I I yC-NRLF "'l|l|lll||ll|l|lll|li|niiii mm\iiiin B 4 010 723 MMNMalp ■MMMMMMinMtaM BY THE SAME AUTHOR. They All Do It; Or, Mr. Miggs of Dancury, and His Neighbors. i6mo. Illustxated. Cloth, $i.oo. Paper, 50 cents. Life in Danbury. Being a Brief but Comprehensive Record of the Doings of a Remarkable People. i6mo. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. LEE &> SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. England from a back-Window, VIEWS OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. J. M. BAILEY, THE DANBURY-NEWS MAN. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK: CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 1S79. B(9 55 Ra4 Copyright, 1878, BY LEE AND SHEPARD. All rights reserved. <' ?m/ e. A- ^'^^ Electroty(>fd and Printed By Rand, Avery, &• Comf>any, ilj Franklin Street, Boston. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. In which' the Writer departs for Europe . . 7 II. Which relates to the Arrival in Europe. . . 13 III. Gives a First View of London 17 IV. Relates entirely to the Beauty of England . 23 V. Gives More Details of London 33 VI. Gives an Off-Hand View of Parliament ... 43 VII. An English Mob 49 VIII. Is mainly devoted to describing how to get ABOUT London ..... 54 IX. Living in London 59 X. Going to the Derby 64 XI. Street-Scenes 77 XII. In the Mildew 87 XIII. Treats of the Bars and Bar-Maids 99 XIV. Moth, Mildew, and Martyrs no XV. A Ramble over London 120 XVI. Through Petticoat Lane 133 XVII. The Wonderful English Railways 140 XVIII. Which gives a Dash into Rural England ... 153 XIX. Brings us to English Farm-Life 164 XX. More about the Farm 172 XXI. A General Attack on Ruins 181 XXII. English Charity 192 XXIII. Amusements 198 XXIV. Tells, among Other Things, what the English think of Us 205 XXV. An Appalling Custom 214 XXVI. Skips from the Cab to the Hearse 224 Mill 466 6 CONTENTS. CHATTER PAGE XXVII. In a Grocer's Cellar 226 XXVIII. The Home of Bunyan 235 XXIX. In which Shakspeare is shown up 240 XXX. Gives a Few of the Peculiarities of an English Winter 24S XXXI. Full of Extraordinary Facts 255 XXXII. Brings us into Scotland 264 XXXIII. Edinburgh still further considered. ... 275 XXXIV. Scudding through the Highlands 2S6 XXXV. A Ruined Upburst 294 XXXVI. Highland Features 303 XXXVII. Elgin and its Sights . 315 XXXVIII. Throwing the Caber 321 XXXIX. A JuMPiNG-oFF Luxury 331 XL. Astonishing Facts about Wages 336 XLI. A Sample of the Good Old Times 344 XLII. The Terrors of a Jaunting-Car 353 XLIII. Doing the Causeway, and McDooley . . . 363 XLIV. Getting on the Wall 374 XLV. A Meditative Pennsylvanian 3S0 XLVI. An Ancient Candy-Pull 3S8 XLVII. Going to an Irish Fair 401 XLVIII. Owning a Whole Gr-(Vveyard 414 XLIX. Starting for America 420 L. A Treatise on Limerick' 424 LI. Blaspheming Mendicants 430 LII. Scenery and Lies 440 LIII. A Newly-arrived Yankee 448 LIV. Across the Country in a Mail-Cart .... 456 LV. Peculiar Features in Dublin 461 LVI. In which the Writer takes Leave of his Readers and a Good Share of Himself . 471 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTIiK L- - ■ • '\r' ° m WHICH THE WRITER DEPARTS FOR EUROPE. THERE was nothing particularly attractive about " The Abyssinia" as we came in sight of it at the Jersey-city dock on the afternoon of April 15, 1874. We saw before us a long, narrow, dingy black craft, with a formidable smoke-stack in the middle, three aspiring masts, staring dead-lights, and a forlorn and very uncomfortable air about all. It stood so far out of water as to actually need the huge hawsers holding it at the dock to keep it from tipping over where it was. It seemed as if the great city had slopped over into " The Abyssinia," because of the threatened rain. The passage-ways, decks, and staircases were crowd- ed with people ; and such anxious, struggling, crowding people ! I never before saw so ostentatious a crowd. We got into the wrong passage, of course, and climbed over a platform, and met some half-dozen people climbing the other way. But everybody was good-natured and bruised. Finally we reached our stateroom, and deposited the lug- gage. From here we went on deck, the passage up the- stairway being a continuous struggle. Out doors was as crowded as in. Scores of people with bouquets and um- brellas blocked up every passage. No one of the passengers 7 8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. knew any thing of the ins and outs of the boat, and the visitors were equally as ignorant. On the pier was scarcely less confusion of ideas and legs, as we could see from the deck. To make matters worse, it commenced to rain. Everybody hurried down stairs ; but the close air drove the greater part of them back again. Then came the signal for departure, followed by a desperate rush together of the con- tending "forces, Tr-;-v)site{i and visitors. Elderly gentlemen, with-long urtbrc^lfes and high silk hats, were carried off their feet, ,ind jammed against total strangers. Fat women, with -the latest style' of spring bonnets on their heads, and huge bouquets of flowers in their chubby hands, were kissed by the wrong parties, and squeezed into grotesque shapes by enthusiastic relatives. It was the first time I was ever kissed on the tip end of my nose ; and I can't say that the sensation is an enjoyable one, especially if administered by a stranger with a solitary and aggressive front-tooth. At last the boat was being swung off. The last hand and lip i)ressure was made. A tall, thin gentleman took a final hurried kiss, knocked off his hat, and stepped through the crown of it, and shot up the gang-plank. The people on the pier swung their handkerchiefs, and hallooed their fare- wells, while the vessel gracefully backed off into the channel, and — was ignominiously towed seaward by a black and dis- reputable looking tug. And thus we left the dear land, standing on the deck, with the breaking clouds and struggling sunlight above us, and straining our eyes toward the fast-receding city. After dinner the thoughtfiil arranged their staterooms for a ten-days' occupancy ; while the thoughtless crowded upon deck, and amused themselves in looking at the stars, and watching the water, or peering about the shij), and incau- tiously feeling of strange-looking ])ii)es whii h were subse- quently discovered to contain hot water. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 9 There were no violent demonstrations toward acquaint- ance, unless we may except the long man in long overcoat, a dilapidated hat, and long chin-whiskers, who, having made t^venty voyages across the ocean, and been spared by an inscrutable Providence to start on the tvventy-first, was now enlightening all on board on such points as the weather, the sails, the course, and the prospects. There was a lazy swell to the ocean, which gave the vessel a graceful, rolling motion that was much admired. The length of admiration varied with the strength of the constitution of the admirers. When a man got his fill of admiration he made for the rail precipitately, and cast his bread upon the waters, neither hoping nor caring for a return. A visible thinness in the congregation was painfully conspicuous ; and, by the time all the stars were out, the deck was cleared for action. Some lingered to see the stars ; lingered to gaze dreamily into the dark blue waters ; then they shot doAvn stairs, and screamed for a basin. There was a fair sprinkling of passengers on deck the next day ; for, although not a calm day, it was nevertheless pleasant, and the sea was not rough. Those who were not affected kept well on their legs, and alternated a look sea- ward with a scrutiny of the private property of the vessel. Of those affected, a few had the good sense to remain on deck, and " fire away " at the waves ; but much the greater number went below, and, locking their staterooms, wrestled alone with the great agony. As they convalesced, they, with few exceptions, returned to the deck ; every day bring- ing new additions to the sitters and promenaders. But many kept to their rooms during the entire trip. It is the nature of the disease to allay the thirst for sight-seeing ; and it is only by a great effort of the will that the victims can over- come the inertia, and keep on deck. The terrors of seasickness may be modified by keeping a well-ordered stomach on the day of sailing. Bidding lO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. champagne farewells and whiskey-punch adieus to friends at home is a sure forerunner of the sickness in its worst form. There was the case of young Munson of Danbury, who went to Europe last season. Bom of Puritan ]jarents, and reared amid the refining and wholesome influences of a New-England home, he carefully dieted himself the week before sailing. He ate freely of oatmeal and bran bread, and eschewed greasy food and stimulating drinks. The night before sailing he went down to New York in the flush of health and hope, and, stopping at Nonvalk to a clam-bake, filled up with roast clams and gin, getting down to the city just in time to take the boat. For three days he pranced around on the edge of eternity, kicking up his heels, swing- ing his arms, and turning himself inside out in a most repre- hensible manner. He held then a position in the Third National Bank ; but, on returning home, he did not report for duty for a whole week, fearing that, among other things, he had thrown up this berth. None of the officers of " The Abyssinia " lost a day through seasickness. The second day was much like the first, with the excep- tion that it grew cooler at night. On the morning of the third day it rained, and the rolling motion increased. The wind was fickle, and the sailors were kept busy with the sails. To see them climbing the dizzy heights of the masts, with the rain pouring down upon them (for they are not per- mitted to carry umbrellas), made a most thrilling spectacle. The fourth day was equally unpleasant. On the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth days the vessel rolled from side to side without intermission, the wind blew stiflly across the beam (coming from the starboard side, wherever that is), and the rain and flying sjiray kept the deck comparatively free of people. Of those who ventureil up stairs during this con- tinuous and disagreeable siege, the ladies huildled into the cabin on deck provided for them ; the gentlemen took to ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II the smoking-cabin, also on deck, or sheltered diemsclvcs in the lee of the smoke-stack. This last place was a favorite resort for the steerage passengers, who, chewing plug tobacco, and spitting against the wind, added a charm to the occa- sion that was indescribable. The smoking-cabin is the best patronized. Here the pas- sengers of sporting tendencies gather to buy and sell pools on the time the vessel makes in the twenty-four hours ; and here is done some of the proudest and grandest lying ever heard. It is astonishing the amount of extraordinary facts an idle brain will evolve. No pen can do justice to the suffering entailed by the rolling motion of the vessel. On the wet deck it is impos- sible to move any distance, or to stand still a moment, with- out grasping a rope or guard. At the dining-table the crash of rolling and sliding dishes, and the splashing of their spill- ing contents, is deafening and disheartening. The stewards and waiters walk on the sides of their feet, and plank down the right dish in the right place with a precision that is supernatural. Each of the eight tables is provided with racks, which keep the plates from sliding way across, but do not always prevent their coming together, and depositing in one's lap a pleasing variety of soups, ice-water, and hot gravies. But in the staterooms the greatest misery is expe- rienced. A stateroom has no free walls. Opposite the two berths is a lounge, which can be made into a third berth. To sit on this lounge, and to be thrown to the opposite side, with the skin of your advanced leg scraping the under edge of the lower berth, and your head smashing against the up- per berth, is a sensation I have experienced about eleven hundred times in the past week. When I went alone, I didn't mind it so much ; but to have Mrs. Bailey avalanche atop of me, and with her weight increase my momentum, has almost made me swear. Any boy who is striving for a prize on the grounds of a strictly upright life should forego 12 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. the pleasure of seeing Europe until after he has got his prize. And so we have been tossed about, and bumped and bruised, for seven long days and nights, until every bone aches, and every muscle is stretched to its utmost tension, in tlie constant effort to maintain a balance. Five times have I gone into my stateroom and found Mrs. Bailey wedged under the lower berth, where she had been thrown by a sud- den lurch of the vessel ; and for two hours after each occa- sion she refused to speak. This is rather remarkable, I believe — in a woman. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 3 CHAPTER 11. WHICH RELATES TO THE ARRIVAL IN EUROPE. THE last day of a long ocean-voyage is signalled by feverish expectation. I shall never forget the night before our arrival at Queenstown. We had expected to sight land all the afternoon ; and, as night closed upon us, each one on deck strained his eyes in the direction he had decided land should appear. Then the wind changed to the head : all the sails were taken indoors, and we steamed through the rolling seas and an intense fog. It was an excitable evening to the passen- gers ; and I imagine the fog and the proximity of a danger- ous coast made the sail- a matter of interest to the boat people. With a few others I remained on deck till after midnight, hanging on to the sails and ropes, or breaking some of my bones against things I didn't know the name of. In the morning I awoke to find the vessel in a still sea. It was a still sea ; but there was no land in sight. The vessel had stopped, and the fog permitted us to see several small pilot-boats about us. There was an animated conversation going on between Capt. Haines of " The Abyssinia," and a short-necked, red- faced scoundrel in the pilot-boat near us. The pilot-boat had given us its rope, but was afraid to come up alongside, under the impression that the ponderous " Abyssinia " might step on it. The morning air was rent by the contending 14 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. voices ; and, as neither party appeared to know what the other was saying (which is really not necessary in this country), an indescribable charm was added to the scene. The pilot finally consented to be drawn aboard of our boat, and we steamed away again. Then we went down stairs to breakfast, and discussed the probabilities of the landing with an excellent bill -of- fare. After breakfast we went back to the deck, and were almost immediately elec- trified by the bold outlands of Queenstown Harbor. We could see the green fields, the earthworks, the hedges, and the trees. Every object that went to make up the dear sight was scrutinized most intensely. We moved by aitd into the bay ; but none of us took our eyes from the land one instant. There had been a time when it had seemed that the waste of troubled waters was to forever accompany us ; that the land which we had so gladly left was never again to greet our sight. But here was the glad earth before us ; not a myth, not a dream, but the dear, solid land, with its cobble-stones, pitch- holes, and fever and ague. Not a living soul on board of that vessel thought to in- quire what kind of land it was. I was glad of it. , The custom-house tender came out from Queenstown to meet us, and took the mails and several passengers and their luggage. This was the first perceptible fracture in the social fabric nine days of sea-life had reared. Next to a sight of land, the greatest surprise was the sud- den appearance of the male passengers in high silk hats. To have men, whom you have seen every day, and every hour of the day, for ten days, in low cai)s or rumjiled soft hats, apiK-ar in high hats, is to work a transformation that is most exciting. I haven't had any thing work me up to such a degree since the surrender of Cornwallis. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 5 Singularly enough, although we had made the acquaint- ance of these people within a week, and had no reasonable prospect of ever seeing or having any thing to do with them in the future, and knew nothing whatever of their past, there was a twinge of regret at their going. We looked over the boat at them as they took their departure, and waved what was handy as long as they were in sight ; and then we moved on to Liverpool. In the evening, with the fog and moonlight struggling in the air, we promenaded the deck, sang our songs, told over our plans, and dreaded the morrow, — the morrow that was to break us up, and scatter us all over a continent. One of the sad episodes of the evening was my borrowing a knife from a smoker of plug tobacco to peel an orange for one of the ladies. At six o'clock the next morning we reached the harbor of Liverpool. ~ Two custom-house boats came off for the luggage and passengers. The former was taken into the lower cabin, and the latter followed after, — both for inspection. I had heard of the custom inspection at foreign ports, and had come to have a wholesome dread of the ordeal. I hurried down the — the — the companion-way, I believe they call it, with a hundred others, and waited and watched while the uni- formed posse went about among the packages, scrutinizing the contents or the owners. A New- York friend, wth his OAvn and the luggage of several lady-friends, passed safely through the examination in five minutes after the beginning, and was up on deck, looking for a light, inside of another minute. Being open to hints, and finding the dingy dark- ness and the crowded condition of the lower cabin unbeara- ble, I slipped a shilling into the hand of one of the inquisi- tors ; and a moment later my luggage was passed, and I was also on the deck, looking for a light. From " The Abyssinia " we were transferred to the tender ; 1 6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. and a half-hour later were deposited on land, which we pressed most affectionately with our feet. It was Sunday, and the city was very quiet. As we drove through its streets, we watched each building and face with a fervor that was complimentary to the former, but was hardly enjoyable to the latter. We never hear of Liverpool unless in connection with com- merce of a cosmopoHtan character. It has no specialty in trade to fasten it on the mind of the general reader ; it has no antiquities ; it has no history. There is nothing about this place in common with the country of which it forms a part ; and to the tourist it is simply a landing-place. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 1/ CHAPTER III. GIVES A FIRST VIEW OF LONDON, THAT London differs in all important and in many unimportant features from the metropolis of Ameri- ca is a fact that grows upon the visitor, and the degree of his sense of the fact is proportionate to his stay in the city. This impression would be received the moment he drove through its streets, if he came direct from New York to it ; but he first lands at an English-American town, where the contrasts so blend, that the distinguishing lines are dulled to his comprehension. He approaches London's characteris- tics through a gradation of sensations ; and, on his arrival in the great metropolis, the only feeling of surprise he experi- ences is at the absence of all surprise. If he is a close reader of history, he has already formed in his mind how London should look. He understands that Liverpool is essentially cosmopolite ; and the small shock he feels on arriving there in no way affects his picture of Lon- don, — a city (and he repeats the reflection with unction) that is one of the oldest in existence. When he reaches London he is annoyed, as the promi- nence of its modern completely hides the vestiges of its ancient or historical features. London, like Liverpool, is built of brick, — the same kind of brick too, only a trifle dingier if possible, — not the red brick we have in America, although that is profusely used in 1 8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. the country mansions, but a dull brown or yellow brick. The most of them are mottled with these two tints ; but many are wholly yellow, or wholly browTi. In a new building the effect is more curious than grati- fying ; but a few months of the smoke they have here es- tablishes a uniform tint. An American is in time overpowered by the lack of archi- tectural adornment in the buildings, and the consequent uniformity in their construction. The lack of variety and beauty is just as conspicuous in the streets devoted to the dwellings of the aristocracy as in the lanes of the working- people. Buckingham Palace, the residence of the Queen, is an immense building, but not especially attractive in its ex- terior. Marlborough House, the home of the Prince of Wales, is a red brick structure ; large, but in no wise remarkable, not even as a bonded-warehouse in New York. I have seen a host of finer railroad depot-buildings than is St. James's Palace. I have always had my own ideas of a palace. Probably they corresponded with the ideas of others, and possibly they did not ; but they rose immeasurably above square three-story buildings with flat roofs. Reading of palaces has lost its charm for me forever. Those of the houses which are not of flat surface are of crescent-shaped front. All the roofs are of tile or lead. There are no shingle roofs to rot away and leak, and make the owner swear ; and no tin roofs to turn the sunshine into a curse and annoyance, or keep you awake when it rains, thinking of tinker's dams. But the array of chimney-pots is calculated to absorl) and astonish the stranger. In this department the ICnglish excel, and whatever of money or taste they have to spare is lavished on chimney-puts. Kach chimney has two or ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IQ more. They are of red, black, and white colors. They are made of the tile clay, and in variety of shapes are equal to the idiosyncrasies of a stove-pipe. They are all the way from two feet to ten feet in height. No family is without them. The front-door to every house has its letter-box. Nearly all of the doors are closed by spring-locks ; and, in conse- quence, catching tlte skirts of your coat in the door in pass- ing out is a most embarrassing proceeding, especially if the street is very public, and the housekeeper very deaf. I speak from experience. I would respectfully call the attention of the American people to the fact that the knob is in the middle of the front- door. It is a stationary knob, and is valueless as a means of entrance, but is a comforting article to hold on to when immersed in thought. A man rarely attempts a second time to use it for any other purpose. Each front-door has a knocker, generally of iron, and quite frequently large enough to carry a boy into a circus, or buy five packs of fire-crackers. In addition to the knocker are two or more bells, the number depending upon the num- ber of tenants in the building. In such neighborhoods as that of the Seven Dials there are four-story buildings (for- merly tenements) , occupied by attorneys, undertakers, work- ers in metals, and other people, which have seven bells to the door. Those who can afford it have their names on a little brass plate to their bells, and their customers have no trouble. Where opulence does not reign, the customer has an opportunity of trying all the bells, and bringing a variety of people down stairs before he hits on the right man. This can never fail to improve the most indifferent mind. Each door is not only always kept locked, but has its chain. You remember, of course, of " the clanking chain as the ponderous door swung open, revealing a dark, crouching 20 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. figure," &c. The chain is a chain without doubt, hanging listlessly down the door-casing, but looking as little like clank- ing as a pint of soup. There are no window-blinds to the dwellings of London ; but there is a profusion of lace curtains. It is a sad thing to think of a city of nearly four million people being window- blindless ; but the curtains permit one to look out and see what the neighbor across the way has on, with a feeling of comparative comfort and safety. The shops fairly boil over with plate glass fronts. They are not roomy nor elaborate inside ; but their windows make the finest show of any shop-windows in the world. They are ablaze with goods arranged in most tempting ways. I came near to saying they are ablaze \\ith light ; but the better class of shops are not lighted at all just now, closing right after seven o'clock in the evening, thus giving the hard-worked clerks plenty of time to store their minds with theatricals and punch. The shops on the Strand and similar second- class avenues blaze away until nine o'clock. The cigar-shops, chop-houses, and many of the fish-markets, keep going all the while, I guess, as I have found them open, and inclined to be sociable, as late as an hour after midnight ; and a man who doesn't shut up business at midnight will never get another such opportunity. I have said the shops close early. It is a lamentable fact in this connection, that they do not open early. Go along any of the business-streets as late as ten o'clock, and you will find men and boys with coarse aprons before the shops, burnishing the brass plates, scouring the stone sills, and sweeping the walks ; and, as late as eleven o'clock, the clerks and proprietors are arranging the goods for the day's display. Every other store prominently announces the fact that it is doing business by " sjjecial appointment to H. M. the Queen," or "to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales." Feeling an unquenchable longing one afternoon to see ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 21 the Queen, I stepped into a shoe-store which announced itself as attending to her shodding, and waited very patiently for an hour for her to call in " to see if that shoe was fixed ; " but I did not see her. " By special appointment," &c., has stared me in the face at every turn ; but I bore it uncom- plainingly until I saw over a stovepipe-hat-store the announce- ment, " By special appointment to H. M. the Queen." ' Then I caved. By a careful and unbiassed calculation, I learn that there are at present, administering to the various needs of Queen Victoria, ii,ooo grocers, 2,150 stationers, 8,093 dry-goods merchants, 1,608 tinners, 16,040 butchers, 1,100 jewellers, 3,840 tobacconists, 243 hatters, 1,240 carriage-makers, 26,432 miscellaneous. No wonder the country is in debt. But business is stimu- lated. London is called a dingy and dirty city. The houses in London are dull in appearance, made so by the smoke from its thousands and thousands of chimneys. The humidity and weight of the atmosphere keep down the smoke among the buildings ; and the smoke itself is most villanous in its nature, coming from a soft coal which is burned here, and which is similar to the coal used by our blacksmiths. Dingy seems a little too strong a term ; but dirty is an emphatic lie. London is far ahead of New York in cleanliness ; and, were its buildings of the same cheerful hue as are those of New York, it would be called just what it is, — a marvellously clean city. Its streets are not altogether broad or straight ; but they are well paved. And yet that hardly gives you an idea of their excellent condition. But, when I say well paved, I mean, in this connection, that they are as smooth as a floor, as hard as marble, as free of ruts as the brow of Venus, and as clear of filth as is the character of an honest man. The 22 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. system of sewerage is perfect, or, at least, it works to the satisfaction of everybody ; and that, I take it, is perfection, or a very good substitute for it. In addition, they are well lighted. In the more important thoroughfares a line of lights extends through the middle of the street, with a stone-post-guarded enclosure about each lamp, — a sort of temporary city of refuge for the pedestrian who is fleeing before the impetuosity of the hurrying teams. And then there is a policeman at every important crossing, who stands among the crowding and struggling cabs, 'buses, and drays, like — like (I forget the god's name) among the driving elements, and brings order and females out of chaos with a despatch that is most commendable. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 23 CHAPTER IV. RELATES ENTIRELY TO THE BEAUTY OF ENGLAND. THE glory of England is its country. A grander scene than an English landscape cannot be found from sun- rise to sunset. Its wonderful turf, which is everywhere, its fine variety of hill, plain, and dale, meadow, field, and forest, its broad white roads, its luxuriant foliage, its quaint, com- fortable farmhouses, and its nestling red brick villages, form a picture, that, for loveliness, surpasses any effort of the imagination. The journey by rail from Liverpool to London is through an excellent country, and the traveller with any appreciation of nature and rustic art is charmed and delighted at every mile. The glory of such a scene no pen, unless it is mine, can adequately describe ; and to pass through its beauties, only to be swindled in the end by a red-haired cabman, is one of the saddest episodes in this vale of tears. But the scenery of rural England is seen to the least advantage from a swift railway train. It is like looking into a beautiful kaleidoscope turned by a boy who thinks he hears a band in the street. Every impression is hardly set before it is obliterated by the next, and that immediately smothered by the succeeding, and so on. But from the roof of a stage-coach the panorama is un- rolled before the observer in all its loveliness, new beauties 24 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. unfolding as the old are digested ; and the pure air of the heavens and the fragrance of the fields and woods minister to the body while the mind is being regaled. The railways have killed off the regular coach-lines, but have not rubbed out from the English mind the remem- brance of the comfort and pleasure they afforded ; and so, in the last few years, some of the gentry revived a coach-line from London into the rural districts, one of the points being Dorking, which Dickens made famous in " The Pickwick Papers." Here the " Marquis of Granby " still affords rest and refreshment for man and beast. These coaches, exact patterns of their deceased ances- tors, commence running on the first of May, and continue through the summer. To make the " illusion " the more perfect, they start from that old and famous coach starting-point in Piccadilly, the White Horse Cellar, and bring up at some equally aged and reputable hostelry in the terminal town. And so the first day of May was an active and animated day in Piccadilly. All the reverencers of the stage-coach (and they are many), with scores of all classes, — admirers of that noble animal, the horse, — from the active newsboy up to the aristocratic member of the Four-in-Hand Club, assembled before the ancient White-Horse-Cellar inn a little after nine o'clock that morning. The coaches were to start at ten, and the crowd were determined to be on hand in time. Of Piccadilly you and I have often read. In the pages of history and other kinds of fiction it has figured frequent- ly ; but what sort of a place it was I never knew. In my mind it was associated with a variety of occurrences, whose characteristics I expected were in some sort of way stamped upon it, and by which it might be recognized at a glance. I did expect, or rather had a vague impression, that a sight of the place would recall all the occurrences ever associated ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2$ with it, and bring them out with a vividness the printed page was incapable of doing. Not Piccadilly in particular was to possess this virtue, but all the equally famous places. Piccadilly is a street, of course, a business street, with nothing but its name painted on the corners to indicate what it has been. This was a shock to me, and will be a shock to those familiar with London thoroughfares in con- nection with stirring and important events, but whose eyes have never rested upon their wondrous clean pavements, and rows of dingy houses and glaring shops. The White Horse Cellar (its modem name is Hatchctt's Hotel) is four stories high (very low stories) ; is built of brick (dark, muddy-looking brick) ; has no architectural pre- tensions ; no swinging sign with a white horse prancing on three legs ; no broad archway with a vista of coaches, carts, and smock-frocks ; no fat landlord with a very red nose and a very bald head. The White Horse Cellar has none of these attractions. It is simply a dingy-faced building now ; but once it had all of these features, and was the pride and glory of a score of Tony Wellers. But never in its prime was the White Horse Cellar as busy and bustling and as cheerful as now. The sound of a horn is heard. The crowd sway from side to side ; and through the line thus formed, and up to the door of the happy old house, drove the Tunbridge -Wells coach, with its four fat and sleek steeds gorgeously harnessed, and adorned with flowers, while itself fairly shone with new paint and polished brasses. I knew everybody was excited : I knew it because I was a trifle inflamed myself. It seemed as if I could feel every hair on my head refuse to " sit down in front," while gallons of blood I knew nothing of heretofore rushed through my veins with a pressure that threatened to burst them. A thousand pictures of the happy coaching-days of old crowded my vision, until my head swam to such a degre« that I feared I would drop down in a fit, and be bled by an expensive surgeon. 26 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. But how excited ever}'body was ! and how loud they laughed ! It didn't seem as if they wanted to express any particular ideas, but simply to yell, and get rid of the press- ure. That's the way I felt ; and that's the way they felt, — I know by their looks. Heaven bless them ! I could have cheerfully given anybody a half-sovereign to have stepped on my foot, that I might have screamed. But I rubbed my head for lack of other relief; and then felt of the horses and their harness, and peered into the coach, and up at the wide roomy seats on the roof; and then took hold of the wheels ; and finally got down on my hands and knees, and looked over the bright and running parts ; in which position I narrowly escaped being backed over by the coach itself, and losing some of my legs. Heavens, what an ecstasy it all was ! Then, the passengers who had booked the places having taken their seats, the whip, a fine gentleman in tight-fitting drab clothes, gathered up the reins, the boots gave a flour- ish with the horn, the people shouted (you ought to have heard my yell; but perhaps you did), and the stage and its grand horses shot down the street ; and the crowd closed around the new-comer, the Windsor coach, which, similarly equipped, and loading rapidly, also sounded its horn, and bore away for Windsor Castle and its famous neighborhood. These are the ten-o'clock coaches. An hour passes, and first of the coaches fixed for this time is the Guilford, which is greeted with a cheer as it swings up to the door, and its splendid team champ their bits, and toss their proud heads. I was going on the Guilford, — going down into old Surrey on a three-hours' stretch, with a fine English dinner at the end, and a glorious return-drive after a reviving smoke. I l)ut my thuni])s into tlie arm-holes of my vest, aiid allowed my chest to bulge somewhat. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2/ Any impartial beholder could have told at a glance that I was either going on that coach, or owTied it. I had booked an outside place, the first seat back of the box, and in easy punching distance of the driver. I could almost hear my legs tremble as I climbed up to it. I had hardly got settled, and was only half way through a triumphant glance over the crowd, when the cloths were re- moved from the backs of the impatient steeds. Col. Dick- son gathered up the reins with deliberate ease, neither seeing the people, nor reahzing {apparently) that they were trying to perforate him with their eyes, and ingulf him within their extended mouths. The boots, sparkling with flat brass buttons, sounded the bugle most cheerily, the word was given, and we were away. Down Piccadilly we went at a sharp gait ; the leaders, with their cocked ears and arched necks, running straight ahead to edify the people ; while the heavier wheel-horses brought along the coach. Through the crowd at the Wellington Statue, and into Knightsbridge, we moved along at an exhilarating gait, the people stopping on the walk to admire the gay turnout -and the intelligent appearance of the passengers. Down Brompton Road, and amid its full tide of vehicles, we bowled along without the least abatement of our speed, the horn of the boots clearing the way before us as effectually as if it had been a simoon loaded with vitriol. And so on, on, on, into Fulham Road, by gaping butchers, and admiring bakers, and envious grocers ; the lethargic donkey-carts and gruff 'buses, and insolent cabs, and aristocratic drags, taking the side of the road with alacrity, while we passed through at a sparkling trot, and held on to the rail to keep our breath and senses. By shops and homes, and terraces and garden-walls, and screaming children and smiling parents, we bowled along at the same exhilarating trot ; the clicking of the animals' hoofs on the smooth flint road making a music that filled our souls with delight, and our blood with needles. 28 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. And so on over Putney Bridge, with the lazy Thames rolling beneath, up the hill of Putney High Street, with its pretty cottages and terraced wilderness of flowers, and so out into the country, — the broad, open country of rustic England. And still there is no halting in the lively gait of the gallant beasts ; no break in the steady, even click of their iron hoof on the hard flint. We are out of the crowded thoroughfares now, and be- yond the supervision of the city's vigilant street commis- sioners : but the road is still broad and white, and hard and smooth ; and, wherever it may lead, — over common or across heath, up hill or down dale, by field or by park, — it will still be broad and white, and hard and smooth. What a wonderful road is the English highway, to be sure ! what astonishing prodigality of ground in the midst of an over-crowded territory ! Why, all America, with its thousands of square miles of idle land, cannot boast of an artery like this ; nor, with all its capital and labor, has it yet succeeded in keeping a highway in such perfect order. How broad and smooth it is as it stretches before us ! how even and green is its turf, its marvellous turf, that belts each side of the carriage-way, whose white line cuts through its shining green as straight and sharp as ever the gravelly way cut through the turf of a model garden ! In all the space of its flinty surface, from London down to Guilford town, there is not a rut sufficiently large to hold the purse of Lazarus. We are running across Wimbledon Common now, where her Majesty's troops make a pleasure-day for other people by making an uncomfortable one for themselves, and where there is the line of an ancient intrenchment dating away back in the unhealthy fog of the Roman age. Wimbledon Common is wild grass, gravel-jjits, and yellow blossoming furze, where sheep and bad boys gambol away the i)recious time. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 29 Putney Heath near to has many features in common, excepting that it is heavily dotted with sombre firs instead of bilious furze. How clear and beautiful the air is out here in the country ! We left the smoky and hazy atmosphere when we left the pavement ; and now the sky is blue again, and the air is laden with the odor of lilac, hedge, and meadow-land. Down into old Kingston, and through its ancient market- square, with the carts and people standing and looking as they did centuries ago, undoubtedly, we rattled along, — the bugle's lusty strains clearing the street, and filling the windows, — and drawing rein at the venerable hostlery of the Horn and Bell, in whose archway stood the smiling hostler and the change of horses, the passengers descended, and stretched their legs, while a fresh team were put in, and the jaded beasts trotted up the paved way to the stables. I gazed hungrily at the Horn and Bell. This was some- thing like I had read of, but not quite ; although I imagined I detected in the loungers who were now helping to put in the horses an excellent counterfeit of the loungers who moved to a similar service a hundred years ago. But we were off again in a moment, and the clicking hoofs and musical bugle sounded as before. On the right of us lay the Thames ; beyond, the trees of Hampton Court (that former residence of royalty), and the Park of Bushy, with its wonderful array of chestnut-trees : on the left were the old street-front, its gentry homes, paved lanes and courts, and staring people. Out again into the country we flew, by a gentleman's park, ivy-covered cottage, lodge, and country church. We dipped down into dells, and rose gradual hills, and sped across level ground, with noble trees, and velvety turf, and finely-trimmed hedges, on both sides of us. We passed the plodding don- key-cart and heavily-wheeled farmer-wagon, and the spruce carriage of the land-o\vner, taking a brief glance at each, 30 ENGLAND fROM A BACK-WINDOW. but looking most at the grand scenery and the little quaint houses, with their tiny panes of glass, their red-tile and gray- moss roofs, their green-embowered porches, and paling- enclgsed gardens ; and here and there a long, rambling inn, of white wrinkled walls, and bowing roof, with lattice win- dows, and paved court, and thatched stables, and an array of pewter mugs, whose bright polished sides were dazzling in the sun's rays. On to Cobham we rushed, and up to the front of its hos- tlery, gray with age, and with the moss of centuries clinging to its walls ; and here we changed horses again, and smiled agreeably down into the round eyes of the villagers ; and then we were off again, across Cobham Common, Whistley Heath, by cottage and mansion, park and farm, hedge and brick wall, to Ripley. The moment we struck the paved high street of this ven- erable place, it seemed as if an instantaneous and radical transformation had taken place, and we were put back to the sixteenth century, with the bustle and hurry and new- fangledness of the nineteenth century but the memory of an ill-starred dream. Years and years ago the old inn before which we are now changing horses was famous as a coaching-place. As gayly as trot the new relief through the cobbled way to-day, so trotted horses that have passed to ashes long ago ; and as proudly as step the hostlers to the pole this day, so passed the hostlers whose bones have been so long crumbled into nothing, that no living person remembers the time. There is no change to its walls or its roof, or its halls or passage-ways, and perhaps none in the low-ceiling tap-room, wliosc burnished pewter mugs may have shone as brightly in the eyes of the wearers of knee-breeches and doublets as they do now in the eyes of the rustic owners of smock- frocks, corduroy breeches, and hobnailed shoes, whom we see about us. What a ramblini: old structure it is ! what a ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 3 1 monstrous high roof! what curious gables and quaint win- dows ! what a capacious stable-yard, whose coarse pavement is flecked with moss, and fringed with grass ! what low door- ways ! what curious nooks and crannies are visible every- where ! Can it be possible that London, with nearly four milHons of active and energetic people, is within twenty miles of all this mildew? We rattled out of Ripley as gayly as out of Piccadilly ; and in a moment the quaint, antique, low-browed, white walled houses were out of sight, and in another moment we were again engrossed in admiration of lawn, hedges, red-brick gables, parks, and bright fields of an English landscape. We fairly thundered down High Street . in old Guilford, just as we have read of royalty and highwaymen thundering into the ancient place. I don't know that the pavement is any different from that of other EngUsh towns : but I ex- pected a noise as we came in at the head of the street, and I got it ; we were almost deafened. We went down at a spanking gait, however ; and the bugle sounded as merrily as ever a bugle could sound on a May- day. The owners of the shops, and the pedestrians on the walk, stopped to watch us. The dress of the people was the only difference between this and the arrival of a coach on any week-day in the dim past. Here were the heavy pave- ments, the odd shop- windows, the projecting upper floors, the lattices, the pointed roofs of tile, of two hundred years ago, The sun had changed more in that time than the scene it was now shining upon. I was so full of olden memories, and appreciation and enjoyment, that it seemed as if I should split open, and per- manently cripple innocent people. We drove up to the White Fawn, where we were to have dinner ; and, diving through the eager crowd of good Guil- ford citizens who gathered to look at the London coach, we 32 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. were met by a waiter, and escorted up a broad, crooked staircase, and through a musty passage, to a wainscoted bed- room, where we made a hasty toilet. After that we had a grand dinner before a firej)lace wide enough and high enough for an American hotel clerk to warm liimself by. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 33 CHAPTER V. GIVES MORE DETAILS OF LONDON. WHAT is here called " the city," and what was origi- nally London, is a very small space in the city of to-day. From what I had read of it, I judged it lay in the very geographical heart of the metropolis, and was very difficult of access. My sole fear in coming here was that I might get to a hotel in " the city," and rarely see the outside ; or be lodged outside, and never see "the city." The city is now thoroughly devoted to business purposes ; that is, banks and cigar-stores. It is down by the river, the damp Broadway of London, and is to this metropolis what the City-hall and Wall-street neighborhood is to New York, — a section of ill-defined and invisible limits. The tourist who has but two or three days in London should get a hotel as near to the city as possible ; about Charing Cross, for instance. There are many places in London with which the general reader is acquainted, but which he never saw. It is natural that we should form in our own mind an idea of the geo- graphical and architectural features of the places and scenes and incidents we read about. The impressions are instan- taneous, but vivid, and last through all time, unless we are so fortunate or unfortunate as, to see with the physical eye that they are incoixect, which they rarely fail to be. What was called a road when it really was a road through 34 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. open country several hundred years ago retains its name, although its nature is completely transformed. The same of the lanes. When St. Martin's Church was built, the location was in the open country between the cities of London and West- minster, and it was called St. Martin-in-the- Fields. It is so called now, although hemmed in by crowded streets, with the fields and daisies miles away. St. Giles-in-the-Fields is another well-preserved misnomer. It rears its dingy and smoky front in the somewhat doubtful and oppressive neighborhood of the Seven Dials. The hills are not quite as ambiguous as the fields and lanes ; but Holborn and Ludgate Hills — both familiar names to the reader, and now crowded thoroughfares — are so vague as to require the aid of a policeman to find their as- cent. The lanes and streets are more intricate than the monthly statement of the United-States Treasury. Owing to London being a combination of many parishes, boroughs, and towns, the names which they individually applied to their streets are, in many instances, duplicated ; and the conser\-ative ten- dency of the English has led them to retain them, rather than make the change which the case actually demands. Consequently, we have several High Streets, several Broad Streets, and several of many other names, scattered over the city, and causing the stranger to carry on like a pirate. The confusion is further enhanced by streets with several names to each, and by the process of numbering the houses, which is the most hilarious abandonment of system ever witnessed. A street will begin with one name, drop suddenly into another, flop abruptly into a third, and turn completely over into a fourth, and so on. There is the Strand, for instance. From Charing Cross to Temple Bar it is the Stranil ; beyond the Bar it is Fleet Street; then it becomes Ludgate Hill; then St. Paul's ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 35 Churchyard (cheerful name for a street) ; then Cannon Street ; then Eastcheap (whatever that means) ; and finally Great Tower Street, where its checkered career, like that ,of many a human being, is ended by the Tower of Lon- don. This is the one bright ray in the dark history of that structure. But, in the numbering of its houses, Londoners have achieved the greatest success. You will frequently find the first and last number on a street directly opposite each other. This apparent impossibihty is easily performed by number- ing first on one side of the street, and then back on the other side. Let us suppose a case. You want No. 840 on Great Christopher Street. You find one end of that avenue, look up at the number of the first house, and learn (as you are sure to do nine hundred and ninety-nine times in every thousand searches for the highest number) that it is the first number, — No. i. " Thunder and lightning ! " you ex- claim, and at once put up the street at a lively gait, looking neither to the right nor left, but keeping straight ahead, and thinking only of the fact that you have to pass four hundred and twenty houses before reaching your number. By the time you have gone nearly that distance you are suddenly confronted by a wall of building ahead, and flatter yourself that the journey is at an end. You look up to the nearest door, with the expectation that you are 700 and something, and are amazed to see that you are barely half that, with but a few houses ahead of you. You hurry on with bated breath, searching every door with hysterical eagerness, only to find the expectation of some unravelling of the hideous riddle a baseless fabric. You reach the last house on that side : it is 420. You look across to the oppo- site door: it is 421. To the next: it is 422. You call a policeman, and tell him your trouble. He explains that the number, judging from surroundings, must be at the lower end of the street ; and his information is not exactly like the 36 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-W4ND0W. trickling of cr}'stal waters over mossy rocks, but it is knowl- edge, and knowledge is power ; and you knock your head against a post, and pick up your weary and perspiring legs, and start on again. \\'hen you stand before 840, and find that it is exactly opposite No. i, the language with which you clothe your ideas fits better than it looks. London overflows with courts that seem to commence nowhere, and end somewhere near there. Many of them are so narrow, that people leaning from the opposite windows can clasp hands. It takes a pretty good reach ; but the inhabitants of those places are good on the reach. There are lanes, with a roadway just wide enough to ac- commodate one wagon, with bustling business-places lining each side of the way. These quaint thoroughfares have been in existence for centuries ; but the pavements are as clean as the day they were laid do\\Ti. Londoners, hke all the rest of the English, are fond of titles. If they can't make a display on the front-doors, they do on their envelopes. How many times I have pondered over their complicated addresses, and wondered if the com- ing man would understand them ! We have James Jones, 16 Blood Street, North Court, Pineover Square, Great Mercer Road, E.G. (East Gentral District), London. It is well to mention North Gourt, as there may be other Blood Streets in the city ; and they speak of Pineover Square to show that the special North Gourt in question is not any other of the North Courts. Great Mercer Road is thus men- tioned to protect Pineover Square from being confounded with the Pineover Square elsewhere ; and the whole is clinched by E.G. beyond all i)ossibility of loss in the mazes of W.C, S.E.C., &c. Among other things the stranger notices is the substan- tiality of every thing but the breakHists at the boarding- ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 37 houses. The Englishman is not ostentatious to a degree that is offensive in the matter of adornment ; but he is solid and substantial in whatever he builds. This is first evident in the carriages, cabs, and drays which throng the streets and parks ; unless you are in a crowd, when the first indication of his great body and weight is indicated in his hobnailed shoes. I don't mean to say that every English- man wears hobnailed shoes ; but enough of them do to satisfy and convince you. There are no spider-webbed carriage-wheels here, no gaudy coloring of the boxes, no wafer springs. Every thing is stanch, plain but rich, and awful solid. I would as soon think of being run over by a steam-roller as by one of their one-horse carriages. There are no bug- gies, no Brainards, no phaetons, no coal-boxes, but dog- carts, drags, and coaches. Some Englishmen cannot afford a whole horse : so they do with a pony instead. The wandering and reflective tourist is surprised by the abundance of little ponies which he meets hitched up to carts three times as big as themselves, and drawing around people who will probably die of dropsy. Once in a while you come across something familiar : the one thing in particular is the placarding of dead walls with advertisements. One of my objects in coming to Europe was to get rid of such defamation ; but here it is carried on with all the vehemence a depraved nature is capable of. In this connection it strikes me rather oddly, that while the ad- vertisements in the daily papers are crowded into small space and solid type, like the dreary array of sheriff notices in a territorial paper, those in many of the weeklies are displayed to a degree that is absurd, especially on the titlepage. The name of Tom Hood's paper is " Fun ; " but, to an unimpassioned observer, it looks very much like " Eppes' Cocoa." Men dressed in grotesque rigging of an advertising nature 38 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. are not allowed here to scare horses, and o(Tend fastidious tastes like mine ; but you can see numbers of them parading up and down, with announcement-boards carried in front. They are not allowed on the walks, however, but must con- fine their stroll to the gutters. They are paid fourteen-pence per diem, and rarely lose a day through dyspepsia. There are occasionally buildings to let here, of course. It is not wholly a land of antiquity and hoary frost : there is changing about, I am sorry to say. Moving about town, you come across announcements of rent, leading off in this mild and humble manner : " These commanding premises," "This most noble mansion," "This majestic corner," "These lovely floors," &c. Also there are occasionally new buildings, — the most of them going up on the old plan, just as their forefathers would have done it. When you see a new stone building (when you do, remember), you see something that involuntarily moves you to tears. The stone is of a streaked, yellowish- brown tint, — such a tint as rusting and weeping iron imparts to marble ; and, to a stranger who has a guide-book in every pocket, it is a spectacle that sends the hot blood flying to his head, and makes every nerve tingle. It looks like a building dug out of an ancient peat-bed ; and how often have I seen new Americans leaning up against them and crying, and the policemen hustling them away ! There is plenty of weather in London, but no stoves. The absence of stove-stores is so conspicuous, no one from America can help noticing it. I spoke to an Englishman about it, and volunteered to mingle my tears with his ; but he said, — " No stove-shops? Oh, my, yes ! Plenty of them ; plenty of them. Oh, oh, oh, my ! — oh, my, yes ! Plenty of them ; plenty of them. Oh, yes, indeed ! " That's the way an Englishman talks, especially if he is an Englishwoman. He is very fond of interjections, ami ' ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 39 always gives a rising inflection to the last word of the sentence. The representative Englishman is an altogether different-looking person from the representative American ; but the masses of both sides would blend well in features and dress. But no amount of study and practice will enable an American to talk like an Englishman. There is where an Englishman has the advantage of us, thank Heaven ! But I have seen no stove-stores, nevertheless. At the International Exhibition, in a department devoted with a flourish to stoves, I found two sickly specimens of cook- stoves, but any number of towering ranges and gorgeous fireplaces. Every room in the London house is provided with a fireplace ; also with a hollow sheet-iron guard or fen- der in the front ; also with a pair of ponderous tongs, a long poker, and a long-handled shovel. The last three articles stand up at the sides of the place. I am very particular in mentioning this fact, as it has made a deep impression upon me. A stove is bad enough to manage, especially when there is an obstinate clinker in the grate, and you have got on a pair of tight pants ; but I think a pair of long-legged tongs, with poker and shovel to match, are calculated to drive a man farther into insanity than a stove. I am quite confident I never approach the fireplace with- out knocking down all of these articles. Perhaps it is the poker first, and that trips up the shovel ; and, in trying to save them, I become entangled in the ton^s, and down they come on the sheet-iron surface of the hollow fender, making a crash that is exasperating beyond all power of description. The entertainment is beginning to pall on the taste. The English mind is strongly conservative, and does not take kindly to change, unless it is small change. The young- sters are conspicuous for jackets, broad linen collars, and high hats, just as the youngsters of America were similarly conspicuous twenty-five years ago, and even beyond that time, without doubt. The men dress pretty much as we do. 40 ENGLAND FROM A P.ACK-WIXDOW. with the exception of the head-gear. They wear but two kinds of hats, — the stiff round crown, and the high hat, or " silky." The great variety of soft hats are not known here. In fact, I have seen but one soft hat since I came to Lonilon outside the shop-windows, and but very few there. The " silky " is almost exclusively worn by the better classes and cabmen, and the round crown by the others. There are no caps to speak of. The gentlemen dress in good taste ; but the ladies — Would to Heaven some other pen would make known the humiliating fact, that, in taste in dress, the English woman is far behind her American sister ! Many of the garments worn by the English ladies were the American style a year ago : and I contend most earnestly that a seal-skin cloak with a linen dress, or heavy muff and victorine with a summer silk, are not the acme of good taste ; and yet I have frequently seen these combinations on the fashionable streets and i)romenades. Some of the ladies who occupy the Hyde-park carriages, with liveried coachman and footman on the box, are actually dowdyish in their appearance. The English woman is not as handsome as the American woman. But I do not know as she claims to be. More handsome women can be seen in one evening on Main Street in Danbury than in an entire afternoon on fashionable Regent Street in London. I venture to say you will see ten " country-looking " belles in the boxes of a first-class London theatre, where you will find one in the boxes of a theatre in any American city of fifteen thousand population. The pictures of women to be found in the English illus- trated papers give, you will remember, an expression of lan- guid refinement that I have often admired, and which is so uniform in the prints, that I knew I should recognize an English woman the moment I saw her. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4I No one can imagine how grieved I am to record the fact, that the expression of the ilkistrated woman is a rare excep- tion : the finest-looking women are to be found among the poorer classes. But, of the two, the English woman is far the healthier. Her red cheeks are the gift of nature : they are not store cheeks. And it is not a dead color, like that of the buildings, but a clear, deep color. It is not confined to any one particular class ; but it is the common heritage of all. I can never forget those red cheeks : I shall never want to. The London policeman attracts the attention of the tour- ist at once. He is dressed in a blue uniform, as are ours ; but he is rendered noticeable by a stiff wool body helmet, which he wears in place of a cap or Panama hat. We may laugh at the " rigging ; " but we must respect the efficiency of the force. But few crimes are committed here, as the lean police-records afiirm ; and an execution a year is the aver- age. P.S. — ^The emotional insanity dodge is not practised ; and they convict, do those English juries, where there is a living chance. There are two other uniformed classes which attract the eye. One is the ever-busy shoeblack, in red shirt and band- ed cap, who has always one hand pointed reproachfully at your soiled shoes, and the other applied respectfully to his cap. They are an organization of their own ; and each member has his stand, and pays for it according to its im- portance. The charge for blacking a pair of shoes (no one wears boots here) is one penny, or two cents in our money. I learned these facts from one of the band, whom I in- undated with a couple of pennies for the information. He winked to himself on the receipt. He probably thought I was a second Peabody dropped down upon London by a beneficent Providence. The other uniformed class is the soldiery. With their red coats, and paper-collar box caps resting on one ear, straight 42 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. backs, retiring shoulders, and jaunty cane, necessarily make them conspicuous on all the thoroughfares. Their straight spines are abominable ; and the elaborate parting of their back hair, and swagger, are an ofTence in the eyes of the wayfarer. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 43 CHAPTER VI. GIVES AN OFF-HAND VIEW OF PARLIAMENT. A FEW days ago I made application to a member of the House of Commons for permission to witness a session. I received a prompt answer, requesting me to be in waiting in St. Stephen's lobby at five o'clock that afternoon, where the writer would meet me, and " put me through." He didn't use that phrase exactly ; but that was the substance of his note. Knowing it would not do to trifle with the time of a member of so illustrious a body, I was on hand promptly to the hour, in the central hall, so called, where two policemen guarded the hallway to the House. I explained my errand to one of the officers, and was told I would have to wait there until the member came out, as the House was already in session. I found others in waiting, and new faces constantly arriv- ing. Some effected an immediate entrance ; others were interviewed briefly by members with whom they had made engagements ; and the rest wandered around as I did, and felt of the mouldings. Sir Charles Dilke, the member to whose courtesy I am indebted for the view of the House in session, would be, when he got around, the first knight I had seen. I am not much used to titled personages, my knowledge of them being obtained entirely through prints. 44 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. With the imagination thus left to itself, and being blessed with an imagination that never knew a day's sickness, I very naturally constructed a party worth seeing. Common sense teaches us all that a member of the nobili- ty is but a lump of human clay fashioned on models com- mon to our seeing ; but, unconsciously ignoring the teachings aforesaid, we find our mind imbued with a being who shows traces of nobility in his very step and bearing, whom no density of human crowd could hide from our vision. Am I exaggerating this mental weakness? Let us see. Can you conceive of a bow-legged duke? Or is it pos- sible for you to locate a pimple on the nose of a viscount? And no one, however diseased his imagination, ever pic- tured a baron \vith an ulcerated leg, or conceived of such a monstrous impossibility as a cross-eyed duchess. No, my dear reader, the imperfections of the masses have never been associated with the titled ; and, however radically practical are the teachings of common sense, the ignorant fen'or of the imagination has made the deeper impression. And so I was very soon to see a knight. I was pencilling my name and address, with other infor- mation, on the calf of George the Third's leg, when one of the policemen shouted the name of Sir Charles Dilke. " Now," thought I, " he will come when he hears that." The police- man shouted again. I looked at him very attentively, won- dering where he thought Sir Charles was, — on the roof, or in the crypt. Again he screamed. Then his eyes suddenly lighted on me, and an immediate change came upon his face. "Oh! there you are, are you?" he inquired with some disgust. " Why didn't you answer when I shouted ? "My name ain't Dilke," I indignantly protested. "My name is " — But I was cut short by a well-built gentleman of apparently thirty-five years, with a pleasant expression of countenance, who advanced and made himself known, and asked mc to follow him. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 45 And I followed him by the policeman, and along the hall. This was Sir Charles, a bona fide knight ; and I examined his appearance with engrossing interest. He was a well-built man, as I have said, but ordinary appearing. He might have been a rural lawyer or school- teacher ; but he was a knight. And all the while he was going ahead, and all the while I was following after, I tried to clothe him with a lance and shield and helmet, and fell back from the task exhausted. In the lobby he bade me good-by, and went back into the House ; and I climbed up the stairs, and came out into the galleries, and took my first look at the House of Com- mons in session. It was not, to first appearance, a large apartment. There were galleries at the side, and one at each end. That over the speaker's chair was devoted to shaggy-headed and bald- headed men called reporters. The opposite end-gallery was devoted to the quiet and patient sight-seers. The first glance showed me that the entire place was of polished oak, which gave it a sombre appearance. Then I looked down upon the commoners. They sat in pew-seats, arranged like gallery-seats, in tiers one above the other, from the middle aisle to the wall, on each side. In a heavy oaken box with gorgeous roof, at the upper end of the aisle, sat the speaker, in a fainting condition, apparently, from the enor- mous wig of wool on his head. In front of him, in the aisle, sat three men in gowns and wigs. In front, to the right of him, sat the conservatives, tiered up there in gloomy array. Opposite them were the fiery radicals, similarly tiered. Each man, when occasion requires, can rest himself by bracing his knees against the back of the seat in front, — all but the occupants of the front or lowest seats, who have nothing in front of them. The atmosphere below us was smoky ; and through the hazy canopy appeared the statesmen of educated and 46 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WIXDOW. aristocratic England, with uncovered heads and crossed legs. The smoke, the lounging and careless attitudes of the members, — wearing their hats, and carrying, in a great many instances, their hands in their pockets, — reminded me so forcibly of a Western hotel bar-room, that for an instant I was benumbed, and could merely stare down upon the astounding spectacle, without the faintest attempt to under- stand it. A conservative was speaking upon a bill for regulating registration of deaths. He had a poor voice, a faulty pro- nunciation, and spoke so low, that only an occasional word could be understood in the gallery. I watched the reporters, equally distant from him, and having no earthly interest in the subject, and wondered what sort of a report they would make of his speech ; but they scribbled on as uninterrupt- edly as though they heard what he was saying. The speaker continued to sink down into the capacious folds of his chair, until he threatened to disappear entirely. Some of the members shoved their hands to the- full depth of their trousers' pockets, and, with hat-brims drawn down over their eyes, fell to thinking upon the condition of the country. Others simply crossed their legs, and picked their teeth meditatively. Only one man listened. He was a radical, and occupied the front-seat. His attention was explained when the conser- vative occupying the floor sat down. Then he commenced, talking rapidly, and reading harrowing statistics. Several times during his occupancy of the floor some one among the radicals distinctly said, " Hear, hear." There were other speakers. The light grew dimmer. "Aren't they going to light the gas?" asked my companion. I said nothing : I always do say nothing on such occasions. I think it looks i)rofoun(l. Now there was a radical talking. He was a slim man, ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 47 with hair frosted w'ith age, and a very nervous face and quick voice. The moment he rose, various groanings — hke shouts from a deep sewer, or the rumbhng of a heavy vehicle over a distant bridge — ascended from the conservatives. It was a protest against his taking the time ; a sort of stoi- cal, wooden opposition, as if the makers of it were doing it by the day. Not the least change of position, not the least show of animation, was visible where this rumbhng ascended. The radicals as stoically preserved their lounging as if the success or faiku-e of their fellow was of no moment to them ; and both acted as if the entire debate was a dreary farce, of which they long ago had tired. When I first looked at the pews, and saw that the repre- sentatives of a great nation had no desk to put their feet upon, and spit under, I was sorry fbr them ; but I am not now. This keeping on of hats in the House of Commons was a greater shock to me than it ought to have been, with my experience of the English in assemblage. The English, represented as being burly, suspicious, reti- cent, and stiff, are, on the contrary, a most polite people. I don't know as they are particularly cordial with strangers, and I cannot say that there are not Englishmen who are all that is above complained ; but as a people they are emphati- cally pohte. As a stranger in London, I have had occasion to make many inquiries, and, without a single exception, have received obhging answers. It is an Englishman's habit to look a trifle dissatisfied if he cannot give you the desired information. All the tradespeople invariably say " Thank you," however trifling may be your purchase, or however hurried they may be ; and quite frequently they say something pleasant about the weather. And one has only to see this London weather to understand how difficult it must be to say any thing pleas- ant about it. 48 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. But the Englishman won't take off his hat where he can possibly avoid it. You will see him with it on in the theatre, pubUc galleries, or elsewhere indoors, except at church. To an American, who instinctively takes off his hat in the presence of ladies, the spectacle of gentlemen seated with women, with their hats on, is a disagreeable sensation. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 49 CHAPTER VII. AN ENGLISH MOB. HAVING now seen the Englishman in his more ele- vated phase, I desired to look upon him in a crowd ; and the opportunity was presented in the reception by the city of the Czar of all the Russias. I had heard so much of the English mob, and of its aggressiv^e and offensive nature, that, while I determined to avail myself to the utmost to see all that could be seen, I also determined to be cautious of my person. The line of march for the illustrious guest and his distin- guished company was from Buckingham Palace, through Charing Cross, and through the Strand, Fleet Street, Lud- gate Hill, Cannon Street, to Guild Hall, — the ancient City Hall of London.. If you and I were going to see the lord-mayor, we would proceed there in a cab or omnibus, get him down to the door, and tell him we were glad to see him, leaving him to embellish the proceedings as he saw fit. ' But in this case the visit was a topic of enlivening con- versation for a week before ; and the preparation for the mile or so visit was as ostentatious as if the lord-mayor was on top of a pinnacle in the heart of Africa. Royalty has its drawbacks. Several days before the contemplated parade, many of the shop-windows on streets indicated in the line of march con- 50 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. tained announcements of seats and windows to be let for viewing the procession, I say, 7nany of the shops : I ought to have said, nearly all of them. And not only the shop-windows, stripped of their gor- geous display, were to be for that day devoted to seeing the sights, as if in exchange for the months they had sub- mitted to being the sights, but windows above were also placarded for the market. Sunday being the day before, Saturday was devoted to preparing places for the flags and banners, and seats at the upper windows. Monday morning at da}'light I strolled the whole length of the route. In the Strand, with the street otherwise de- serted, I found n^en sawing and hammering. Wherever available, a platform was erected and rented. Even church- yard gates were placarded with the price of admittance to their sacred precincts " for viewing the royal procession." The shop-windows, which on Saturday night bristled willi gold, precious stones, and the costly products of Eastern looms, were now stripped of their adornings ; and impromptu benches, disguised with green or red paper, were taking their places, giving the thoughtful Englishman an idea of the feel- ings of hie forefathers when Cromwell usurped the royal Stuarts. In our country a holiday is made the occasion of extra attention to the show-windows of the places of business along the route of the procession ; but here it was the re- verse. And yet both have the same object, — gain. None of the business-men of the Strand and Fleet Street appearetl to be too high-toned to rent his window for the accommo- dation of Tom, Dick, and Harry. AVliat astonishment I may have felt at this singular taste in the better class of shopkeepers and business-men was dissipated on inquiring the i)rice of the sittings. Front-seats in some of the windows were valueil at two ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 5 1 guineas a head, or, at the present vakiation of gold in the United States, nearly twelve dollars. If a man had a wife and four children, he might monopolize the entire front of the window during the passing of the procession for the. trifling sum of seventy dollars. In some places the seats were four deep, the price lessening as the rear was gained. The lowest price for a front-seat in a shop-window was one pound (five dollars). In the upper windows the price graded with the floor, — ranging from ten shiUings to one pound for the first floor, six shillings to fifteen shillings for the second floor, and five shillings to ten shillings for the third floor. I didn't inquire any higher than the third. The farther a newspaper man goes in that direction, the less he feels at home. At nine o'clock the people commenced to throng the streets through which royalty was to pass. Fleet Street was almost dazzling with suspended banners and flags. There were several American flags. One of them was graced with fifteen very apoplectic-looking stars ; another, as if frightened by the obesity of the other's con- stellation, appeared without any stars at all, the space in- tended for that portion of cotton astronomy being as blue and blank as the face of a defeated candidate. At eleven o'clock the roadways were covered with grav^el, the sidewalks were packed with people, all public vehicles were ordered from the route, and the side-streets sparkled with roving minstrels, gymnasts. Punch and Judys, and brass bands. At twelve o'clock the crowd had most visibly increased. As far as the eye could see,, on either side, were the dark masses of humanity, almost still now, for the jam was too great to permit of motion ; and the specks floating to and fro up and down the roadway were gathered into the great lump by the efficient police, and the yellow gravelled way shone clear and bricrht in the sun. 52 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. To an American, used to a hot, blustering, and bewildered police, and a hungry, struggling, and offensive " independ- ent " crowd, this throng of intelligent-looking people, stand- ing quietly where they happened to be, and waiting patiently for the time and the procession to pass, the sight was a novel- one ; need I add, most grateful ? At half-past twelve the advance-guard of the procession appeared, — mounted cuirassiers, with shining steel breast- plates and helmets, and dancing plumes, mounted on power- ful horses, and swinging along at a sharp pace. Next to them came several carriages, with coachmen and footmen clothed in cocked hats, and fairly smothered with gold lace. But they were covered carriages ; and the occu- pants, ladies-in-waiting at court, were but imperfectly seen. Next came dashing along another body of moimted sol- diery ; and rolling rapidly along after them were the royal carriages, open, and the occupants in full view. Next to the last carriage was the Princess of ^^'ales, a pleasant-looking lady ; but a host of as well-dressed and superior-looking women may be seen any pleasant afternoon in the carriages of Central Park. Please bear in mind that the a\-erage Eng- lish woman, in court or tenement, is not handsome ; and don't get excited. But about the last carriage centred all the interest ; and it was to this the dense mass of people on the walks and in the windows swung their hats and handkerchiefs. On the front- seat sat the Prince of Wales, heir-apparent to the British throne, and the Emperor of Russia ; on the back-seat were his daughter, and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh. I swallowed the emperor in at one famishing gulp. He was a monarch, and the most mighty in the world ; and it was a great gratification to me to see him in the flesh. But there were some disappointments. He had on pants. This suri)rised me. I don't know why it should ; only that ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 53 I expected he would look different from any one else. Per- haps I would have been more surprised if he had been with- out pants. He also had on coat and vest, and looked every inch like a well-to-do banker rolling leisurely down to the bank in a carriage presented to him the night before by a circle of ad- miring stockholders. That was all there was to it, excepting that the two princes were fine-looking gentlemen, and the emperor's daughter was a pretty-faced girl of an American cast of countenance. It was all over in a minute. Many of the people were so lost in admiration of the gold-laced coachmen and footmen, that they did not recover in time to note the royal person- age. The whole thing was over in a half-minute. All this grav- elling of the road-bed, the monopoly of the police, the hours of patient waiting by the populace, the days of preparation by the shopkeepers, were all for this brief half-minute of glory. How tame and insignificant the whole thing looked ! The man who paid four guineas for himself and wife on a front-seat in a shop-window helped his wife out of the door without much ceremony, and started direct for home, bump- ing up against everybody with inexplicable perversity, and finding that not a single article of his clothing fitted him in any particular. So much for a London mob. 54 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTER VIII. IS M.VINLY DEVOTED TO DESCRIBING HOW TO GET ABOUT LONDON. THERE are three objects of desire to the London visitor. One is the Tower of London ; another is St. Paul's Cathedral ; and the third is Westminster Abbey. There are three other objects he has to see, whether he wants to or not. These are the cabmen, the hotel proprie- tors, and the ser\ants. As it is absolutely necessar)^ to see these last three before he can see the first three, I shall devote this letter to an hon- est, if not flattering, account of them. The first Englishman the traveller meets is a burly and red-faced gentleman, with a big metal plate on his coat (front), containing a number, mounted on the back of a cab, or the front of a hackney-carriage. He will grow familiar with this chap by the time he has been twenty-four hours in London. He will find the race patrolling ever}' back-street, or stand- ing on every important thoroughfare ; and he will come to look upon them i)retty much as a man looks upon a dog who has suddenly and most unexpectedly snapped at his leg. The reader will infer from these few remarks that there is something objectionable in the London cabmen ; and he is right. But, while I am free to condemn the class, I am equally free to credit them with one cardinal virtue : they are not offensively familiar. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 55 They are to be found at the depots ; but they dc not block the way, and scream at you until you are deafened and crazy. They do not mix onions with rum and tobacco, and scorch you with the dreadful simoon. They do not step on you, and jerk you off your feet, and jam your hat over your eyes. They do not pull off your coat and limbs, and distribute your baggage into five different hacks. They are in front of you, but not under you. They are to the right and to the left ; but they open not their mouths. The moment you step out of the cars into any one of the capacious depots in the city, a railway porter asks you if you will have a hack, and if you have luggage. He calls the hack, and, with the assistance of the driver, loads your luggage, loads yourself, closes the door, and touches his hat to you ; and you are off in a jiffy, feeling grateful for the relief and attention ; while the porter stands on the platform, and curses you in the bottomest recesses of his heart for not giving him a sixpence. Such is man when in health. When you reach the hotel, " the cabby," as a hackman is here called, jumps down with alacrity, and, with the assistance of the hotel porter, disembarks your luggage and yourself, charges you three shillings and sixpence, and is off again with an expression of purity on his couiftenance that is irresistible. You have a vague impression of reading on a card inside of the hackney, that any distance of two miles or less is to be charged one shilling ; and you go into the hotel, regretting that you have not time to stand on the curbstone and give full play to your feeKngs. It riiay be said that this system of extortion is common to all hackmen. Granted. But there are features of the London system which aggravate it far beyond the American process, and make it almost unbearable. In the first place, this, until you become acquainted with the omnibus routes, is your only means of transfer about the 56 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. city ; and your helplessness is taken advantage of. Sec- ondly, you are an American, with the impress of your na- tivity so indelibly set upon you, that no hackman fails to take advantage of your ignorance of the ways and customs of the country ; and thus the American citizenship, upon \fhich you have constantly, loudly, and almost offensively prided yourself, becomes a hated object to you. After you have got into the hotel, and cooled down, you find some consolation in the reflection that you were so help- leas, that no hackman could be blamed for taking advantage of you. After this, however, you'd like to see 'em, accompanying the deduction with a movement of the fist indicative of the belief that you never will see them do it again. There are hackneys and cabs : the former are four-wheel- ers, and the latter are two-wheelers. The latter are designed for two occupants. They open in front, giving the rider a full view of the street ahead, while the driver sits on a perch at the back. They are much the pleasanter of the two to ride fn ; but the pleasure is in a measure modified by the discussion, recrimination, and perspiration which invariably follow the settling of the fare. With the four-wheelers one plucking appears to be enough ; and, once away from the de'pots, you are confident to be carried two miles in any direction for a shilling. You take a Hansom (two-wheeler) for a half-mile drive, and throw the driver a shilling. He looks at it in a perplexed and commiserative manner that is beyond all imitation, and asks, — "What's this for?" You patiently explain to him. He says eighteen-pence is the fare. You protest that the distance does not warrant that charge. He is stubborn. You can force him, so the card says, to drive to the nearest police-station for adjudica- tion. But you are a stranger. He may- drive you to the ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 5/ first police-station, and he may drive you over the nearest embankment. You pay him a sixpence more, and curse the government under which he thrives. As long thereafter as you bear the mark of an American, so long will you be subject to the peculative tendencies of the Hansom cab-driver. The shilling goes to his employer ; and the sixpence is laid up by himself for a rainy day. It rains a great deal here. When you have mastered the intricacies of the omnibus lines, travelling about the city becomes a genuine pleasure. The English 'bus system is superior to ours, both as to the comfort of the passengers and the arrimals who draw them. On the box with the driver is accommodation for four persons. Running along the roof are two seats, back to back, reached by ladder on each side of the door. Hgre and inside are sittings for a certain number of people, the number being conspicuously marked on the 'bus ; and, when this complement is made up, no more are taken. Con- sequently there is no trodding of corns, or punches in the chest, by passengers unable to keep their feet. Each 'bus has its conductor ; and the fares, plainly marked inside, are graded with the distance, the lowest being two- pence, and the highest sixpence. The favorite place for the masculines is on top of the 'bus, and the best place is on the box alongside the driver. I know of no better point from which to view the people than the box-seat of one of their 'buses. And the driver is a character in himself. Being naturally of a confiding nature, — although you might not suspect it, looking at him from the walk, — he thaws quickly to the man at his elbow, and will volunteer bits of information, senti- ment, and opinion, with the greatest freedom. He is appar- ently a reckless driver, and so are all the English drivers ; yet, with all my riding about, I saw but one collision, and that, being by a 'bus with a cab, was easily understood. 