Part 32

I closed the review, in short, admiring the clear judgment and practical farsightedness of the writer; pitying the Yankees, for whom I cherished a sneaking kindness, and inwardly hoping that this very clever exposition of the folly of their seeking to counteract the manifest designs of Providence, which had so clearly demonstrated their paths, might produce as full conviction on their minds as it had on mine.

Well, I forgot the article and its subject, and was only reminded of it by finding myself one fine day whisking along at the rate of twenty miles an hour over a well-constructed railway, one of a cargo of four hundred souls. The impossibility had, in fact, been achieved; and, in addition to the natural roads offered by Sea, Lake, and River, I found railways twining and locomotives hissing like serpents over the whole continent from Maine to Mississippi: Binding the cold North to the ever-flowing streams of Georgia and Alabama, literally, with bonds of iron, and forming, indeed, the natural roads of a country whose soil and climate would set at nought all the ingenuity of M'Adam, backed by the wealth of Croesus and the flint of Derbyshire to boot.

Now, had such a result been prognosticated only a very few years back, the man whose foresight had led to such a large view of the subject would have been mouthed at as mad all over the American continent, and written down knave or ass, or both, in every practical journal of Europe.

Such great changes constantly agitated, and reduced to practice with a promptitude of which even England, with her wealth, industry, and enterprise, has little notion, make discrepancies between the facts and opinions of rapidly succeeding travellers, for which neither the veracity nor the judgment of the parties can fairly be impugned.

Action here leaves speculation lagging far behind; the improvement once conceived is in operation by such time as the opposing theorist has satisfactorily demonstrated its impracticability; and the dream of to-day is the reality of to-morrow.

I feel, in fact, a difficulty in describing without seeming hyperbole the impressions I daily received, and beheld confirmed by facts, of the extraordinary spirit of movement that appears to impel men and things in this country; this great hive wherein there be no drones; this field in which every man finds place for his plough, and where each hand seems actually employed either "to hold or drive."

For ever wandering about as I was, and visiting, as I frequently did, the same places at intervals again and again, I had occasion to be much struck with a state of things of which I was thus afforded constant evidence: take for instance,

My first journey in Sept. 1833, between New York and Philadelphia, was by steam-boat and railway, having cars drawn by horses over thirty-five miles, which thus occupied five hours and a half. In October of the same year I did the same distance by locomotive in two hours. When first I visited Boston, the journey was performed in twenty-four hours, by steamer to Providence, thence to Boston by stage; the same distance now occupies fifteen hours, a railway having been last spring put in operation between Providence and Boston.

Again, in 1834, the traveller had but one rough route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. You can now go a third of the distance by railroad, and, getting into a canal-boat, are dragged over the Alleghany mountains, through a series of locks not to be surpassed for strength or ingenuity of contrivance.

In 1833, the journey from Augusta, Georgia, to New York was an affair of eleven or twelve days; it is now performed in three. Steam and railroad are, in fact, annihilating time and space in this country. In proof of it, I can safely assert that if a traveller visiting the South-west, say, from Savannah to New Orleans, will be at the trouble of recollecting this book in the year 1837, he will find the account of the difficulties of my journey extremely amusing; since, in all human probability, he will perform that in five days, which took me, with hard labour, perseverance, discomfort, not to say, some peril of life or limb, just eighteen.

It is these revolutions, and such as these, that form the true wonders of this country; that stimulate curiosity, excite interest, and well repay the labour of any voyager embued with a grain of intelligence or observation, to say nothing of philosophy.

It is to these results, their causes, and their immediate and probable effects, his mind's eye will be irresistibly drawn, not to spitting-boxes, tobacco, two-pronged forks, or other conventional bagatelles, the particulars of each of which, as a solecism in polite manners, can be corrected and canvassed by any waiter from the London Tavern, Ludgate Street, and by every grisette from America Square to Brompton Terrace, who may choose to display their acquired gentility "for the nonce;" and it is the absence of a spirit of philosophy generally in our writers, and this affectation of prating so like waiting-gentlewomen, that stings Americans, and with some show of reason, when they see the great labours of their young country with the efforts of its people passed lightly by, and trifles caught up and commented upon, whose importance they cannot comprehend, and which they have neither leisure nor example to alter or attend to.

After much and close observation, I say fearlessly, that, in all conventional points, good society in the States is equal to the best provincial circles in England. The absence of a court, together with the calls of business, necessarily preclude the possibility of any class acquiring that grace of repose, that perfection of ease, which cultivation, example, and a conscious knowledge of the world gives to the beau-monde of Europe; on the other hand, in the absence of this, you are seldom pestered with the second-hand ladies'-maid airs of your pretenders to exclusive gentility, so common amongst Europeans.

