could rely for 
 assistance with regard to a further reduction. 
 
 We saw the splendid range of glass, well stored with 
 stove and greenhouse plants, presented to his fellow-citi- 
 zens by Mr. Phipps, a partner of Mr. Carnegie. Here 
 again there is not only excellent culture with the insepara- 
 ble element of cleanliness, but, large and numerous as the 
 houses are, there is an admirable economy of space. A 
 tank, some eighty feet in length, occupied at an earlier 
 season by aquatic plants, was covered over with boards 
 and on them were placed a charming collection of cycla- 
 mens in pots. With their mitre-like flowers they resembled 
 an oecumenical council of fairy bishops, but I saw neither 
 cardinal nor pope. 
 
 There was what we gardeners call " a nice lot " of 
 Waterer's rhododendrons outside one of the houses, looking 
 as fresh as when they left the nurseries at Bagshot. 
 
 Baltimore is named after an Irish baron, one of its origi- 
 nal founders, but his memory is not cherished in the 
 " monumental city," which claims for a triumvirate of more 
 illustrious benefactors our sympathy and homage. First 
 for Washington, who is ever in just pre-eminence through- 
 out the States " Stylites," the Pillar Saint, and has in Balti- 
 more a noble statue, sixteen feet in height, and raised upon 
 a Grecian column and basement nearly two hundred feet 
 from the ground. And so 
 
 " He doth bestride the narrow world 
 Like a Colossus ; and we petty men 
 Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves."
 
 260 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 In the square below there is a lion in bronze, supposed 
 by some to represent the Lion of England, which, when 
 the war began, said, " We 've treed you, Yankee George," 
 but, when the war was over, said nothing. 
 
 Hard by is a statue from Story's studio a replica of 
 that which we have in London of another great Ameri- 
 can (and where within the same range of opportunities 
 shall we find a greater ?) , George Peabody ; and, something 
 to be far more admired than statues, because a man's good 
 deeds are his best monuments, the Peabody Institute, which 
 he built and endowed, with its art galleries and academy 
 of music, and the most fascinating library I ever entered, 
 six tiers or galleries of books between floor and roof, con- 
 taining 120,000 volumes, with every accommodation for 
 readers and writers, every help to guide them to the various 
 subjects of their search. 
 
 The learned and beloved president of the Johns Hop- 
 kins University, Dr. Gilman, kindly called upon me and 
 took me pointing out as we went a house still occupied 
 by members of the Buonaparte family, being descendants 
 of Jerome, brother of Napoleon I., who married Miss Pat- 
 terson of Baltimore to see the college of which he is 
 chief. Johns Hopkins, with the same magnanimity, if not 
 with the same imposing appellation as King Alfred the 
 Great, gave three million and a half dollars to found a uni- 
 versity, and the same sum for a hospital ! 
 
 The Americans say, and they prove from history that 
 they have a right to say, that whenever there arises an 
 extraordinary crisis or an extraordinary enterprise, they 
 have always in readiness an extraordinary man to solve 
 the one or to lead the other. In this instance a master 
 mind was most urgently needed for a work of vast propor- 
 tions and importance to make the most of seven millions
 
 PHILADELPHIA, P1TTSBURG, BALTIMORE. 26l 
 
 of dollars to build on an enormous scale, with elaborate 
 arrangements, the most suitable structures that could be 
 erected for teachers and pupils, physicians and their 
 patients, surgeons, dispensers, and nurses to establish 
 systems, and to select from a crowd of candidates those 
 who were most qualified to maintain them well. There 
 might be some among a people who are not hampered, as 
 a rule, by abnormal bashfulness who would gaily volunteer 
 to boss the show, but to put the right man in the right 
 place, that was the question. 
 
 Then appeared the Deus ex machind. He came, saw, 
 and conquered, and my eyes endorsed that which my ears 
 had heard of the president's complete success. I was 
 greatly impressed by the brightness, order, and adaptation 
 of all I saw, especially by the rooms set apart for the study 
 of particular subjects, with exhaustive collections of the best 
 books thereupon, and visited from time to time by erudite 
 professors who gave lectures to the students. I was in- 
 formed that the standard of medical education is higher 
 than elsewhere, being prolonged beyond the usual period for 
 those qualified and disposed to continue their studies, when 
 others are satisfied and have satisfied their examiners with 
 the knowledge which they have acquired, and proceed to 
 practice. 
 
 It is recorded that at a dinner-party at Baltimore .many 
 years ago, at which these two noble men, George Peabody 
 and Johns Hopkins, were present, some one inquired, 
 " Which did you enjoy most, Mr. Peabody, making your 
 money or giving it away?" "Well," answered Mr. Pea- 
 body, and Johns Hopkins was observed to be deeply inter- 
 ested in his answer, " I enjoyed making money. I think 
 it is a great pleasure to make money ; and when the idea 
 was first suggested to me that I should give money away, it
 
 262 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 did not please me at all in fact, it distressed me. But I 
 thought the matter over, and concluded that I would make 
 an experiment on a small scale. So I built the first of the 
 model tenement houses in London. It was a hard pull, 
 but after it was done I went among the poor people living 
 in the rooms, so clean and comfortable, and I had quite a 
 new feeling. I enjoyed it very much. I gave more, and 
 the feeling increased ; and now I can truly say that, much 
 as I enjoyed the making of money, I enjoy far more the 
 giving it away." 
 
 I met with other genial and generous friends, clerical and 
 lay, who took me to see the exterior of the Hopkins Hos- 
 pital, the Women's College, the City Hall, and the pretty 
 park on Druid Hill. I regard Baltimore city, with its 
 attractive scenery, its grand institutions (sacred and secu- 
 lar), its clever sons and fair daughters (the latter well 
 sustain their ancient reputation for beauty), as one of the 
 most charming cities in the States.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. 
 
 A LTHOUGH the happy satisfaction which I enjoyed in 
 lY visiting the Theological Seminary at New York was 
 greatly diminished in the Universities and colleges not in 
 communion with the church to which I belong, and which I 
 believe to be of all churches the most primitive and pure, I 
 found so much to admire, so much intellectual brightness 
 and erudition, such complete systems of education, didactic 
 and practical, such grand libraries and technical appliances, 
 such genial courtesies from those in authority, and such 
 cheery smiles of all sights the most refreshing on the 
 dear, honest faces of those in obedience, that my regret was 
 overwhelmed in my rejoicing. I was delighted with Young 
 America, and I beg respectfully to offer to the nation in 
 general, and to parents in particular, my heartiest congrat- 
 ulations. 
 
 Of all the educational institutions which I saw in the 
 States, Princeton is by far the most picturesque, with its 
 massive, beautiful buildings, not crowded together, but with 
 ample surroundings, in a fair ground or " campus," with 
 grass and trees and a pleasant view of the country beyond 
 like the University in Tennyson's "Princess" "half 
 garden and half town." 
 
 Some time before my visit I had received an announce- 
 ment from the corresponding secretary of the Cliosophic 
 Society that "I had been unanimously and most heartily
 
 264 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 elected an honorary member," and soon after my arrival I 
 was welcomed in the Clio Hall, a classical and charming 
 edifice, resembling a Grecian temple, in white marble ; and, 
 after kindly speeches by the president and two of the pro- 
 fessors, was received into the society. Then, as we left the 
 building, the young alumni, 1 standing upon the steps, gave 
 me such a greeting as only undergraduates can, shouting 
 my name with the college cheer, 
 
 " Hooray, Hooray, Hooray ! 
 Tiger-Sis-Boom-ah I 
 Princeton-Dean Hole." 
 
 Da Capo. 
 