58 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. Between tlie 'bus-driver and the cabman there is a rancor- ous feeHng of hatred, which is most grateful to all the senses of the traveller who has suffered at the hands of the latter, because the motive-power and wheels of the former are so much greater and heavier, that the utter discomforture of the latter is a sure thing in the event of their coming together. I have sat on the box for an hour at a time, and heard the driver curse the " cabbies," and crowd them out of the way, until it did seem as if my cup of happiness was running over, and drowning people. And then to see the wTath of the cabby as he takes him- self out of the way of the ponderous and unrelenting wheels would make a -dead man laugh, were he not otherwise engaged. I cannot explain why this animosity exists between the two classes ; but it does exist ; and this fact should content us, without desiring to pry into its causes. I use the term " cursing " unadvisedly, perhaps. We un- derstand, by that, profanity ; but the English are not given to "profanity." Whether this is because of there being no stoves here, or because of their religious training, I am not prepared to state. But they do not take the name of their God in vain. It is rarely you hear it done in London, or among the better classes anywhere in England. They are profuse with their " blarsted," and " bloody," and " dom," but nothing more serious. But they have a way of saying tliese, when in a hurry, that rarely fails of scaring the target, especially if that target is a stranger. On the 'bus you will hear such pleasant admonitions as these delivered to people or teams in the way : " Come, now, where are you?" "Whey there, blockhead ! " "Look sharj), cawn't you?" " Don't go to sleej), old man ! " and the like, all pronounced willi a breadth of accent calculated to elec- trify the most stolid. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 59 CHAPTER IX. LIVING IN LONDON. HOW to live while in London is certainly a matter of some moment. The claim, and it is neither rare nor unostentatious, that living is much cheaper in London than in New York, is without a vestige of truth to cover its naked and repulsive form. (Copyright secured.) The European hotel system is much different from the American hotel system, as we all know ; but the difference is not entirely in the way the meals are served. But of that anon. There are four ways of living here, — the British- American hotel, the English inn, the boarding-house, and the lodging. The first-named is American only in the particular of size. Believing that Americans want something vast, Londoners have put up several hotels to meet this want, and there stopped. And so we have ponderous halls, with nothing to sit down upon ; colossal offices filled with baggage, void of settees, and enlivened by an occasional time-table ; and massive sitting-rooms, all pillars and tapestry. There is a place to sleep, and a place to eat, and a place to shut your- self in and smoke, — as if smoking was a penance to be un- dergone in solitude and bitterness, — and that is all. There is no bar (you drink in the smoking-room), no sociable sitting-room, no bustling and cheerful office, no place to lounge about in and chat. In fact, the British- 60 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. American liotel is a huge sepulchre, about whose door there is no life nor animation. The guest has the pleasure of walking in marble halls, and there the entertainment ceases. The clerk of the house is a woman, — a young woman, invariably dressed in black, with black hair and eyes, and a face suggestive of a severe attack of neuralgia. She is the same in one part of London as in the other, in Liverpool as in London ; dresses the same, and looks the same. The singular uniformity makes you uneasy after a while, and fills you with an aching desire to return home. What kind of a way is this, I would like to know, to play ^vith travellers? It is taking a mean advantage of the chiv- akous American nature to have his bills made out, and his wants snubbed, by a person he can't swear at. The genuine English inn, of which there are ver)' few in London, is much superior to the hotel we have just disposed of. Its prime object is comfort ; and while its bill of fare is not exactly what we have been used to, yet the effort of its people to make every thing pleasant and CQnvenient is so apparent, that we feel as much at home as is possible for one to feel in a hotel. The boarding-house is just what a boarding-house is any- where, in one particular, — you pay so much a week for lodgings and meals. If you are away from meals, it is not deducted ; if you are too late for a hot meal, and have a cold one sensed up to you instead, it is charged against you ; if you have coffee or tea at dinner or luncheon, it is charged against you. The " extras " are a sort of electrical battery, which is turned on you every Saturday night, and makes you squirm in spite of yourself. The lodging is a sleeping-room to be obtained in any quarter of the city. The meals are served at the house where your room is, or you can get then^ from some neighboring coffee-room. This is a favorite way of living here, both with the natives and visitors. The coffee or dining rooms are numerous, but not so comfortable as are ours. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 6l The " European plan " as it is understood in America, and tlie " European plan " as it is understood by Europeans themselves, has points of difference that are most frightfully conspicuous. In the English city hotel you go into the coffee-room and give your order for the meal, and then wait until it is cooked. The bill of fare mentions simply the principal dishes attaina- ble ; such as fish, joint, and entire for dinner ; for breakfast, cold or hot meats ; for luncheon, the same as for breakfast. Roast is the acceptable mode of preparing meat here, and you are bombarded with roast beef until you fairly hate to hear the name (this refers more especially to cold roast beef) . Steak, measuring full two inches in thickness, is broiled around the edges very nicely. Fish and cutlets are well cooked. These English are just as conservative in eating as in any thing else they undertake, and look not with friendly eyes upon innovation and variety. Their meals are hearty but plain, the principal ingredients being roast meat and ale or wine. Those who have tried the American bill of fare, with its wonderful variety of dishes, and " all the delicacies of the season," affect to despise it : they speak disdainfully of it as being " a mass of stuff in httle plates," which, eaten or not, is paid for. Ah, heavens ! how I would like an oppor- tunity to personally despise a few of those meals ! If you go into an American restaurant and order a plate of food, it is given you, with vegetable accompaniments, and bread and butter : if you order it at an English restaurant, you get just the specified dish of food, and nothing else. But you will find no difference in the price favorable to the English mode. If you want vegetables, you specify the kind, and get them, and pay for each. If you want butter, that is also furnished you upon a notice to that effect, and promptly charged against you. And both restaurants are conducted on the " European plan." What you order you get, and only that. 62 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, Tlie abniptncss with wliich the supply snaps off close to the demand is sometimes startling. Their loaf-bread has a flavor to it difficult to describe. It is solid, but not heavy ; queer, but not sour. They cut it up into square or three-cornered hunks, and serve it without butter ; in which condition it is the most solemn article of food I ever saw. The trouble with the bread is that it is stale. Fresh bread, they claim, is not fit for the stomach. I learned this by accident. Ordering a plate of bread and butter for tea, the landlady appeared to explain, with many apologies, that she had nothing but fresh bread in the house. Fresh bread ! And so it was stale bread that I had been attacking the citadels of my life with, and driving my brain into chaos in hopeless endeavor to fathom its nature. I told the landlady to bring in a few slices of the fresh article, und we would try to worry it down. I believe we did. When the American leaves his native country to come to England, he leaves pie behind. I have been to some of the print-shops to see if they have any pictures of pies ; but I can find none. They have photographs in profusion of the royal family, and eminent men of Church and State ; but the pie of my native land is forgotten. It is a negative, but not a photog- rapher's negative. On their tables they have tarts, compounded in a way similar to our pies, and baked in deep dishes. And thus they have rhubarb, gooseberry, and apple tarts ; but they are poor substitutes. I see plenty of cake in the bakers' windows ; but I pre- sume it is entirely consumed by private enteqirise, as neither at the hotels nor boarding-houses do I find it on the table. They are wonderfully carefiil of the American digestion. ENGLANn FROM A RACK-WINDOW. 63 But they do have cauhflower ; yes, I am quite sure they have cauhflower. If I am not greatly mistaken, th'ey have it every day. I feel safe in saying that one man will eat, in the course of a year, about four tons of boiled cauliflower. He will do it, unless he gets a pistol and takes the law in his own hands. Living is not cheaper here than it is in the States. Board and lodging at the hotels is about three dollars a day in gold ; at the boarding-house, about twelve dollars a week. In nei- ther of these quotations are the extras included ; and they quite frequently amount to a third of the regular charge. Most people rent rooms for lodging, and take their meals at the restaurant. In a respectable portion of the city a room costs from three to eight dollars a week, and the meals not less than fifty cents each. I don't know but that a single man can " grub around " at about eight or nine dollars a week ; but the cost of taking in his clothes would about balance the saving. 64 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTER X. GOING TO THE DERBY. I SHALL commence this at the beginning, and strive to write it calmly and coherently. If I should let run the enthusiasm I feel, if I should grasp the pencil, with the blood jumping through my veins as it does jump when I think of that glorious event now scarcely twenty-four hours old, there would be no intelligible account of the grand carnival in this letter ; but it woukkbe a mere chaos of black and white, with no form nor comeliness ; a perfect wreck ; a simple newspaper map of the Chicago fire, as it were. The opening of the London season, the coming of the Czar, did not crowd the great city to the same extent as did the day of the Derby. Every hotel was thronged, and every lodging-house full. The visitor who left his hotel accommodation till the day before found himself an unprofitable wanderer of the streets until the sun of Derby day arose. At promptly quarter-past eight o'clock that morning, myself and several friends reported at our booking-place ; and, tak- ing seats on top of a pleasure-van drawn by four good English horses, we drove down through Charing Cross, across Westr minster Bridge, and swung out into the current to the Derby. It was a splendid day. A sharp rain in the night had laid ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 65 the dust, cooled the fever of the earth, and moistened and refreshed every spear of grass, and every root and twig. It was scarcely nine o'clock, and the particular race called the Derby (the foolish people here call it the Dardy) was not to come off until nearly six hours later ; yet the street through which we were passing to Epsom Downs was already alive with traps, and every feeding avenue was contributing to swell the current. And such a current ! There was the gayly-painted pleas- ure 'bus ; the steady-going city 'bus ; the dashing four-in- hand drag, with the passengers all outside, and the richly upholstered inside filled with hampers (baskets) of food for the stomach, and jugs and bottles of food for reflection ; the two-wheeled dog-cart, with four occupants back to back ; the two-wheeled car, like the half of a muskmelon-shell, with its four occupants face to face, and smiling like mad ; the stylish barouche ; the sober hackney-coach ; the impudent and never-to-be-forgiven Hansom, with its Capt. Kidd at the back, and its pair of outraged victims in the front, hold- ing up a basket of victuals, and yelUng like demons ; the steady-going one-horse chaise ; the carriage of the aristocrat, with dumpy, gnarled, and grotesquely-jacketed postilions jumping along with features as immovable as the works of a cheap watch ; the little pony phaeton ; the quaint cart of the costermonger, with the costermonger himself, and the costermonger's wife and the costermonger's children, as boisterous a crowd as is on the street we are now cantering along at a lively pace. There are other traps of different kinds with whose cog- nomens I have no acquaintance, but all looking clean and nice, and none worked up for the occasion, as is the case of our carr>'alls metamorphosed from dirt-wagons, and embel- lised with cheap colored paper. The English gentleman thinks a great deal of his horse, and wants a trap that will bear him proper company. 66 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. We are getting out of the bustle and rattle of the city now, and are bowling along through little brick hamlets, by glorious hedges, brick-walled gardens, and staring but merry people. Everybody knows it is the Derby, the great race day of England, and famous the world over ; and everybody from far and near is going to Epsom Downs, or is here along the roadside, watching the thousands who are more fortunate. We are out on the road now ; and there are two streams of horses and traps pouring toward the race, but not a soli- tary trap coming the other way. We have got the road all to ourselves ; and from the top of our van we can see in both directions a moving black mass, with here and there a white dress or hat, or a colored parasol, to relieve the darkness. Along the roadside are hurrying pedestrians ; and boys who turn somersaults, and disclose the wTong side of their pants, for the trifling sum of a penny from some good- natured party ; and filthy-looking women, with dirty babies in their arms, begging, for the love of God, for a penny to buy food, and swearing like a trooper when the occasion recjuired. Here and there is a weary child, ragged and soiled, curled up on the cool grass, and fast asleep, dreaming of the glory that his little legs have failed to bring him to ; and by him or over him step the walking throng, hesitating not to "chaff" broadcloth and satin, but careful not to disturb the sleep of tired rags. What a grand impulse is this of a hurrying, giddy English throng to guard the slumber of a soiled and tattered waif ! And he thus sleeping, unconscious of the haste, the noise, and the shrill gayety passing about and over him, rests as quietly and retired as if on the roof of Schuyler Colfax's house. Miserable boy ! how can he be so hajjpy under a monarchical form of government? I could not help but think, if he had been on a Yankee ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 6/ road, going to a Yankee race, the case would have assumed a different aspect. Even the recording angel would have some difficulty in accounting for him. The farther we left London behind, the denser became the crowd of vehicles, and the more numerous grew the hampers and jugs. Facetious individuals with false noses and false whiskers attract a torrent of observation ; and every one pass- ing or being passed was screamed at, and screamed back again, until our faces were as red as a country schoolhouse, and our throats too sore to breathe through. Here and there on the way was a public-house, whose pres- ence was made known by the momentary blockading of the road, created by the teams turning up to its door ; and, rat- tling by them, we see all the paraphernalia of a boisterous crowd enjoying itself. Here are several traps unloading; others spreading a lunch, or balancing bottles and jugs ; hostlers sponging the noses of the animals ; postilions run- ning about ; people shouting and laughing their way in and out of the house ; negro minstrels making discordant uproar on inoffensive instruments ; and waiters, drivers, and passen- gers butting into each other, and trying to get in a rage, but ignominiously failing. Pretty soon we came in sight of the railroad, and saw train after train, loaded to its fullest canning capacity, shoot- ing rapidly across the landscape, and on the way to Epsom. It was now noon ; but the people were not tired. Three full hours we had been on the way ; but there was no abate- ment of the spirit or chaffing. Every odd man, every man with two women when he ought to have had but one, every man with no woman, every woman with a sunshade, every woman without a sunshade, ever}'body in general, everybody in particular, was chaffed. It was a day when all England was democratic ; when no man became responsible for his language or actions, as long as he confined them within the bounds of decency. 68 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. To an American unused to such license and have it legal, iniused to such boundless good-nature in a mob and have it universal, the scene was most inspiring. Being an American, I banged my heels into the roof of the 'bus, and laughed like a lunatic. I was laughing like that when we came in sight of the downs, the grand stand, the picketed carriages, the booths, and the bubbling confusion of a great concourse of people. This was the racing-ground at Epsom, — the Downs, so called. From familiarity with a place through notable events con- nected with it, we are apt to ascribe to it features peculiar to the events in question, and which are not common to any other place. Yet, after all, the Derby is but one race of many scores .on a race-track. Epsom Downs is a piece of open country. The greater portion of the track is on the slope of a ridge, which has a similar slope opposite. The track is full a hun- dred feet in breadth, I should think, and is of turf, not in any way distinguishable from any portion of the downs. The racing is in the saddle, and not by driving. There is nothing remarkable about the turf, or the earth under it, or the trees and hedges in the distance. They are just like other turf, other earth, and other trees and hedges seen from a distance. No one, unless mounted on the grand stand, can see the whole track at one view. A ridge in the centre obstructs the view, but affords room for eating-booths and extraordinary side-shows. I am not over here to describe the race, the wagers, the time, or the emotions of the beholders. These are matters the interested are already acquainted with in the daily ixijK'rs. I merely tell what I saw among the people j for that was all new to me, and entertained me. Yet wherever I might go, I could see only a part of the ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 69 track. Shortly after our arrival, a race came off. I was right in front of the grand stand, and flattered myself that I was taking it all in. I had about six square inches of room, and was enjoying myself. Pretty soon there was a cry of " Here they come ! " The crowd, which had up to this instant remained com- paratively quiet, here commenced to agitate ; and, from tr}dng to see the race, I came to having a well-grounded anxiety as to whether I should ever see my childhood's home again. I lost all interest in the race ; in fact, I forgot all about it for a moment, and fell to struggling with the mass to save my Ufe. The more I kicked and pushed and protested, the narrow- er space I was penned into. I began to feel scared. I told several of the people about me, that, if they didn't quit pushing, I would bring them before the highest tribunal in the land ; but it had no visible effect upon them ; although we cannot look into the hearts of men, and tell what they suffer, especially in such a crowd as I was now in. But the race was over in a moment ; and the crowd surged away to the paddocks, leaving me a chance to get out and feel of myself. I lost no time in getting across the course through the line of carriages on the other side, and up the sloping ridge to the amusement and eating vans. In front of these there were not now many people ; and here I could sit on the turf, and shake my fist (figuratively) at the black mass of people opposite, and the white mass of masonry back of them. I imagine racing in England occupies a more elevated position than racing in America. Here among this throng were nobles, priests, and peasants, everybody excited, every- body thoroughly interested. There were other features different from the same scene on American grounds. There was a great deal of loud talk- ing and swindling, and grit in the ham sandwiches ; but there 70 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. were no broils. When one man fell over another, he didn't move away without explaining " what in h — 11 he did that for ; " but he turned around and said, " Beg pardon, sir ; " and the other man said, " All right," and brushed him- self off without any ado. There were impossible feats on the horizontal bar, of course, and wild Indians, and men with one eye in the middle of their valuable heads (which with two good eyes would not be worth any thing), and other monstrosities; but these are common to all countries which are civilized and have reli- gious freedom. But there were other sights which I never saw before, and wliicli interested me by their novelty. The most favorite recreation was the cocoanut game. It consisted of ten to twenty stakes (the number varying according to the capital of the proprietor) held upright in baskets of earth, and sus- taining each a cocoanut. Back of these, as a guard, was stretched a strip of canvas. There were also a number of stakes, about fifteen inches in length, to be thrown at the stakes holding the cocoanuts. A penny entitled the thirster after cocoanut to three of the short stakes. The cocoanuts were placed in a line, with a space of five feet between them. The thrower stood at the front, about thirty feet ofif, and, having spit on his hands, fired away. If he knocked down a stake, and the cocoanut fell outside of the basket, he was entitled to the luxury. I don't know how the proprietor (who stood among tlie stakes, anil reset them as they fell over) mounted those cocoanuts ; but it was rarely that one of them dropped outside the small basket. They went in there with a precision that was highly exas- perating to the thrower, who, however inilifferent he pretend- ed to feel at the commencement of the game, grew deadly in earnest as he saw his chances dwindling. When several people engaged in the i)lay at once at a sin- gle stand, it made lively work for the proprietor down among ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 7 1 the standing and flying stakes. His own cocoanut appeared to be the only one he was in danger of losing. I don't know how it would feel to be struck in the pit of the stomach with one of those stakes ; for, although I had some curiosity to learn, I carefully smothered the feeling. But I imagine, from their weight (about two pounds), that a man running against one with his abdomen would have a very large and respectable funeral, although he might not get around in time to attend it himself. I have said there was a canvas guard up to prevent the stakes from flying too far, or hitting imiocent people. Once in a while a stake hurled by some vehement admirer of cocoa- nuts would go over the canvas, and alight among people who never pretended not to feel surprised by the occurrence. One man kept at the sport until he won five cocoanuts. I am thankful to this hour that I did not have to sleep with him that night. Some of the proprietors used sawdust cushions and cheap dolls in place of the nuts. Once in a while some lady would try her hand at throwing the clubs. When she commenced, every married man left the neighborhood with precipitation. The others remained until they got flattened out with a wipe along the jaw ; wlifcn they jumped up, and left too. One lady in throwing a stake struck an aunt by marriage, and broke in two of her teeth. The aunt was standing in rear of her, and, having got a tent between both, thought she was comparatively secure. It only teaches us how mutable are the things of this earth. I don't suppose the people on the grand stand were really safe at the time. There was the game of skillets, a sort of clumsy ninepins, the pins being knocked over by a huge flat circular block of lignumvitae thrown by a person standing off some eight or ten feet. The platforms used were of coarse boards ; and, when the 72 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. pins came down among them, a stranger with his back to the afTair was easily pardoned for jumping straight up in the air without premeditation. There were all sorts of people about me, and most all Eng- lish. There were men with heavy top-boots, and others with leggings, and others in full suits of velveteen, and others with knee-breeches, and many in corduroy, and a few with flaming red vests reaching down to their hips, I didn't hear the uproarious bluster in the betting, char- acteristic of the few American races a kind Providence has permitted me to attend. The excitement of the men in the wagering was of that intense kind that permitted of but little nt)isy escape. But enormous sums were exchanged in a very quiet way ; and the losers didn't make any complaint, al- though they sought to exert no control over their lower jaws. I was standing on this central ridge I speak of, and oppo- site the grand stand and its thronged wings, when the Derby race took place. I saw the horses go around to take the position (for they do not start from the grand stand, and make the circuit of the course in a heat, but take position back, and make but three-quarters of the course, and wind up at the grand stand) ; and knowing it to be the Derby, the famous Derby, I watched the proceedings intently. Away up the course, on each side, was a mass of speckled black and gray, which were the people. The course could not be seen for the mullitude ; for they thronged every space. Then the police, the wonderfully cfificient London police, swooi)ed down upon the occupiers of the course ; and, in a very few moments, not a single human foot pressed its soft turf. It was free, and shone up among the dense mass of I)eople like an emerald band around the neck of a mortified individual. A rather pretty simile, I take it. All of us strained our eyes to the long sweep of course visible to us. Every breath seemed to be held in abeyance ; aud for a full moment there waa a dead silence, where but ENGLAND FROM A liACK-WINDOW, 73 an instant before was a Babel of voices. Then came the cry of " There they come ! " And, sure enough, there they came around the turn, — the fleet horses, with their monkeyish attired jockeys on their backs, just as you have seen it in the pubHc prints a score of times. The tails of the animals stuck straight out, and they tore down that course as if some cruel devil had been fooling around them with lighted camphene. We could see them bound over the greensward between the lines of the massed humanity, and hear the shouts of the people as the red shirt, and blue shirt, and white shirt, and yellow shirt whizzed past. Then they reached the grand stand ; and the black and gray multitude surged like a stormy sea into the course again, and moved irresistibly up to that point. The great Derby was over ; the event of the year had gone to be numbered with the past ; and thousands of pounds were lost and won, and thousands of expectations realized and blasted. And, after that, the enormous throng of people, with their twenty thousand vehicles, began to look about for the home- start ; and from that time until near midnight the huge army was in motion. Many hundreds of people had come to Epsom by the cars to-day who had previously gone by road. On this day there can be no class distinctions in the trains, — the greasy and dirty and profane crowd in with the clean, the upright, and the decent ; but the dust of the road is so blinding and strangulating, that many run the risk of indecent language and putrefied breaths to get rid of the dust. But it had rained the night before, and the road out was as free of dust as the kitchen of a New-England farmhouse ; yet many of the gentlemen taking the road had provided green veils, which were idly twisted about their black and white hats, and added a picturesque effect to the scene. 74 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. If the drive out was a season of gayety, the drive in was a grand carnival. The frolic now became more definitely boisterous. Each of the drags, and many of the omnibuses, were provided with bugles. Scores of men had taken on false noses and whiskers, or adorned themselves with little wooden dolls of pliable limbs, which they worked in all directions, according as their taste suggested, or the occasion seemed to demand. These dolls were stuck in their hat-bands, pinned to their breasts, or held in the hand. I do not doubt that tliere were at least five thousand of them on the line homewards. It is an odd conceit ; but crowds are given to odd conceits. There was also another feature of the procession which was not quite so harmless as that of the dolls. It was the pea-shooters with which the outside passengers had provided themselves, and busily used on passing fellows, to the great danger of their eyesight. We finally got away from the grounds, and took our place as a particle in the mass which was rapidly melting off, and escaping through the channel of the highway to London. The road was thronged, frequently blocked, and at no time passable at a greater speed than a walk. But the chafiing, and flying peas, and convulsi\e dolls con- tinued without abatement. We branched off to another road for relief, but succeeded only in reaching another and equally strong current of leatiier, flesh, and wood ; and, jumping into it at the first opening, our gayly-colorcd van was swept along with the current. What a jolly, rollicking crowd was that ! How they huz- zaed and sang and laughed, and chafled their neighbors and villagers, and sounded their bugles ! Every one of the numerous villages of brie k and cobble we passed through contributed its enthusiastic witnesses to the jiageant ; and, as we rolled through the i)aveil and narrow high street, we were saluted from every door and window, ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW, 75 and saluted in return with a vigor that showed there was nothing small about us. Old men in the procession whooped with the rest. Mid- dle-aged and fleshy women, resting back in their seats, shook sandwiches and vegetables at their turbulent fellows ; while others, mounting their handkerchiefs on their sticks, swung them to the breeze, or waved wine-bottles and wine-glasses above their heads. Men, women, and children, in the carriage, on the walk, or in the window, threw kisses, winks, amorous glances, and rather broad innuendoes, at each other, with a freedom that was appalling to a stranger. Some of the ladies looking over garden-walls or from lattice windows did not seem to appreciate the delicate attentions spooney young men were levelling at them from the top of the passing 'buses and drags ; but others answered back as cordially as was sent to them. Here and there on the green turf, by the roadside, a family had drawn up their trap, and, with a white cloth be- fore them, had spread out a tempting meal, and were doing ample justice to it, cutting, chewing, drinking, and shout- ing in one breath. Here, in a garden to a public-house, in front of which were a stamping and noisy crowd of men and horses, were long tables hastily set, with scores of our fellow-travellers taking tea, ale, wine, and sandwiches as coolly and as calmly as if the road, which a hedge separated from them, was not trembling beneath the weight of an uproarious Derby crowd. It was nine o'clock, and still daylight, and we were three hours on the road ; but yet we had not come into London. All about were broad green fields, acres of smooth turf and beautiful park, hedges and gardens, blossoms and scents, cottage and hall. The roar of the multitude grew in magnitude. Imagine a hundred and fifty thousand people bent on having fun, and ^6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. hurting nobody, let loose through two noble highways, and you get an idea of the society I found myself in. It was such a good-natured throng, and so susceptible to sensation ! It laughed at a hedge, screamed at a tree, shouted at a cloud, and roared at a breeze. We came into the suburbs of London like a victorious army encumbered with spoils. The crowds on the walks grew denser as we progressed, until it did seem as if another universe had turned out to meet us. The chaffing grew fearfully thick at this stage ; and little boys, with each a pound of flour held together by the feeble offices of a paper bag, stole surreptitiously alongside of our vans and cars, and donated us the parcels with a heartiness that spoke well for theu- generosity, but wore on the paper. The party on our van looked like a crowd of indignant mill- ers trying to cUmb a fence. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. // CHAPTER XL STREET-SCENES. IT is only of such sights as may be obtained from the top of an omnibus that I speak. These are common to the eye of every pedestrian, and are the contrasts to his own city which most directly appeal to him. If I should go down into the depths of woe in this great city, I am afraid there is not paper enough in Paternoster Row to give the details of the poverty, crime, and habits of the denizens. To tell the truth, the more I go about Lon- don, the more painfully am I impressed with the impossibility of seeing all of it, or even half of it. I wish I could be certain of seeing one-third of it during my sojourn of six weeks. And yet there are Americans by the thousand who remain in London scarcely one week, and hasten on to Paris to stay a month. The streets of London do not claim attention by their breadth, straightness, or comeliness of buildings ; but the life and animation characterizing them from nine o'clock a.m. to twelve o'clock p.m. attract, and quite frequently fascinate, the stranger. London is inade up of Enghshmen, Americans, and for- eigners ; and the last-named are so scarce as to be immedi- ately noticeable. You do not see here an English builder with German workmen and Irish servants. The merchants, the manufac- 78 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Uncrs, and the business-men generally, are English ; their clerks and workmen are English ; the coachmen are English ; the porters are English ; the servant-girls are EInglish ; the newsboys and bootblacks, and gamins generally, are English. Wherever you turn, you see English, English, English. It is an imposing spectacle. Broad jaws, sloping shoulders, red cheeks, flaxen hair, side- whiskers, gaiters, round sack-coats, stiff hats, canes, umbrel- las, and eye-glasses, — all English. There is the large Eng- lishman just coming along in a suit of check-goods, with broad chest, swelling stomach, fat cheeks delicately checked with red veins. The stick he carries in his hand is stanch enough to knock down a horse. I was going to say a bul- lock, only I recollect having seen a man at a cattle-market knock down bullock after bullock with simply the index-fin- ger of his right hand : so I say horse advisedly. He uses that stick too, and you can distinctly see every time he places it down on the pavement. He wears a high hat. Right behind him is a thin young man in plaid suit, with a round-top hat, a light flaxen mustache, blue eyes, a scarce- ly defined line of hair on each cheek. He has a cane also, but carefully guards against striking the pavement with it. He wears a prominent pose. And next to him is a pair of very flowing side-whiskers, a suit of black with white vest and enormous seals, blue eyes, red clieeks, and a stick grasped in the middle, and carried at an angle of forty-five or less degrees. Then there is the oldish man, with very little whiskers any way, in rusty black, with a silk hat that seems to have just come from beating a score of boys out of a yard. He has a forelock combed to the front ; has watery eyes, and a nose that requires a great deal of attention, but is neglected, I fear. Then, too, tliore is the clerk, in a suit of black, witli white tie, a thin body, thinner legs, no beard, and a high hat. I ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 79 don't understand him ; for he is not distinctively English. I think I have seen him before. About these are men in caps, heavy white aprons, and loose sack-coats, who are either porters or mechanics. And among them all is the London boy. I never get tired of studying the London boy. There is so much of him ! — not individually, but collectively. Individually he is slim, with generally a white, unhealthy face, spindling legs, and rather narrow back of the head. He wears pants tight to his shrinking shanks, and a cap that makes him look like an orphan boarding with a maiden aunt, who, early in life, met with a disappointment. He is a poor boy, without doubt, always on the street, and always in the way. I never saw such a boy in any other city. He is not quarrelsome, not saucy, not addicted to smoking ; and I never heard one of them swear, even under the most favorable circumstances. To tell the truth, I never heard them say much of any thing. He is a helpless youth, addicted to store-windows, rubbing against buildings, and toppling over obstructions. He has a dreadful tendency to be always backing up against some- thing, and always missing it, to the detriment of his bones. Only they do not fall with sufficient force to break a bone. I have seen one of them slide from the side of a lamp-post, turn a part somersault, recover himself, hit up against the post again, slip off the curb, and gradually get down on his back in the gutter, taking in all some dozen seconds to do it ; while an American boy would go down, and stave a hole in the back of his head, and make a doctor's bill of eighteen dollars, in less than a second. But the English are so conservative ! We don't see such quaint-looking characters at home as we do here. The oddities of the several nations are so blended in America as to be materially dulled; but here, where there are no new and diverse elements coming in and uniting with the native, the quaint is well defined and well preserved. 80 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDO\y. I have always thought that Dickens and Cruikshank were fearful exaggerators ; but I have met with a revulsion of feeling. But whatever that is odd, in figure, dress, or speech, to a visitor, seems to be all right to the people here, sacredly as they are devoted to chaffing. Into a restaurant the other day came a man who was a mar- vel of angles and antiquity. He was over six feet in height, but would not weigh a hundred and twent)^-five pounds. His clothing was black, and most wonderfully ill-fitting. He wore a black stock, over which his sharp chin dangled in a desponding manner. There were black cotton gloves on his wonderfully long hands ; and he carried them as if they were full to the brim with precious liquids. His was a large mouth, of the shape of a letter-box aper- ture ; and his very red and very prominent gums shone con- spicuously through. He had a large nose, of the color of the gums ; large, watery eyes. His hair was a light brown, rather thin, and plastered down to his head, his cheeks, and his neck. A rusty-looking black hat with an enomious crape band completed the spectacle. He was a clergyman, with- out doubt ; and a dissenter, perhaps. Remembering that a graveyard was near, I moved about uneasily ; but the attend- ants and guests took no particular notice of him. He bought a penny bun, asking the price in a sepulchral voice ; and stood in the middle of the floor, and ground away at the insignificant bread as if he were a grist-mill, with a half-ton of com in its clutch. The photograph windows are objects of great interest here as elsewhere ; but it is noticeable how fond the English are of viewing the pictures of royalty. Wherever they are exposed, there is sure to be a knot of intense admirers. I think they attract even more attention than the pictures of bare-legged actresses ; and would say so, if I were sure of being believed. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINnOW. 