The great mass of Americans are natural, therefore rarely vulgar; and if a freshness of spirits, and an entire freedom from suspicion and the many guards which ill-bred jealousy draws around the objects of its care, may be viewed, as indeed they ought to be, as proofs of high feeling and true culture, then are the men of America arrived at a point of civilization at once creditable to themselves and honourable to their women, as nothing can be more perfectly unrestrained than the freedom enjoyed in all good families here. Strangers once introduced find every house at all times open to them, and the most frequent visits neither create surprise nor give rise to suspicion.

Hospitality is inculcated and practised, and the people entertain with a liberality bordering on profuseness: the merit of this is enhanced by the great trouble the absence of good domestics entails on the mistress of even the best establishments. Ladies are here invariably their own housekeepers, yet, nowhere is the stranger more warmly welcomed, and in no country is more cheerful readiness evinced in preparing for his entertainment.

The hand of welcome is also extended and sympathy encouraged towards the persecuted, whether of fortune or despotism. The exile is sure to find shelter and security here, without encountering suspicion, whether necessity or choice induced him to abandon his country.

Honoured be the land which offers to the stranger a free participation, on equal terms, of all it holds dearest! Hallowed be the institutions which hold out to talent a free field, and where honest ambition knows no limit save the equal law!

I shall ever love America for the happy home it has proved to the provident amongst the exiles from Ireland. In almost every part of the land, they form an important portion of the freemen of the soil. If, on becoming American, they have not at all times ceased to be Irish in that full degree the political economist would desire, there are many allowances to be made for them.

Let it not be considered an unpardonable enormity that the poor Irishman runs a little riot when suddenly and wholly freed from the heavy clog by which the exhibition of his opinions has been restrained at home. It is not surprising that those who have been for life hoodwinked should fail to see clearly for themselves in all cases; or that, falling upon interested guides, they are occasionally led astray.

Wayward and wilful I will admit them sometimes to be, and in evil hands their misdirected energies may for a time become the instruments of evil. Mistaken in judgment they may often be, for such is the lot of humanity, but regardless of right and justice they seldom are, and ungrateful or ungenerous they cannot be. The evidence of their native spirit of enterprise is found in their daily braving destitution in the hope of bettering their hard lot. Their hatred of oppression is proved by their ill-directed, but constant struggles for equal rights; and, if kind-heartedness and charity cover a multitude of sins, no people on earth can justly claim a larger stock. In illustration of which I will present one proof out of the many I possess, because it will at once serve as an illustration of my assertion, and gratify those who love to contemplate the bright side of poor humanity.

The following statement was enclosed to me by an excellent Quaker, one of the partners of the house from whose books the document is extracted, with a letter which I need not insert here, but will add, that the statement is incontrovertible.

"From the 1st of January 1834, to the 1st of May 1835, Abraham Bell and Co. of New York have received from the working classes of Irish emigrants, that is, from common labourers, farm servants, chambermaids, waiters, &c. to remit to their friends and kindred in Ireland, the sum of fifty-five thousand dollars, in amount varying from five dollars upwards. The average amount of the whole number of drafts sent is twenty-eight and a half dollars each." New York, May, 19th, 1835.

There is not a part of the country to which I have wandered, where I did not find that a like gentle recollection of the destitute left at home prevailed. In every large city is some one or more Irish house, which becomes the popular medium through which these offerings of the heart are transmitted to the miserables at home. When it is reflected that the donors are themselves the poorest of the poor, and that often at the close of their first summer, they are found transmitting their earnings to some mother, or aunt, or sister, without providing against or thinking of the severity of approaching winter, no eulogy can be too strong.

"Well, but look, David," remonstrated my kind friend H---- in New Orleans, to a poor fellow who, after three months' hard labour, brought him forty-five dollars to send home, "let me recommend you to keep back ten dollars of this to buy yourself a warm coat; we have a cold month coming, man, and you are ill off for covering."

"It's true for ye, sir," cried Davy, scratching his head, and glancing down at his ragged garments, "bud it's only for a month you'll be havin' cowld here, and the poor crature at home has a long winter to get over, and her as bare as myself, and less able for id. The clothes cost a heap o' money here, too, I find; and if you plase, sir, in the name o' God, send all I have home, and I'll keep off the cowld, when it comes, by workin' the harder."

Instances are constantly occurring of labourers, landing at a good season, going to work though hardly able from weakness, and at the end of their first week bringing three or four dollars to be sent home.

I will not multiply instances, as I might do, nor need I offer further comment. I confess freely that I have a pride in setting this much-enduring class of my countrymen before the English people, who, generous themselves, know how to appreciate good in others. At these times one page of fact is worth a volume of unsupported eulogium. If the present short statement contributes to promoting a kind feeling towards a little known, although much abused class, it will have accomplished the end contemplated, and in doing this, will have served all parties.

Friday, 19th.--After passing four days with my New York friends, on this morning, at six A.M. descended from No. 1; and having bade Mr. Willard a final adieu, quitted the City Hotel, where, during many comings and goings, I had always lodged, and where I had constantly experienced the greatest attention.