o <>^:^''i'W-ui'R .0 *-> ' - ^^ .*>rt^>^ ^^ «^ ^'-^ A>"^. "^ «• « - o ' oT .^^^ .^-^^ «?">. LIFE AND LIBERTY AMERICA: OR, SKETCHES OF A TOUR IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA IN 1857-8. CHAELES mCKAY, LL.D., F.S.A. toitl)l3:enpUu0tration0. f%-IBR -:'y i^EW YORK: HARPER &^ ROT HERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUAKE. 185 9. PREFACE. In pursuance of a long-cherished desire, the author of the following pages left London in October, 1857, for a tour in the United States and Canada. He ti-aversed the Union from Boston to New Orleans, by St. Louis and the Mississippi, and returned to New York by land through the Slave States. He afterward visited Canada, and published from time to time in the Illustrated London News a few of the results of his ob- servations, under the title of "Transatlantic Sketches." These sketches, after having received careful revision, have been included in the present work, and form about one third of its bulk. The remaining portions are now published for the first time, and include not only the chapters on the great social and political questions which, more than any mere rec- ords of travel, are of interest to the lovers of human liberty and progress, but nearly the whole of the Canadian tour. It is not to be expected that in a residence of less than a twelve- month in America the author can have acquired a thorough acquaintance with the institutions of the country, or with the operations of social causes w^hich the Americans themselves do not always comprehend. He makes no pretense at being oracular, but has contented himself with describing "Life" as he saw it, and "Liberty" as he studied it, to the extent of his opportunities, both in the North and in the South. He went to America neither to carp, to sneer, nor to caricature, but with an honest love of liberty, and a sincere desire to judge for himself, and to tell the truth, as to the results of the great experiment in self-government which the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic races are making in America, under the most VI PREFACE. flxvorable circumstances, and with nothing, not springing from themselves, to impede or fetter their progress. He rerurned from America with a greater respect for the people than when he first set foot upon the soil. And if, with his European no- tions that a man's color makes no difterence in his natural rights, he has come to the same conclusion as previous travel- ers, that " Liberty" in the New World is not yet exactly what the founders of the Union intended it to be, he trusts that he has expressed his opinions without bitterness, and that, while he can admire the political virtues of the republic, he is not obliged to shut his eyes to its defects or its vices. It is on American soil that the highest destinies of civilization will be wrought out to their conclusions, and the record of what is there doing, however often the story may be told, will be al- ways interesting and novel. Progress crawls in Europe, but gallops in America. The record of European travel may be fresh ten or twenty years after it is written, but that of Amer- ica becomes obsolete in four or five. It took our England nearly a thousand years, from the days of the Heptarchy to those of William III., to become of as much account in the world as the United States have become in the lifetime of old men who still linger among us. Those who bear this foct in mind will not concur in the opinion that books of American travel are likely to lose their interest, even amid the turmoil of European wars, and the complications created by the self- ish ambition of rulers whose pretensions and titles are ahkc anachronisms in the nineteenth century. London, May, 1859. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE VOYAGE OUT 9 II. NEW YORK 15 in. BROADWAY BY KIGIIT 22 IV. HOTEL LIFE .' 29 V. AMERICAN FIREMEN 34 VI. FROM NEW YORK TO BOSTON 39 VII. TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA 47 VIII. NIAGARA... 52 IX. NEWPORT AND RHODE ISLAND 64 X. PHILADELPHIA 71 XI. WASHINGTON 77 XII. INTERVIEW OF INDIANS WITH THEIR "GREAT FATHER".. 87 XIII. AMERICANISMS AND AMERICAN SLANG 100 XIVo THE IRISH IN AMERICA 112 XV. FROM WASHINGTON TO CINCINNATI 117 XVI. THE QUEEN CITY OF THE WEST 125 XVII. ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 138 XVIII. THE MORMONS 147 XIX. FROM ST. LOUIS TO NEW ORLEANS 151 XX. "the CRESCENT CITY" 162 XXI. FROM LOUISIANA TO ALABAMA 178 XXII. SOUTH CAROLINA 187 XXIII. SOUTH CAROLINA — continued 192 XXIV. A RICE PLANTATION 199 XXV. SAVANNAH AND THE SEA ISLANDS 208 XXVI. FROM SOUTH CAROLINA TO VIRGINIA 215 XXVII. FROM RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON 224 XXVIII. THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF SLAVERY 231 XXIX. PRO-SLAVERY PHILOSOPHY 247 XXX. DECLINE OF THE SPANISH RACE IN AMERICA 258 XXXI. BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND 270 XXXII. FROM BALTIMORE TO NEW YORK 279 XXXIII. AMERICAN LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE 287 XXXIV. PARTIES AND PARTY TYRxVNNY 300 XXXV. ALBANY 309 XXXVL THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES 314 vm CONTENTS. CANADA. CHAP. PAOE XXXVII. FROM ALBANY TO MONTREAL 326 XXXVIII. TO THE TOP OF BEL CEIL 337 XXXIX. THE ST. LAWRENCE 345 XL. QUEBEC 355 XLI. TORONTO 370 XLII. HAMILTON, LONDON, AND OTTAWA 379 XLIIL SHOOTING THE RAPIDS 387 XHV. EMIGRATION 396 XLV. HOME AGAIN 407 LIFE AND LIBERTY IN AMERICA. CPIAPTER I. THE VOYAGE OUT. At ten o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 3d of Octo- ber, 1857, the fine steam-sliip Asia, Captain Lott, bearing the mails and about 150 passengers, left Liverpool for New York. The weather was the reverse of cheering. The rain fell, the wind blew, the Mersey showed its white teeth, and every thing betokened a rough voyage, and a vigorous demand for the steward's basin. The passengers were mostly Americans. Planters, cotton-brokers, and bankers from the South ; mer- chants and manufacturers from the New England States ; Americans from Virginia, South Carolina, and Alabama, who vised the word " Yankee" as a term, if not of contempt, of de- preciation, as we sometimes use it in England ; and Americans from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, who gloried in the appellation as the highest compliment that could be be- stowed upon them ; courtly gentlemen who would have graced any society in the world, and rough tykes and horse-dealers from the Far West, with about forty ladies and children, and five Englishmen, three of whom crossed the Atlantic for the first time, formed our company. It was not until the second day, when we were steaming along the southern shores of Ire- land, that we began to grow social, to learn each other's names, to form ourselves into little cliques, coteries, and gossiping par- ties, and to receive and communicate information upon the pleasui'es and the perils of the Atlantic, upon the state of Eu- ' A2 10 LIFE AND LIBERTY IN AMERICA. rope and of America, upon the probable effects of the great In- dian mutiny on the cotton trade of Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans, upon the great commercial crash and panic at New York, upon the feelings of Englishmen toward Ameri- cans and of Americans toward Englishmen, or, in one phrase, " upon things in general." The weather suddenly became mild and genial, and on Sun- day morning, as we skirted the coast of AVaterford and Cork, there was scarcely more motion in the sea or in our ship than if we had been steaming from London to Greenwich, or thrid- ding our way amid the beautiful lochs of the Caledonian Ca- nal. Tlie breakfast, luncheon, diimer, tea, and supper tables were regularly cl•o^^•dcd ; there was not a single absentee from the five too frequent and too copiovis meals provided for us by our bountiful and urbane chief steward. The monotony of a long sea voyage is such that people eat for pastime. The sound of the bell for luncheon is an event ; and dinner is a consummation of good things, as Avell as a consumption of them, to which all who are not smitten by sea-sickness look forward as the very cro■^^^l and climax of the day, which the gourmand and the gourmet alike contemplate with pleasurable anticipations, and Avhich nothing can impair but a stiff breeze. And such a breeze sprung up on the second day. Experienced travelers who had crossed the Atlantic scores of times — who sjioke jauntily of our noble ship as a ferry-boat, and of the mighty Atlantic as " tlie Ferry," no larger, in their magnilo- quence, than that from Liverpool to Birkenhead — bade us "look out for squalls," and for the swell and roll of the ocean, as soon as we should pass Cape Clear and the Fassnett Light- house. The}^ proved themselves true prophets. "We had not left the rugged shores of the county of Keriy half an hour be- hind us before we made a most unpleasant acquaintanceship with the heaving billows of the Atlantic, and felt the Asia pitching in a hea^y sea, with her bowsprit one moment lom- ning atilt at tlie clouds, and the next sinking as if it would poke a hole through the bottom of the ocean. In a few min- utes our decks were cleared of all tlie fairer portion of the pas- sengers ; the crinolines disappeared ; and for seven lono- and THE VOYAGE OUT. 11 weary days the ruder and stronger half of creation were left in undisturbed but melancholy possession of the decks and the dining-tables. Nor did the greater number of the gentlemen fare, for a day or two, much better than