 Their colours are the same as those of my own college, 
 Brasenose, and I seemed suddenly to ignore the last half- 
 century of my life, and to feel as boyish as the merriest of 
 them all. Reluctantly I returned to my inn, though it was 
 one of the most agreeable hostelries which I have found in 
 the States, in a delightful position, bright and clean, with 
 good fare and excellent attendance, the head-waiter actu- 
 ally inquiring whether we had all we wished, and recalling 
 the good old times which I thought had " departed, never 
 to return," when the landlord or landlady of the hotel came 
 to you at your breakfast to express their hope that you had 
 found your bedroom comfortable, and that the viands pro- 
 vided for your morning meal were acceptable to your 
 palate. 
 
 Mr. Rutherford Trowbridge met me at the station, New 
 Haven, and took me in his carriage to see the University of 
 Yale, the Campus, with its grand old elms and spacious 
 buildings, the dormitories (large blocks in which the stu- 
 
 1 In the year 1770 a traveller wrote: "At Princetown there is a 
 school and college for dissenters, about twenty boys in the school, 
 sixty in the college." There are now eight hundred students.
 
 UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. 265 
 
 dents have apartments, not only for the night, but for the 
 day, two of them sharing the same sitting-room), the libra- 
 ries, lecture-rooms, and the Peabody Museum. The most 
 imposing of these edifices is the Vanderbilt Memorial Hall, 
 raised by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt as a monument to his 
 son, who was a student at Yale, and closely resembling one 
 of our colleges at Oxford or Cambridge. Mr. Vanderbilt, 
 whom I had the pleasure of meeting on board the Majestic, 
 kindly gave me an engraving of this Memorial Hall, and 
 told me that his son, when on a visit to England, had so 
 greatly admired the architecture of our Universities that he 
 determined to reproduce it in association with his name. 
 
 We went through the art studios, containing statues, 
 busts, and carvings in wood (including three huge confes- 
 sionals from Ghent, preposterously out of place), and the 
 picture galleries, in which were some excellent portraits of 
 Washington and his generals by Trumbull ; and then Mr. 
 Thome, the captain of the football team, showed us the 
 largest and most complete gymnasium which I have seen, 
 with its running track in a raised gallery, and every possible 
 appliance for bodily exercise. He showed us the stationary 
 boats in tanks of water, where the collegians are taught to 
 row, and then the beautiful baths of white marble, where, 
 slightly altering Hood, 
 
 There were some that leapt, and some that swam 
 Like troutlets in a pool. 
 
 Let no man, therefore, doubt the testimony which I bring 
 to the physical qualifications of Young America, and which 
 fully prepared me to admire, without surprise, the splendid 
 proofs of athletic prowess in the "Trophy Room" of tri- 
 umphant Yale. Vce victis I woe to its adversaries ! And 
 so we read in the newspaper accounts of the last football
 
 266 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 match with Harvard, " Wrightington's collar-bone was 
 broken ; Hallowell was carried off the field disabled ; 
 Murphy lay bleeding and insensible on the ground ; Brewer 
 was hurt in the first half, but was able to resume play, 
 though subsequently retired by the physician's order." 
 
 A zealous advocate of all manly games and sports, I pro- 
 test although I was informed that, three hours after the 
 match, the wounded, owing to their healthful condition, 
 were little the worse against an excessive violence, which 
 has been attended by fatal results, and which has been and 
 must be modified if such contests are to be continued. 
 
 The uses and abuses of athletic competition have been 
 admirably demonstrated by Professor Eliot, President of 
 Harvard University, in one of his annual reports. He 
 states that there has been a decided improvement in the 
 average health and strength of the students during the last 
 twenty-five years ; that athletic sports have supplied a new 
 and effective motive for resisting all sins which weaken or 
 corrupt the body ; they have quickened admiration for such 
 manly qualities as courage, fortitude, and presence of mind 
 in emergencies and under difficulties ; they have cultivated 
 in a few the habit of command, and in njany the habit of 
 quick obedience and intelligent subordination ; and, finally, 
 they have set before young men prizes and distinctions, 
 which are uncontaminated by any commercial value, and 
 which no one can win who does not possess much patience, 
 perseverance, and self-control, in addition to rare bodily 
 endowments. The president rightly asserts, on the other 
 hand, that if these exercises and competitions are carried 
 to excess, they are destructive of the chief purpose of Uni- 
 versity life, that is, study. No student can keep up his 
 studies and play his full part in any one of these sports as at 
 present conducted. The faithful member of a crew or team
 
 UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. 267 
 
 may, perhaps, manage to attend most of his lectures, but 
 he rarely has any mind to give to his studies. Wantonly 
 aggravated, athletic sports convert the student into a power- 
 ful animal, and dull for the time his intellectual parts ; they 
 present the colleges to the public, educated or uneducated, 
 as places of mere physical sport, and not of intellectual 
 training ; they make familiar to the student a coarse publi- 
 city, which destroys his rightful privacy, while in training 
 for intellectual service, and subjects him to insolent and 
 vulgar comments on his personal qualities ; they induce, in 
 masses of spectators at interesting games, an hysterical 
 excitement, which too many enjoy, but which is evidence, 
 not of physical strength and depth of passion, but of feeble- 
 ness and shallowness ; and they tend to dwarf mental and 
 moral pre-eminence by unduly magnifying physical prowess. 
 Strong bodies with weak brains are as bad as large heads 
 and little hearts ; and without culture of mind or formation 
 of character, the captain of the eleven or of the eight with 
 his team in two or three years are clean forgotten, as 
 dead men out of mind. Let the Universities contend with a 
 noble emulation, intercollegiate and international, for mental 
 as well as manual or pedal excellence ; and let it not be 
 said of their sport, as once of Rugby football, " It is a game 
 in which the players carry the ball and kick each other." 
 
 Yale University was founded at Saybrook in 1701, and 
 was removed to New Haven in 1718, where it was named 
 after its chief benefactor, Elihu Yale. In the churchyard 
 at Wrexham, North Wales, his monument has this quaint 
 inscription : 
 
 " Born in America, in Europe bred, 
 In Africa travelled, and in Asia wed, 
 Where long he lived and thrived, in London dead. 
 Some good, some ill he did, so hope all 's even, 
 And that his soul through mercy 's gone to heaven."
 
 268 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 In my anticipations, before I started to America, Boston 
 was always in the front as the chief scene of my enjoyment. 
 I longed to see the homes and haunts of its famous men, 
 "the modern Athens," 1 with its parks and gardens, to meet 
 my brothers as an honorary member of the Massachu- 
 setts Horticultural Society. I was sadly disappointed. I 
 had an engagement to preach in Trinity Church, but when 
 I returned on the previous Saturday from a long series of 
 journeys and lectures to New York, I was so much out of 
 condition that my doctor forbade me to leave the city. 
 Restored by rest, I set forth two days afterwards to deliver 
 a lecture, which I had also promised, and had a great 
 reception. I was embowered in evergreens and roses. The 
 Bishop presided, and the platform and hall were crowded. 
 I was compelled to leave next morning, after reading most 
 gratifying notices of my lecture as " brimful of wit and 
 humour, mingled with pathos," but with the determination, 
 and under promise, to repeat my visit at the first opportu- 
 nity. I was especially anxious to renew a most congenial 
 acquaintance with Professor and Mrs. Sargent. Shortly 
 afterwards I received a Boston newspaper containing an 
 abusive accusation that, contrary to an agreement with the 
 Episcopal City Mission, I had appropriated all the profits, 
 that my lecture was a mass of nonsense, that I had only 
 " left a Hole in the ground," with other specimens of re- 
 fined thought and elegant diction. My agent, Major Pond, 
 wrote immediately that I had made no engagement, nor had 
 any communication with the Mission committee, and that all 
 
 1 Lord Coleridge remarked to an American who was speaking 
 somewhat contemptuously of England with regard to comparative 
 size, " You must permit me to remind you that an acre of ground at 
 Athens has produced a multitude of infinitely greater men than have 
 been produced in all your continent."
 
 UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. 269 
 
 the pecuniary arrangements were fixed by himself. I was 
 reminded, moreover, that curs would bark, and donkeys 
 would bray, and geese would hiss, but it was the first insult 
 which I had received in America, and I declined to risk a 
 repetition. Subsequently an attack was made in a similar 
 spirit, and probably by the same accuser of the brethren, 
 though not in the same publication, upon Dr. Conan Doyle. 
 "The brawny Englishman" was accused of barbarous rude- 
 ness to his host and hostess, refusing to join them, eating 
 his dinner alone, devouring several plates of roast beef and 
 frequent relays of vegetables with lightning rapidity, and, 
 after the lecture, pocketing his $300 fee, and hastening to 
 the train. No one who knew Conan Doyle could be de- 
 ceived by such impossible rubbish, but why should they 
 who do not know him be subject to delusion, and believe 
 a lie? 
 
 Although the weather was severe, and my visit was short, 
 I found time to cross the river to Cambridge, and to make 
 a brief survey of Harvard College. These two names 
 remind me that the reverend and revered John Harvard, a 
 member of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, was the founder 
 of the University of Harvard. In the year 1638, he be- 
 queathed half his property and his library for its first 
 establishment. It is a pleasant, peaceful place, and there 
 is a quiet dignity about its solid, spacious buildings which 
 indicates their intention work. In the spring when the 
 trees and the grass in " the Yard " are green, the contrast 
 between the old red brick walls and the new verdure the 
 sunshine and the shade must be delightful, and " fair 
 Harvard" can never be forgotten by those who have found 
 a home within her walls. In that gallery of pictures which 
 Memory constructs for us all, the places and faces which 
 we loved in our youth are the most precious, and the
 
 270 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 imagination of the Harvard collegian will delight continually 
 to roam amid its halls and dormitories, to play base-ball 
 and football and to handle the oar, to gaze upon the long 
 lines of portraits of men that were famous and of friends 
 that were dear. Most prominent of its famous heroes are : 
 " Vir illustrissimus Georgius Washington Armiger" on 
 whom Harvard conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
 Adams, Prescott, Emerson, Motley, Longfellow, and Lowell. 
 
 Harvard has not been faithful to its original dedication, 
 " Christo et EcclesiceJ" It has, on the contrary, been des- 
 ecrated by the heresy most repulsive to the Christian faith, 
 by that subtle form of Antichrist, the foe who pretends to 
 be a friend Unitarianism. It is no longer predominant, 
 but it is largely represented. In 1878 the president stated 
 that " the Harvard Divinity School was not distinctively 
 Unitarian, either by its constitution or by the intention of 
 its founders, and that the government of the University 
 could not undertake to appoint none but Unitarian teachers, 
 or to grant any peculiar favours to Unitarian students." In 
 1887, of the six professors in the theological faculty, two 
 were Baptists and one a Congregationalist ; while of the 
 eleven members composing the visiting committee not half 
 were Unitarians. Let us pray and hope that the influence 
 which Bishop Phillips Brooks was empowered to impart may 
 increase more and more, until " we all come in the unity of 
 the faith to the knowledge of the Son of God." 
 
 At Cambridge the first printing press known in North 
 America issued, in 1640, its first publication, a metrical 
 version of the Psalms. May the time come when Christians, 
 with one heart and voice shall sing, " Behold, how good 
 and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in 
 unity." 
 
 The college at Amherst is very charmingly placed on its
 
 UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. 2/1 
 
 tree-clad hill, and though it is small in comparison with 
 those I have described, it has between four or five hundred 
 members ; it is under most complete and able ministration, 
 and has large sums at its disposal, which are generously 
 used in diminishing the expenses of the students generally, 
 and in helping those especially who have the smallest 
 means. The expenses of an undergraduate at Amherst 
 varies from $268 to $413 per annum. 1 
 
 Here again my spirit was refreshed by the bright aspect, 
 the fresh sincerity, the free yet courteous manners of Young 
 America. Returning after my lecture from the college to 
 my hotel, I was invited to one of their habitations, a bright 
 prettily furnished home, in which fourteen of them lived 
 together without supervision or restraint. They were to be 
 trusted or they would not have desired the presence of an 
 elderly ecclesiastic. I seemed to read upon each honest 
 face " integer vita, scelerisqtie purus" and was never in a 
 more happy company. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher was a student at Amherst, and 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of him as being in after 
 years " the same lusty, warm-hearted, strong-fibred, brave- 
 hearted, bright-souled, clear-eyed creature as he was when 
 the college boys acknowledged him as the chiefest among 
 their football kickers." 
 
 At Schenectady we had a happy sojourn in the pleasant 
 home and genial society of Professor Raymond, but had 
 not time to visit Union College, of which he is president, 
 nor the great works of the famous Edison hard by. Apropos 
 of Edison, I heard at Schenectady of the only good result 
 
 1 In America many of the poorer collegians will occupy themselves 
 during vacation, greatly to their honour, in some profitable employ- 
 ment, so that they may be enabled to defray the expenses of their 
 education.
 
 2/2 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 which, to my knowledge, ever came from betting. It is 
 said that one of Edison's first chief experiments in electricity 
 was the result of a bet. When he was doing telegraphic 
 work, his midday meals and those of his companions were 
 conveyed to them in tin cans. These were invaded by 
 cockroaches, and all attempts to expel them were failures 
 until Edison made his bet. He collected the cans together, 
 and then, having placed around them two circles of a narrow 
 tinfoil ribbon, about a quarter of an inch apart, he con- 
 nected them with the electric current. The roaches on 
 their journey to the cans placed their hind legs on one 
 piece of foil and their fore legs on the other, and, thus 
 completing the circuit, perished abruptly.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HARTFORD AND ALBANY. 
 
 " r I "HE Arsenal at Springfield " is situated between 
 J. Boston and Hartford, and suggested to an admi- 
 ration which never tires some of the grandest verses which 
 Longfellow ever wrote. When we are told that eight hun- 
 dred thousand guns were made here during the civil wars 
 we may well sigh as we read 
 
 " Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
 
 Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
 Given to redeem the human mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals nor forts." 
 
 Of Hartford I would repeat the words which Dickens 
 wrote in his American notes : " I shall always entertain a 
 very pleasant and grateful recollection of Hartford. It is a 
 lovely place, and I had many friends there." Soon after 
 my arrival Dr. Bristol, the rector of the Church of the 
 Good Shepherd, a church erected in memory of Colonel 
 Colt, the inventor of revolvers, by his wife, called on me, 
 accompanied by Mr. Charles Lincoln, an enthusiastic rosa- 
 rian, who brought me a large box filled with lovely blooms 
 of the " Mrs. Pierpont Morgan " rose. They drove me to 
 see the city, and took me through the Soldier's Arch to the 
 capitol of capitols for it seemed to me the most beautiful 
 of all where I was introduced to the Governor, the 
 Speaker, and other members of the Senate. Governor Vin- 
 
 18
 
 2/4 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 cent Coffin showed me the ancient charter granted by 
 Charles II. to the colonists of Connecticut in the year 1662. 
 In July, 1687. a meeting was called to resist the attempts 
 of Major Andros, the British governor, to interfere with the 
 privileges given by this Charter, and during the discussion 
 the lights were put out, the document was removed from 
 the major's custody, and was concealed in the hollow of an 
 immense oak, until its intentions were no longer opposed. 
 The Charter, framed in wood from the tree, which was 
 blown down in 1856, is now in the State Library. 
 
 Among other interesting portraits, there is a likeness of 
 General Washington, which has, this remarkable attribute, 
 that from whichever side you see it the left foot of the hero 
 always seems to be in advance of the right. I was unable 
 to accept invitations to visit Trinity College, to my great 
 disappointment, but my lectures and interviews and long 
 journeys absorbed nearly all my time. 
 