8 1 I suppose every one of us who come here has an un- quenchable longing to look with our own eyes upon a mem- ber of the royal family. It is not to admire them that we have this desire ; but we want to abhor them. I think that is the feeling. I made many an effort to get at the royal family, that I might abhor them, before success cro\vned my attempts. I have gone twenty miles to abhor a single mem- ber of the Queen's household. There are but few advantages to the many drawbacks of being royal. A royal person in business has the advantage, when travelling, of not having to look up a hotel, on arriving at his destination, under the torturing supervision of a har- dened cabman. That is about the only advantage I can detect. But to offset this is a multitude of disadvantages, and it takes a multitude to do it. The Queen goes nowhere really. She is the ruler of all Britain ; but I wager there are hundreds of streets in her own city of London which she never saw. How often she has heard of Cheapside, and wondered how it looked ! How much she has read of the gayety of the watering-places, and sighed for just one glimpse ! How frequently she has been told of the excitement of the Derby road, the exhilaration of a ride on the top of a stage- coach, the fascination of legerdemain, the glory of the ballet, the comfort of old inns, the rustic beauty of England's farmhouses, the glitter and charm of the lighted shops, the wonders of the underground railways, the delight of a soda- water fountain in full blast, and many, many other things which the commonest subject enjoys, but which she is eternally shut out from ! She has her palace and her walled-in gardens ; and, stand- ing there, she can say to the people of London, " Here you cannot come." But they, with their miles of streets, and multitude of glories, can jaw back to their Queen, "Here you can't come ! " I never go by those walled gardens, but I think that there 82 EXOLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. are just as envious eyes on one side of tlie masonry as on the other. She can walk there as much as she Ukes, and by herself: but there is no swapping gossip and preserve-recipes over the gate with the woman in the next house ; nor a run out in the afternoon to see Mrs. Jones's shawl, and to show her own. What does she know of neighborly comforts ? What does she know of the exquisite enjoyment of badgering a shopkeeper into lunacy over a paper of hairpins, or of the subtle excitement of hoarding up old rags to exchange for new tin ? However, I was going to speak of royalty photographed ; and to show that the same longings for what we have not got, rather than the enjoyment of what we possess, is com- mon to us all, royal or ragged, we need but to look at these photographs. Now, when were these pictures taken ? who took them ? and how came they in the market? Did the Queen and the other royal members go to the galleries of the men whose imprints are on the cards ? Certainly not. Why not ? Because no photograph-gallery on the face of the earth is built large enough to accommodate them. Imagine the Queen going up two pairs of narrow stairs in quest of a pho- tograph-gallery, with four and twenty nobleman in advance, and a half-dozen knights in advance of them, and fourteen squires ahead of the knights, and then, back of her, twelve waiting-women with skirts four yards long, with four bishops back of them, the lord-mayor back of the bishops, all the foreign ambassadors back of the lord-mayor, a couple scores of dij)lomates and soldiers back of the ambassadors, a large assortment of knights and lords back of them, and the high ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 83 sheriff of London bringing up the rear in red cloth and gold lace ! What photographer could stand that ? And, if any photog- rapher could, his stairs and room couldn't. A nice specta- cle it would be, wouldn't it, with the lord-mayor sitting on a spittoon, and each ambassador on a bottle of chemicals ! Imagine the Queen sailing around with that throng in quest of a paper of hairpins ! And that is just the way the wretched woman would have to move, if she moved outside at all. But to come back to those pictures again. We don't know where they were taken, or by whom they were taken ; and so we solve that difficulty by giving it up. But how came they in the market? There is no other way than with the consent of the parties themselves to the artist to make copies. Here we have the gentlemen in sitting posture, for the gratification of their friends ; in standing and leaning posture, by the side of a pillar, or in the midst of a field (there is no scenery quite so striking as that made by a photographer), for the gratification of their vanity and the paying public. Then we have the ladies in sitting posture, becomingly at- tired, for the gratification of their friends ; and in reclining postures, ^vith the bosom in part bared, for the gratification of those voluptuously inclined. Whether photography or perverted royalty should bear the condemnation of this last, let some one tell. The ladies are so modest-looking, and so modest in speech, that I am inclined myself to believe that an unscru- pulous photographer has been fooling with, royalty's head and a flash actress's body. They say the royal sons are passionately devoted to num- ber one. \Mien one of them presides over an event, — such as breaking ground for some important enterprise, or laying 84 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. the comer-Stone of a public building, — he is given a silver si)ade or trowel to do the work. This trophy belongs to him by right of the performance of duty. But he does not have it sent around to the house after the ceremony : he shoves it into his pocket at once. A wide-awake active prince, with a pleasant exterior, picks up many a penny in this way, and thus keeps the wolf from the door. From the top of the omnibus we frequently pass low arch- ways, up which we catch a glimpse of business that aston- ishes. They are the business lanes or courts of London. The width is generally eight feet, sometimes a little more, and sometimes a trifle less, I am sorry to say. They are paved with flagging, and you enter and leave them through an arch. In this narrow, choked way are public-houses, book-shops, chemists' shops, and even dry-goods shops ; not dingy wholesale places, but bright, showy retail shops. They were probably let into the sides of the buildings which form the lane centuries ago, before people became progressive, and desired to spread ; and they are too valuable now to close up. There are a score-'of such lanes in the city limits, — the old city, I mean. And then there are little courts of no pre- tension, which seem to sneak along between two buildings, and suddenly disappear in the yawning door of a public- house ; but, on approaching the do6r, you see a narrow way to the right or left, a sort of forgotten entrance to a back- yard, and, pushing through it, — two cannot pass it at once, — you arc in a bustling street or court devoted to business or residences. The immense house of Routledge & Sons, the well-known publishers, is in just such a court. We occasionally meet a man pushing a cart before him, and keeping well in the gutter. He has a pile of sorry-look- ing meat before him. Once in a while he stops ; and a boy or girl comes to the cart, gets a piece of the meat, pays him ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 85 a penny or so for it, and retires, and he goes on. I was watching him the other day, when I observed him draw up before a cat standing on the walk. I heard him say, "Well, Kitty, is that >x)u?" and then cut off a piece of meat. He held down his unoccupied hand, and the cat dropped a penny into it. This freed her mouth, and enabled her to take the meat which he now passed her. Then he said, " Good-by, Kitty," and trundled away ; and the cat stepped into the opposite store. I have frequently seen dogs come out to trade with this cat-and-dog-meat merchant ; but I never knew one of them to bicker about the price. What a lesson this is to humanity ! Sitting on the top of the omnibus, we find there are sev- eral popular institutions missing. We don't see any street shade- trees, rarely a hitching-post, still more rarely a street- sweeper, and no milkman's rattling cart and cheery bell. The milkmen here are called cow-keepers. That is a pretty name ; but they don't keep cows, which rather dims the lustre of their escutcheon (whatever that is). They get their milk, as we do ours, from outsiders, and carry it around in two cans suspended from a yoke carried over the shoul- der. That doesn't look as pretty as our four-wheeled, gau- dily-painted affairs ; but it suits Londoners^ as it doesn't deprive them of sleep, and it gives the carrier an expression of thoughtfulness (especially when the cans are full) that is quite captivating. Londoners don't seem to like noises. They have nothing but the clocks to apprise them of the working and knocking- off hour; no nice cast-iron bell in a cupola, rung by a bullet-headed youth ; no nice whistle on the top of a mill. They don't like such things, these Londoners don't. But they have chimes, — forty of them within the space of a quar- ter of a mile, — that not only ring out the hour in a strain that S6 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDnW. drives you mad, but sound every blessed quarter in the same manner. You don't much mind them through the day, when the carts and wagons take off the edge ; but when in the stilly night you are on your couch, dreaming that an angel is bending over you with a harp in one hand, and a post-office appointment in the other, it attracts your attention, and seems to disturb the angel. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 8/ CHAPTER XII. IN THE MILDEW. LONDON has several world-known churches. St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the Temple Church, and St. Bartholomew the Greater, are prominent in the num- ber. Four-fifths of the noted men of the past with whom the American people are acquainted lie buried in London, and within a radius of ten miles. Their ashes are glorified on tablets of stone, and still flourish in the neighboring vegeta- tion. As a theatre and sepulchre, Westminster Abbey and the Temple Church are the most prominent ; but, as a landscape view, St. Paul's Cathedral is the most conspicuous. I should like to say that its majestic dome with glowing ball of gold is the first indication to the traveller of his approach to the wonderful city ; but truth compels me to wTite that it is a man in blue, who demands your ticket. St. Paul's is hemmed in by narrow streets, and dingy build- ings devoted to commerce. It stands at the head of the crowded thoroughfare called Ludgate Hill, where it divides the stream of life, which meets again at the other side, and forms Cheapside, The diversions are called St. Paul's Churchyard ; the one on the right or river side being de- voted to the wholesale trade, while the other is given up to hosiery, dry-goods, and fried tripe. ^ 88 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. The building itself is an elaborate example of what Lon- don smoke will do. It was built of a whitish stone, and, when erected, must have presented a very fine appearance. But the two hundred years which have intervened since that time have worked a wonderful transformation. The sides of the pillars and other prominences exposed to the steadiest wind-quarter are blackened. The surfaces generally are alternately black and grayish white ; and the appearance now is as if it were a dark building emerging from a coating of frost, the blackened portions first receiving the rays of the sun. In the cool of early morning this impression is so strong as to involuntarily startle the beholder. The presence of stone is imposing. Your feet rest upon it, without a bright-tinted, pliable carpet to inter\-ene. You stretch out your hands, and you grasp it ; you lift up your eyes and contemplate it. Every thing about the altar, choir, and pulpit, is rich with color, and massive in conception. In painful contrast are the places of the worshippers. Their sittings are beneath the dome, and extending away back through the nave to the front-entrance. At the front the seats are straight-backed and hard-bottomed chairs. Back of these are long wooden benches, of repulsive simpli- city. The only advantage of these benches is brought out during an especially interesting service, when the humble worshipper can use them to elevate himself above those who do not care to make themselves so conspicuous. These benches are seamed and scarred with the knife of the autographic fiend. The bases of the pillars are in many cases similarly blasted. About on the walls are notices prohibiting people from walking about during the service. In an .\mcrican meeting- house no such notice is ever seen. There, when the sen-ice commences, no one think* of strolling about the church ; for every American meeting-house has a deacon fifty-eight years ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 89 old, with steel-blue eyes, and a beard like a currycomb, alongside of whom the famed Spanish Inquisition tones down to a circus-performance. The bearing of the Englishman in his church is most respectful. They are a deeply religious people, and in all outward forms are not lacking. The Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and all others not of the Church of Eng- land, are here called dissenters ; and their places of worship are not kno^vn as churches, but simply chapels. They are not consecrated to God with the forms of the Established Church, and are, in consequence, not considered as being strictly holy temples. The dissenters themselves further this custom of title by always speaking of their temples as chapels. They do not say "going to church," but "going to chapel." The Englishman, on going into his church, takes off his hat ; and everybody who accompanies him is obliged to do the same. No one is allowed in their churches at any time, during service or of a week-day, with his head covered. I have seen the sexton of a country church, at work in the churchyard, have occasion to enter the door several times within an hour ; and on each occasion he removed his hat. The Englishman who is a dissenter is not so particular in his chapel when there is no service. I have been to several services at St. Paul's, and on each occasion found policemen in attendance, — in an official capacity, of course. It was a novel sight. There was also a certain degree of novelty in seeing a congregation waving to and fro, coming in and going out during the service, always in motion, always animated, always pleasant and cheerful ; and then to step out of the church, and find the walks alive with smiling people, and the omnibuses and cabs thunder- ing over the pavement as if it were a Monday morning or a Saturday evening ; and later still, as twilight came, to find the saloons in a blaze of light, and men, women, and chil- dren in Sunday toggery going in and coming out. 90 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Ah ! brazen-foced men, and impudent women, and har- dened youth, why do you come and go at the front of the saloon? Is there no back-door in England? Is it all in America ? Forgive the digression. We have looked at the bass-reliefs, stared at the paintings in the summit of the dome (representing, with poor light, scenes in Scripture history), taken in the vista, and had a wondering gaze over the inner mass of theological masonry, so different from our warm-tinted churches at home ; and now we open on the finance. There are a number of ver- gers within these pious walls, who, upon the payment of admission, conduct the visitor into the crypt, and up the winding staircase of cold and gloomy stone to the whisper- ing-gallery, bell-tower, and ball. It is a sixpence to go down into the crj'pt. And it is cheap. I never before got so much gloom and woe for a sixpence. It is a flagged floor and many low arches, lighted by gas-jets ; for it is always on exhibition, is this sacred place of the dead. They lie all about here. Under nearly every bit of flagging are one or more bodies, as the inscriptions on it tell. Then we pass to an inner crypt, and stand before the sar- coi)hagus containing the remains of Wellington. The ver- ger taps a particular block of stone in the side, and monoto- nously explains that there lies all that is mortal of the man who " basted " Napoleon. One is deeply aflected. Beyond is the hearse, whose ponderous wheels were made of the cannon his noble army captured from the French. Over it is the gorgeous black velvet pall which covered it as it proceeded on its mournful mission through the streets of London. Its tinsel is faded ; and the moths are picnicking within its sombre folds, as if there was not an ounce of camphor within sixteen thousand miles of the spot. I don't mind moths much myself; but my wife always goes for one when she sees it. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 9I Farther beyond is the sarcophagus of Nelson, the famous naval hero, and one of the noblest of England's best. A feeling of sadness came over me : it always does when stand- ing before any sarcophagus. The most ostentatious whipping I ever got was for spelling the second syllable with a ff. We afterward ascended a staircase of solid stone to the first corridor in the dome, which is called the whispering- gallery, from the fact, that while it is almost impossible to make one hear in hallooing across the space, yet, by putting the face to the wall, an ordinary tone of voice will go way around the vast space, and appear to be in the wall behind the listener wherever he may stand. It is not patented, I believe. From the whispering-gallery we go straight to the tower, which was on our right as we entered the church. This is the bell-tower. The other is in a state of chronic scaffold- ing. We approach the bell by a series of stone steps start- ing from the wall, and sustained only by themselves. There is no newel-post : each step depends for position on the rest in the wall, and on each other. The verger tells you it is just as secure as the earth \ but you can't help preferring the earth as you wind up, and think of your business. I walked up stairs for about four miles ; then I stopped to reflect. I believe there are other things to live for ; and so I retraced my way, and for a fortnight after felt as if my tihghs were stuffed with lead. We pass down Ludgate Street, under the bridge of the Dover and Chatham Railway, and are in the Fleet. Passing through its crowd for a way, we come to what is called Temple Bar, which now divides Fleet Street from the Strand, but which was once the city gate on the road to Westminster. When the Queen goes to the city, she passes through this gate, the keys of which are given her in token that the city is surrendered to her ; or some other tomfoolery to the same effect. 92 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. It is a gateway without tlie supporting walls. There is the main gate, always choked with teams, and the smaller side-arches, used by pedestrians. There are windows above the arches, and two effigies of stone in the costume of seven hundred years ago. From this gateway, many centuries ago, were suspended on poles the heads of those who sacrificed themselves to the fury of the reigning parties. A head thus exposed for a couple of weeks became so damaged by the action of the weather is to rarely be of any value to the owner. It is all intensely historical about here, and I enjoy riding over the ground on an omnibus. Just before we reach Temple Bar, and on the right, is a projecting front of a building, ornamented with bright colors and gold-leaf. It is a hair-dressing saloon. Just under the cornice is the announcement that the building was the palace of Henry the Eighth and Cardinal Wolsey. There is an archway with a ponderous wooden gate ; and passing through this arch brings the curious traveller into a region as foreign and unexpected as Stonewall Jackson used to be. Here are the buildings and squares which go to make up the Temple, — that abode of lawyers and law-students, which corresponds to Lincoln's Inn in Cliancery Lane, and Gray's Inn off Holborn. We pass do\m the alley-way into the open air. Just before us is the famous Church of the Knights Templar of eight hundred years ago. It was the Church of the Templars centuries ago ; but, when they were overcome and annihilated, it reverted to the crown ; and King James the First gave it to the lawyers, who were already occ.upying the tenemented buildings about it, and which they rented from the Templars three hundred years before. It is a grand church, with beautifully tinted and arched ceilings, elaborate clustering pillars, bright colored tiles. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 93 oaken seats, an exquisite altar, and a grand organ, the choice of the Tammany Judge Jeffries. Scattered over the floor of what is called the Round, being a circular building, between the porch and choir, are the prostrate effigies of those brave knights, who, eight hundred years ago, left Merrie England, lovers' joys, the theatre and skittles, to \\Test Palestine from the ignoble Saracens. If I am not mistaken in my history, the reigning king at that period cheerfully encouraged this remarkable filibuster- ing expedition, as it rid him of some noblemen who were rather prejudiced against his tenure of office, and who were too sharp for him, and not sufficiently sharp for themselves. However this may be, it is just as well they went. Had they remained behind, and kept their health long enough, Crom- well would have croqueted them. Under each one of these effigies repose the remains of a filibuster. I presume — although I have no other authority — that each one of these effigies is an exact copy of the original, not only in dress and accoutrements, but in features. They were not remarkable men in height or breadth, but, dressed in the present fashion, would have made respectable- looking bank-clerks and book-keepers. They were hke ourselves of to-day in thought, in feehng, in hope, in purpose, in ambition ; just Hke ourselves in every respect, excepting the liver. They had good livers. No man with a diseased liver would go prancing around Palestine with a half-ton of old iron and steel about him. They feared death just as we do ; they had the same clinging to life that we now have ; although in our heart of hearts we do not give them credit for it. I never realized it before ; but I do now. I am standing within a few feet of all that is left of those men of whom I have heard since a child, in song, in romance, and in history. So long ago is it since they were clothed in 94 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. flesh, that they have seemed as myths to me, or beings who were born to hve tragically, die tragically, and make enter- taining reading for future generations. They came back from the Holy Land covered with glory, and filled with rheumatism ; and I will wager all I own that the glory was frequently forgotten in the rheumatism. Just opposite the porch, as I came out of the church, I found another arched opening ; and, passing through it, I came into another court, flagged to the uttermost inch, and banked about with a wall of sombre brick tenements. I'he law-students are here also ; and in the middle of the court is a pump, and close to it a sewer-opening, and into the opening a girl with one eye is pouring a pail of slops. I stop to look at her. She is the only one-eyed girl I have seen here. But it is surprising the number of one-eyed men who are to be found haunting the back-streets and alleys of the city. Across in the farther comer is another and a smaller arch. I pass through it to a lane, and down the lane a few steps, and come to a flagged plaza. Across it a most refreshing sight comes to view. There is a little park of turf, gravelled walks, and trees ; and in the centre is a right lively fountain, filling the air with its grateful spray. Do you recognize that fountain, dear reader? Do you remember the bluff, hearty fellow who courted Sam's sister in *' Martin Chuzzlewit"? and cannot you recall how he and the modest maiden watched the play of that fountain in silence, and then sought each other's eyes, and read the sweet revelation ? I hasten back to Fleet Street, under the impression that it has fell through the outer crust which Professor Tyndall talks about, because, although within a few yards of it, its multifarious noises are not heard here. I pass through Temple Bar and emerge in the Strand, and down the Strand, across Charing Cross, through Whitechapel, and under the very window out of which Charles the First stepped in full view of a frightened people trying to justify ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 95 themselves, and submitted to having his royal head chopped off. Beyond is Westminster Abbey. Black and gray, soot and time, have done their work right well ; and the frost effect is reproduced here, although not so elaborately as at St. Paul's. There is the customary graveyard about the building ; only, in this case, the bed is of hard gravel, instead of turf. Here and there in the yard, which is more like a common, are gravestones let into the surface, and marking the resting- place of some one who got as near the famous walls as he could, and dropped down where he is, apparently contented. Wlien this abbey was built, what are its dimensions and cost, I refer the reader to history, &c., for the information. If I have got to give the length, width, depth, age, and cost of every historical building, I shall give up the trip, and go home. The interior beauty of this grand structure excels the exterior in that it is not marred by smoke ; but it is sadly marred by the partition and stalls of wood which choke the central pillars. I entered it, on my first visit, at the side- entrance, and a sei-v'ice was just commencing. I took a seat, and watched the people drop in. All the while the service proceeded. The singing and responses were beauti- ful when I did not look at the little boys in white robes who performed them ; but seeing them yawn, and eye the peo- ple reproachfully for dragging them out so early in the morn- ing, considerably modified my enjoyment. After the service the vergers came down from their stalls, and fell to work col- lecting admission-fees from those who desired to investigate the building. But it is hardly to see the building, or its adornment, that an American comes to Westminster. The edifice is attrac- tive to us as an historical tomb. Within its walls, but princi- pally under its floors, are buried the king, the wit, the poet, the genius, and the soldier, from Edward the Confessor 96 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. down to Livingstone the Confounder. All this wonderful pressure of history is right here. There are no branch con- cerns. There is so much of tragic history surrounding the lives of these people, that it takes moments to grasp the fact that you are at their very graves, treading where they trod, and seeing what their very eyes rested upon. You would fain stand, there for hours, and panorama before your mind's vision all the scenes and incidents which made them famous ; but there is the verger going through his monotonous drawl, and poking you along farther into the maze. That is the great nuisance of sight-seeing here. You are rushed about from point to point ; and, from trying to store your mind with impressions, you fall to looking out for the safety of your legs. You are up to your neck in romance, and over your head in history ; and your whole performance is a reckless and aimless effort to claw your way out. The impressions which you receive are but transitory ; they come and go like a flash : and, after you are bowed out doors, you feel as if you had taken a prominent part in a boiler explosion, and are just about as clear as to the details. I passed by scores of kings and queens and peers entombed, I walked over acres of others, and wondered how they could be so careless with their dead. I got up from the ser\'ice which I witnessed on entering the building, and found I had been sitting on an entire family. I was glad when we reached the chapel of Edwartl the Confessor, — that unapproachable fraud of the eleventh cen- tury, — because here every thing is so unicjue and anticiue, that even the verger could not prevent me from noting it. It is but a panelled portion of the grand nave of the church, and was built by one of the multitudinous Henrys. In it is the lofty shrine, the most imposing in the country, of Ijhvard, the weakest and most insignificant of l-lngiand's kings. At one side of the chapel, near the entrance, is Uic ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Q/ tomb of Edward the First, who, being a tall, gaunt chap, was appropriately dubbed " Longshanks " by an affectionate people. The tomb of Longshanks is remarkably homely ; but is warm and comfortable inside, I presume. There are several sculptures along the walls representing the Confessor seeing the Devil dance on some money-casks, having an interview with St. John the apostle, and blind people recov- ering their sight by washing their eyes in his soapsuds, and other equally sensible and important phases ascribed to his life. But the object of most engrossing interest is the chair in which Edward the First was crowned six hundred years ago. It is a rough specimen of work, and in America would have long ago "made the kettle boil ; " but here it is not only pre- served, but used, as every reigning man and woman since his time have received their coronation in it. Time has destroyed what beauty there ever was to it, and the unsparing knife of the autographic demon has been even more aggres- sive than the scythe. Beneath this emblematical chair is an irregular-shaped stone, nearly black, and weighing about fifty pounds, on which the ancient kings of Scotland were crowned. It is said to be the same stone on which Jacob rested his head when he had his wonderful dream ; but, owing to an indulgence in a plate of cherries quite late the night before, I was not well enough to give that credence to the story which it undoubt- edly deserves. One very objectionable feature of the abbey management is the permission given to bullet-headed young men to make copies of the brass effigies on the tombs. This is done by covering them with a sheet of white paper, and reproducing the impression by rasping over the paper with a smooth bit of wood. When you were a boy, you did nearly the same thing on a cent, but, I charitably hope, without any idea of what it would degenerate into. 98 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. There were two young men engaged in this devilish work while our verger WcOS grinding out the programme. I tried to drive them through the opposite wall with a fiery eye, but was not successful. I wondered why the verger didn't call for an axe, and split them open fi-om — But he didn't. Finally, just as I was about to crawl under one of the tombs, out of hearing, a tall Ohioan in the party, equally distressed with myself, called out, — " Come, young gentlemen, don't you see you are disturb- ing people?" They looked around. " I should think you would know better," he went on to say, " than to bring such work in a place like this. If the sacred and holy associations of this temple, with its illus- trious dead, don't soften you, I wll." They didn't say any thing ; but I saw by their looks that they decidedly preferred the illustrious dead as a softener ; and the rasping was not resumed in our hearing. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 99 CHAPTER XIIL TREATS OF THE BARS AND BAR-MAIDS. THE great number and novel appearance of the public- houses (or bar-rooms) immediately attract the visitor, especially if he is dry. They are located, for the greater part, on comers, and are quite uniform in appearance, and quite different from other places of business. They stand forth boldly, known in day by their yellow-panelled fronts, which extend half way up and are completed with a .single plate of French glass, and by their marbleized pilasters ; and at night by the numerous gas-jets, which fairly flood the place with light. The panel- ling is either of oiled oak, or grained to imitate that color ; and the whole front is made as extensive and attractive as possible. There is no shrinking behind "oysters in every style," billiard-saloons, cigar-stores, and green shades. They in- variably have two, and in many cases three entrances ; and are subdivided accordingly. These compartments are indi- cated on the glass of the doors ; viz., public bar, private (or luncheon) bar, and jug (or wholesale) bar. The bar stands very near the entrances, — with a view, per- haps, to discourage lounging by visitors, — and is almost uniformly tended by young women. This is a novel sight to an American, and makes him curious as to the crowd whom these maids serve. TOO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Drinking in England is common to all classes. Ale or sherry is ser\'ed at the family dinner and supper ; and, just before retiring, the family have their grog. The grog in question consists mainly of gin, cold or hot. The divine, the hard-headed merchant, the scheming lawyer, the industrious farmer, all close the day with grog or wine. Many of them don't appear to care for the liquor, but drink it because it is the national custom ; and no family is expected to be without a single licjuor, while those whose means permit have numerous kinds. I have frequently seen rum, gin, brandy, and whiskey, with two or three kinds of wine, brought out of an evening for a party of four. Accompanying these are the genial soda and the soothing seltzer. With such a state of society, it follows that the bar-rooms should be open and attractive. The young women who attend the bars are lady-like ; and the people who drink there are, as 3, general thing, well- behaved. Sometimes the former hear something unpleasant ; but they are given time, after the day is over, to retire and have a good cry. The liquors are not displayed in gaudy decanters ; and the reason is obvious. They are sold by the measure, and not by the glass. Of the alcoholic liquors, there are fourpenny and sixpcnny's worth. These are the usual drinks. The amount called for is drawn from the wood into a measuring pot of pe\vter, and then emptied into the glass. With this is served cold or hot water ; and the Englishman, after filling up the glass with water, pours the fearfully diluted sjjirit into his stomach. In the lower saloons a " tuppenny-worth " of liquor can be bought. Whiskey is a modern beverage with them ; for, ten years ago, it was but little called for. Now it is much sought after. The principal saloon drink is ale, and the ne.xt gin. ENGLAND FROM A BACXAVmnOW. , ' lOI Mixed or fancy drinks are unknowA, only Is Aniei'ioaa history informs them. But an immense quantity of malt hquor is disposed of. here. It is far superior to the American ales in that it is devoid of the bilious-producing ingredients so common to those ales. Every family has its ale ; so does every workman ; and in many branches of business it is part of the contract, that the laborer shall have his pint of ale daily. It is served in the hospitals and to the charity-children. It is given to visitors, and helps fonvard church convocations. To the English it is like water. Water ? Why — But I will let it go. It is one of the best jokes I ever heard. When water becomes as common in England as is ale, the finest drainage ever invented will not save the country. They drink differently from what we do. Noticeably they dilute their liquor until its identity is sunken from sight. And, again, it is common to many to purchase a pint of ale or a sixpenny worth of gin, and divide it by alternate sips with their friends. This is quite common among the labor- ing-classes. I have seen a brawny working-man take his wife and her mother into the bar, and dip their respective noses into the same mug %vith a freedom that was refreshing to the friends of democracy. The man generally helps him- self first, which is hardly etiquette ; but self-preser\'ation is the first law of nature. There are three kinds of ale, — pale, bitter, and mild. The bitter is the favorite, and pint tank- ards of it are in popular demand. Until midnight these saloons are in full feather. They blaze with lighted gas ; and the saloons on the Strand are of themselves sufficient to illuminate the entire thoroughfare. A ride down that street or Fleet Street between eleven and twelve o'clock at night is a constantly-recurring carnival. The illuminated theatres discharging their audiences, the hosts of lighted carriages, cabs, and omnibuses, the throngs 102 lvN&:L,AlJ(D ^ROM A BACK-WINDOW. of' gay' ;■« (inland -still gayer women, the bright saloons, and the many street-lamps, go to make up a scene that fills the stranger with surprise and delight. Pouring in and out of the saloons is a never-ceasing throng of ladies and gentle- men. One minute after twelve, and those dazzling palaces are dark and silent. Midnight is the hour by law established for closing the saloons, and these English people have an unpleasant habit of enforcing their laws. This is one reason, perhaps, why Americans do not linger in England. The multiplicity of young women in the saloons and other places of business in England is really marvellous. They are the bar-maids, hotel-clerks, drapers' assistants, re- freshment-venders, theatre-ushers, &c. And thus England has rid itself of the - great female suf- frage horror by giving its women something to do. I know of no place, unless it is San Francisco, which makes more of a display of its cigar and tobacco stores than London. We can understand it in the former place, where everybody smokes, and many chew ; but here in London, where you may pass a hundred men on the street with not one smoking, the shop display is a phenomenon. The pipe is the favorite ; but that is generally smoked indoors. I i:)re- sume the reason Londoners do not smoke more frecjuently on the street is out of regard for the atmosphere, which already contains about all the smoke it can stand. The prices of cigars are lower here than in America ; but the quality is inferior. A twelve-cent cigar is very high- priced, and the six-cent weeds are the highest price in gen- eral use. In the small villages it is difficult to find a higher priced cigar than four cents. Their people do not use them, and the transient trade is not sufficient to pay the keeping. Chewing-tobacco, excepting the plug, cannot be obtained ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, IO3 in all England. One tobacconist in London tried to smug- gle some of it here ; but, our American chewing-tobacco being an adulterated article, his whole stock was confiscated. He confidently told me there were other ways of amusing himself less costly and injurious than smuggling fine-cut tobacco into England for the edification of travelling Ameri- cans. He had a brand manufactured in Baltimore. It was pure fine-cut. It was like chewing fiddle-strings. There was a man named Phillips staying at my hotel. He came from Pennsylvania, and was an inveterate tobacco- chewer. Before he left home, an Englishman told him he could get tobacco and every thing else in London. He didn't bring any tobacco with him, because of this informa- tion from an English source. He told me that seasickness was a box at the opera in comparison to the agony he endured. Had it not been for the prospect of getting " solace " in London, he would have jumped overboard, and had the company sued by his wife's father. When he got here and found no tobacco, his grief was terrible. It was like the Danbury boy's ball which fell into a ditch : it knew no bounds. He haunted the tobacco-stores. He paraded the streets like a spectre out of health. He chewed bits of cigars, smoking-tobacco, and all the ravel- lings out of every pocket in which he had ever carried tobacco. He would talk by the hour of the tobacco he had seen thrown away because of its being damaged, and dis- tinctly remembered having thrown away a paper of tobacco himself twenty-two years ago last March. With equal clearness he remembered every occasion he had emptied his pockets of the tobacco-dust accumulated therein, "and," he shrieked in a burst of remorse, " flung it away as if it had been so much worthless sand." The point on which he dwelt with the most pain was the fact, that, for a period of six months, he voluntarily went without tobacco some twelve 104 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. years ago. He invariably shivered and turned white when reverting to it. \\'hen Schenck, the American minister; returned to Lon- don from his journey home for a bride, Phillips went at once to his house in the almost hopeless hope of getting a chew, — " just one little chew," he said to me. But Schenck didn't use the weed ; and the poor devil came back almost wild with disappointment. The next day he returned to America, solemnly promising, that, if Heaven spared his life, he would find that Englishman, and kill him. And he will keep his word. • And now we come to shaving. It is a little singular, that a city occupied and sustained by over three million people cannot afford the luxury of a human shave. There are barber-shops, or hair-dressing saloons as they are called here, in abundance, and they all shave ; but it is evident that shaving is not their " main holt." In their signs they bargain to do curling, cutting, and shampooing, but barely a word about shaving. And it is just as well they don't brag about it. Better, I think. My first shave was undergone in a shop on Great Port- land Street, in the fashionable West End. I got there so as to have a luxurious shave. It was a hair-dresser's shop, with a cheerful array of wooden skvills covered by the wrong hair. In a back-room I found the barber's assistant, — a lit- tle girl : she called him through another ; and he speedily emerged, wiping his breakfasting chops on his tonsorial apron. I was glad to see that he had thin whiskers, light- colored, weak eyes, and a feeble voice. I was glad to see such a man, because I had learned from Dickens that there were very few of any other kind in England. He had been eating his breakfast. All ordinary shop- keepers live on the same floor with their i^lares of business, and through the glass door can be seen at the proper time partaking of the sweat of their brow. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IO5 This is not only convenient, but saves the hire of another clerk. Having \viped his mouth, he bade me take an ordinary cane-seat chair in the middle of the room (and the apart- ment looked as little like a barber-shop as the garret of a hypochondriac) , and fell to work in a most mournful manner to hunt up the various instruments for the business. These found, he spread a napkin over my bolt-upright form, and began the shave. I asked him if any one had borrowed his regular chair. He answered mildly in the neg- ative. "You don't mean to say," I expostulated, "that you shave the myriads which go to make up life in this straight- backed, hard-bottomed chair ! " He said he did, and that the chair wasn't worried much either. I learned from him that the English shave but little, and do the most of that themselves. It would not pay him to get an American chair. I learned the same story elsewhere many times since then ; and I have not yet seen one of the barber-chairs so common in America. There are cases where an upright stick, with a crosspiece at the top, is nailed to the common house chair. As it is permanently fastened, the victim's comfort during the shave depends very much on his anatomy. Once in a while, I dare say, some one gets into the chair who corresponds in length and shape to the man for whom it was first arranged ; then there is comfort : otherwise the cross-piece is as likely to tear his scalp, or injure his spinal cord, as to let him off unscathed. The shaving went on, in this case, without injury. I sat up as long as I could stand it with my mind on the opera- tion, and then I peppered him with questions. I asked him about his country, and his queen, and his taxes, and his suf- ferings, and elicited from him either a plain negative or affirmative to all the questions. Finally he put the razor up, pointed to a- basin and towel, and stood patiently waiting I06 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. my movements. Wondering why lie did not clean my (ace himself, I took advantage of the basin and towel. When I got through, he said, "Three ha'pence, sir;" and I under- stood by that that the procession was over. If I had asked him, he would have arranged my hair, brushing it by ma- chinery ; but I was too dumfounded to say any thing, and walked mechanically away. They do differently in some of the shops, asking you if you will have your hair brushed, but not offering to do it unless you wish. The general price of a shave is twopence (four cents), and fourpence (eight cents) for the brush. They do all their brushing by machinery, and after tumbling up your hair, and fracturing your scalp, go at it with hand- brushes, using the comb sparingly. We Americans are a nervous, active people ; and the Eng- lish are represented to be slow and methodical. We lounge in the barber's chair for a quarter-hour at a time, and make the operation of shaving a positive rest and refreshment. This reminds me of an incident. An American recently, visiting London, asked an English friend for a good barber- shop. The Englishman took him to where was a conspicu- ous and comforting announcement, — "A good shave for a penny." The American went in, took the cane-seat chair, and passed through the operation in a sort of inexplicable stupor. When he had got through, and had partly collected his thoughts, he ventured to ask the barber what he meant by going through such an infernal performance. " Well, you see," said the barber with exasperating complacency, knowing his customer to be an American, " the English peo- ple are so fast in their ways, that they never could wait to l)e shaved scientifically, but must sit down and have it over in a minute, and be gone again to business." " Oh ! " exclaimed the bewildered .Vmerican as he put his hat on wrong, and stumbled out into the street. Having cnumenitetl three of the ilaily amusements in- dulged in by the English, I now proceed to the fourth. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, IO7 London grasps and holds the talent of England, whether we consider literature, drama, or art. It is not to England what New York is to America : it is to England what all the leading cities of ours combined are to our country. It is the repository of English fashion, English literature, English law, English art, English amusement. It is the grand focus about which every thing bright, brilliant, and attractive centres. And here the drama makes its debut and earns its success. There are scores of theatres devoted to the legitimate drama, fashionable opera, and varieties. Drury-lane and Covent- garden Theatres are licensed by her Majesty, and controlled by her Majesty. The playwrights are her Majesty's ser- vants, and the royal troops guard these theatres. At both of these the opera in its grandest conception flourishes nightly. The Strand abounds with theatres, and scores of others are scattered about the great and wonderful city. When it is considered that a hundred and sixty thousand strangers pour into London daily, some idea of the prepara- tion to entertain them can be formed. The prices of admission at all the places of amusement are graded to meet the wants and desires of all. In a thea- tre where the private box costs twenty dollars, admittance may be gained for twenty-five cents. The Alhambra, near the foot of Regent Street, is the largest theatre in the city. As it devotes itself to burlesque operas and the female leg, it is the best patronized by respectable people, especially mer- chants and professional men. To the promenade, which partly encircles the orchestra- floor, the admittance is but a shilling of English money ; and this promenade is nightly filled with fine-looking men, and handsome women of a sociable turn. The admittance to the gallery is but a sixpence, and to the private boxes twenty dollars. The terraces to the old Haymarket, of which you and I I08 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, . read when we were children, is divided into awkward stalls, for which the prices are from sixty-three cents to tAvo dollars. This old theatre looks like a Chinese pagoda heavily mort- gaged. All the theatres are provided with convenient bars, tended by young women. And these young women who tend bars in England get from seventy-five to one hundred and thirty dollars a year and their board. They rarely found hospitals. There is one very disagreeable feature of London theatres, and that is charging for the programmes. It is only rarely that you come across a place where the programme is free ; and the fact is conspicuously advertised. As a general thing, the programme costs from four to twenty-five cents. There are generally three pieces played, — an introductory farce, the main play, and an afterpiece. Some of the places commence at a quarter before seven, and many do not close until midnight. The concert saloons are liberally patronized by both the doubtful and undoubted of English society. I have seen at these places the rake and prostitute side by side with the honest tradesman and his wife and children, all drinking beer, and intently watching the stage ; and yet the latter heard nothing to offend them. At the tables will be men engaged in discussion, others in smoking, and many drink- ing ; and among them move the young women attendants, taking orders, and being free from unhealthy familiarities. I must confess, I do not understand it. Of London it can truly be said, there is license without offence, and law without outrage. The Cremome Gardens, of which you have frequently heard, are located on the banks of the Thames, about two miles below Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. It is a magnificent place, — a garden of turf, ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IO9 concrete walks, trees, shrubs, bar-rooms, arbors, grottos, dancing-hall, theatre, band-stand, promenades, dining-room^, restaurants, parlors, — and all ablaze with gas. Here the law- yer, doctor, merchant, statesman, and politician rest from their labors ; and here the scarlet woman spins the thread which reaches out into every avenue of the greatest city the world ever saw, seeking whom it may devour, and quite frequently devouring them. no ENGLAND FKOM A HACK-WINDOW, CHAPTER XIV. MOTH, MILDEW, AND MARTYRS. IT is said that the three greatest curiosities in London arc the Tower, St. Paul's, and Westminster Abbey ; but the three in my estimation are the hackmen, costermongers, and Spurgeon. Tiie second Sunday morning in London I was awakened by tlie paper boys and the sellers of water-cresses and straw- berries. Water-cresses are a species of fruit I rarely patron- ize. I am afraid of swallowing the pits, and choking to death. I don't wish to be understood, by my reference to paper boys on this day, that the London dailies issue a Sun- day paper ; because they do not. They are rather slow concerns, are these London dailies. They crowd their advertisers into repulsive limits ; they mix up their matter without any regard to classification ; they publish but a beggarly handful of American news ; they rcj)ort in full the most insignificant speeches ; they don't seem to realize that there is such an attraction as condensed news j)aragraphs ; they issue no Simday paper, and but one or two have a weekly ; they ignore agriculture and scicnc o. personals and gossip ; they carefully exclude all humor and head-lines, and come to their readers every week-day ^^ sombre and mournful spectacle that is most exasperating to behold. These papers which ore cried about the streets of a Sun- ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Ill day morning are weeklies, and the boys and men who shout them are scarcely less gloomy and vague than their wares. No living man is able to decipher their meaning, unless he sees their stock. The hawkers of water-cresses and fruit are equally intemperate in articulation ; and you are always sur- prised and grieved, on following them up, to leam that they are vending water-cresses and berries, instead of rhinoceroses and whippoorwills. An omnibus across Westminster Bridge takes you over the Thames to that part of the great city where is the Taberna- cle, Spurgeon's church. It is a severely plain building, with a yard held in by an iron fence at the front. When we arrived, omnibuses, cabs, and carriages were depositing their contents in front of the doors, while hundreds on foot were surging in 'through the gates. The place directly in front was a solid mass of people waiting for the doors to open. And there was another mass crowding in by a side-entrance, which we joined on the payment of a small fee for the sustenance and education of young candidates for the ministry. By this dodge (that is, plan) a good seat could be secured without discomfort, and the interests of the ministry were considera- bly advanced. The thoughtless would call this killing two birds with one piece of pavement. We got a seat in one of the galleries, and found ourselves in an oblong building, with several tiers of galleries, and a wide spread of floor, capable, in all, of seating ten thousand persons. Ten thousand people quietly seated, and filled with reli- gious emotions and cologne, is a spectacle rarely vouch- safed to mortal's gaze. Here they were, spread out before me like a sheet of fly-paper on a druggist's show-case ; and all the little eccentricities of a congregation, but rarely no- ticed in the average gathering, swelled into a volume of startling dimensions in this huge audience. The change of position, which is but a perceptible rustle in the average body of worshippers on the close of a prayer 112 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WIXnOW. or h}!!!!!, here became a nistling sound, like the breaking away of a great body of water ; and the preparatory cough or hawking as the hymn was given out arose from ten thou- sand throats, and became magnified into a clap of prolonged thunder. The man who steps on the end of a footstool and tips it up, so that it frightens an entire ordinary audience, was here multiplied by thirty with the most cheering success. And, when all the ladies took out their handkerchiefs to wipe their mouths, it seemed so much like a snow-storm, that I had put on my hat, and pulled it down over my eyes, before realizing my mistake. The turning of the leaves of ten thousand hymn-books need not be described. Any imagination enjojing the most moderate health can depict the noise without trouble. The nearest thing I can liken it to is the rolling and breaking of the surf upon a New-Hamp- shire coast. When I got across Westminster Bridge again, on my way back, I got dowTi in Whitehall, and, passing through the archway under the Horse Guards, came out at the lower end of the Mall which skirts St. James's Park, passing before the grand houses of the Prince of Wales and several noblemen, and ending in front of Buckingham Palace, — the town resi- dence of the Queen. The Mall is a broad avenue of trees. On the right are the homes of nobilit)', and on the left is the park. The first building is Carlton Terrace, a tenement for nobility ; and opposite is the most curious spectacle to be witnessed an)^vhere in the civilized world. It is a broad walk, which here skirts the park, as smooth and hard as a billiard-ball. It is shaded by noble trees, and is beautifully surrounded by turf. Just opposite are the French-plate windows and French awnings of the nobility tenements. And here on this broad walk are rough booths retailing cakes and other sweets, and milk fresh from the cow. There is no sell about ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II3 • this last, as the cow in question is tied to each booth, helping itself from a bundle of hay, and preparing for the successful development of coming agricultural experiments. Almost the entire walk in this section is littered with these booths and their refuse ; and what is left from them is occupied by their customers, — hungry and aspiring juveniles and serv- ants. George the Fourth is responsible for this ; and it is in illustration of the conser\'atism of the English. In a freak, and when occupying Carlton House, he directed that so many poor people should have the right to establish booths of this kind on the broad walk opposite, and that the per- mission should pass as an inheritance to their heirs for all time. Frequent efforts have been made to recover this ground to its legitimate use, and wipe out the disgraceful excrescence from the beautiful mall, but without success. It has passed from generation to generatfon, and will undoubt- edly pass down to the farthest generation, without relief, unless some of the successors become less mercenary than the present possessors, and take what they can get for them- selves, and let their heirs look out for their own sustenance. The houses of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh are on the Mall. The royal family live happily, I believe. Photographs of the Princess of Wales dancing lier children on her back are on sale. This is not " put on." She is an amiable lady, a devoted \vife, and a model mother. The English are very fond of her. The Duke of Edinburgh wears a striped shirt, and is generally photographed with one leg over the back of a chair, which imparts a grace and majesty to his person that are quite imposing. I was in a crowd in Cheapside the other day when the duke and duchess drove by to attend the opening of a new school-building, and saw scores of the English run along with the carriage, on both sides, and almost put their faces into the \vindows in their eagerness to scan the features of 114 ENGLAND FROM A UACK-WINDOW. their beloved royalty. How different are the Americans ! They would have stood on the walk like a row of dummies, and never thought to ha\e poked their noses into the car- riage-windows. I sometimes think our people will never learn good-breeding. The duchess is a girl of seventeen, with very red cheeks and a ball-room expression ; and he is a big fellow, with a coarse mouth and sleepy eyes, but good-looking withal, and having a finely cultivated ear for profanity. liere, also, is Marlborough House, the best-looking of the lot. The Duke of Marlborough lives here, and is a man deeply interested in mechanics. He offers a number of hundred pounds to the man who will fly safely from the roof of his house. He wants to get up an excitement, and sell sittings in his trees for a guinea each, I fear. But I hope he is sincere about it. There was a man here wth a flying- machine, who contemplated making the experiment ; but, having descended on his crown from an altitude of five hun- dred feet, the fall drove the idea out of his head. But here is Buckingham Palace, the home of the best of queens. The open space before the huge iron fence is of gravel, which, night and day, is being crunched under somebody's feet. Men with hats which seem to be constantly inviting the sun to strike the occupants down, and red coats rather crusty in the tails, are patrolling at the gates. It is an im- mense buikling, with no natural beauties between it and the fence, excepting an occasional grocer-cart and i)air of black pants with a red stripe down the leg. But it is a large build- ing of brown stone, with a most ample garden back of it, enclosed by a wall high enough to suit the most exacting coal-dealer. That reminds me that they don't cart their coal about in loose bulk here, but trans])ort a great deal of their ice that way, which they shovel into sidewalk-hatchways ; but tlieir ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II5 coal they carry in bags, one hundred pounds to the bag. Judas Iscariot carried the bag, you will remember. The most attractive object to me about the exterior of this four-story slate-roof palace is the coat-of-arms over the gateway. It is the English coat-of-arms, — a lion and a uni- corn on their hind-legs, squaring off at each other. I can't tell the number of hours I have remained planted in front of that gateway, admiring those figures ; and for nearly an hour this Sunday afternoon I stood leaning against the St. James fence in a trance of delight. The lion has a smile on its face. It is the first lion I ever saw laugh. I have seen thousands of these coats-of-arms, but never saw a sedate lion : he is always laughing, as if it were the funniest joke he ever heard of, — being matched against a unicorn with a barber-pole between its eyes. And it is absurd, when you come to think of it ; for a lion could whip a unicorn around a stump, and have its barber-pole in front of a milliner-shop, inside of nine seconds. But I like to see a lion look pleased. I think we were all intended to be happy. A lion that won't laugh is no society for me. As for a unicorn, I am not much that way. I enter heartily into the Hfe-sentiment of a lamented friend, who, years ago, went to a better home ; which was, " Gol- darn a unicorn anyway ! " I made my way by omnibus to Smithfield, — a large square near to Holborn, and famous the world over as the scene of martyrdom. In Fox's " Book of Martyrs " is a picture of it ; and while its surface is much changed since the triumphs of Bloody Mary, and the buildings reproduced in the sketch are gone, yet those which now stand are exact copies of them. If one could shut his eyes to the modem mar- ket of brick, glass, and iron, which supplanted its famous predecessor, he could easily imagine he was moved back several centuries, and could almost smell the burning fagots. The buildings look just as deserted and gloomy as those which once chilled my blood in the print. Il6 ENGLAND FROM A DACK-WINDOW. This square lias been a slaughter-pen in its time, and has witnessed such agony and despair as make the Tower of London seem a sort of picnic in comparison. That was the period when it was death to construe God's word differently than your neighbor did ; when zeal for God's service was stronger than it is now, and nobody was happy. They had more religion than we of this time have ; but all their genera- tions never saw so happy and beautiful a sabbath as this. But the burnings are abolished now, owing to a free press and the scarcity of fagots. There is nothing about a coal- fire to stimulate fanaticism. Right in the corner of the square, where a narrow street comes in, and in the first building of the next angle, is what is called a Nonnan archway. It is very old, as the stone of which it is composed is broken and blackened. It is a tenement-house built exactly over and about this arch, both for the purpose of preserving it as a relic, and to save the expense of a new arch. Through this arch the depth of the building, by the beginning of a wonderfully narrow and crooked and quaint way called Cloth Lane, — from the fact, that, fifteen or twenty thousand years ago, it was occupied by cloth-dealers, — and we have a graveyard of about the eighth of an acre, covered with rusty stones, broken bottles, and other debris. On two sides of this repository of the dead are the rear of tenements, with dirty windows, stained walls, and unhealthy-looking people peering through the glass. There is not a spear of green grass in the entire yard ; but all of it is as black and despondent as the tene- ment-walls which have choked it dead. I pass down a path between two walls (the one skirting the yard, and the other being the side of a warehouse, into which are let nu- merous tablets of the dead, who were too late or too proud to go into the yard, I thought), and I am at the door of the oldest church in London, — famous Bartholomew, just as the afternoon service begins. ENGLAND FROM A I?ACK-WINnOW, 11/ I take ray seat with a motley-looking congregation, and stare with all my eyes at the astonishing interior. I try to fasten my attention upon the service ; but between the mouldy and crumbling walls, the reflection on the past, and a beadle with gold lace on his coat, a gold band on his hat, and a pair of active and industrious boots on his feet, I give up in despair, and collapse into a sort of stupor, which holds me through the service. Nearly the whole enjoyment of visiting just such places as this is lost through the inability of the beholder to think fast enough. Here is the relic of a buildings which, eight hundred years ago, extended to the archway on the square, and that was its main entrance. It was a monastery then, echoing to the footsteps of solemn monks and their impressive chanting. It has rotted away by piecemeal for these many centuries. It was hacked and cut by the grim followers of Cromwell ; and to-day this remnant, with its miserably broken pillars and walls, is continuing the struggle before the eyes of the nineteenth centurj^^ The floor is broken ; the pillars which form the arched, roof, and separate the aisles from the nave, are worn in places to such a degree as to make one sitting near them quite nervous and thoughtful ; the walls are musty, gashed, and filled with doorways with no stairs lead- ing up to them ; and windows blocked up, and tombs quaint, scratched, and mutilated. Back of the pulpit are two or three stone coffins, whose occupants, ages ago, removed for better ventilation ; and scattered near them are two or three tons of stone cornice, or window or door facings, saved from the wreck of the main building. It is a singular sensation an American experiences upon visiting this dirty and broken-winded fabric. " Why isn't it torn down at once, and a new building put up in its place? " you ask. Why don't you tear up the body of your great- grandfather from its resting-place in the churchyard, and Il8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. put a new body in its place? But perhaps you never thought of it. But it can be done. So these people can tear down this old church, and erect another ; but they haven't thought of it. When one of our home church-buildings loses a couple of shingles from the roof, or a figure out of its carpet, or the first tone of its paint, one church-meeting follows another, former neighbors cease to exchange greetings and " to bor- row a cup of milk until Henry gets back from school " from each other, and picnics are given up, and brotherly love suspended, until the point is carried, the repair made, and a debt incurred. • But here is a church that for five hundred years has been in a condition to get the whole congregation by the ears, and to send the entire parish to the Devil ; but the people go patiently along, raising a little money in this direction and a little in that, and using it as they get it to replace a stone, or prop up a pillar ; and the following Sunday they drop gently in and sit for an hour on a hard bench, worshipping God and admiring the improvements. It will be five hundred years more, I imagine, before they get much beyond that ; for Time appears to be about as active as they are. But there are no painted pews here ; simply hard bench- es, and exasperatingly backed chairs. The sittings are not stationary, but are competent to be moved about like the settees in our Sunday schools. Did you ever fall over one of those settees which had been moved without your knowl- edge by the "other fellow"? What hajipy days were those ! They will never come again, you know. There is no carpet. Blank stone floors are what the English delight in for their churches. A stone floor is not so sightly or comforting as a carpet, but is better adapted for burying people beneath. You could plant them under a carpet, I suppose ; but it wouldn't be so pleasant, especially in dog- days. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 19 Some of the churches have floors of party-colored tile, which are very pretty, and would answer, perhaps, the natu- ral craving in our country for a carpet ', but, with snow on the heel of the incoming worshipper, the result would be most disastrous to the first half-dozen pews from the door. I20 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTER XV. A RAMBLE OVER LONDON. THERE is more to see in London than is comprised within the philosophy of any compiler of guide-books. And " of making many " (guide) " books there is no end." Routledge's (English) and Pascoe's (American) are the best. But I advise my readers who contemplate visiting London to buy all the guide-books they can get hold of. Each one contains matters different from what can be found in all of the others ; and the first object of the tourist should be to sift down the contents of all, and go to work in an intelligent manner to see every thing worth being seen in the most wonderful city in the world. A thorough ob- ser\'ation of London and Great Britain gives the observer a new interest in history, and confers an additional charm upon fiction ; and yet all the guide-books combined fall short of the work. The chief dependence of the visitor is in prowling around. He should burrow into strange courts, and thread all passable streets. He should keep open eyes and a ready tongue, and what the former cannot fothom the latter should bring to light. The English are obliging to strangers ; and, if a searcher after information does not get it, the fault must lie with himself. The next numerous volumes are railway-guides. The chief is Bradshaw's, much larger than Appleton's, so com- mon in America, and costing but twelve cents, or less tlian ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 121 one-quarter of the American work. Then there are a num- ber much smaller than Bradshaw's, which can be bought for two cents each, and even less than that where a party takes a barrel of them ; " but it is rarely a traveller needs that quantity. Besides these, the companies themselves issue a guide every month or so, — a voluminous work, giving the time and stations on their main and branch hnes, and sold for two cents. These English railway-guides are the very essence of all that is maddening ; and there is nothing, un- less it is a contrary woman, which will drive a man so deliri- ous as these very guides. They are making people morose and discontented, dividing famihes, and crowding the lunatic- asylums. It is no wonder there is so much drinking here. A single page of Bradshaw's would break up a nest of hor- nets, and drive full two-thirds of them into drunkards' graves. The very centre of London life is at the junction of the several streets in front of the Bank, Mansion House, and Royal Exchange. The Bank is a one-story granite fabric, about high enough to sling a five-year-old boy over ; and the Royal Exchange is an open court, with statues, benches, conceited and slim-legged clerks, and greasy loungers. The Mansion House is the official residence of the lord-mayor ; and, of a morning in " the season," his brilliant equipage, with scarlet coachmen and scarlet footmen, may be seen working through the jam of vehicles which choke up these thoroughfares. If his chariot is not in sight, the patient waiter is sure to be rewarded by the gorgeous turnout of the lord high sheriff, with its purple and gold livery, and pink silk stockings, and powdered wigs. To a republican with fifteen dollars in his pocket this sight is very enervating. It costs several millions of dollars annually to carr}'- on this city government (the expense of the officers merely) ; and, when the price is compared v\'ith the municipality, the discrepancy is simply ridiculous. The lord-mayor and the 122 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW, lord-sheriff control only that insignificant portion of London called " the city," whose limits are no greater now than when Westminster was separated from it by fields, with the little village of Charing Cross between. All the brick and mortar and pavements adjoining are separate parishes, — with the exception of A\^estminster, which is a city, — and are gov- erned by the church-wardens of each parish. The lord- mayor has no more to do with them than an Egyptian violin- ist has. But it is all called London. Opening off from this neighborhood is Cannon Street, where stands St. Swithin's Church. In a small recess in this church is a small stone, of irregular shape and inoffensive appearance. You have passed thousands of just such bits of rock as this, and fallen over some of them without feeling your bump of reverence elevate itself, unless you happened to strike squarely upon it. And yet this recess was built into this holy edifice solely to accommodate this stone, and an iron grating is over it to protect it from the people. They could have taken down the grating when I was about. Centuries before your grandfather cut his first teeth, this stone had graduated in political honors. It stood in the middle of the street ; and every crowned monarch was ex- pected to strike his sword against it, and proclaim himself king. It is the same stone Jack Cade struck with his weapon, and delicately insinuated that he was Lord of London. There are many people who think Jack Cade was a martjT to principle. When I was a boy, I walked five miles through a rain-storm to borrow a yellow-covered book called "Jack Cade," under the impression that it was a com- panion-volume to " Dick Turpin." I have since then had my own opinion respecting him, and never miss an oppor- tunity, when in the presence of the Cades, to vent that oi:)inion witli emphasis. It was a large stone in those days : but people got to putting their hands on it for the sake of its associations ; and it commenced to wear so rapidly, that ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 23 it was taken up and put here. I rolled up my sleeves, and worked my hand through the grating, and touched the sacred rock myself, and have felt much better ever since, A bootblack who was present, and overheard the conversa- tion between myself and friend, rolled up his sleeve also, and received the magic contact. He had been stationed for two years at this spot, and never knew till now the sacred nature of the stone. I am afraid that the money and cloth- ing which I have contributed to the education of the hea- then abroad, in the past ten years, have been misapplied. When the Romans occupied London, before the advent of our Saviour, this stone was used by them as a standard of distances. Watling Street, which is near by, is supposed to have been the Roman road which ran across the centre of the London of that day, and extended the full length of the country. None of us know who are the descendants of the ancient Romans ; but all of us know who are not. I refer to the road commissioners of the nineteenth century. The post-ofifice, just before six p.m., is an object of interest to a stranger. At that hour the night-mail closes to the usual postage ; but, by paying a penny extra, a letter caa be posted for it until half-past seven. Twopence will give you until nine o'clock to get your letter off; and, with a heavier fee, you gain two hours more. I judge by this that the night-mail leaves at eleven o'clock ; and instead of keeping the bags open to all mail until that time, as is done in Amer- ica, they close them to all but the fees after six o'clock, and thus add an important item to the post-office revenue. At five minutes to six o'clock the rush to the letter-box is something remarkable. The crowd is composed mostly of clerks, some of whom have bags full of letters ; and, during the five minutes in question, the flutter of letters as they go into the opening can be plainly heard in the middle of the street, if it doesn't look too much like rain. Within a few rods of the post-ofiice is Guildhall, the city 124 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. hall of London ; and a little farther on is Bishopgate Street, and Crosby Hall, where Richard the Third held revels. It is now a huge restaurant ; and the famous banqueting-room accommodates city diners, and the other day accommodated me, where I sat for a half-hour wrestling with a chop and a plate of cold cauliflower, and speculating on the oak carv- ings, where the famous king used to scratch his back when he wore a plaster, without doubt, and on the grand stained windows, through which he swore at the weather. It is a singular fancy converting an historical place into a restau- rant ; but a good restaurant and a relic are both sustained by the plan, and the heart and stomach are both strengthened. In this neighborhood are the taverns where the wits and professionals of bygone times held revels, whose walls have echoed to the shouts of Johnson, Hook, Shakspeare, Hood, Jerrold, and others whose names we are familiar with, but of whose antics we fortunately know little. Here Smith the divine thundered his anathemas, and Smith tlie wit ventilated his hon-mots, and Smith the sol- dier strode his stride, and Smith the orator burned with his eloquence, and Smith the ruler gave forth his law, and Smith the poet sang his songs, and Smith the Roman statesman displayed his logic, and Smith the Druid chanted his dirge. It is noticeable, that, when any thing has been going on, the Smiths were round. There are a host of Londoners who never saw the inside of these taverns ; never were inside of the Tower of Lon- don, nor St. Paul's Cathedral : but there are a host of those who have been inside of Newgate, which is not far off. The Newgate Prison of Jack Sheppard's and Jonathan Wild's day is not here. Nearly a hundred years ago. Lord Cor- don's mob of " No Popery " rascals fired the old jirison to release their fellows ; and a new prison has taken its i)lace. The prison looks very much like the reservoir on Kagle ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINnOW. 1 25 Street, Albany ; only its walls are blackened by smoke. There is a narrow doorway set into the wall, and approached by several stone steps, which lets into the office, where sits a little old gentleman with as uncompromising an appearance as the jail itself. He is the governor, and should never be superseded ; but he would make the most cheerful album look sick. A policeman showed me over the prison. I don't know as it differs materially from any other jail. The court-yard, where the executions take place, and where a scaf- fold was now being put in readiness, and taking on its awful shape ; the stocks, where the prisoners to be flogged are secured while the delicate sensation is being produced ; the casts of murderers executed here, taken after the fatal chok- ing, and all bearing the impress of it in their nostrils ; the irons which Jack Sheppard wore, and which a dry-goods clerk could hardly lift ; and the tri-square passage, beneath. whose flagging lies what is left of those who have suffered death here, — were the chief objects of interest. I must confess that I am just morbid enough to have lin- gered some few minutes in the passage of sepulchre. There was a strange interest to me in reading the rudely carved initials in the wall over where may have been the head of the owners. Immediately after the execution the body is brought here, and dropped into a hole beneath one of the flags, covered with lime (as if the poor ^^Tetch had not been slack enough in his life), topped off with earth, and the flagging is replaced ; and, unless some rough but good- natured warder cuts his initials on the wall adjoining, the place of his disappearance is never kno\\Ti. In a brief space of time the body which some fond mother has laughingly cuddled in her arms is rotted and absorbed, and room made for the next comer. A yard enclosed by a huge sombre stone wall separates Newgate from the Old Bailey. In through a gate dri\-es the prison van daily \vith its precious freight. An underground 126 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. passage communicates from tlie court to the prison. Tlie court itself, although much the older building of the two, is of the same material and design, and is similar in all its outward features. There are several rooms for the holding of courts ; but the most interesting .s that for the trial of im- portant criminals. In the box where Sheppard, Turpin, and Duval figured is a stairway leading to the vaults below, where the prisoners remain after being removed from the jail, and waiting for their turn up stairs. The first cell is that said to have been occupied by Sheppard. The police- man who escorted me over the prison tried to make me believe that Sheppard lies buried in the lime under the pas- sage. I told him I had heard the interment was St. Giles-in-the Fields ; but he said bodies were not allowed to be removed from the prison after execution, and so the housebreaker must have been interred here. But Sheppard was not exe- cuted at Newgate, but at Tyburn ; and it is not probable his body was returned to the prison. Both Sheppard and Tur- pin (Palmer) were buried in the yard of St. Giles-in-the- Fields, opposite ,Charing<,Cross Hotel ; and are there yet, as contented as is possible for men of their temperament to be. Newgate Street runs parallel with Fleet Street, and slants into Holborn. The prisoner was put on his coffin in a cart, and the procession made up of the condemned, the clergy, sheriff, prison-wardens, and hangman. Accompanied by a mixed rabble, which rapidly augmented as they proceeded, they came out into Molborn, and drew up in front of the venerable pile called the Church of St. Sepulchre, where the hero received a bouquet of flowers and a spiritual injunc- tion, and then proceeded up High Holborn Street to where it becomes Oxford Street, through Oxford Street to where is now the Oxford-street entrance to Hyde Bark, but which was then an open common ; and here the execution took l)lace. Sixteen-btring Jack, in 1774, was the last to receive ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 27 the bouquet from the steps of St. Sepulchre. A plate in the stone base of Hyde-park fence, just opposite Beresford Hope's house, bears this simple inscription : " Here stood Tyburn Gate in 1829." I suppose there is no means of knowing the number of people who gave up their lives on this spot, both for political and society offences. Seventy-five years ago there were months when twenty and thirty executions came off, and it was not until the commencement of the present century that capital punishment was restricted to the greater crimes. As late as fifty odd years ago, the laws of England punished the theft of five shillings with death. In copies of " The Gentle- man's Magazine " published in 1776 are the accounts of the execution of young and old for the most trifling misdemean- ors. Blacking the face when stealing at night, or even defacing Westminster Bridge, was punished by hanging. If ever a tree bore evil fruit, it was this gallows-tree at Tybuni. But who would think it? Omnibuses, drays, and carriages roll over the pavement, and children play and romp and shout on the greensward, where so many thousands met violent and disgraceful deaths with hearts petrified with despair. In back of Oxford Street to-day are blocks upon blocks of quality residences, owned by certain dukes and earls, and rented on a hundred-years' lease to aristocratic tenants at a price that makes the English stare by its magnitude, and makes us Americans laugh by its insignificance. It is a little singular, that, in this circumscribed and crowded territory, property and rents should be less than in broad and roomy America. But it is so. Up at St. John's Woods, where the west end of the city looks over its back-fences into waving fields of grain, a three-story tenement can be hired for two hundred dollars a year. Try to do the same with a similar dwelling similarly located in New- York City, and the owner would inveigle you up on the roof, and throw you off; and no jury could be found to blame him. 128 ENGLAND FROM A DACK-WINDOW. I may have stated before that the i)rincipal part of the metropolis is owned by some dozen or so jjowerful noble- men, who rent the ground for a land-rent, for a small sum, for a period of ninety-nine years, when it reverts back to them, with all its improvements. In proportion to tlie terri- tory, there is really but a small amount of freehold jjrojjerty in England ; and property becomes somewhat mixed in consequence. There are sections where it is rented forever at so much a yard or rod per annum, and is owned by numerous people. A piece of property is bought in this way for a penny a yard. Improvements take place in its neighborhood ; and its value so increases, that the holder sells it to some one else for twopence a yard ; and the third party soon disposes of it to a fourth for another advance ; and so it goes, if valuation permits, until it gets into the possession of an eighth party. He pays his rent to the seventh, he to the sixth, and so on, till it returns to first hands. This way of purchasing would hardly become popular in our country, and I am glad there is no necessity for it. But the English landlord quite frequently shines above ours. In this section of London, west of Oxford Street, are several very handsome parks, small but beautiful, which are private property, belongmg to the noblemen owning the property about them, and w/iic/i are for the exclusive use of their iena?its. These parks are from an acre to three acres in extent. The English must have grass to play on, and trees to lie under, anil flowers to smell of. Mow many times, in going out of London by the railways, have I lookcil down into the broken windows of wretched tenements, and found a little pot of i)lants struggling with all its might to get the best of its surroundings ! And, not content with its great sweep of park-lands in the city, it has magnificent retreats and gorgeous temples in the suburbs, principally along the Thames. Of a pleasant Sun- ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINnOW. 1 2g day, the little steamers and shore-trains will be crowded with visitors ; while those routes leading to Kensal-green Ceme- tery, Hampton Heath, Crystal Palace, and other resorts, are eciually loaded : and yet the enormous city parks do not look as if a single soul had gone out of the city. It is mar\-ellous where all these people are stowed during the week. Speaking of the Thames reminds me that it is about time I spoke of this great thoroughfare. I used to believe the Thames was a silvery stream, and in later years came to look upon it as a turbulent stream crowded with shipping, lined with docks, with numerous bridges of gloomy arches, from which unfortunate people have been prompted to plunge, and bury their troubles beneath its tragic surface. By the time I had got within one hundred and fifty miles of England_, I began to wonder what the Thames was really like. The river is about the breadth of average rivers. I hardly know how else to give its width. Above the city, beyond Hammersmith, and along through Windsor, it is a pretty stream v/ith delightful shores ; but, within the precincts of London, it is a dirty river with a ferocious tide. The English, with their well-known love for the beautiful and substantial, have made a garden of the west shore, from AVestminster Bridge to below the Temple by the Thames and Victoria Embankments. These embankments are broad roadways, raised some ten or fifteen feet above high tide, and faced on the water-side with finely-cut blocks of granite. Here and there are broad flights of stairs leading down to the water, where are neat and pretty piers for the river steamers. The roadways are very broad and well paved, and flanked with broad walks of immense granite blocks, and lines of gas-lamps. The effect in the night from one of the neigh- boring bridges is beautiful. Trees also have been added, and in time will add a grateful shade to the other attractions of the beautiful promenades. 130 EXGLANO FKOM A HACK-WINDOW. A few Steps through any of the streets leading from Fleet Street, the Strand, or \\hitechapel, — all parallel to the river, — will bring the pedestrian into a beautiful park, bril- liant with blossoming flowers, and radiant with verdure, through which he can pass to the embankment. Fancy New York sacrificing a quarter of its water-front to parks and promenades ! But is London the less valuable for giv- ing the humblest of its citizens an opportunity to sniff flowers, and peg stones into the water? P'ive centuries ago, to have completed such a work would not have been re- markable ; but in this nervous, growing, struggling age, to see commerce sacrificed in such a wholesale way to pleasure is something remarkable, and encouraging. But the Thames presents some wonderful contrasts. It has an extravagant tide. A\'hen the tide is full, all the ves- sels ride free, and the scene is an active one ; but, when the tide is out, you can stand on either of the embankments, and, looking across to the other side, see a broad strip of mud- bottom along the front of blackened and tumble-down look- ing structures, with rickety piers, and sombre-appearing vessels standing on their beam-ends, — the most desolate sight you ever saw on a ri\cr, unless it is a coroner's jury. And flanking the embankments are the same mud flats, with their covering of tipsy vessels. From above Vauxhall Bridge to the Tower of London, covering the greater part of the city river-front, the same dreary line of mud-bottom, rickety, dingy warehouses, and skylarking vessels, may be seen when the tide is out, ex- cepting when the beautiful embankments break the line. There are no docks like those we have in American ports, with drays, barrels of tar, profane boatmen, with stores in the background selling oil-cloth pants and coats, fly-blown cakes, tarred rojie, and suspicious bologna sausages. There is no place on the face of the earth where a stranger is so anxious and ambitious to get information, and where he stands less ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINnOW. I3I chance of getting it, tlian on a dock. But there are no docks fronting these warehouses which we see before us. They are built on the river-edge ; and, when the tide is in, the vessels ride against the buildings, and are unloaded into or loaded direct from them. It saves the employment of a great many men who hold up their trousers with a strap about their waists. The river-craft is about as remarkable as any of its features. Every thing is painted black. The steamboats which ply on the river, from London Bridge up as far as the city reaches, are diminutive vessels devoted to carrying passengers only. They are constantly darting here and there, and are well patronized. On Sundays they are crowded ; and it is a painful wonder that the proprietors have not sufficient enterprise to protect their patrons from the glare of the sun. They sit low in the water, have cheap fares, and are built to stand a good deal of bumping. Their smoke-stacks are jointed, to permit of running under the side- arches of the bridges. They are interesting at the first sight ; but, as you see no other patterns but these, you soon get heartily tired of them. The other vessels are small, awk- ward, cumbersome scows, with a single sail, and a huge pair of oars. They are black and dirty, lazy in their move- ments, open the full length, and look as if they had been carting ink in the bulk for centuries. When the sail cannot be used, the long oars are applied. The scows are used for bringing freight from the sailing and steam vessels down the river, below London Bridge, to the warehouses I have men- tioned. They are the most desponding-looking objects I ever saw, and what they mostly seem to need is a thunder- ing kick behind. London Bridge is the oldest and the last bridge down the river. It is on the site of the two bridges which have made its name a part of history. For miles down the river from here is the genuine ship- 132 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. ])ing which gives Ixmdon its commercial standing. The presence of these huge sailing-vessels and black iron ocean- steamships is never suspected by the visitor who confines his sight-seeing to the city and that portion of the river be- tween London and Vauxliall Bridges ; but there they are, hundreds, yea, thousands of them, from every port and clime open to traffic in the world. But there are .no steamboats like ours, — no steamboats at all but those little chaps which are constantly flitting to and fro. An American steamboat, with its ponderous and attractive exterior, and gorgeous saloons and cabins, would call out the entire city, and rouse all England, Ireland, Scot- land, and Wales. The English often speak of them and our ferry-boats, but with bated breath. You would hardly believe, that, for the miles of city below London Bridge, there is no other means of crossing the river except by little insignificant row-boats. These English can hardly comprehend the New- York ferry-boats, and can- not understand why the waters about that city are not bridged, and row-boats used. When I have told them that there are scores and scores of steam ferry-boats plying be- tween New York and opposite cities all the while, — each vessel large enough to swallow five of their river steamboats, and pick its teeth with a sixth, — they have gone away mis- erable and wTCtched. There are a great many things these English do not understand ; but I think I notice an improvement since my arrival. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 33 CHAPTER XVI. THROUGH PETTICOAT LANE. IT is a little singular that one of the most reprehensible of London's avenues should be its straightest and its broadest. Whitechapel is a remarkable street. It runs par- allel to the Thames, in the eastern part of London, and is supposed to be the Broadway of vice and poverty. I think I am safe in placing its width at one hundred and twenty feet, while its roadway is scarcely forty feet ; leaving a walk on each side of equal width. But merely half of these spaces of forty feet each are devoted to pedestrianism, the rest being used by the occupiers of the shops opposite for the display of their wares. I walked through Whitechapel nearly an hour, watching the people, and peering into the shops ; and the absence of well-dressed or hurrying people finally grew monotonous. It seemed as if I had been trans- planted into another country, and among a peculiar people. I didn't see the mark of Cain on their brows ; but the stamp of Lazarus was quite apparent on their attire. The shops were mostly for the vending of second-hand furni- ture and clothing, and were attended by those people who never can get their luggage passed through a custom-house imtil after it has been thoroughly searched." There were an abundance of men with pants tight in the leg, short-tailed coats, round-crown hats, and cravats of spotted goods. The lower classes of England are devotedly 134 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. attached to spotted neckerchiefs, principally of the blue ground ; and generally tie them about liie neck without regard to the position of the collar, even if they are so par- ticular as to have a collar on at all. Not far above Bishopsgate commences a street well known to the London police, whose name is familiar to thousands who never saw London. Generations upon generations of thieves and vagabonds it has bred and graduated, and bids fair to send forth many more generations of the same sort. Such a reproach had it^ name become, that a few years ago it was removed, and a new one substituted. It is now in the directory, and on the maps, as Middlesex Street ; but all the whitewashing in the world will not blot out its old title, — Petticoat Lane. Whitechapel is but one of the boundaries of a section of which Petticoat Lane is the heart. It is but a lane, crooked enough and slimy enough to be a snake. Its entrance from Whitechapel is appropriately flanked by two low rum-shops, from whose several doors escapes a convivial steam that is not in the least inviting. I was particularly warned by friends, newspaper-articles, and guide-books, not to venture within its precincts, unless under the guardianship of a policeman. With a feeling of almost hysterical exultation, Englishmen had dwelt upon the striking cuteness of English pickpockets ; and Petticoat Lane became especially known to me as the place where the stranger lost his pocket-handkerchief at one end, antl found it hanging up for sale at the other. I tliouijht I sliouUl like to see my handkerchief thus exiK)sed for sale, and intensely wondered who would buy it. I ditln't think I could afford to. It was late in the afternoon when I got into Petticoat Lane ; and for full three hours I kei)t up a ceaseless tramp along it, and through the narrow and noisome alleys and courts leading out of it. 'I'here were second-hand shops in abundance, meat-stalls ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. 1 35 and groceries in every direction. The lane itself had about eight feet of roadway, and from a foot to two feet of sidewalk. There were bloated women, and one-eyed men, and de- formed children, and repulsi\'e dwarfs, among the dirty horde who lounged on the walks, or loitered in the street. A strik- ing peculiarity of the tenements was their size, but few of them exceeding two stories in height. There were no half- dozen flights of crazy stairs to climb up or fall down ; no fourth, fifth, or sixth story window to topple out of, and injure the pavement. The houses were of brick, defaced by age and dirt ; and the first floors to all of them were either on a level with the street, or a foot or so below it. There were an abundance of courts and alleys adjoining, and in them the pedestrian found much difficulty in making his way. Some of the alleys were so narrow, that four people could not walk through them abreast ; and, when their smallness was considered, it was really wonderful the amount of stench they contained. I found boys and girls here in the full enjoyment of happi- ness, and acting dreadfully natural. It brought the tears to my eyes to see seventy-five of them helping to raise a kite, to the unbounded exasperation of the boy who had hold of the string : and, when a half-dozen of them came rushing by me with a dead cat attached to a cord, I felt too full to breathe ; and I took good care not to breathe until they got by. Petticoat Lane is the home of the costermongers whom we meet in the more respectable thoroughfares at all hours of the day or night. The London costermongers are an institution by and in themselves : they are generally healthy-looking men. Their stock of goods is displayed upon an oblong platfonn mount- ed on a pair of wheels : this they shove before them con- formable to the shifting of the channel of trade. They remain in one spot, or move about, as is required. Sometimes they are on the move for hours without a pause, except to attend 136 ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. to a customer. They do not cry out their wares ; they do not come upon the sidewalk. They are to be found in the narrow and crowded thoroughfares, as well as in the more retired portions of the city. They fight for right of way with the powerful omnibuses and leviathan drays ; but I never heard of one of them being run over : and, in turn, they never run over the drays and omnibuses. They sell every thing, but principally fruit and shell-fish. They nearly monopolize both of these markets. This is a good fruit-year, I should judge ; and that which is sold is similar in kind to ours, being cherries, pears, plums, grapes, apricots, strawberries, and red raspberries. I believe they have no blackberries here ; but the English eat strawberries just as we eat cherries, and, between the acts in a play, run out to the first costermonger, and buy a paper of them. At the hotels and dining-houses strawberries are served with the stems, and the guest hulls them himself; or can eat them without hulling, if he choose. But the costermonger who to-day sells fruit may to-morrow sell something else. He watches the market and popular taste, and rarely has the same article on sale several days in succession. To-day he is selling fruit ; to-morrow, oysters and snails ; the day after, fresh fish ; and the fourth day, neckties. It is dreadful to think of. Let us pass on. Green apples are a staple article here ; and the little Lon- don boys, who have no apple-trees to climb, snap up this fruit with greedy haste. The other day I passed one of these green-apple stands. An English and an American friend were with me. The Englishman, pointing to the stock, said, " We use those for tarts : what do you make of them? " " Cholera- morbus," promptly replied the American. "Ah ! cholera-morbus, eh ? — that's odd," said the I'nglish- man. The costermongers who took up nearly all the available space in Petticoat Lane to-day were selling fresh fish and ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 37 shell-fish. The denizens of the neighborhood had undoubt- edly cloyed themselves with fruit and neckties, and were now revelling in snails and soles. Snails are a favorite dish with the English. I have never thought there was any thing particular to admire about a snail, unless it is speed ; but the English utilize them in a happy way, and have been the means of introducing this sombre animal into a circle of gayety and dissipation that must be a decided innovation upon its past life. The snail occupies here the position held by the oyster in America. Being of a humbler nature, it is content to sell itself two for a cent ; while the more aristocratic oyster holds itself at ' from five to eight cents a head. The enjoyment of eating oysters at that price has it drawbacks, and so these people eat snails. A novice at opening oysters rarely hankers after the practice ; but, at first sight, he would prefer, I think, to open an oyster, rather than to open a snail. But the snail is much the easier to conquer. The aspirant for its flesh adroitly introduces a pin into the front-door of the animal's habitation, and it immediately comes out to see what is up. It is a fatal move for the snail, unless it should happen to have a very bad breath. As the English costermonger substitutes snails for our oysters, so also does he vend soles, and not shad. Salmon and soles are the favorite fish here ; but soles, for delicacy and flavor, transcend salmon. It is remarkable how fond the English are of soles. The several Englishmen returning home on the vessel which brought me here frequently conversed with me of the glory in store for me when I put my foot on English soil, and was permitted by a kind and indulgent Providence to call for a fried sole. I heard so much of the surpassing delicacy and flavor of the dish, that I began to fear I should catch some new kind of disease, and die, before I reached land; but when these people got to following me to my 138 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. Stateroom at night when I retired, and hallooing through the keyhole their praises and anticipations of fried sole, the prospect of never seeing the shore again was less frightful than would seem possible. Fried sole is not a bail disli, after ail ; but any one who had been all his life nourished on currycombs would hardly find variety enough in fried sole. It is the favorite dish at the restaurants, and has delicacy enough, for that matter ; but it is simply a paper of pins tliinly disguised : and when you hear a waiter with a sore throat scream down the recesses of an elevator, " One fried sole, quick ! " the start you receive tends to prejudice you against the fish. From this neighborhood radiate the match-peddlers and flower-girls, who meet you at the door of the theatre, every corner of the street, at the entrance to your cab, and leave you only as you disappear in your hotel. The wonderful number of men, boys, women, and girls, en- gaged about the streets, especially after dark, selling matches, surprises a foreigner, until he comes to notice that the Eng- lish smoker almost invariably uses a match to light his weed, and is not yet educated up to borrowing from the end of his neighbor's cigar. The matches thus vended are fusees, adapted to burning in rain or wind. There are no skunks in this country ; but, after you have got a good square pull at a burning fusee, you don't miss the skunk. The flower-girls are equally numerous with the match- peddlers ; but they are rarely seen until after dark. From nine o'clock until long after midnight they are on the street, soliciting all apparently well-to-do people to make a pur- chase. They are of all ages, and a flower-girl of fifty-five summers is a common object. Many of them are mothers, annglishmen are not satis- fied. They are looking about for means to increase it. The lowest speed of the English express-train is forty miles an hour, the highest sixty miles. It is ])Ositive wickedness for a man to fool around in front of one of those trains in his best suit of (lollies. ENGLAND FROM A EACK-WINDOW. I45 Every road is obliged to run daily a parliamentary or peo- ple's train, at one penny a mile. The stations (they do not call them de'pots) are marvels of compactness, convenience, and attractiveness. They are built of either brick or stone, are commodious, and ha\e an abundance of platform-room ;■ and the platforms are faced up with ponderous stone, and surfaced with either concrete or flags. There are no uneven planks to catch your toes, or scale off and thrust slivers into your broken soles. At all the stations there are settees outside for the accommodation of those who prefer to wait there. Some people are con- vinced that a train will come sooner if they are outside looking for it ; and this conviction is never weakened on discovering that they have been looking in the wrong direction. However unimportant the station, the buildings are com- plete. I don't know what an Englishman must think when he sees in America such a depot as that which has for years disgraced the Hudson-river Railroad at Yonkers, or that which yet disgraces the Erie Road at Niagara Falls ; and I am glad that I don't. The stations in London are monsters of brick, iron, and glass, built similarly to the Union De'pot in New- York City. That of the Midland Road at St. Pancras, London, is the largest station in the world. The fronts of the main stations throughout England are used for hotel-purposes ; and at these stations are lavatories, where, for a penny or two pen- nies, the traveller can have a good wash, his clothes brushed, and his hair combed. There is no need of dilating on the value of this accommodation. Although the rails pierce to all parts of England, yet they are principally under the control of five companies, — the Great Eastern, North-western, Midland, Great Western, and Great Southern. The journey from Liverpool to London by the North-western Railway gives the traveller a most 146 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. comprehensive idea of the loveliness of English scenery. He will then be first amazed by seeing well-trimmed hedges of hawthorn along the line instead of broken-down fences, and finely-turfed banks instead of sliding gravel and run- ning clay. Each station has an agent and one or more porters. The least important way-stations have two persons in charge ; and some way-stations have a ticket-collector with the agent, and three to five porters. A station in America would be under the control of one who would, in addition, take care of the post-ofifice, run the telegraph, and do a good business in a mixed line of goods. At a place like Leicester, Cam- bridge, or Manchester, the porters are almost without number. They are noticed by their uniforms, which consist of a stiff flat cap, black vests with alpaca sleeves, corduroy pants, and heavy shoes. I have often wondered how a railway porter would appear with a coat on. When you have purchased your ticket, and seen to your luggage, you either select a car for yourself, or have the porter do it for you. Just before the train starts you will be asked your destination, with a view to learning if you are in the right carriage. At different i)oints on the way you will meet with the same interrogation from the porters of the stations. If you are to change carriages, you will find a porter to meet you at your door, who will take your hand- luggage in charge, and pilot you to a compartment in the right train. If you have a mind to give him a sixpence for the service, it is safe to try it, I believe. Of course he is paid by the company for this work ; but the pay is light, and these sixpenny contingencies are inducements to accei^l; the place. A man got in a compartment with me the other day who wore spectacles, and carried a book under his arm, that gave him the air of being a canvasser of some sort. He had seven parcels, some quite bulky, which the industrious ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I47 porter brought and packed away under the seat for him. Then the man in spectacles said "Thank you," and fell to humming " God save the Queen," for the edification of the porter, without doubt, who did not appear to have a highly- cultivated ear. Just outside the stations of importance the train draws up, and a man in blue uniform comes along and takes up the tickets of those who have made their journey. At the other stations the train runs in without this halt ; and the agent or ticket-collector takes your ticket as you step out of the com- partment, or in your egress from the depot. The English are a travelling people ; but, with the crowds always coming and going, there is complete order. The number of porters and police are sure to secure that, how- ever great the throng of passengers. And these men are always in sight, always within reach. They are not arranged in line in front of a neighboring bar, or behind a trunk, read- ing a paper, or discussing the last night's caucus at O'Shanty's. Every question is answered as if the man had just arrived, and this was the first question he had heard in thirteen weeks. You are not stared at when you inquire for infor- mation, nor frowned at, nor told to go to hell. I rather miss that last. And another thing which makes this English travelling pleasant is the station restaurant, — commodious, neat, and convenient, — where you can get a cup of tea, or a glass of ale or gin, a sandwich, bun, or something else, for the same price that you pay in the ordinary city restaurant. A tired traveller takes a sandwich (four cents), a bun (two cents), cup of tea (four cents), glass of ale (four cents), or the whole for just one cent less than a single cup of coffee costs at the railway restaurant in Stamford, Conn ; and yet flour, tea, and ale are no cheaper here. Spiers and Pond are the refreshment cephalopod of Eng- land, whose arms stretch out in all directions ; the body being 148 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. the Criterion theatre and cafe near Piccadilly Circus, in Lon- don. Every American visitor has seen the name posted prominently over the railway and London theatre restaurants and bars, and beneath it he has found protection from fraud. Spiers and Pond are Australians, who made some money there, and a few years ago came to England with a body of cricketers. These men they displayed for a fee ; and the gate receipts enabled them to inaugurate a system of exten- sive refreshment, which to-day makes them the kings in the business. And no kings have so grateful an empire. They employ young womc^n exclusively to tend the bars, paying them from one hundred to one hundred and thirty dollars a year and their board. A young lady, to qualify for their em- ploy, must dress in plain black, and eschew ribbons and flowers and ostentatious jewelry. They are better paid than other bar-maids. You have already heard of the introduction of the Pullman cars into England. There are four of the cars, and they are run by the Midland Company. The four cars stood in the St. Pancras Depot for a month or more before being used, and were visited daily by a won- dering people. Two of them are drawing-room cars, and the others sleepers. These are the first sleeping-cars in use in this country. Previously, travellers were compelled to nod away in a sitting posture ; and any American who has attempted to while away a night in that position is undoubt- ctlly surprised at the progress of the English nation in art, science, and finance. These two sleeping-cars are the only ones in use in all England ; but there is no difficulty in getting a berth. They are exclusively patronized by Americans. An Englishman has a horror of bting pitched into eternity in his under- clothes. The English do not yet take kindly to the drawing- room cars, either. They like to look through the windows ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I49 at the rich, warm tints of the upholstery, and to stand on the end platforms and try them by springing up and down. But they are a little timid. And they don't know who this Pullman is. The day will come, I firmly believe, when the American cars will be the only ones in use here. Why they have not, years ago, taken the place of the awkward and in- convenient carriages now in use, is directly due to the emi- nently conservative element in the English character. The people dread changes. But the Midland Company has entered the wedge by in- troducing the Pullman cars, and by building themselves cars to accompany the Pullman train, which are in exterior exact- ly similar to our coaches, even to the monitor roofs, but are divided inside into compartments, which are approached by a side-aisle like that running along a Pullman stateroom. The aisle, in time, will come to the centre ; the partitions will come down ; and all the passengers will sit looking one way, and that in the direction going, instead of one-half riding, as they are now obliged, with their backs to the engine. There is, in the locomotives, another evidence of this op- position to change. They are small, and exceedingly unpre- tentious. There is no array of burnished steel and brasses, with a cun'ed black walnut cab and French plate windows. The engine consists simply of the boiler, smoke-pipe, and steam- whistle. Sometimes you imagine it consists entirely of the steam-whistle ; but that is only when it blows. I always crawl under the seat when I hear it : I can't help it. The machinery is below. And as for the cab, there is none. If the railway companies of England did not know that it was possible to have a house on their locomotives, the absence of it could hardly be charged as a lack of human- ity ; but, with the example of America before them, it is not only ridiculous, but inhuman, to leave the engine-driver and stoker unprotected from the weather. A few years ago they had nothing but the boiler-end in 150 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, front of them ; but of late a sheet-iron screen has been added, behind which they can croucli when the sleet or keen air or rain conies too strong. But, when the locomotive is at rest, the driver and stoker get the full force of the storm. I believe the claim in behalf of this style is, that the driver has a better control of the track : in other words, he is not lulletl into false security by the warmth and comfort of his place. But this is nullified by the several severe accidents which have occurred through the driver being benumbed by the cold. They say, also, that the weather is not so severe here as in America. That is so ; but the rain is wet enough to soak one to the skin, and there is snow and hail and frost. A man doesn't need to be frozen dead to experience l)ain and discomfort. But the sheet-iron fenders, with a feeble effort to curl over at the top as if approaching to a roof, is a concession to our way ; and the day will come also when these locomotives will have cabs, even if they are painted all over a dead green as the locomotives themselves are. The man who is called a conductor in America is a "guard " here. The guard sees that the train starts on time, and then steps into his van and takes a high seat beneath where the roof is raised to accommodate him, and sided with glass, that he may see along the top of the train on either side of his carriage. All trains running twenty miles or more without stopping are provided with a cord stretchetl along the outside of the carriage, over the doors, and within reach of the passenger. In case of assault, or sudden illness, or any other cause reiiuiring a stopping of the train, the cord is pulled, and, if in the day, a flag is raised on the carriage, or, in the night, a light is shown. The flag or light is observed by the guard, the train is stojiped, and he, hav- ing the location, proceeds to attend to the matter. In the van with the guard is the brakeman (a brakeman if the train is a long one), who applies the brake to the car which they ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WJNDOW. I5I occupy. The brake on the engine with this checks the train. There is no brake on any of the passenger-carriages, excepting on some of the first-class trains, where the air- brake is used. In the case of the shunting (or switching) of several passenger-cars, their bringing-up depends on the calculation of the driver. Our American style of brake can only be introduced here upon the advent of the American coaches. A short train is managed by the guard alone ; and there is no baggage-master, the luggage being taken care of by the station agent or porters. The guard does not examine or take up the tickets, and has no business-communication with the passengers. He merely starts the train, and accompanies it to take care of it. The wages paid on the railways differ somewhat from ours. The guard, or conductor, receives between seven and eight dollars a week ; driver, ten and eleven dollars ; fire- man, six dollars ; and brakeman, from four to five dollars. The stockholders make more money than that. The freight-cars, here called goods-carriages, are of the size of the passenger-coaches, but are not roofed, being built pen-fashion. The goods, when necessary, are protected from the weather by oil-cloth covers. The stranger notices the names of various business firms on the freight-cars, and is puzzled to understand it. These cars are private property, belonging to the firms whose names they bear, and who find it cheaper to furnish them. A few evenings ago, while in a company at a public-house in a little Derbyshire village, the conversation turned on rail- ways ; and a rakish-looking gentleman of sixty-five years, and ferocious memory, asked us if we knew where the first rail- way to carry passengers by a steam-engine was located. A Manchester gentleman promptly replied, " From Manchester to Liverpool." — " Wrong," said the aged and attentive in- dividual. " It was from Stockton to Darlington ; " and, look- 152 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. ing about tlic company, impressively added, " and anybody but a numskull would know it." A sharp discussion between the two followed, and a wager was laid to decide the result. They were to meet in Manchester a week from that even- ing ; and looking at me, and seeing the gTeat variety of intelligence beaming from my eye, I was unanimously chosen umpire. A movement so wise could hardly fail of being an omen of success, and I attended full of hoi)e. The rakish gent of sixty-five English winters was not on hand ; but the Manchester party appeared, followed by two porters reeling under a pyramid of oppressive-looking books. The authori- ties were consulted, and the Manchester disputant proved right. The Stockton and Darlington Road was built in 1825 for the hauling of coals, and the Manchester and Liverpool Road was opened in 1830 for the carrying of passengers. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 53 CHAPTER XVIII. \VHICH GIVES A DASH INTO RUR-A.L ENGLAND. HISTORY interests us in England's places ; fiction, in its ruins ; and report, in its agricultural and social life. Having attended the places of note, I yearned for ruins and rural life. I thought to get into some retired nook, and spend the sunshine in quiet lanes and blossoming fields. I went to Guilford to take a preparatory look. I found the fields and lanes to be all I desired, and the board-bill — to be much more than I could afford. Fifty dollars a week for two is too much to pay in a quiet rural retreat in the midst of a cheap country. Then I went to Dorking. I inclined to Dorking because of Tony Weller and the Marquis of Granby. I found Dork- ing to be twenty odd miles from London, in famous Surrey, surrounded by parks and fancy-gardening, with a healthy air, no ruins, and fifty dollars a week. I backed away from Dorking with, a great deal of awe. Then a good London friend came to the rescue, and packed me off to King's Lynn^ in antique, historical, and agricultural Norfolk. And here I am, and here I should like to stay the rest of my sojourn in Europe. It was a mellow twilight when the train drew up to the Lynn Station, We had passed through Cambridge and much marshy land beyond ] and here we were in the old 154 F.NGLAXn FROM A BACK-WINDOW. town, and in a quiet station, feeling around for a 'bus or a hearse, and fortunately finding the former. We rolled through a quiet street, with walls of dingy brick on each side, and built as compactly as if it were a city of a million people, with land at a guinea the square inch. We passed into another and still narrower street ; and I looked for signs of Hfe and business, and found but precious little of the former, and none whatever of the latter. We went on into another street with no change at all. I began to think I had missed the 'bus, and got into the other vehicle, after all my care. Presently we ambled on to a paved square, across it to a frowning-looking structure, and were set down in front of an archway, down whose court shone a light from a many-paned window. And this was the Duke's Head. There was a bustle in the archway on our arrival. The boots took our luggage ; a chambermaid appeared, armed with a candle ; and then I found a stairway leading direct from the paved court up into the building. And such a stairway ! — broad enough for six men to go up abreast, and containing an amount of timber sufficient to build a man-of-war. It was built of oak, browned by oil and age, and its steps so polished by beeswax as to be, beyond the carpeting, unsafe to stand upon. Several centuries have come and gone since these stairs were erected. The huge newel-post and neatly-car\ed balustrades were made before machinery for the work was known or. dreamed of: and, when I look at what the untutored sons of those dark ages performed, I am filled with awe ; then I get over on the beeswax and slip and strain myself, and crawl back to the carpet, and slope gradually away. It is a splendid evidence of the substantial architectural ideas of three hundred years ago ; and the only time I can restrain my admiration of it is when I find at the bottom that I have forgotten something at the top. The house is ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 55 full of narrow passages, odd nooks, low ceilings, and capa- cious parlors or sitting-rooms. A\'hcn I get tired of roaming about it, I go up the paved archway, and into a paved court with low brick stables on each side, and watch the hostler clean the traps (carriages). There is nothing particularly exciting about cleaning a carriage, unless it prevents you from going on a picnic ; but this hostler is just such a hostler as I have read of. He wears leggings, touches his cap when speaking to you, and makes a hissing noise with his lips while at work. He may miss some particular portion of the vehicle ; but he never misses the hiss, but keeps it going without cessation throughout the job. I have said there was a square in front of the house. It is full three acres in extent, and every inch of it is cobbled. So are the streets and lanes and courts opening into it. Lynn in America is not more cobbled than is this English Lynn. This is the Tuesday market-square, and on it is the corn exchange (all grain is called corn in England) . Then there is the Saturday market-place, in the shadow of the venerable St. Margaret. Lynn is built entirely of dingy brick, cobble, and concrete. Its streets, with few exceptions, are very narrow, absurd- ly crooked, and all cobbled. It boasts of seventeen thou- sand inhabitants, but does not cover near the ground of a New-England village of half the population. The houses are put close together, presenting an unbroken wall at the front ; and every few rods there is a long, narrow courf* choking with tenements. Every street is paved, and every sidewalk flagged. High Street is narrow and wayward in its course. The roadway is of just such a width ; and, as the foundations of the houses are in-egular at the front, the sidewalks are varied in their widths, — either spread out full six feet, or squeezed 156 ENGLAND FROM A nACK-WINDOW. into one foot. In consequence, many of the people are crowded off into the roadway, and walk there with their backs up. Of a Saturday evening both the roadway and walks are thronged with j)eople, with not a team in sight ; and the scene is quite picturestjue and uncomfortable. Lynn looks, with its two and three storied houses, as if it had been beaten into the earth with a gigantic mallet. Many of the houses have their second stories protruding over the walk. That was a very economical way of building two hundred years ago, as there was no cost for air, and the builder got more room on the second floor than he could get from his deed on the first. During a rain-storm the pro- tuberances are nice to stand under, and watch somebody go by with your umbrella. I am rather particular in describing Lynn, but not too much so ; for it is a prototy])e of all English country-towns, — close built, as if shrinking from God's sunshine and nature's beauties, and as scrupulously paved as if a street commissioner w'ere a myth, and not live flesh and blood, I have been into a number of English towns in the past month, and I have noticed no important difference in their architect- ural features. Men in smock-frocks, corduroy pants, and holinailed shoes, are common, and are to be met with on every street. There are also many knee-breeches and stockinged calves. I like to see them. But Lynn and the countrj-lowns generally difier from London in one important aspect. The men are not habitu- ated to umbrellas. Every Londoner carries an umbrella, and would as soon think of going out without the back of his head as without an umbrella. It is his constant comi)an- ion at every step, — on the promenade, at church, the i)lay, at the shop, everywhere. He doesn't carrj' it because he has a special fondness for it, or because there is any particular virtue in its possession ; but he carries it because it is a ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 5/ habit ; and he could no more break himself of it than he could break from any other habit, unless he should diet him- self, and consent to be placed under a physician's care ; which he rarely does. He paws over shop-goods with it ; sticks it into tarts ; and, for all I know to the contrary, pokes it into the ribs of his dead friends to see what they died of. The Lynn man, and tlie rural man in general, seldom carries an umbrella ; but he is partial to a stick. From the nobleman down to what is expressively called a " clodhop- per," all carry sticks. At a farmer's house I recently visited I saw no less than twelve substantial sticks hanging up in his hall. They were used by himself; and, in looking over them, I was very much struck by a remark he made. It was, — " I must be having a new stick soon." An English town is not so cheerful appearing as an Ameri- can town : far from it. There are no wooden buildings ; none painted white with green blinds ; no gardens, fruit-trees, shrubs, turf, and neatly-painted fence at the front. The resi- dences, like the shops, are built close to the walk, are devoid of color (except the dingy color of the bricks or cobbles of which they are composed), and make no pretence whatever to architectural display. That is reserved for. the churches. There are a few exceptions to this picture ; but the general aspect is depressing to an American. In this town of seventeen thousand population one can count on his fingers the number of fashionably-dressed ladies (as we understand the fashion) to be met on High Street any pleasant afternoon. Perhaps the upper classes, the gentry or quality, where we should look for the latest fashions and the costliest dress, keep themselves secluded. Perhaps, again, High Street is so narrow, so dingy, and so impoverished as to sidewalk, that Fashion is afraid to stride throuc^h it. 158 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINOOW. In the olden time of very warm politics, and in the later season of red-hot religion, Lynn and all Nt)rro]k was up to its ears in trouble. Lynn was then a walled city, and in the country round about were walled and moated castles. One of the gates to Lynn still stands, — a scjuare, pyramidal tower, with a narrow arch beneath, through which the traffic to the populous country beyond passes. Above are several rooms where the warder and guards were then stationed, and where now numerous doves are providing for future successes in agriculture. Here and there are fragments of the old wall, built heterogeneously of brick, stone, cobble, and mortar, and bidding fair to remain, if left to time, five centuries hence. All the churches about here — and, wherever you find a cluster of houses, you find a parish and a church — are of pretty much the same pattern. They were built by the Catho- lics ; are of gray stone, brown-shell car stone, or broken flint. The last is used promiscuously with brick in most of the structures. The flint is an irregular-shaped stone, about the size of your fist when you are not feeling particularly mad, with a light-colored surface. When broken, the inside shows a steel-blue color that makes a very tasteful facing to a building. But, when these old churches were built, the flint-stones were put in whole, or, if broken, mixed up with brick, without any regard to details, but looking merely for a symmetrical whole. The building consists of a high square tower at the front, with flat top. Running back from this is the body of the building, with very steep roof and Norman windows. They are pretty much all alike in outside appearance, the only difference being in the numl)cr of windows. I should judge they were built under one contract, and from one moilel. Tile walls are plastered ; the ceilings are of oak-timber, i)lain or carved ; and the floors are of flagging. Fretjuently there is a matting ; but generally the flagging is bare, the only warming influence to it being the eulogies of the dead they cover and keep down. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 59 We have the dead all over the buildings. There will be fathers in the porch, aunts in the aisles, uncles in the tran- septs, with cousins and grandmothers under all the seats. Many of these churches, although in {jarishes scarcely num- bering forty houses, are over five centuries old. The family of the lord or the s(]^uire of the neighborhood are assigned to near the altar; and here, on curiously- \\Tought flagging, are the virtuous deeds and characteristics of the deceased set forth. The English people revere their church-buildings, but more especially the windows, doors, and fonts. They have a church in Lynn which is called the St. Margaret, — a very large and venerable pile. Now, you take a thoroughbred churchman, and he will spend an entire day with St. Margaret and a sandwich. He v/lW stand for an hour in front of one window, and, after he has collected his senses, will discourse fervently upon the sweep of its arch, the delicacy of its tracery, and the firmness of its spandrels. He will walk thirty-two times around a font in a sort of ecstatic blind-staggers. I could cut out something equally beautiful from a bath brick with a jack- knife ; but I shall not do it. St. John's Chapel is a dependency of St. Margaret, and historically is of no consequence. But a rector of St. John's has saved his chapel from oblivion. You see the dead were irregularly planted, as must neces- sarily follow four hundred years of inteniient in a two-acre lot laid out and inaugurated as the people of that period were proud to do, believing, without doubt, that the Almighty could have no use for the world after they departed from it, and would straightway destroy it. So these different grave- stones presented a very much broken front to the eye, from whatever direction they were viewed. The rector was dis- pleased with that. He said harmony was one of the chief objects of life ; and, to produce a little of the chief object, he l60 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. pulled up the grave-stones, and set them out in symmetrical rows. Tliey look very pretty now ; but, as the signs were reset without regard to the location of the parties who had been doing business beneath them, the effect is not exactly picturesque upon the mind of the survivors. In fact, they don't know where to look for their dead, but have to drop the sad tear at random. This is unpleasant to the friends, and must be somewhat embarrassing to the deceased. But one of the objects of life is gained. There is another church quite famous : that is St. Nicholas. Part of the stones that form the floor to St. Nicholas were once set off with brass effigies and epitaphs ; but in Crom- well's time much of this metal was torn up and carried away, and marks of the violence of those days are to be seen in nearly every church in this section. The tomb of Robinson Crusoe is in this church. It is just inside the south porch, and I had walked over it several times before I had discovered it. His faithful companion is here too, I should judge ; as the stone reads that Mr. Crusoe was buried on Friday. The first day that I was in St. Nicholas Church I witnessed a wedding. I was not going to stay to it, as it revived too many painful recollections ; but Mrs. Bailey was determined to remain, as she wanted to see an English ser\ice. She said that it was much different from the way performed in our country, much sweeter and more impressive ; and she must remain to see it. About three o'clock the next morning I was awakened out of a sound sleep by this (juestion : — "What do you suppose she paid for that bonnet?" The marriage took place pretty much as such events come off anywhere. There were the head victims, and four maiils and " best " men ; also a few immediate friends ; in addi- tion, a number of women from the neighborhood, bare- headed, bare-armed, and flavored like the back end of a fish- market. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. l6l When the ceremony was over, I liad an illustration of the stability of the English house-service. A stranger asked the sexton who was being married ; and the sexton said, — " Mrs. Aguinley's cook." " Ah ! " grunted the gentleman, and moved away, looking indescribably grateful. There was no asking who the man was, poor devil ; nor her name, poor dear ; nor where they came from ; nor what he was engaged in. It was simply, — "Mrs. Aguinley's cook." And that explained it. Reverse the places. Put the scene in America, and have the same question asked, would that be the answer? Mrs. Aguinley's cook ! Which cook ? The one she had last week, or week before last, or that she has now? And what is her name, pray? But, more particularly, what is his name ? and where does he work ? Ah, dear reader ! this is England, the England of ages ; and the woman who was that day led to the altar was Mrs. Aguinley's cook, and had been her cook for twenty years, and would go back there to be her cook for years and years to come, God willing. His place may be here to-day, and there to-morrow, for he is a mechanic ; but she is here forever. And every man, woman, and child knows that Mrs. Aguinley has a cook, and being Mrs. Aguinley's cook is to be respec- table ; and that's all of it. There is one person in Lynn whom the visitor cannot well avoid noticing : he is the towii-crier. He dresses in a suit of blue, and wears a high silk hat with a broad gold band about it. There is also gold lace on the wristband of his coat, and a cord down his trousers-leg. There are three weekly papers in Lynn, whose columns are open to, and are well patronized by, the sellers and losers of property, holders of meetings, &c. ; but yet the town-crier flourishes, and 1 63 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. keeps liis appetite, in spite of the press. Every day or so he makes his appearanee in the pubhc scjuare, and, after ringing his bell to attract the attention of the populace, proceeds to thunder out the various notices intrusted to him, very much to the edification of the little shopkeeper across the way, the hr)stler of the Woolpack, and three dirty little girls nursing a baby, and numerous flies on "the steps of the central orna- ment of the square, who are (juite frequently his entire audi- ence. His tones are stentorian ; but' he does not look blown. He divides his talk by dividing his sentences : this has, I regret to say, a tendency to mar the original text. To be a market-town is to be a town of some importance. The market-day is not, perhaps, so active as were the market- days of the time when railways had not made distant places easy of access ; but still there is a great deal of significance to a market-day in the nineteenth century. That of Saturday is a minor institution. It is held in the shadow of St. Mar- garet's Church, and consists of numerous booths, presided over mostly by women, where are vended hams, beads, tur- nips, prayer-books, veal-cutlets, and buttons ; also qJoetry and eels. The venders belong in Lynn or the neighborhood, and are well patronized. Why they should assemble together thus once a week for the purpose of trade is a matter I am in- tently studying up, but feel hopeless of discovering. The Tuesday market consists of booths, as before men- tioned, on the square in front of our inn, a grain-market held in the corn-exchange building ojjposite to us, and a cattle- market held in a rail-bounded square a few blocks away. The material difference between the occupiers of booths on Tuesday and those on Saturday is, that the former are not residents of Lynn, but are a sort of vegetable and tape Jiuhemians, travelling by wagon or push-carl from market- town to market-town. 'I'hey are well patronized, notwilh- ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 163 standing Lynn is abundantly supplied with merchants, who look upon their gypsy rivals very much as a man would look upon a streak of lightning, — something unpleasant, but hardly to be averted. Monday night they begin to arrive ; and, as the twilight sets in, they fall to and put up the frames to their canvas. I believe they work all night, as. they very well can ; for in England, in the summer season, twilight follows daylight about ten p.m., and is again succeeded by daylight at two A.M. It is never dark. But the cattle-market is the most interesting in Tuesday's proceedings. I can walk for an hour at a time through the sheep-lanes without weariness. The sheep (and that ani- mal predominates here) are no different from the sheep at home ; but the people are who attend them. Here are cor- duroy clothes, hobnailed shoes, smock-frocks, and little round hats in profusion. Here also are striding, red-faced, bluff- hearty English farmers, with drab suits, high silk hats, and the inevitable and inextinguishable stick. Here is the constant " ah ! " and " oy ! " and " unh ! " and " whey- whey ! " and " aye ! " sounded by high and low. Here is the " bloody lot " stigmatized, and the " blarsted eyes " apostrophized, and the " dirty beggars " threatened. But amid all the hurry, discussion, yelping of dogs, and bleat- ing of sheep, cannot be distinguished a single oath. I don't understand it. It makes me lonesome. 164 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTER XIX. BRINGS US TO ENGLISH FARM-LIFE. WHEN I broached to a London friend my desire to go among the Enghsh farmers, and learn something about them, he gravely shook his head. "The English farmer," said he, "is a curious specimen of perverse humanity. He is reticent, suspicious, jealous. The farming country of England is divided into the large estates of noblemen and squires. These estates are subdi- vided into farms, and rented out to the men who form a most important class in this country. They hold these farms by good behavior ; and it is the tenant's ambition to keep his place all his life, and bequeath it to his oldest son on his death. Many of the present possessors of farms were born on them, as their fathers were before them : it is not only their home, but their ancestral liall ; and they guard it against the advances of rivals with jealous care. Many a man has lost his farm through some indiscreet remark made in the presence of a neighbor who coveted his place, and lost no time in creating an unfavorable impression of him at head- (luarters. Then, again, as his farm is not his own, but always, so to speak, in the market, he is careful to keep the proceeds from it a secret ; so that, if he is doing well, no neighbor will strive to get his farm by bidding higher, and thus increase the price of his rent to retain it. There are other things, pcrhajjs, I do not understand, that go to make the English ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 165 farmer tight-headed : and while I am quite certain none of them will treat you disrespectfully, yet I am positive you will not get a chance to go over their farms, or mix with their households ; and, as far as gaining a knowledge of them is concerned, your mission will be fruitless." ^^'hen I got my letters of introduction, and started dowTi into Norfolk, I made about as gloomy a procession as ever entered that blossoming section of England. I would make a strong push for help ; but it was a melancholy resolution. One of the letters was to a farmer. I hung about Lynn three or four days, just as a boy who has shirked school and the chores hovers about the desired but dreaded home- stead at night, mustering up courage to present that letter. This gave time for the author to get a note down to the farm- er in question ; and, the next day after its receipt, the tiller of the soil was in Lynn hunting me up, and from that time forth the hospitality and kindness which flowed from that one letter were simply remarkable. The English are hos- pitable to a fault. We found every house open to us, and every thing done to make us forget that three thousand miles lay between here and home. The contrast between this and the picture drawn by the wise Londoner needs no paint to bring it out. There is this important difference between holding farm- property in America and farm-property in England. In the States it is the rule to own the farm. The propri- etor is thus his own master. If the farm is not a profitable one, his sons go West, and start one for themselves : if it is profitable, they either run in debt and mortgage it, or go to the city to distinguish themselves behind a store-counter. If they are not aspiring or dissolute, they take the farm, and work it during their generation ; and all the risks their father ran as to succession they now incur. If there are several sons, they cannot with their families exist on this single farm ; and in this case there is a split up of either the farm or the l66 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. family, and quite frequently of both. In the exceptional case of a rented farm, the tenant, being a true American, stays on the farm as long as it will pay, or until he sees another in reach that will pay better, which he at once takes. I le educates his boys to a profession, so that they shall not have to work as he does ; and farming runs out of the family upon his death. With the English farmer, the farm is alto- gether an inheritance from his father ; that is, the lease of it. His ancestors are buried in the little village churchyard, and he has a pardonable anxiety to have his bones rest with them. The English farmer is just as shrewd and as sharp as his Yankee brother ; but he is far more conser\'ative. The love of home is so woven into his nature as to be a part of it ; and the family homestead, although merely his by sufferance, is sacred in his eyes. To the oldest son goes the farm, and he, in turn, gives it to his oldest son ; and while shops and mills and offices are filled, still the farm is kept in the family from generation to generation. This explains why the vast estates of noblemen have remained in the one family since the day of the Conqueror, and are nearly as intact to-day as when that Norman pirate awarded them to his clamorous rabble. The oldest son takes the homestead ; and the others, if there be no surplus to give them a start in life, start themselves, or work for their brother. I am aware that much can be said against this peculiar division of i)roperty ; but there is this much in its favor, — the place is kept in the family, and reaches that per- fection which age invariably brings to one management. The man who has been accustomed from infancy to one arrangement of rooms and adornment rarely cares to make a change. A repair is made here and there, as time reipiires : but the landlord is seldom petitionetl to pull down the old house, and erect a more modern one in its place ; and, if he incurs the expense without solicitation, it is an event which has no i)arallcl. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 6/ This generation lives in the same rooms the generation before them occupied ; and that generation used pretty much the same furniture, and had before them the same walls, which their fathers and mothers used and looked upon. So we find to-day in the farmhouses crooked passages, low ceilings, brick floors, yawning fireplaces, minute panes of glass, latticed windows, huge door-knockers, and monstrous four-poster beds, which ser\'e the people who contributed to the revenue of the Virgin Queen. There is the kitchen in a Norfolk farmhouse, which I shall always remember, and which it seems I could never tire of looking at. The floor was of bright-red tile, and worn into hollows by the feet of generations of the present occupant's family. The fire- place was a marvel of width, and made the kitchen look as if it were laughing from ear to ear. The andirons which stood in it had almost enough material in them to make an iron fence. The huge mantel above seemed to need all its strength to hold the shining brass candlesticks. Ropes of onions and various articles hung from the whitewashed beams which formed the ceiling. The windows were as broad as they were high, with recesses almost roomy enough to accommodate a caucus of reformers. The chairs were of oak, straight in the legs and back, with one quaintly carved, so as to press pomegranates, angelic skulls, and acorns into your spine as you leaned back in it ; and when the table was set in the middle for lunch, with a huge round of cold beef in the centre, supported by a fat-bellied pitcher of foaming ale, the advance and glories of the nineteenth century sank out of sight and memory. But they needed the deep window-recesses and broad benches in those days to have courted in. There were then no mohair sofas, with spiral springs running up through to hold you on ; and, if our ancestors had depended strictly on the stiff ungainly chairs for their wooing, this world of ours would to-day be for rent. 1 68 ENGLAND FROM A CACK-WIXDOW. The Norfolk parish where I spent so many pleasant days is called West Winch. It is less than a dozen miles from Lynn, and is owned by Lord Clare. There are about twenty- five farmhouses in the parish. The Cambridge turnpike runs through the place, and on the turnpike is the parish church and churchyard. The church is of rubble-work of course, and is five hundred years old. It is supposed to be the site of a Roman burial-place, from the relics of tombs which the sexton's spade has brought to light. Noticeably among these evidences is a stone coffin. There are but few of the old English parish churches that have not one or more stone coffins. They are hollowed from an oblong block of stone, broad at the head, and narrow at the foot, and have a stone slab of the same shape for a cover. \\'hen sealed up for the funeral, one of them would weigh about a half-ton ; and to be a pall-bearer in those days must have been a most gloomy and sombre undertaking. Adjoining the church is the parsonage, the venerable occupant of which has been here thirty years, and will remain till "called up higher." He has a pretty home, embowered in ivy, and guarded on every side by flaming roses. Opposite is a public-house ; and along the road about a mile, where w-as once a flourishing market-town, but is now a cluster of a half-dozen houses, are two more public-houses ; and, as they sell nothing but liquors, I don't understand how they make out to support themselves. About a quarter-mile off from the road is a common of two hundred acres ; and along this common, with a lane ingress and egress, live the bulk of the inhabitants of West AN'inch, being farmers. Each fiirmer has the privilege of pasturing so many cows, hogs, and horses on this common. Once or twice a year, at about three o'clock in the morning, the former is awakened from a refreshing sleep (which only those who till the soil and edit newsi)apers enjoy) by ihe cry of the " common driver," who, having been born after ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 69 Lindley Murray's death, shouts in stentorian tones, "Wake up ! the common's to be drove ! " The farmer jumps out of bed and into his clothes, and in the dim hght of morning watches the drivers get together the cattle. They are then counted ; and, if it is found that he has more than his share on the pasture, that farmer wishes he had died years before his birth. His extra stock is confiscated, and he is shut out from the privilege of the pasturage. My friend has two hundred acres which he farms. He has the most of it in wheat. It is a singular feature of this climate, that, while their grain is up above ground when the soil of New England has hardly escaped from the fetters of frost, yet the harvest is no earlier than ours. He cut his grass the first of July, and his grain the middle of August. He has four men and two boys in his employ. They are the farm-laborers you hear so much about through Mr. Arch and other agitators. I am not qualified to carry on a discussion of the English farm-labor question. There is much to be said on both sides, perhaps, which is not heard. They have agiicultural lock-outs here, where the laborers of a section, in answer to a behest from their union, make a strike for increased pay, do not get it, and are shut out from work. Much destitution naturally follows ; but then they are in a great measure compensated by processions, flags, bands of music, speeches, and beautifully-framed resolutions. All of us can get along well enough without bread and clothes, and might, possibly, put in a few more weeks on this globe with- out processions, flags, and music ; but we couldn't exist four- teen minutes in the absence of speeches and resolutions. The farm-laborer here dresses in corduroy pants, wearing an over-shirt of coarse white stuff, which reaches nearly to his knees. It is called a smock-frock. He is further adorned with a coarse wool hat having a low, round crown (of the shape of a boil), and a narrow brim rolling up at the sides, and a pair of very heavy shoes, whose hobnails leave a dis- I/O ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. tinct mark in soft eartli and the dust of the road. Pictures a hundred years old gi\e this same costume, excepting that the corduroy trousers reached only to the knees then, and were finished with black or gray stockings. The stockinged legs are occasionally seen now, but are not common. As a sort of homage to that fashion, the laborer of to-day ties a red string about his pants-leg just below the knee. I asked a gentleman why they did it ; but he could not explain. I said I didn't see any sense in it ; and he dryly added, that perhaps the wearers of the red string didn't see any sense in our wearing two buttons on the back of our coats. However, we wore them. This soothed my curiosity. The laborers support themselves, and pay their own rent, living in little plain stone cottages near to the farms, — cot- tages which the lord of the manor has erected for their ac- commodation. The wages which they aspire to, and which in some sections is paid, is three dollars and three-quarters a week. In some places they work for only two dollars and a quarter a week. In busy times, the Nyife and those of the children old enough go into the field. Some of the farm- laborers, with an income of less than three dollars a week, support a family of four or five. Awful, isn't it? But, dear reader, do you remember, that, before our late unhappy war, common laborers in America received but six dollars a week ? I knew of one who had six children, making a family of eight, who succeeded in keeping out of debt on six dollars a week ; and in those times he paid more for his clothing than the English farm-laborer pays, and it wore him a less time. It is not extraordinary for a i)air of English shoes to last over two years, and a pair of corduroy j^ants to wear five years. The latter can be bought for less than two dollars. I do not wish to defend the system of wages in England, neither do I desire to drive the poor and helpless into cordu- roy breeches. I think the farmers ought to pay their help all they can ; and I hesitate to attack them, for fear they ' ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I /I do. It is said (and it must be so, as I have the word of several London gentlemen) that many of the farm-laborers never touch a mouthful of meat from one year's end to an- other. But they get along very well without it. I have seen hundreds of them and their families ; and a redder-faced, brighter-eyed lot of people I never saw, even in a hotel where there is an abundance of meat. I honestly advise all farm-laborers to steer clear of meat in the future, if they value their health. They have roses on the walls of their cottages, of course ; they smoke (and are even beginning to chew), and they have their beer. If they prefer beer to beef, whose business is it ? Their rents are not so high as the American farm- laborer, who lives by himself. Twenty dollars a year is the highest, I believe. There are places where the benevolent wealthy have erected model cottages at a still less rent. On the estate of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham there are quite a number of these cottages, built of stone, with peaked roofs, containing four or five rooms, with a bit of garden attached. The rent is fifteen dollars per annum. They are neat places, well ventilated, and free from lightning-rods. In fact, there are precious few lightning-rods in all England ; which is remarkable, considering the English people's dread of a thunder-storm, of which they are always careful to speak in the most respectful terms, calling it a "tempest." 172 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTER XX. MORE ABOUT THE FARM. IN discussing the relative wages of American and English laborers and, mechanics, it is well to take into considera- tion the sort of equivalent their labor furnishes for those wages. I contend that the American works the harder of the two. If he is on a farm, he must be up and at work, choring around, at five o'clock ; and he has but little relief until eight or nine o'clock in the evening. He boards with the farmer, who sends him to bed when there is nothing more to do, and drags him out again as soon as it is light enough to see the shortest way into his clothes. And during the day he works with a will, spurred up, not by beer, but by an Eg)'ptian taskmaster, who works like a maniac him- self, and can't be made to understand why evcryl)ody else should not do the same. I have been there myself, gentle reader. If he is a mechanic, and doesn't attend to his busi- ness, and do a reasonable amount of work in the time, he is discharged. The English farm-laborer gets to work not earlier than six o'clock, has his breakfast at eight, dinner at one, and knocks off at six. In most of the farm-villages there is a piece of land divided up into what are called allotments, and each laborer can have an allotment (about a rood) to cultivate for himself by the j^ayment of from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars and a half a year. After his work at night, he ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 73 can devote his time to this plot of ground ; and this charity has two objects, — to contribute to the sustenance of the laborer, and to cultivate a spirit of industry, saving him from the idleness and expense of the public-house. The smallest of parishes has its public-house, with a quiet and cosey little bar-parlor and inviting pubHcan (proprietor) to wheedle the pennies and minutes from the cottager. We wish these charities all success ; but publicans and sinners are traditional companions. The English farmer does but little work himself, aside from riding about, going to market, and looking after his stock : consequently the laborer, in the absence of this stimulating example, is inclined to establish his owai pace. It is not a violently swift one. One fanner assured me that his men were then getting to work at eight o'clock in the morning, and quitting at three in the afternoon. As for the mechanics, they have still less hours, and a half-day on Saturday. They don't appear to be impairing their constitutions with hard work. Right opposite is a build- ing of stone, fifteen by twenty-two, going up. The first stone was laid about five weeks ago, and three men have been em- ployed on it every day since. They have got the first floor done. A Scotch friend dr}'ly observes, that, if English me- chanics had had the supreme charge of the Tower of Babel, it is quite probable there would have been but one language to this day. I have had many talks with these farm-laborers about America. They like to converse upon that country ; but they don't seem to be itching all over to go there. Several letters from Englishmen now in the States looking about for an El Dorado have been published in the vicinity papers. These accounts are most discouraging to English emigration, and through them breathes a fervent prayer to get back to Old England. An intelligent-looking laborer came up to me wlaile I stood 174 ENGLAND FROM A DACK-WINDOW, at a little station talking with some friends and waiting for the train, and said, " Vou don't advise a laborer to go to America, do you, sir? " " Not if he is doing well here," I answered. "That's the way my brother Joe talks," he said. " He's been in America two years, and he writes to say that I had better stay in England as long as I can get enough to do to make my bread." The rent of a farm for this section is aliout seven dollars per acre ; the road, poor and church rates, and taxes, are about five dollars more : making, in all, twelve dollars per acre per annum. All grain is here called corn, and is sown in drills, and hoed like potatoes and maize, the weeds cut down, and the earth loosened. I once made an item to the effect that a Texas farmer was hoeing his buckwheat for the second time. It was a very good joke ; but the English ])ai)ers did not copy it. The chief weeds with which the English farmer has to contend are thistles and poppies. There is nothing remarkable about thistles, unless you are barefooted ; but the idea of a poppy being a weed is striking enough. You know how choice we are of them in our gardens at home, and what an addition to a plot are a half-dozen of these brilliantly- flowering plants. Try, then, to conjure up thousands of them in one enclosure. They are called " red weed " in England. They flourish principally in the grain-fields, where their deep red contrasts magnificently with the dark green of the wheat and barley and oats. I have seen fields so abounding with popjiics, that they looked as though they were splotched with blood. I ha\e seen great beds of them spring- ing from newly-turned earth along the railways, and their beauty I never saw equalled in nature. Surely Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like unto these ; nor smelt like them, I hope. Rearing their scarlet heads among the ilnrk-green grain, they present a jiicture tluit nuist touch every he:irt, although ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1/5 differently. I have seen two men stand at a fence on oppo- site sides of a field, and gaze for a half-hour at the wonderful blending of color. The one was speechless, his eyes glisten- ing with the most ex(iuisite delight : he was a tourist. The other was speechless also ; but his eyes did not glisten : he was the owner of the field. Rural England is like rural America in that it possesses the same geological and natural features. We lack the neat- ness and tidiness which centuries of teaching and practice have established about these rural homes and lands, and that solidity which age has impressed upon this country, and which you always notice, and never tire of. We have the same ■ gravel, with the same qualities for removing skin from that portion of the human frame coming in violent contact with it, the same lumpy dirt in the gardens, the same trees, shrubs, vegetables, grain, and fruit, as do they. To look over into an English garden is like looking into an American garden. Those products which are not here, or are here and not at home, are so few as not to be noticeable to the casual ob- server. There are cabbages, and pea-vines curling about pea-brush (the roots turning bilious at the progress of the tops), and lettuce, and pie-plant (under which a rubber ball rolls, and is not discovered until the season is over), potatoes, radishes, strawberries, raspberry and currant bushes, and fruit-trees. The grass is just the same in blade as ours, and leaves exactly the same tint on the seat of a pair of white Unen pants, — the only greenback in circulation here. What we may miss in the view are tomatoes (which are hardly established here as an article of food), beans, and our elaborate squashes. There is not a corn-field in all England. They call our corn maize, and use large quantities to feed stock, but im- port it principally from America. I have seen three stalks of corn since being in this country. Two of them are grow- ing in Shakspeare's garden at Stratford, where they share iy6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. with the immortal bard the admiration of American visitors : the other is fighting for dear Hfe in a flowef-pot in an Edin- burgh hotel. The English weather is not hot enough to mature corn. They say they have no frosts here until the middle of October. But they don't need them before that : the weather is cold enough without them. It is now the middle of August, and we have hovered over a fire for the last four days. The fire is in a grate, of course. The Eng- lish won't use stoves, because they like to see tlie flame, it is so cheerful and cosey. Once in a while I like io/eel it ; but I carefully refrain from saying so. I have seen an English- man sit shivering for an hour in front of a fireplace, his face lighted up with a smile. He liked to see the fire, it was so cheerful and cosey. They don't have beans, either : I mean the white cooking- bean. They grow a yellowish-brown bean, — fields of it, — of the color and nearly the shape of a marrowfat pea. This is the only bean they harvest for the winter ; and that they grind up, and feed to their stock. When I told them of our white beans, ripened in the field, and cooked during the winter and following spring for the table, they looked so unfriendly, that I dropped the subject at once. They don't have pumpkins, — those great yellow fellows, which make such grand pies and such rich milk. They have a little sum- mer squash for the table ; but they know nothing of the big fellows shown at the American fairs. They wouldn't eat dried beans ; but they do eat crows. To tell the truth, I have con- cealed one or two crows about my own person in the past month. It is not the carrion-crow : O heavens, no ! But it is the other crow, which lives in the farmhouse trees, and is here called a rook. He looks just like his carrion brother ; and I don't know how they distinguish them apart, unless it is by their breaths. When a man is partaking of a crow-pie, he doesn't want to be incjuisitive. It mars the festivities. Their standard fruits they cultivate against housv' ;md ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. 1 77 fence walls, as their summer heat is not sufficiently continu- ous and powerful to ripen the fruit without the auxiliary aid of the stone and brick. But there is not much pleasure in seeing a tree nailed up to a wall like a grape-vine. In such a position it looks more like a criminal than a friend of man. The English use heavy horses, and they are required for the work. I have told you how heavy and substantial are the English carriages ; but they are half worn-out gossamer alongside of the English farm-carts. Their carts measure four feet around the hub, and the rest in proportion. A farm-wagon weighs a full ton, and will carry a weight nearly .four times as great. This huge mass is propelled by from three to four horses, rarely four, driven tandem. I have not yet seen a load of farm-stuff drawn by horses abreast. Why, with their splendid roads and small farms, they should deem it necessary to have such monstrous carts and wagons, can only be explained by the fact that their forefathers did so ; and their forefathers are safer to copy after than their American cousins. I believe I spoke in one of my London letters of the great number of little ponies in that city. They are plenty all over the country. They were suddenly introduced into England many years ago, when a tax was levied on every horse of twelve hands in height or over. We are descended from the English. The people near the common in West Winch have a lane which scoops around in the shape of a crescent, taking in the main road above and below the church. They call it a lane. It is about thirty feet broad, has a good road and a perfect sidewalk, with a four-feet hedge of hawthorn on each side. This hedge was in blossom when I was there, and, besides being additionally beautiful for this reason, was also pleas- antly fragrant. These complete sidewalks along country roads are common in England. There is a road in Derby- shire, running between two towns, which for a mile has as good a sidewalk as you will find in any American town of 1/8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. fifteen thousand inhabitants. Part of it is of fine gravel, another p;\rt is of concrete, and the third and greater portion is of flagging ; and along the whole is a curbing of granite. The villages which it connects cannot boast unitedly a popula- tion of three thousand. It is a delight to walk along these roads and lanes, with low-browed public-houses at convenient distances, with beautiful fields, and comfortable farmhouses, and flowering gardens, and ponderous windmills, on the right and left, with goods vans, and gayly-painted g}'psy- wagons, and heavy, substantial farmer and gentry traps, and respectful and civil laboring-men meeting you every little while. I have passed many an hour in this pleasant and healthful recreation. The English themselves are great walk- ers. I have seen fashionable young ladies walk to and from church, four miles distant, and not brag of it, either. All the farmhouses about West Winch have ivy growing over them. It is very beautiful indeed, and is generally accompanied with dampness and red lice. The gardens and roadways abound with holly, which, with its red berry, forms an inspiring addition to the winter social gatherings. Like the hedges and some other shrubs, it remains green and bright through the winter, and robs that season of many of the disagreeable features which we New-Englanders are obliged to put up with. They have no such snows as we do ; no such frosts as occasionally dip down two and even three feet into the New-England soil, slaughtering the most hardy of wintering plants. But we have got the best of them in two particulars. Our days are a trifle longer than theirs in the winter ; and we have autumnal tints and an Indian sum- mer, and they have neither. The leaves to their trees sim- ply bleed to death before the frost reaches the sap, become an ashy hue, and drop unnoticed and uncared for. The favorite trap in the country is a two-wheeler. There are two kinds. One is a car capable of holding four, two on each side, with their knees together, and their eyes turneil ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 179 to the hedges : the other holds four also, two on the front- seat and two on the back-seat, each pair facing in opposite directions, with the backs of their heads together. When you get in at the back of the car, the thills bob up to the animal's back, and make )ou nervous, through fear that the under band will cut the animal in two. The other trap jolts your bowels out of position on the front ; and, if you are on the back-seat, all pleasure of the ride is lost in desperate and almost maddening endeavors to keep from falling into the road. A two-hours' ride on the back-seat of one of those two-wheeled traps will sprinkle the youngest head with gray hairs. I have not yet seen a yoke of oxen. The English do not know what they miss by not having oxen. A country must in time become low-spirited and depressed that does not have oxen to stir it up. They are like the wind, are oxen. One yoke of them will get over more ground in one hour than a barrel of oysters will in a day. Give me an ox for speed. There are no tin peddlers here to cheat and swindle, and leave the doors open. There is but little tin used anyway. In the dairy they use great earthen dishes for the milk, and a servant-girl has to drop one of them pretty hard to break it ; but, as servant-girls rarely get over twenty-five dollars per annum, their mind naturally runs into other channels than breaking dishes. Sheep are an important stock with English farmers. The English people are fond of mutton as an article of food, and have it quite steadily. When they tire of mutton, they have lamb. Beef they never neglect. They are the most docile and uncomplaining of people when beef is around. Their sheep are the best in the world, I believe. You have seen pictures of shepherds with the proverbial crook in their hands? I didn't think a party could be a shepherd without this crook, any more than a man could be the leader of an l80 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. orchestra without a pair of pants. I wxs glad tliat the first man whom I saw tending sheep carried one of these crooks. I didn't know what a crook was for, but always believed it was a badge of the occupation, whose origin I could not fothom, handed down from century to century since the time when sheep were invented. Imagine my genuine disgust when I saw this shepherd use the sacred crook to capture the straying animals by catching hold of one of their hind- legs and tripping them up ! The awful truth came upon me like a flash ; and I sat down heavily, a broken-hearted man. I had thought it a beautiful emblem, and it proves to be a hind-leg snatcher ! Thus floated the wind from another sweet vision of youth. I don't hardly understand how an Englishman should look so hearty and rugged. He is not a hearty eater : he will "stuff" his guests, however. His breakfast is light, con- sisting of a small bit of bacon and an egg. At one o'clock he has the regular dinner of roast meat and boiled cauliflower. At five o'clock he partakes of thinly-cut bread and a cup of tea. At nine o'clock he has a small bit of meat, and bread without butter, and a glass of ale. After supper he takes a glass of gin and hot water, smokes a pipe, and goes to bed at peace with everybody. It is a quiet enough life ; for he don't even have a nightmare to end up with. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. l8l CHAPTER XXI. A GENERAL ATTACK ON RUINS, TO be truthful, my secret longing in coming to Europe was to see a ruin. There is enough of romance about me to clothe a ruin, whether of church or of castle, with all the glory of chivalry. I hankered to get into a castle, to throw stones into the neglected moat, to hear my footsteps echo in the vacant corridors, to stand and meditate in the banqueting-rooms, to stride through the lofty halls, and walk languidly up the grand but crumbling staircase. All the fictions of English and French origin have one or more ruins in them ; and, looking upon them as the only remaining remnants of that grand and glorious past, they became endeared to me ; and I thought, from a boy up, that, if I could but go to Europe and see a ruined castle, I would be willing to give up my life and all its pleasures. I have seen the ruin ; but the willingness spoken of has not yet got along. As much in fiction accepted as gospel is dispersed by the more thorough and realistic light of matured age, so I came to suspect that the mossy castles crumbling into ruins, and ancestral halls filled with secret passages, gloomy vaults, barracks for soldiers, and a host of dra\ving-rooms, and a gorgeous picture-gallery, were simply myths. In the first place, I came to doubt that a private building could be large enough to accommodate all these apartments and demands ; and, when they spoke of a long galler)' whose walls 1 82 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. were filled with paintings, I staggered, reeled about, and went down before the statement in utter collapse. For, please remember, the. time of such galleries was before " The New-Vork Independent " fell into the habit of giving away elegant and costly chromos, and no man of ordinary wealth could afford to stock one of them with oil-paintings. We don't have ruins in our country. When a building gets old, and begins to leak, the tenants swear they won't pay the rent, and are moved out, and the glass is stoned from the windows by the neighboring boys, and the house is pulled down, and the timber sold to some poor man, whose boy saws it up into firewood, and uses the most dreadful language when his saw strikes a nail. Ruins are an injury to our country, I think. I could not understand, until I got here, why ruins should exist in active, enterprising, and crowded England : I could not understand why they were allowed to cumber valuable ground to the exclusion of valua- ble rentable buildings. It was so contrary to the spirit of gain displayed in America, that I could not comprehend it. And all these romances spoke of castles inhabited in part, and ruined in the balance, or of halls mossy with age, but never spoke of a new castle, of one being in the process of construction. In the dead of night I have frequently awoke to wonder if castles and old halls were ever built. Rather, were they not created with the world, and by the same mysterious force ? If they were built by human hands, who did it? Did the contractor do it by the day, or job? If by the latter, did he lose money? Did the workmen carry their dinners? Did they steal apples from the neigh- boring orchards? Did their boys have to carry them hot coffee after coming out of school at noon? Were they in favor of the eight-hour system? Did they have processions on St. Patrick's Day? Did they get in debt? For Heaven's sake, who were they? what were they? The mystery shroud- ing these men — their needs, hopes, aspirations, loves, sym- ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 83 pathies, and every thing else calculated to establish their humanit}', and give them a tangible shape in the practical eyes of this age — is perfectly dreadful. Ruins are scattered all over T^ngland, and it is a very poor county indeed that hasn't a half-dozen of them ; and these ruins are not scattered through the country portion of Eng- land alone, but can be found in the very heart of the cities, with the waves of unceasing traffic beating against their very walls. There are two theories in accounting for the presence of ruins in Europe. The first is a reverential sentiment, which is opposed to desecrating what age has sanctified ; and the second — perhaps less sentimental, but none the less effec- tive — is the enormous strength of the walls. An attempt was made to quarry stone for a bridge out of Rochester Castle ; but, after working several weeks to secure a couple of cart- loads of material, the projectors of the idea retired in despair. These ruins are not all sightly, of course ; some of them, from an architectural or ornamental stand-point, are very insignificant : but they all are alike hallowed by time, and so are alike valuable. The owners are jealous of them. They treat them with great tenderness. We in America do not understand this, no more than does a woman who has no silk dress understand what people find to admire in the silk dress belonging to the woman next door. In a Scotch town there are the four walls of an old church standing in a man's front-yard. It shuts out completely his view of the street. But he wouldn't exchange those crumbling walls for a five-thousand-dollar fountain. Why not? Simply because there are scores of families in his town who could get a five- thousand-dollar fountain ; but all the wealth on the earth, or in the waters beneath the earth, could not put a ruin in their front-yards. So he sits back of those walls, and is happy to a degree that is simply exasperating to outsiders. The walls to these ruins are formed of just such material 184 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. as we build cellar-walls, and many of them look like the four walls of a cellar thrown to the surface by some convulsion of nature. I had an idea that castles were built of huge, evenly- squared blocks of granite, with marble floors. But they are of just such composition as I mention ; and how the builders ever succeeded in getting them up straight is something I cannot understand. The floors are not of marble, but of concrete. Where they are not of concrete, they are flagging ; and, in the days when they were in their prime, rheumatism must have been in the heyday of its career. The ground-floors to many of the houses now occupied are of stone ; but it is not so bad as oil-cloth. The cement in the walls of the various ruins excites the attention of- many people. They say it is impossible to make as firm mortar in these days. It is hard, — harder than losing an eight-hundrcd-dollar horse. I have nothing to say against the cuteness of the ancients, except in the matter of archi- tecture and painting. I cannot forget that several-hundred- year-old revolver and breech-loader which I saw in the Tower of London. The ancients did many things which we are just discovering and proclaiming as our own invention, and I do not doubt that it will yet be found that they had shirts opening behind. But let us not anticipate. But it is interesting to speculate on the origin of ruins. What puzzled me, when I heard of ruins afar off", was to understand how they became so. In what year, and what day, at what hour of the day, did they throw off" the respecta- ble yoke of usefulness, and sink into architectural loaferism? For several hundred years these castles have been loafers, — corner-loafers at that. And why ? Well, in the first place, they were built when protection against foes was as essential as protection against weather. They were not ornamental, had no bay-windows, and were French-roofless. When civili- zation so far advanced that every man was made safe in his possessions, and law usurped violence, the occupation of ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 85 the building, its specialty, was done away with. It became a loafer. In some instances, as in that of Warwick Castle particularly, they were modernized and improved upon, and are to-day in business, and doing well. But in most cases they were deserted for more comfortable dwellings ; and, being too strongly built to be taken apart with economy, their walls were left. As for the wood- work, it was -wrenched out for fuel ; and as for the window-glass, where one could boast such a luxury, it was undoubtedly stoned out by the neighbor- ing boys on Saturday afternoons. As to why the wood-work was not carefully removed, and used in parts of the new structure, I would mention that it was mostly of oak, and most respectfully refer you for full information to some car- penter who has taken down an old oaken building, and under- taken to re-use the material. Anybody who has attempted to drive a cast-iron nail into a venerable oak board will be pleased to give you any information you may desire, if he is alive. Sometimes the occupants were forced to skedaddle from the country, leaving the house tenantless ; and, the carpets of the victor not fitting the rooms of the deserted place, his wife would not consent to moving in : so the place was left to the tender mercies of poor and predatory neighbors. It is easy enough to account for things when you sit right down and give your whole attention to them, as I do. There are the lofty tower and arches of a Gray-Friars monastery betAveen two busy streets in Lynn. It rears its old and scarred figure as if in defiance of trade and all mod- em improvements. An iron fence surrounds it, with a locked gate ; and application must be made to the proprietor of the grammar-school opposite for permission to go inside and feel of the arches, climb up the hundred and sixty steps which lead to the top, and get your back full of sacred mor- tar and dust. The proprietor of that school is also the pro- prietor of the bit of ground on wliich this ruined monastery 1 86 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. stands ; and he would as soon think of digging up his wife's mother, and putting her in a glass case on the front mantel, as pulling down this crazy structure. About three miles from Lynn is a little hamlet called Castle Rising. It consists of a blacksmith-shop, an inn, a church, hall, and an almshouse, with about twenty dwellings. The hall is the residence of Lady Howard, a woman as religious as she is old. She owns all of the village, and a good share of property about it. It seems, to look down on Rising, that you could cover it with a farmer's Sunday hand- kerchief, so small it is ; but there was a time when it had a mayor and alderman, an annual mart (which continued two weeks), and a weekly market of great importance. Among Lady Howard's possessions is a considerable ruin of a castle. It sits in a basin on the top of a rising piece of ground. Its walls are standing, and several rooms in one part of it are inhabited : but the main roof is gone ; the greater part of the windows are frameless ; the beams and the flooring of the main rooms are gone ; and bushes three feet high are growing luxuriantly up the broken and ragged surface of the walls. There is a great moat about it now, filled with trees thirty feet high ; a broken stone arch bridge leading across to the gate which guarded the entrance to the outside court, but now is crumbling, and dropping piece- meal upon the head of some pleasure-seeker. In this out- side court is also the base wall of a chapel, which the people hereabouts readily ascribe to the advent of Christianity in England twelve hundred years ago. They seem to be enjoy- ing better health than I do. There is a broad green outside, where people engage in cricket ; and the neighborhood, including the castle, is used by picnickers for a day of recreation. They don't build fires outdoors, and cook their tea, as we do in America : wood is too scarce here for that j^urpose. In the neighborhood of resorts for picnicking parties, you will sec on tlic walls of ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 8/ adjoining cottages such notices as these : " Hot water for tea," "Tea cooked here," " Parties supplied with hot water." At the Black Horse in Rising, picnickers may boil their tea ; but their favorite place is the inhabitable part of the castle, where a family reside. The family consists of a man, wife, and two young chil- dren. The man is a vagabond policeman. I don't mean to say that that is the name he goes by here ; but I call him so from the fact that he has a beat for some distance in the country, and is always moving. Only his uniform saves him from being a tramp. He dresses Hke the city police, with the exception that he wears a fatigue-cap instead of a helmet. You will find him, or his prototype, along almost every coun- try road in England. They are called " walking police," to distinguish them, I presume, from the city police, who habitually go about in a golden chariot, with sixteen horses and nine footmen apiece. He was off duty when L was there, and sang "God save the Queen," but irreparably damaged the petition with an accompaniment on a violin. He was a large, burly man, and his wife a young, frail- looking woman ; and the children looked as if they had just been dug up from the neighboring churchyard for the occa- sion. They were poor and helpless, and, if they were not the occupants of a castle, would have probably made away with themselves ere this. They occupy this part of the castle, rent free, by permission of Lady Howard, for the caring of it, and, when not indulging in historical emotions, are boiling tea for picnickers. Then there is a church a mile or so below, the chancel of which is in ruins, and overgrown with ivy ; but the congrega- tion have stoned up the gap, and worship in the main part with becoming sanctity. They would make it very warm for anybody who would dare to carry away any of the broken stones. About two miles in an opposite direction from the castle is the ruin of a church, — Bawsley Church it is called ; 1 88 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. and if four stumpy bleak walls, with not even a bit of floor or an inch of stone window-casing about it, can be called a church, this is certainly one. It is on a rise of ground in the middle of a sheep-pasture, with nothing more dignified than a cart-path approaching. ^Vhere was its floor is now a mass of broken stone, and evidences of the sheep being well fed. Several hundred years ago it had prayers, and music, weddings, christenings, &c. But the people who did those things have fared worse than the church ; for there is not a crumb of them left, nor even a morsel of the stones which marked their burial. Little boys pinched each other's legs, and put sharp sticks down each other's backs, and made faces at the little girls, and lads and maidens have flirted, and aged and experienced men and women have enjoyed Nature's balmy restorer, on this spot. But they are all gone now ; and, if they could return to-day, they would recognize nothing about here ex- cept this church, and hardly that. The forests and hedges, and buildings and customs, of their time, have flitted away, to come no more. Even the face of the earth has changed since then ; and unless they saw my fair conductor, who wore a bustle and a pair of high-heeled shoes, they would move away with more disappointment than they had capacity for, I am afraid. But I am losing the thread of my discourse. This decay- ing fabric belongs to the farmer who owns the sheep-pasture. It is useless to him, and hardly affords shade for his sheep ; but he will not touch it. He has the same feelings which Lady Howard and the proprietor of the grammar-school share with each other. And the same sentiment pervades all England. It is this, I suspect, which accounts for the peojjle of this country taking every thing valuable in the way of sculpture out of Egypt and putting it in the British Muse- um, fearing unprincipled vandals would steal it ami carry it away. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 89 But to come back to the castle. The inhabitable portion is in one comer, on the second floor above the ground. It is reached by a broad stairway of stone, — a rather imposing stairway too. The castle was used as a place of fortification in the feudal days, when the only law in operation appeared to be that of might, and when the stronger of two neighbor- ing barons could, and frequently did, wrest away the other's property. To the tenants it made but little difference, I suspect, to whom they paid their rents. Half way up the staircase is an opening in the ceiling, through which the besieged, when the enemy gained the stairway, poured hot oil and molten lead on the besiegers. When a man got a quart of molten lead down his back he left at once, and rarely called again for the hot oil. It is a trifling incident ; but it shows that the people of those days were not wholly grasping and avaricious, as history would have us believe. At the top of the stainvay we came upon an open door, and passed into a unique apartment. It was an irregular- shaped room of about fifteen square feet, with monstrous deep recesses to the little window ; but it was the singular blending of the modern and ancient furniture that excited the attention. It was the cooking and dining room of the family. A huge fireplace was at one end of the apartment, and about it were the andirons and utensils for the prepara- tion of the humble repast. A table in the centre, with ven- erable legs in rich carving, was covered with crumbs, and here and there a ring on its surface about the size of a tum- bler or tankard. At the side were two highly-carved and remarkably straight-backed chairs. They were handsome enough ; but no mortal could sit in one of them, and feel pleasant toward his neighbors. I do not wonder now that our ancestors were so prone to blood, and suffered death so satisfactorily. Any man who sat in one of those chairs for thirty years must have found death at the stake or block a positive luxury. IQO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. There was also an enormous chest with quaint but grace- fully executed devices in oak, and bound about with brass. It looked arrogant and defiant enough as it sat there in the corner ; but the baggage-master of the shortest and poorest railway in America would take the conceit out of it inside of two minutes. The chest was about half full of relics preser\'ed from the castle. About the room were baby-clothes under- going the process of drying, and exuding a delicate odor. On the right of the fireplace was a stair-passage leading to a large room above. It was not a remarkable apartment, with its bare walls of stone, warped oaken floor, and narrow, dingy window. It was the bedroom of Isabella, the queen of Ed- ward the Second, who was sent here by her husband on the discovery of her amour with a young chap named Mortimer. The young chap supplemented the loss of his heart with the loss of his head. She lived here many years after the death of her husband, and died here, in fact. We crawled up a circular staircase to the top of the walls, and I stood out on the ragged summit and looked down. One brief glance sufficed me. We returned to the head of the main staircase, and, crawling through a narrow passage, came into a corridor which went entirely around the four sides of the main building. Its floor was on a level with the banqueting-hall ; but there is no banqueting-hall here now, — nothing but the open air. The musicians were stationed in this corridor, and performed during the feasts. There was no end of revelry in these walls centuries ago. Wax tapers lighted them uj), and made glorious the satins, the jewels, and bright eyes of the hosts which have come and gone since the castle was reared. There is a depressing silence about the place, broken only by the twittering of sparrows, and the swaying of the weeds and nettles which spring from the ruins ; and it seems a mockery to try to restore, even in the imagination, the gayety and pleasure which once peopled it all. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IQI And a vagabond policeman \vith a slovenly wife boiling tea, and playing " God save the Queen " on a debilitated violin, is the end of it all, the humiliating finis of a glorious career. The castle, like many other ruins I have seen, is formed of a curious mixture of stone chips, cobbles, and brick, the walls not plastered inside. How their ugliness was hid I do not know. Perhaps it was not concealed at all, but was just as we now find it. In such a case there must have been trouble. Imagine young Lord de Rowbeer, whose father recently came over with the Conqueror, dancing a set with a bewitching partner. In the excitement of the dance he is struck against by Baron Ovonner, also recently from Normandy, and sent spinning against the nutmeg-grater wall. You will have no trouble in imagining him getting on his feet in a way to conceal the damage to his pants, and with the blood trickling down his face, his sword drawn, and shaking with passion, inviting the baron to step out into the back-yard and get " nailed " between the eyes. "With equal ease we can imagine the baron, later in the night, awakened from a sound, virtuous sleep by a lump of concrete falling from the wall of his bed-chamber, and striking him on the nose. We wiU not pause to listen to his remarks. 192 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. CHAPTER XXII. ENGLISH CHARITY. CASTLE RISING is infinitesimally small; but it illus- trates a peculiar feature of English villages. It is com- pact, orderly, and clean. There are no broken-down fences, strolling cattle in the road, yards filled with plantain and smartweed, nor chips and debris in front of the houses. There is not even a single gate on one hinge. However poor an English hamlet may be, there is about it a compact- ness and neatness which strike the attention at once. The houses are plain and unattractive ; but the gardens are filled with healthy vegetables, and clean grass and bright flowers. There are well-defined sidewalks, and a smooth, hard turn- pike. Even the harshness of the castle-walls is toned dowTi by the unbroken sea of grass about it. The Black Horse is a quaint old inn, attended by a woman, with a tiny bar, and a bar parlor with two tables, a bench all around the room, and a sanded floor. The neighbors gather here of an even- ing, and sip their ale, and smoke long clay pipes, and talk al)out the crops and the humble matters of such a neigh- borhood. The inn is shaded by a huge tree ; and there are two which meet together over the red tile roof of the black- si-rtith-shop, which is a few yards beyond. The blacksmith- shop is of stone, of course, as all the other buildings are. A few months ago, if any one had told me that blacksmith- shops could have been made of stone, I would have laughed ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 93 at him. How could they build of that material so as to leave an opening, every ten inches, of an inch in width, for the wind and snow to come through ? Now that we have got into the subject, I should really like to know what chance for success a village blacksmith-shop would have in America in which the customer could not freeze both of his legs. Just around the blacksmith-shop of Castle Rising runs a road down by the church, — a hard, smooth road, with a pretty sidewalk. Opposite the church is a building setting a little below the street-level, having sharp gables and a number of them, and a substantial stone wall in front. It is built of dingy brick, and would hardly elicit but a casual glance from the passing stranger ; but it is one of those institutions which are common all over England, and illus- trates most forcibly a prominent characteristic of the English people, — charity. The village of Castle Rising has scarcely a population of a hundred souls ; but it has a Norman church, a ruined castle, and a hospital. This low, odd-shaped building is a charity-hospital, for the sole accommodation of old women. It was founded by a Lord Howard, who was an earl of Northumberland in the reign of James the First, for the benefit of old women who were without pecuniary support, and were of a goodly conversation and prudent behavior. His money endowed it for an everlasting monument to his thoughtfulness and kindness of heart. It has stood here for two hundred years, and will stand here when judgment- day dawns. This hospital forms the four sides of a grass court. All the rooms open out upon the court. Each room for the occupation of an old woman is about eight feet square. In it she lives and sleeps. Each is provided with a window and a fireplace. The furniture is furnished by themselves, and the most of it is what they have been accustomed to since they first entered upon life (for articles here are made 194 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. substantial, and are calculated to last for generations) : con- secjuently, the movable features of the rooms do not present that uniformity which contributes one-half the dreariness to alms-houses and prisons. The mantels were filled with bits of china, plaster-of-paris, and stone ornaments ; and against some of the walls were colored lithographs of the sailor-boy, Angeline, and other familiar characters of romance and song. There are about twenty occupants of the Castle-Rising Hospital, their ages ranging from fifty-five to ninety-three years. Each one has a dollar a week, a linsey-woolsey dress per annum, and a ton and a (juarter of coal every year, and the rent free. Out of this dollar she must furnish her own food. She has the privilege of doing needle or other light work for sale. • They live comfortably, and appear to be very happy and contented. The rooms were scrupulously clean, and every article was in place. Most of the old ladies were sitting by the open doors, knitting. On Sundays and saint- days they appear at church in scarlet cloaks and high-peaked hats, — a la Mother Hubbard. The English are remarkable as the authors of endowment. The land fairly bristles with monuments of this trait, in the shape of hospitals, schools, drinking-fountains, and the like ; and, in addition, corporations and municipalities and parishes take a hand in, and are doing their level best to make the land a surprise to strangers, and a delight to the Divine Pro- tector of the widowed and fatherless. No wonder this English nation is so wealthy, so powerful, and so famous. I have visited several of the alms-houses, and find ihcm uniform in appearance and conduct. The most interesting is that in the village of Darwenham. There were about one hundred inmates in all. They were mostly old men and women. There were some boys and girls, and a half-dozen idiots. In every alms-house I have found several idiots. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I95 An English physician tells me that the large percentage of idiocy in England is due, in a great degree, to the beer-sot- tishness of the mother. The keeper of this alms-house gave me the same opinion. The men were dressed in corduroy, and the women in linsey-woolsey. We passed through the bed department ; and the keeper turned down the clothes, and pulled up the bedding, to show me how neat and clean the beds were kept. And they were neat and clean. We passed into the dining-room for the men, and saw them partaking of their supper, which consisted of bread and tea. In the morning this is supplemented with bacon, and at noon they have a dish of vegetables, and boiled or roast meat. They looked hearty. In one room there was a fire burning ; and about it sat several very old men, leaning on the head of their sticks. They were red-eyed and wrinkled, and trembling with age. My companion, a well-to-do, bluff, hearty, generous English farmer, had lived in this neighborhood some years before, and recognized and was recognized by several of the inmates, whom he had known in better circumstances. He shook hands with them most heartily, and slipped surreptitious shillings into their palms. How glad they were to see him ! and how their dull eyes brightened up as he recalled past incidents of mutual knowledge ! There was an old woman who was housekeeper for a neighboring lord when he left the place twenty years before. He gave his name and old neighborhood. She shielded her eyes, and looked earnestly at him. " Yes, yes, I know you," she said slowly ; " but " — a pause and a look, — " but you were lame then, I thought." — "And I am lame yet," he said, taking a few steps before her to show her, and looking as pleased over her delight as if his infirrriity* were not an afflic- tion, but a genuine benefit. We went into the hospital, and, in passing across the court to it, were arrested by music in one of the wings, and paused to listen to it. It was the boys 196 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. and girls singing grace after their supper. It sounded very sweet and impressive. In the hospital we found several pros- trate and suffering. One of them was propped up in bed, dying from heart-disease. There was something startling in watching this man wtcs- tling with the awful enemy, which had him by the throat, choking life, hope, gladness, and every thing out of his heart but the memory of the past and what might have been. Dying on a pallet of straw, with strange faces about him, and whitewashed walls and fellow-misery to witness the ter- rible and losing fight which he was carrying on ; contesting, inch by inch, in the agony of despair, the ground which was being wTcsted from him, — was this pauper, whose boyish head of brown hair, less than thirty years ago, was caressed and kissed by hands and lips which thought to ever be with him, and take him up to a pit}ing God, but which were now mouldering in the churchyard hard by. Just such another fight as this took place in this very room less than twelve hours ago ; and the victim lay stiff and ashy in a coffin in the apartment below, with the straw which formed his winding-sheet bubbling over the edges of the plain deal box. In still another room was an old man very sick, who awakened as we stepped softly into his room. He said, looking at the keeper, and speaking like one coming out of a dream, " I thought I was in North Ameriky with my boy Jim : I must have dreamed it." — "You are not in America ; but America is here," said the keeper, pointing to mc. It was an almshouse-keeper's idea of a juke. The old man brightened uj) at this, and wanted to know if I had seen his boy Jim, who lived in Sandusky, C). I have often been asked a similar question in this country, and hardly felt put out at not being able to give the neces- sary information ; but it gave me keen pain to tell this old man that I did not know his boy Jim. Many of the ICnglish have a peculiar and very startling ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IQ/ idea of the extent of America. At one hotel where I stopped was*a family from Michigan. I never saw them before. An English friend said to me, " Did you know the Fergusons before you came here?" — "I did not." — "That's odd," said he in a perplexed voice : " they are from the same coun- try you are." I felt obliged to explain to him, that, besides the Fergusons, there were some three other families in Ameri- ca with whom I was not personally acquainted, it was such a large place. 198 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, CHAPTER XXIII. AiMUSEiMENTS. I TOOK a nin down to Manchester one day, and spent a very exciting and interesting forty-eight hours there. While there I visited the office of the American consul, Mr. Newton Crane, formerly companion-editor of the lamented Charley Leonard on "The St. Louis Democrat;" and with that gentleman I spent a pleasant half-hour, and wit- nessed an incident containing a world of suggestion. The hero was a colored man, who chewed tobacco under many disadvantages, having an expansive mouth, large, irregular, and broken teeth, and rather depressive-looking gums. He must have been nearly fifty years of age, and was indifferently clad. He had a pleasant, mutton-tallow voice. He said he had called to find a means of returning to America. "You are from America, then?" said Mr. Crane. "Yes, sir." " What brought you here ? " " Well, sir, I thought I should like to come over and see the mor/Zii'r-count.ry." (Sensation among the conii)any.) "And so you came over to see her. Did you think you could do better here? " " Well — yes, sir. I was told by the English and Scotch and Irish people what come to our country that a colored man generally intelligent could do well over here, anfl woukl be much thought of; and so I come." ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I99 " And you haven't done well over here ? " " No, sir, I ain't. It's kept going from bad to worse. There ain't no work to be got, an' I don't stand any chance to get what there is ; an' I'm in a bad way generally, sir. I have worked for two lords as cook, but I got out with them ; an' I've been a-goin' down all the while." " Don't they treat you well over here? " " Oh, yes, sir ! they treat me well ; but I don't get any thin' to eat : and I thought I should like to take my old bones back to the States." It will be gratifying to my readers to learn that his old bones were shipped in that direction the next day. A negro at a distance is an object of admiration to the English people. In the evening we went to the Belle Vue. Whether it is at a theatre, or any other entertainment, the Englishman abandons himself to a full enjoyment of what he beholds. So he naturally runs to gardens, as better cal- culated to indulge this desire ; and as he builds his house as plainly as possible, and throws his weight in architecture on his church, so he looks not so much at a garden at home, but makes the public affair as elaborate as money and taste can do it. We do not think much of Manchester, except as a manu- factory of cotton-goods ; and yet America has but one city as large as it ; and New York, with all its wealth, taste, and reputation, has no public garden to compare with either of the two with which Manchester is provided. The Belle Vue is the smaller but the best known of the two gardens. There are trips, or what we would call excursions, made to it two or three times a week from the adjoining towns and" counties. It is better known to many English people than is Manchester itself, I am sorry to say. Belle Vue comprises a museum of curiosities, a menagerie 200 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. that would put to shame the travelling concerns by that name in America (by the way, I should like to wager that one of the Belle -Vue bears would put to flight an entire American menagerie, and even scare the ticket-master, and then get back home in time for an early tea), an aviary, an aquarium, and a pond with many row and three miniature steam boats. Then there is a painting on wood of the battle of Waterloo, arranged in terraces, with openings among the imitated hills and ridges for the manoeuvring of troops. This painting is in the open air, and remains up until the expiration of a year, when it is taken down, and some other historical incident of tragic interest is substituted for the succeeding year. Opposite this is a stand for the band, with flanking gal- leries capable of seating ten thousand people ; and between these galleries and the painting is a platform where three hundred couples can dance at once. Under the galleries are extensive tea and bar rooms. One of the tea-rooms is a sixpence, and the other a shilling department ; and the shilling entitles you to a pot of tea and a half-dozen slices of bread and butter which were neither cut nor spread by a step-mother. I have seen no caterers in England who imagine Providence has bequeathed them a popular place of entertainment for the express pur]:)ose of swindling the patrons. As the sun went down, and twilight (that mystic halo which crowns England from the disappearance to the re-appearance of the sunlight) succeeded, the crowds increased quite visi- -bly, and it was safe to say that fully ten thousand peojile were present. The elephant, which all the afternoon had been carrying loads of jolly children about tlie grounds with a solemnity befitting his task, had retired ; and across the gravelled plaza rode mounted men in armor, taking their way to the mysterious recesses of Waterloo. We mounted into the galleries with thousands of others, and patiently ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 20I waited until ten o'clock. As that hour struck, the field of AVaterloo renewed its carnage and terrific uproar. A balloon, shedding innumerable blue-lights, suddenly started heaveri- ward ; rockets, Roman candles, and blue-lights flashed forth ; the hills and ridges became alive with cavalry, infantry, and brigadier-generals ; cannon- crackers, cannons, and musketry pealed forth their thunders ; battle-flags waved ; music sound- ed ; and the cries of the combatants filled the air. Then a barn in the foreground took fire ; and the flames rolled up through the roof, adding their crackling and hissing to the general horror. Charge after charge was made and repulsed : finally the French were overcome, and then the cannonading and musketry became fairly awful, and the scene closed. All, all, for a shilling ! Dear reader, why not come to England ? And the police were there, of course. Whether the enter- tainment is of public or private furnishing, they are always about, always in the way of ruffians and rowdies, and, what are infinitely worse than either, impudent country boors ; and in all the number at this cheap entertainment, with several bar-rooms within its limits, there was no disturbance. I had read so much of the sufferings and deprivations of the operatives in the Manchester cotton-mills, that I had a pardonable curiosity to see them. We proceeded there at once. The location of the mill we were to visit my friend was uncertain about ; and, getting into its neighborhood, he inquired of a laboring-woman on the street, who pointed out the building. As it led us in the direction she was going, we went with her ; and she proceeded to a discourse. She told us that the mill in question was hardly known by the firm's name, and gave the popular name, which was a most filthy cognomen. She didn't blush when she said it, but admitted that she was almost ashamed to speak it when she first came into the neighborhood. We left her, where we were to turn off, with sincere regret. 202 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. We found an obliging manager in charge, who kindly took us through the different departments, and intelligently ex- l)lained to us the offices of the machinery. But it was the mill-people I wanted to see, and the typical mill-girl in particular. I saw her immediately. Her name was Blanche. She was about forty-eight years old, had a wen on the top of her head, and no upper teeth. I was satisfied. The mill was very clean, and every thing appeared in order. One o'clock was the hour for (quitting ; and, prompt to the second, work was stopped. I was surprised at this. There are thousands of men, women, and children working in the cotton and other mills of Manchester ; but the govern- ment has them in charge, and they are most amply protected. Whatever of oppression, poverty, and suffering that is said to have prevailed here a half-century ago is nQt appar- ent now. The employers have not changed ; they are just as selfish and human as they were then : but the inexorable law of this country has stretched forth its iron hand over them, and the least deviation from the path of prescribed action closes the merciless fingers upon them. The operatives get to work at six o'clock, have breakfast between seven and eight, quit at one, recommence at two, and cease for good at half-past five or six o'clock. If a manufacturer should keep them a minute over time, and was reported, he would be promi)tly hoisted in front of the near- est magistrate, and subjected to a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars, with the additional discomfort of having his name and offence paraded in print. As to wages, the children earn from a dollar to a dollar and a half per week ; the women, from two to four dollars ; and the men, from five to seven dollars. The women and ( hildren wear a coarse shoe with a heavy wooden sole ; and, when the hundreds and thousands pass over the pavement to ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 203 and from work, the clicking of the wooden soles is almost deafening. They, as well as all Lancashire working-people, have an unfortunate habit of nicknaming ; and so popular become these titles, that men have been known to almost forget their surnames, while their neighbors entirely lose sight of them. . If a man's given name is Tom, he is called so by everybody, to the complete exclusion of his family name. If he has a son, the son's name and the father's are blended. For instance, if the son's name is Bill, he is known and ever spoken of or addressed as Bill of Tom ; and so on. I had just time to take a run out to the Pomona Palace, which is the disguising title of the companion-garden to Belle Vue. A dog-show was the principal feature, and I am extrava- gantly fond of dogs. The afternoon I came into the city, I found two mastiffs in the de'pot. In the confusion, I thought they were two freight-cars that had by some inscrutable means got off the track. I was glad to find they were dogs. The larger of the two was called the champion of England, and added other laurels by carrying off the prize at the show. It is a very nice thing in England, as well as in America, to have the champion animal of the country ; for as long as shows are kept up, so long is the owner assured of an income. This was the largest dog I ever saw : it was the largest dog any two people ever saw. I thought at first I would buy him, but partly hesitated on learning the price (one thousand dollars), and completely gave up the idea before I saw him out of the station. He was secured by a chain in the hands of an attendant, — a man who appeared to be in a chronic state of perspiration and protestation. And he was an erratic dog. He made violent and entirely unexpected dashes at various objects or openings ; and, wherever he went, the perspiring and pro- testing individual was sure to go. He snapped him off his 204 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. feet every other minute, and in the intervals hauled him over sharp-cornered trunks, bumped him against other people with luggage in their hands, or shoved him over highly-indig- nant but utterly helpless little boys, whose unrestrained curi- osity had led them too close to the performance. The last I saw of the keeper (?) he was passing through the door in charge of the mastiff, a boy was running after with his hat, and people on the sidewalk 'were appropriating elevated places with spotless alacrity. ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 20$ CHAPTER XXIV. TELLS, AMONG OTHER THINGS, WHAT THE ENGLISH THINK OF US. WE are all more or less bigoted until we travel. Our own institutions and customs grow to be considered the best institutions and the only true customs until we have opportunity to compare them with other customs and institutions. All that we hear — and this is to both prepare and inform you — is not exactly true. I have shown that all the English are not morose, sullen, and exclusive ; and I have tried to show as many as I have come in contact with that the American people are not wholly boors or assassins, — the only two classes many English recognize in America. I have claimed that the average English woman is not so tastefully dressed as the average American woman. I am told here that the average English woman is superior in dress to her American sister, in that she dresses plainly ; while the American woman arrays herself in flashy colors, and sports a swell air. Does she ? The swell American woman dresses richly, as her husband or father well knows, but not flashy. And, really, is a man in broadcloth and kids inferiorly dressed to the man in blue jean and dog-skin gloves? Blue jean and dog-skin are the plainer of the two suits. It is not the quality of the goods, but their style of making up and wearing them. 206 ENGLAND FROM A HACK-WINDOW. I am proud to think, that, while our American woman dresses in high-priced goods, she shows achiiirable taste in selecting and combining the colors ; and there is no class of women, unless it is the tinglish and Esquimaux, less open to the offence of tawdry apparel. There is a plainness that is too decided to be tasteful. And perhaps, if the matter were sifted down very closely, it would be found that the women of the middle classes in America dress at less cost than the same class in England. The English woman does not think she is dressed up unless she has on a silk gown. Silk costs much less here than it does in America, to be sure ; but this is offset by the fact of wages being much less here than there. The English err in some other things regarding us, but pardonably, I believe. It is the style of American journalism, especially in the Far West, to exaggerate : it is also its style to jest on tragic subjects. These exaggerations and jests are readily seized upon by English journals as illustrative of our characteristics, and sowed broadcast among their people. It is the misfortune of the English not to understand an American joke. The fatal consequence can be imagined. They believe of all America just as the people of the Eastern States believe of the Territories and California, when, if the truth were known, there is less cutting and slashing in the Far West than in the Far East. An able school-teacher in Norfolk asked me the other day if all American gentlemen did not have either a pistol or knife concealed about their person. In the estimation of those who have not seen him, a full- blooded American is a sort of i)erambulating arsenal, con- stantly shecel; and boarded himself. The female ser\'ant who waited at the table got one dollar and twenty-five cents a week, and board ; the chambermaid, ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 219 twenty-five cents less than the waiter. The bar-maid, who managed the house, received two dollars and fifty cents and her meals. Do you wonder those people looked for fees ? What would the " boots " have done had the guests acted on their rights, and allowed the thirty-six cents which each paid per day to the landlord to have discharged their obliga- tion in the matter of attendance ? The hotel had a livery attached. I hired a trap for three hours' use, with a driver. When we got back, I gave tbe driver a shilling. It is rarely I part with my money ; but I had had a pleasant drive, and felt generous and good-natured. What was my surprise and disgust when the man asked me for another shilling ! He had no right to demand a penny, of course, being in the employ of the hotel proprietor, to whom I was to make my payment for the trap ; but I gave him the extra shilling, and sat up two-thirds the night as- signing him to various places in the dim and uncertain future. Several days later he took me out again for a half-day ; arid, when we returned, I left him without any reward. I wanted to see what he would do. He came after me the next morn- ing, with hat in his hand, and knuckling his forehead with due respect. I looked at him with unconcealed dislike ; for he was a leech of the first water. " I come, sir, to see about the hire, please, for driving you out yesterday, sir." "Do you owTi the trap?" I asked in a voice of illy-sup- pressed disgust. " No, sir : I only drives it." "Exactly; and what is your cha?-ge?" said I, with sting- ing emphasis on the last word. "Three shillings, if you please, sir." Was the man mad ? I looked at him in a sort of stupor for full a minute. There he stood, with his old hat in his hand, his rusty coat looking more rusty than ever, and his 220 ENGLAND FROM A BACK WINDOW. liair tumbled in all directions. He would get this three shillings out of me, and then laugh in his patched sleeve at my greenness ; and Saturday night he would receive from his employer payment for that day he drove me, and I would reimburse the landlord for his expenditure. I paid him the three shillings with clinched teeth ; and after breakfast I went to the bar-maid, and said to her, — " Who is that old fellow who drove me out yesterday? " " He is one of the stable-help, sir." " So I thought. And how much does he get a week ? " " He don't get any wages, sir." " IV-h-a-i?'' " No, sir : he is not paid wages. He helps about the stable and yard ; and, when gentlemen hire a trap, he drives them out, and what they pay him supports him." About two-thirds distracted, I rushed out of the bar in quest of the old chap ; and, when I found him, I shook his hand till his neck loosened, and told him how sorry I was to have been so cross with him for simply trjing to get his liv- ing, and that he was a proper old boy anway. In the ex- uberance of my remorse I even called him a z}'Tnosimeter. It subsequendy occurred to me that he might not know what a zymosimcter was : so I returned, and explained to him that it was nothing injurious. Speaking of hotel- wages reminds me that the lady who has almost the entire charge of one of the leading hotels in Glasgow receives the munifi- cent sum of four dollars and ninety cents a week. What of her salary she does not use in building a cathedral she intends devoting to neat bronze drinking-fountains for public use. Such a woman as that is an honor to her sex and to Glasgow. In many of the prominent hotels and restaurants the " boots " or the head waiter not only receives no salary at all, but pays a premium for his place, and trusts to the fees for a living, and never f;iils of success. The same guests jiay the landlord for attendance ( ? ) . Do you see ? ENGLAND FROM A RACK-WINDOW. 221 An English landlord would think it the height of absurdity if he should find in his grocery or draper bill an item for the clerk's attendance upon his purchases ; and yet the draper or grocer could as sensibly do this as he does. But feeing is not entirely confined to the annoyance of the travelling public. It permeates every walk of life, and exhibits itself in ways unique, and startling to the stranger. A gentleman showed me over his extensive works in Scot- land. In one branch of them he committed me to the more intelligent care of the foreman. Closing the observation, I was puzzled to know whether to offer the foreman a fee. I did not wish to appear " small " in his eyes by not doing it, and yet dreaded to run the risk of offending him by mak- ing the offer. In desperation I extended the silver. It