 I passed the home of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and was again 
 reminded of Longfellow's words, written in his diary, May 
 22, 1852, "Every evening we read ourselves into despair 
 out of that tragic book, ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' It is too 
 melancholy, and makes one's blood boil too hotly." Also 
 the house of Mark Twain, but he was non-resident, or I 
 should have asked leave to thank him for the joy which I 
 have had from his books. The gardens in the suburbs of 
 Hartford seemed to me, so far as one may speak of Horti- 
 culture in January, to have a special prettiness and care. 
 
 From Hartford to Albania Felix, Albany the Blest 
 blessed in its location by the banks of the Hudson river 
 and on its terraced hill exalted and enthroned as the 
 queen, the capital of the State of New York ; blessed in its 
 industries and prosperity, in its public buildings and man- 
 sions ; but above all in its chief pastor, the Right Reverend
 
 HARTFORD AND ALBANY. 2?$ 
 
 William Croswell Doane, for twenty-six years Bishop of 
 Albany. His father was Bishop of New Jersey, and, if I 
 have not misread the history of the -American Church, and 
 have not been misinformed by her sons, no two men have 
 done more to maintain her dignity and to extend her use- 
 fulness. Through years of fierce controversy, vacillation, 
 surrender of the truth to expediency, to ease, false doctrine, 
 heresy, and schism, they have contended earnestly for the 
 faith once delivered to the saints, and by their eloquent 
 exhortations and patient continuance in well-doing, have 
 overcome evil with good. Very rarely are such splendid 
 possessions as persuasive oratory and persevering energy, as 
 in this instance, strictly entailed. I have never forgotten 
 the impression which was made by the father when, fifty- 
 four years ago, he preached at the re-opening of the parish 
 church of Leeds ; and, speaking to an archbishop, several 
 bishops, three hundred clergy, and a great multitude of the 
 laity, he said, " Brethren, right reverend, reverend and be- 
 loved, it is written in the elder records of our faith that when 
 the ark of God was on its progress to the hill of Sion, it 
 rested once for three months in the house of Obed-Edom. 
 And it was told to King David. ' The Lord hath blessed 
 the house of Obed-Edom and all that pertaineth unto him, 
 because of the ark of God.' And as I have gone from scene 
 to scene of highest interest and rarest beauty in this most 
 favoured land of all the world, contemplated its arts, its 
 industries, its wealth, enjoyed its comforts and refinements, 
 and shared with a full heart the peace and happiness of its 
 dear Christian homes ; as I have thought of its attainments 
 in science and in letters ; as I have recounted its feats of 
 arms and fields of victory; as I have followed through 
 every ocean and through every sea its cross-emblazoned 
 flag, and seen that on the circuit of its empire the sun never
 
 2/6 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 sets I have asked myself instinctively, whence, to so 
 small a speck on the world's map, a sea-beleaguered island, 
 sterile in soil and stern in climate, Britain, cut off in ancient 
 judgment from the world, such wealth, such glory, and such 
 power? And this answer has come spontaneous to my 
 heart, 'The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-Edom, 
 and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God.' 
 Yes, from my heart, I say the strength of England is the 
 Church of England. Your wealth, your glory, and your 
 power, is but God's blessing upon your kingdom, as the 
 home and shelter of His Church." 
 
 He wrote as impressively as he spoke in defence of sound 
 doctrine, and he was a poet as well as a preacher. He 
 pleaded and worked successfully in the cause of Christian 
 education, and the first Church boarding school for girls 
 was in his diocese. He was the bold advocate of free and 
 open churches, and had a powerful coadjutor in Dr. Muh- 
 lenberg, who wrote, 
 
 " If the Saviour drove out of the Temple of old 
 
 Poor ignorant Jews, who bought there and sold, 
 Alas 1 for the Christians, so given to pelf 
 
 That traffic they make of the Temple itself ! " 
 
 The Bishop of Albany is one of those of whom it is 
 written, "The good works of some are manifest before- 
 hand." They surround him. Under his auspices, by his 
 efforts, and largely through the munificent generosity of 
 Mr. Corning and his son, who gave the land on which the 
 buildings stand, have been established the school of St. 
 Agnes for girls, which has already sent out nearly four hun- 
 dred graduates ; the Child's Hospital, where in bright 
 rooms and with loving tenderness all is done that kindness 
 and skill can do to restore health and alleviate pain ; the
 
 HARTFORD AND ALBANY. 
 
 St. Margaret's Home for Babes; the Christina Home in 
 Saratoga Springs, which is not only for the convalescence of 
 invalids, but has an industrial school ; the Sisterhood of the 
 Holy Child Jesus, and the Orphan Home in Cooperstown. 
 
 His magnum opus, his most noble enterprise, is his 
 cathedral, which, although it is very far from completion, is 
 already the most imposing ecclesiastical structure of those 
 which I saw in the States. It is built and it is used in the 
 spirit which feels that " the Palace is not for man, but for 
 the Lord God," and that the mother church of a diocese 
 should be a model of beauty and of worship. A bishop is 
 a governor and a judge, and as such should have his capitol, 
 his hall of justice, his sedcs episcopi, for what is a cathedral 
 without a cathedra ? He should have his robes, his insignia 
 of office ; and Bishop Doane is not one of those who think 
 that a mitre should only appear on forks and spoons and 
 livery buttons; he wears it upon his head. 
 
 I had happy days with the bishop ; saw and heard much 
 that was delightful within and without his home : his neigh- 
 bour, Mrs. Puyn's, treasures of antiquity and art, including 
 the beautiful " Camp Service " of the first Napoleon ; Mr. 
 Coming's collection of precious orchids, accompanied by 
 his "grand old gardener," Mr. Gray, with whom, as he 
 showed me his favourites with all the affection of a fond 
 father among his children, I had much genial talk about 
 famous flowers and florists ; and a memorable afternoon in 
 the library and garden of Mr. and Mrs. Sage. The latter 
 showed me the collection which she had made of the 
 flowers mentioned by our king-poet, after reading Canon 
 Ellacombe's charming book upon "The Plant Lore of 
 Shakespeare," and I was amused to hear of the difficulties 
 which she had encountered in the culture of our common 
 gorse, preserving it under glass during the winter, and tend-
 
 2/8 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 ing it with anxious care. Before we left, this accomplished 
 and generous lady made my heart glad by presenting me 
 with an autograph letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 together with a copy of his poems. 
 
 Although the capitol of Albany is said to have cost more 
 than a million of our money, it did not evoke my admira- 
 tion so much as the unpretentious City Hall below. The 
 exterior is huge and monotonous, the interior is dreary and 
 dark, always excepting the government and senatorial 
 rooms, with their wainscots and roofs of carved mahogany, 
 and their rich adornments of Mexican onyx, and the 
 library containing 150,000 books. Among its curiosities 
 are the dress sword of General Washington, and surveying 
 instruments which he used in his youth ; also two links of 
 an enormous chain which was stretched across the Hudson 
 to hinder the passage of the British fleet. 
 
 I preached in the Cathedral on the Sunday morning of 
 my visit, and in the afternoon addressed a large congrega- 
 tion of the little ones, who are so lovingly tended and 
 taught in Albany. Asked by the Bishop's daughter to give 
 her an epitome of my discourse for her children, I put my 
 thoughts into verse as I travelled in the train. 
 
 CHRIST TO HIS CHILDREN. 
 
 " I was a child, that you 
 
 Might learn from Me, 
 From My life, pure and true, 
 God's child to be. 
 
 " Might from the Manger take 
 
 Heart to endure 
 Hardship, and for My sake 
 Pity the poor.
 
 HARTFORD AND ALBANY. 2/9 
 
 " I, as a servant, learned 
 
 Obedience due ; 
 My daily bread I earned ; 
 You must work too. 
 
 " ' Learn from Me,' learn the Truth, 
 
 Growing in Grace ; 
 Love, as I loved, in youth 
 God's Holy Place. 
 
 " You, child, must bear your Cross ; 
 
 Soon there must be 
 Sorrow and pain and loss 
 Share them with Me. 
 
 " Come, tell Me all thy woe, 
 
 When thou art sad, 
 And in thy gladness, know 
 I, too, am glad. 
 
 " Fear not, for I am nigh. 
 
 Asking my aid, 
 
 Faith hears My voice, ' 'T is I, 
 Be not afraid.' "
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ROCHESTER. 
 
 A RRIVING at Rochester in America from Rochester 
 A\ in England, I received the heartiest and happiest of 
 many welcomes which it was my privilege to enjoy in the 
 States. There were synonymous sympathies between old 
 Rochester and the new new Rochester, by the way, has 
 far more ancient possessions than ours ; for what are the 
 Roman walls in my Deanery garden, and the remains of 
 Ethelbert's Saxon Church adjoining, but mere novelties 
 compared with the tusk of the mastodon found in the 
 valley of the Genesee, and nine feet in length? But these 
 were subordinate to stronger attachments, ecclesiastical, 
 floral, and masonic. Two large committees (honorary and 
 active), with representatives of the Masonic Lodges, ar- 
 ranged our reception on arrival, and, after a short rest at 
 our hotel, we were conveyed in a stately carriage, lined with 
 white satin, having an electric lamp, and drawn by a pair of 
 greys (there had been a discussion whether we should have 
 two, four, or six) to the Chamber of Commerce, where 
 some three hundred of the principal citizens, invited by the 
 committees, were assembled to greet us with such a cor- 
 diality as made that day "a green spot on the path of 
 time." 
 
 Rochester is known as the " City of Flowers," chiefly 
 because the most famous nurseries of America are in its 
 Suburbs, and Mr. William Barry, one of the two proprietors
 
 ROCHESTER. 281 
 
 (Barry and Ellwanger), appropriately bade us welcome. I 
 had met him in England, where he was accompanied by a 
 son of Mr. Ellwanger, Henry Brooks, a young man of great 
 promise, author of a delightful book on the Rose, and an 
 accomplished musician, but taken in his early manhood to 
 a garden fairer and a music sweeter than those which he 
 had known on earth. His grave, with a monument of 
 beautiful sculpture, is in the cemetery of Mount Hope. 
 
 Of course I paid a visit to the nurseries, very extensive 
 and in admirable order, and had a delightful interview with 
 the head of the firm, conversing about old friends and 
 fruits and flowers. 
 
 After my lecture I was escorted to a conclave of my 
 brother Masons assembled in lodge, and was introduced to 
 the members individually by a brother not only in 
 Masonry, but in the ministry also the Right Worshipful, 
 the Rev. Warren C. Hubbard, Chaplain of the Grand Lodge 
 of the State of New York. 
 
 In the records of Rochester * are two sad tragedies : 
 William Morgan, a free accepted mason, failing, it is said, 
 to obtain some masonic work which he desired, wrote in a 
 revengeful spirit a book in which he professed to reveal the 
 secrets of the craft. Soon after its publication the author 
 suddenly disappeared. Two Rochester men, Burrage Smith 
 and John Whitney, were suspected of having effected his 
 abduction, and they left the city and went to New Orleans, 
 where Smith died. Whitney returned in 1829, was tried 
 and imprisoned for one year and three months. Before 
 his death he made the following confession : " Morgan 
 had been enticed by false pretences to the unoccupied 
 
 1 A copy of "Rochester, a Story Historical," a most interesting 
 book by Jenny Marsh Parker, was presented to me at the reception 
 by the lady to whom it is dedicated, Sarah R. A. Dolley, M. D.
 
 282 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 magazine of Fort Niagara. Simultaneously the instalment 
 of an encampment of Knights Templar at Lewiston drew 
 together a large number of friends, of many of whom the 
 question was asked, ' What is to be done with Morgan ? ' 
 But the matter was so perplexing that no one seemed will- 
 ing to act or to advise. In the evening, however, after we 
 had been called from labour to refreshment, Colonel Wil- 
 liam King asked me to step into another room, where I 
 found Mr. Howard of Buffalo, Mr. Chubbuck of Lewiston, 
 and Mr. Garside of Youngstown. Colonel King said there 
 was a carriage to take us to the fort, into which we stepped 
 and were drawn hastily away. As we proceeded Colonel 
 King said that he had received instructions from the highest 
 authority to deal with Morgan according to his deserts, and 
 that, having confidence in their courage and fidelity, he had 
 chosen them as his assistants. On their arrival at the fort 
 they assured Morgan that arrangements had been made for 
 his removal to a farm in Canada, and he accompanied them 
 from the fort to a boat which awaited them. The boat 
 was rowed in a diagonal direction to the place where the 
 Niagara river is lost in Lake Ontario. Here, either shore 
 being two miles distant, a rope was wound several times 
 round Morgan's body, at either end of which a large weight 
 was attached. Up to that time Morgan had conversed 
 with them about his new home, but when he saw the rope 
 and the use to be made of it, he struggled desperately and 
 held firmly with one hand to the gunwale of the boat. 
 Garside detached it, but as he did so Morgan caught his 
 thumb in his teeth and bit off the first joint." 
 
 A body was subsequently found in Lake Ontario, which 
 Mrs. Morgan declared to be the body of her husband ; and 
 a Rochester committee, attending the inquest, made a like 
 affirmation. Others believed it to be the body of Timothy
 
 ROCHESTER. 283 
 
 Monro, who was drowned near the spot where Morgan was 
 said to have been murdered. 
 
 This cruel act, alleged to have been done by a few 
 demented men, was repudiated and denounced by the 
 Masonic body, " the Grand Chapter," individually and col- 
 lectively, disclaiming all knowledge or approbation in rela- 
 tion to the abduction of the said William Morgan. 
 
 The other catastrophe was that of Sam Patch, to whom I 
 referred as having twice leaped from a height of one hun- 
 dred feet into the deep waters below Goat Island Cliff, not 
 far from Niagara Falls, and who, on his return, issued a 
 notice in the Rochester papers that, on Friday, November 
 13, at two o'clock, he would jump from a scaffold erected 
 on the brink of the Genesee Falls into the deep below, 
 a distance of one hundred and twenty-five feet. 
 
 It was a chilly, miserable November day, when shivering 
 thousands from all parts were crowded on the banks of the 
 river. Sam was " fond of a glass," but was not a sot ; and 
 his friend William Cochrane, who accompanied him, stoutly 
 maintained that he had had no more than one glass of 
 brandy to keep out the cold, and was not affected by drink. 
 He climbed up the pole to his platform hand over hand, 
 and there made the following speech : " Napoleon was 
 a great man and a great general. He conquered armies 
 and he conquered nations, but he could not jump the 
 Genesee Falls. Wellington was a great man and a great 
 soldier, and he conquered Napoleon, but he could not 
 jump the Genesee Falls. That was left for me to do; and 
 I can do it, and will." 
 
 He sprang from the scaffold, but in a form, they said 
 who had seen him in his successful feats, quite different to 
 his usual mode, awkwardly and heavily, so that from the 
 first moment of his descent a horrible dread overwhelmed
 
 284 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 the spectators, and an awful presentiment was shrieked in 
 piercing tones by a woman's voice, " That is a dead man ! " 
 In five minutes that huge multitude, stricken with sorrow 
 and with shame, had dispersed. Search was made day and 
 night, but nothing more was seen of him until the next 
 St. Patrick's Day, when his body was found in a block of 
 ice near the mouth of the river. Cochrane always believed 
 that Sam attempted to swim back under the cataract, and 
 so became entangled in the great tree which was there for 
 many years after. 
 
 Rochester has another pleasant title, "The City of 
 Homes," and it is so called because it is said to have more 
 houses occupied by those who own them than any other 
 city in the States. It is an honourable ambition among 
 American working men to have a home of their own, and 
 to economise, with a view to such an acquisition, the 
 money which is too often wasted in drink. 
 
 There is some risk of their being tempted by jerry- 
 builders to buy houses badly built from inferior materials, 
 but this should be prevented by some authorised super- 
 vision, and every encouragement should be given to an 
 enterprise which evokes a new interest and makes it easier 
 to be content. 
 
 A third appellation has been bestowed on Rochester, 
 " The City of New Beginnings." It claims to have 
 originated " The American Bible Society," and it was 
 recorded in 1 884 that " General Riley still has the cane 
 with which he marshalled the first Sabbath School Conven- 
 tion held in Rochester, when two thousand children with 
 their teachers were gathered in Washington Square." 
 
 In its village days it was celebrated for its mud, of which 
 at times there was in Buffalo Street a rolling stream. An 
 adventurous youth, seeing a good hat on the surface,
 
 ROCHESTER. 285 
 
 started on a plank to secure it, but as he neared his object, 
 was startled by an angry expostulation, " Can't you let 
 a man cross the street without trying to steal his goods?" 
 Whether this mud has had any influence in muddling the 
 brains of the weaker brethren, I am not prepared to say ; 
 but there have been some eccentric proclamations and per- 
 formances by those who designate Rochester as the " Beth- 
 lehem of the New Dispensation," who believe in tappings, 
 and are on intimate terms with " Spooks." I did not meet 
 with any citizens of Rochester whose weak physiognomy 
 suggested these hallucinations ; but I enjoyed, on the con- 
 trary, in the public receptions and in hospitable homes, the 
 wise and witty discourse of intellectual and rational men. 
 Of many I may say that " we took sweet counsel together, 
 and walked to the house of God as friends," when, on the 
 invitation of the rector, the Reverend Algernon Crapsey, 
 who was one of the first to suggest my visit to the States, I 
 worshipped and preached in his church. 
 
 The snow was two feet deep in the streets, and my visit 
 was so brief that I was unable to visit the Theological 
 College, the University, and other institutions. The 
 sleighs were gliding over the frozen canal behind their 
 splendid trotters at the rate of fifteen miles to the hour. 
 A timid tourist, about to make his first journey in a carriage 
 upon the ice, was informed by the waiter in his hotel that 
 " he had put a buffalo " (referring to the " robe " or skin 
 of that animal) " in the sleigh." " Oh, thank you," said 
 the stranger, " but, if it makes no difference, I think I'd 
 rather have a horse." His remark reminds us of the little 
 boy who, when asked by a mamma with anticipations, 
 " whether he would prefer as a playmate a little brother or 
 a little sister?" replied after consideration, that, "if it made 
 no difference, he should prefer a pony."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER, AND THE ROCKY 
 MOUNTAINS. 
 
 CLEVELAND, on Lake Erie, founded by General 
 Moses Cleaveland, is a handsome city with more 
 than 260,000 inhabitants, well-built and spacious, with such 
 an abundance of trees in its parks, cemeteries, squares, 
 avenues, and lawns that it has been called "The Forest 
 City." Alas ! it is another fair victim offered in sacrifice 
 to the demon smoke, and its atmosphere is polluted by its 
 bituminous coal. It is divided by the river Cuyahoga, and 
 connected by a magnificent viaduct which cost more than 
 two millions of dollars. 
 
 For those who are interested in good food, well cooked 
 (deans, of course, only notice these minor details for the 
 gratification of others), the Hollenden Hotel will be a 
 happy home, but it is difficult to discover the hours of feed- 
 ing. There is a great disagreement among the working 
 clocks, though they are not simultaneously on strike. There 
 is "the standard time," " the city time," and " the railway 
 time," and none of them correspond with " the New York 
 time," so that there is a complication and perplexity which 
 reminds us of the sailor's chronometer, as described by Mr. 
 Albert Smith, from the words of its proprietor : " You see, 
 when the hands of this 'ere machine is a-pointing at half- 
 past three, it strikes eleven, and I knows as that means
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER. 287 
 
 a quarter to six ; but it 's just like a woman, don't yer see, 
 you 've got to study her ways, and get to know what she 
 means, or she won't tell yer nothink." 
 
 Between Cleveland and St. Louis we pass by remains of 
 old log huts and by stumps of trees left there by the 
 brave pioneers who made the desert smile and the valleys 
 to stand so thick with corn that they seem to laugh and 
 sing. 
 
 Crossing the Mississippi, which is there a muddy, sluggish 
 stream, and, "like the wounded snake, drags its slow 
 length along," you enter the railway station, or depot, of 
 St. Louis, which claims to be the largest in the world, 
 covering 497,920 square feet, or eleven acres. The archi- 
 tecture of the exterior is very imposing. 
 
 The Southern Hotel is one of the largest and best in the 
 States. The great entrance-hall is built in the form of a 
 Greek cross, with four entrances from four different streets. 
 There is only one coloured servant in the establishment, and 
 he is also exceptional in his wonderful power of associating 
 in his memory every man of the crowds, who three times a 
 day leave portions of their apparel before they enter the 
 dining-room in his custody, with the hats and coats which 
 they wear. 
 
 We were cordially welcomed by Bishop Tuttle and his 
 wife, who invited a distinguished company to meet us, and 
 the latter took me, the day after my lecture, to the Missouri 
 Botanical Gardens, of which Dr. Asa Gray, a supreme 
 authority, has said, " This park and the botanical garden 
 are the finest institutions of the kind in the country; in 
 variety of foliage the park is unequalled." Extending over 
 seventy-five acres of ground, they were the noble offering of 
 a noble mind to the citizens of St. Louis, for their pleasure 
 and instruction ; and they were also designed to provide
 
 288 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 adequate instruction, theoretical and practical, for young 
 men desirous of becoming gardeners. The donor was Mr. 
 Henry Shaw. Born at Sheffield, he came from England to 
 St. Louis with a small stock of cutlery in the year 1819. 
 He rented a room, in which for a time he lived, cooked, 
 and conducted his business. He made a large fortune, and 
 came to London in 1851, to the First Great International 
 Exhibition, a millionaire. Walking with Sir Joseph Paxton 
 in the grounds at Chatsworth, the question came to his 
 thoughts, "Why should not I have a garden also?" On 
 his return, he corresponded with Sir William Hooker, en- 
 gaged the services of Mr. Gurney, from the Royal Botanical 
 Gardens in the Regent's Park, and devoted the rest of his 
 life to the development of this grand conception. From 
 his boyhood he had been a lover of the garden, and his 
 fondness for flowers was expressed by his reply to a lady 
 who said to him, as they were inspecting the Missouri col- 
 lection, " I cannot understand, sir, how you are able to re- 
 member all these different and difficult names ! " " Madam," 
 he replied, " did you ever know a mother, who could forget 
 the names of her children? These are mine." 
 
 Professor Trelease, formerly a pupil of Dr. Asa Gray, and 
 an enthusiastic and most learned botanist, showed me the 
 very valuable library, the laboratory, the herbarium, engrav- 
 ings, etc. I was specially interested because the idea 
 was new to me, and revealed a source of delightful informa- 
 tion in a collection of drawings which the professor had 
 in progress, of trees as they appear in winter, enabling the 
 observer to recognize them at once, and to increase his 
 knowledge of their habits and diversities. I went through 
 the houses, which include a remarkable collection of agaves, 
 and some good specimens of palms, cycas, cacti, etc. 
 
 Mr. Shaw was a lover of music also, and a band played
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER. 289 
 
 in the Gardens on the Sunday evening. He had such a 
 love for his old home in the city, that he ordered its trans- 
 portation and re-edification, brick by brick, to the grounds 
 of the Missouri Gardens, and not far away he erected a 
 mausoleum, in which he placed a statue of himself, carved 
 at Munich some years before his death. The expression on 
 the countenance and the posture of the recumbent figure 
 are those of sleep rather than of death, and the right hand 
 holds a rose above the heart. 
 
 I was conducted through the brewery of Messrs. Busch 
 by one of the brothers, and was amazed, as at Milwaukee, 
 by the infinite extent of the premises, granaries, malthouses, 
 and cellars, the size of the mash-tubs, and the " kettles," 
 many of them holding 450 barrels of beer. The great 
 chimney, 275 feet in height, is said to be the tallest in "the 
 States." 
 
 St. Louis is the chief mart for mules in the world, but the 
 market was closed during my visit. I was consoled by an 
 appropriate anecdote. Many years ago, and in a diocese 
 which I may not name, a young American bishop was some- 
 what unduly impressed by a sense of his dignity, and was 
 tempted to magnify his office. Travelling to a distant part 
 of his diocese, he was met at the end of his journey by a 
 farm help, who had brought an ancient and shabby con- 
 veyance, drawn by a mule, for his use. The bishop impru- 
 dently asked whether that thing was for him, and the driver 
 promptly replied : " Your Master rode on a donkey, so you 
 need not be so skeered at a mule." 
 
 The sun rose as we drew near to Denver, " the Queen 
 City of the Plains," and changed the infinite expanse of 
 prairie, with its yellow herbage, into a golden sea. In the 
 recollection of many living men the buffaloes swarmed where 
 now the silence and the solitude is only disturbed by the 
 
 19
 
 290 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 rush of the railway train, and the Indian was monarch over 
 all. Not that we are to attribute his exodus entirely to the 
 advent of the stranger ; the tomahawk and the poisoned arrow 
 were suicidal. Mr. H. M. Stanley writes, in the book of 
 his early travels in America, that " while the fire-water and 
 rifles of the white man have done much, the Indians have 
 themselves done more for their own extermination by 
 internecine wars." 
 
 After a first view of the Rocky mountains, majestic in 
 their grandeur, raising their hoar heads towards heaven like 
 patriarchs in adoration, we arrived at the capital of Colorado. 
 
 Forty years ago there was no Denver. In 1858 there 
 was a camp of miners. In 1870 the population was 4759 ; 
 in 1890, 106,713. It is a complete and beautiful city The 
 public buildings, especially the Court House and State 
 Capitol, are spacious and imposing ; and it has more pic- 
 turesque and varied private residences in its suburbs than 
 those seen elsewhere. The views of " the Rockies " from 
 different points, especially when seen at the end of a long 
 street, as through a vista or avenue, are exquisite. 
 
 Again we had the happiness of a most genial welcome, of 
 the kindest hospitality, in the house of Dean Hart> whose 
 reputation has long ago reached England as a foremost 
 champion of the Church, as the founder of a beautiful cathe- 
 dral, as a most energetic priest, brave in his faith, but tender 
 in his kindness, an accomplished gentleman, musician, artist, 
 doctor, sportsman, a real sportsman, with no resemblance 
 to an individual whom I saw in Denver on the afternoon of 
 Sunday, riding a bicycle, with a jack- rabbit dangling in front, 
 and two villainous mongrels of the lurcher genus " lorping " 
 (as we say in Nottinghamshire) behind their proprietor, who 
 assumed such an expression of successful prowess as might 
 have been excused if he had slain and brought home a lion
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER. 29 1 
 
 or a man-eater which had long been the terror of the 
 town. 
 
 Bishop and Mrs. Spalding, Judge and Mrs. Lefevre gave 
 us Receptions, and the Denver Club gave me a dinner. 
 The weather was bitterly cold, and my lectures were not 
 numerously attended, though they were warmly applauded. 
 
 "Chill though the wind blew, and threatening the storm, 
 Those hearts, full of kindness, beat kindly and warm." 
 
 A Denver audience is notably benevolent, and it is said that 
 a chairman, after a depressing address, assured the speaker 
 that his discourse was " moving, soothing, and satisfying." 
 When reproved next morning as having commended a dismal 
 failure, he denied the charge, and maintained that he had 
 uttered no approbation, but only simple facts, namely, that 
 the lecture was " moving," because a large proportion of the 
 audience fidgeted in their seats, and several left the room ; 
 it was " soothing," because many fell asleep ; and it was 
 " satisfying," because there was not a single person present 
 who had not had quite enough. 
 
 I went to see a very near and dear relative. I refer to 
 my visit because there was not only the joy of reunion, but 
 because there was in her house the best sermon I ever 
 heard no, I mean (for not a word was spoken on this 
 subject) the best illustration I ever saw of the text, " The 
 voice of joy and health is in the dwellings of the righteous." 
 She was born and " raised " in a lovely country home, with 
 servants and carriages and every comfort. Now she has a 
 comparatively small abode, and must live frugally, without a 
 conveyance, without a servant. And yet I never saw a hap- 
 pier home ! No tiara of diamonds is so bright as the eyes 
 of those who love and help each other, no service of gold 
 plate has on it more wholesome food, no powdered footman 
 waits upon guests with such graceful diligence as the daugh-
 
 292 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 ters of tJaat house. We cannot buy happiness, but we can 
 create it. It is all home-made. 
 
 The early history of Denver would be a rich feast to those 
 who crave for startling incidents. Dean Hart informed me 
 that of twenty-one entries on the first page of the registry of 
 burials in Denver Cathedral, nineteen were records of death 
 by violence. Among the miners were many experts in 
 crime. A friend of mine, not an expert, was with them 
 some forty years ago, and one night, as they were smoking 
 their pipes around the camp fire, he mentioned in conversa- 
 tion that he came from Southwell. " Southwell, in Notting- 
 hamshire?" exclaimed a neighbour, not of prepossessing 
 aspect, but with much animation. " Yes," my friend re- 
 plied ; " do you know it? " " Know it? " said the inquirer, 
 " know it ? I should think I do. The best jail I ever was 
 in!" 
 
 Evidence was not easily obtained, and when forthcoming 
 was contradictory. The judicial authorities were merciful 
 to a fault, after the sudden removal by violence of some of 
 their learned brethren, who had recklessly proceeded to 
 administer justice. Two men, one the owner of a mine and 
 the other of a ranch, were engaged in litigation. The case 
 was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court at Washington. 
 Soon after the decision, the principals met, and one inquired 
 of the other, "Did you say that I perjured myself at Wash- 
 ington?" " Yes," was the answer, "I did." No further 
 remark was made, but in the evening they met again, and 
 the same question was repeated, with the same reply, where- 
 upon the accused drew his revolver and shot his accuser dead. 
 The jury brought in a verdict of "not guilty," and when 
 one of them was asked the reason why, he said, " We have 
 never yet hanged a man in Leadville, and we are not going 
 to begin with an old "un."
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER. 293 
 
 The services at the Cathedral are daily and reverent, and 
 the music, vocal and instrumental, is excellent. Dr. John 
 H. Gower, who took the highest musical degree, when he 
 was only twenty- five, at Oxford, is the organist and precen- 
 tor. He most kindly played for us, and his descriptive 
 performance of "The Storm," and "The Procession of the 
 Blessed Sacrament " was most impressive. 
 
 From Denver I went to Colorado Springs, and, through 
 the kind introduction of Dean Hart, was the guest of Dr. 
 Solly. His father's work, " Solly on the Brain " is well 
 known, but the son's work is " Solly on the Heart," for he 
 has won the gratitude and affection of his patients. He 
 came to the Springs many years ago suffering from lung 
 disease, and with faint hope of recovery ; but this migration, 
 humanly speaking, not only prolonged his own life, but that 
 of many others. Several of the residents told me that they 
 had found here the relief and restoration which they had 
 sought elsewhere in vain. The small city is laid out with 
 much taste, and with broad avenues and delightful houses, 
 from which there are beautiful views of the mountains, 
 including the famous " Pike's Peak," named after Colonel 
 Zebulon Pike, an early pioneer, in 1806, and also Monte 
 Rosa, so designated in honour of Rose, the daughter of 
 Charles Kingsley, the first lady who climbed to its summit. 
 These mountains are easily reached by carriage or by electric 
 railway, and there is a sublime and awful grandeur in the 
 stupendous canons narrow gorges cut through the solid 
 rocks, the perpendicular walls on either side rising to the 
 height of 1000 to 1500 feet. The game has been banished to 
 more quiet and distant lairs, but in these the sportsman will 
 find deer, elk, wapiti, the mountain-lion, the antelope, wild 
 cat, wild turkey, grouse, and quail. 
 
 One of many delightful drives is to the picturesque
 
 294 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 residence of General Palmer, called " The Eyrie," and 
 still having in its grounds the huge nest, long forsaken, of 
 the eagle, high on the rocks, and thence to " The Garden 
 of the Gods," which is entered between two gigantic 
 columns of red granite 330 feet high. It contains about 
 500 acres of ground, and the surface is diversified by fan- 
 tastic and grotesque, though natural, formations of red and 
 white sandstone, in which striking resemblance may be 
 traced to human figures, animals, and buildings, and which 
 contrast delightfully with the vegetation around, the dark 
 firs and cedars, and the bright blue sky overhead. We 
 returned by Manitou, renowned for its delicious waters, and 
 much frequented as a summer resort. 
 
 The underground wealth of Colorado seems to be infinite : 
 gold, silver, lead, iron, and coal; and its quarries supply 
 in abundance every diversity of stone, marble, onyx, 
 granite, lava white, pink, blue, and grey, in natural 
 colours. 
 
 Wild flowers are lovely and numerous. They were, of 
 course, invisible in January (the thermometer went down 
 one night, during my visit, to 24 below zero) but I had 
 the privilege of inspecting their portraits, faithfully and 
 charmingly painted by Mrs. Hill anemones, aquilegias, 
 gentians, cenotheras, cacti, and every variety of Alpine 
 plants. 
 
 A touching tribute of sympathy was offered to me at 
 Colorado Springs. A new golf ground, "The Prairie Links," 
 had been recently laid out. and one of the apertures was 
 named " Dean Hole." 
 
 There is good sport for the angler. " Old Sammy," a 
 keeper, died not long ago. The clergyman who visited 
 him in his last sickness, making inquiry as in duty bound 
 as to his spiritual condition, asked him whether he had any
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER. 295 
 
 special burden upon his conscience. Sammy, being weak 
 and hazy, does not seem to have realized the solemnity of 
 the question, and replied, after some consideration, that 
 " there was one thing he should alter, if he had to live his 
 life again he thought he should fish more wi' bait, and 
 less wi' fly." 
 
 A more satisfactory incident is recorded of an old man, 
 whose home was high up on the Rockies, and who, strong 
 in faith and hope, said shortly before his death, " Well, I 
 guess we 're over 9000 feet above the sea level, so when I 
 come to quit I '11 not have far to go." 
 
 I heard from ranchmen and others more details of The 
 Dawn of Civilization in Colorado. Like old Sam it was 
 hazy, and when the sun shone through the fog it glittered 
 on bowie-knives and six-shooters. ." I had a young fellow 
 in my employment for some time," said one of my inform- 
 ants, "and I took a great fancy to him, he was always so 
 cheerful and ready for any amount of work. He was a 
 youth of undaunted courage, and you would infer from his 
 flashing eyes that he was sudden and quick in quarrel, but 
 he loved to play with children, and was a favourite with all. 
 It transpired, nevertheless, that this bright, attractive young 
 fellow was a murderer. Working in New Mexico, he owned 
 some horses. The Mexicans stole them. He followed and 
 overtook them ; a fight ensued, and he killed two of them. 
 The sheriff came to arrest him, and, instead of giving him- 
 self up and standing his trial, he killed the sheriff! He 
 repented of the act, but, knowing that if he was captured 
 he must either be hanged or imprisoned for life, he always 
 declared that no man should take him alive." 
 
 Among his other friends was a Frenchman, living alone 
 on the mountains, a trapper, a guide to hunting-parties, 
 and a splendid cook. He was full of mirth, good-humour,
 
 296 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 and hospitality, but if any reference was made to the Ger- 
 mans, whom he hated (he had been a soldier in Garibaldi's 
 army), or to kings and queens, he was furious, and sug- 
 gested immediate decapitation for the lot. When he was 
 engaged in preparing his venison and mountain trout, with 
 a scientific manipulation which France alone can teach, his 
 visitors were careful as to their topics of conversation. A 
 remark having the remotest connection with Germany or 
 with royality evoked an utterance of ferocious words, 
 accompanied by gesticulations which, in the case of a man 
 with a frying-pan in one hand and a pepper-box in the 
 other, were fatal to culinary success. 
 
 Clay Allison, a notorious desperado, was followed by a 
 detective officer from Chicago, who introduced himself as a 
 stranger travelling through the country, entered into friendly 
 conversation, and proposed that they should ride to a 
 town not far distant, where he intended to make the usual 
 announcement, " You 're my prisoner." As they -were passing 
 through a silent and dismal gorge, Allison suddenly reined in 
 his horse, and, surveying his companion with an admiring 
 smile, blandly addressed him, simultaneously touching the 
 handle of a revolver in his belt : " Mr. Jones, of Chicago, 
 you would make a beautiful corpse!" Ultimately Mr. 
 Jones went home. 
 
 Zan Heckler, a Dutchman, sold the government a large 
 lot of corn, and with the proceeds went down to Maxwells, 
 New Mexico, where he met a gambler from New York. 
 They played poker for some hours, and when the New 
 Yorker had lost his " pile," he accused the winner of cheat- 
 ing, and challenged him to fight. The Dutchman assented, 
 and, having his choice of weapons, and having spent many 
 years among the Indians, he chose bows and arrows on 
 horseback. At daybreak the challenger, looking out from
 
 CLEVELAND, ST. LOUIS, DENVER. 297 
 
 his bedroom window, saw the Dutchman practising his 
 archery, shooting at a post as he galloped round a yard 
 adjoining, in which the combat was to be fought, and when 
 he hit his mark, as he almost invariably did, uttering, after 
 the manner of the Indians, triumphant yells. As he gazed, 
 he remembered a domestic engagement, which irresistibly 
 constrained him to take advantage of the early coach. 
 
 Alas ! I was myself impelled to depart, like the bereft 
 and intimidated gambler, from the West to New York, for 
 my term of absence was nearly over, and I was over five 
 thousand miles from home. I brought from Colorado one 
 only one sorrowful thought, and though it is but as a 
 little cloud no bigger than a man's hand on my memory's 
 American sky, it sometimes casts a shadow on my path. I 
 refer to those of my countrymen who, in the last thirty 
 years, have gone with brave hearts and bright hopes to 
 invest their money in the ranch and the farm, have spent 
 the best years of their manhood in arduous toil, and are 
 working at this time in the daily monotonous drudgery of 
 mean employments, cutting wood, making fires, cooking, 
 cleaning, and mending to supply the necessaries of life. 
 I warn young English gentlemen that there is no room for 
 them as farmers in America. 
 
 The day before I sailed from New York I received this 
 telegram from the Bishop of Albany : " God speed you and 
 yours home, my beloved brother. May you take with you 
 as delightful memories as those you leave behind." 
 
 THE END.
 
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