the ladies. On the wings of the gale there rode a fiend — the fiercest, most unre- lenting demon ever imagined, invented, or depicted — the arch- fiend Sea-sickness, in whose unwelcome presence life, nature, and humanity lose their charm, " the sun's eye hath a sickly glare," and death itself seems among the most trivial of the afiiictions that can befall us. One of our English friends from Manchester, who was very sick and utterly miserable, created some amusement among those less miserable than himself. There was but one place on deck which afforded shelter from the beating rain, and the spray that washed over us in plente- ous cataracts. This place was the general resort not only of the smokers, but of all those sufficiently convalescent to loathe and abhor the confined air of their state-rooms. The name originally given to this resort was the Gridiron ; but the more significant application of the Sjnt was applied to it by a "Brit- isher" whom modesty forbids me to name, who detested tobac- co and the streams of saliva which, whether "chawed" or smoked, it incited some portion of the Yankee passengers, and more especially a long, lean, leathery, unhealthy boy from Philadelphia, to discharge upon the floor. Seated in the " Spit" was our Manchester friend, as comfortless and as hope- less as man could look. "We had been five days out, and it was impossible to Avalk the deck for the heavy seas and blind- ing spray that at every pitch or roll of the vessel came spout- ing over us. To eat was perilous, to drink was to invite sick- ness, to read was impossible, to talk was but vanity and vex- ation of spirit ; and the sole resource was to woo the slumber which would not come, or to form deep though unspoken vows never again to cross the ocean in the expectation of deriving either pleasure or comfort from the trip. The vessel rolled heavily ; and a " sea," bursting over the bulwarks, deluged the " Spit" and all within it till we stood six inches deep in water. " I'll be hanged," said the man of Manchester, " if I'll stand this any longer ! Steward, call a cab !" We all smiled, and 12 LIFE AND LIBERTY IN AMERICA. doubtless our smiles were ghastly enough, at the earnest jocos- ity of our friend's misery. It had, lioAvever, a good effect homocopathioally ; it made us forget our sea-sickness for the better part of tive minutes. On the eighth night it blew a gale of wind, an indubitable storm, about which there could be no mistake. Our averao-e rate of speed against the strong head wind since leaving Liver- pool liad been upward of eight knots an hour ; but on that fear- ful night we did not exceed two and a half The vessel croan- ed and creaked through all her timbers. The dull, heavy " thuds" or tlumips of the roaring, raging seas sta<'-o-ered the Asia through the whole of her sturdy framework. It seemed at times as if, endowed with reason, she had made up her mind to resist the cruel aggression of the billows, and had stopped in mid career to deliberate in what manner she should, witli the most power and dignity, show lior sense of the insult ; and then, as if learning wisdom in adversity, she resolved to hold on her course and show herself superior to the buffetings of fortune. To me, as to others, every minute of that niglit ap- peared to be as long as a day, and every liour was an ao;e of suffering. To sleep in such a conllict of the elements was im- possible. Even to remain in the berth, without being pitched head Ibremost out of it on to the cabin floor, and running the risk of broken limbs, was a matter of the utmost difficult>% and only to be accomplished by main strength and fruitful ingenui- ty of invention, and of adaptation to the unusual circum- stances. Feet and hands were alike in requisition ; and a hai-d grip of the sides of the berth was scarcely sufficient for securi- ty, unless aided by the knees and tlic elbows, and by a constant agony of Avatchfiilness, lest a sudden sea should take the vessel miawares, and spill the hapless traveler like a potato out of a sack. And amid the riot of tlie winds and waves there was ever and anon a sound more fearful and distressing to hear the moan of a sick lady, and the loud and querulous cry of a young child that refused to be comforted. For twelve unhap- py and most doleful hours we plowed our way through the storm, prapng for the daylight and the calm. At the lii-st blink of morning every one capable of the exertion was cb-essed THE VOYAGE OUT. 13 and upon deck, exchanging condolences with his fcllow-trav- clers on the miseries of the night, or inquiring of the ofticers on watch what hopes there were of the moderating of the gale. For six-and-twenty hours the storm raged, and for twelve hours after its cessation the ocean, with its long uneasy swell, bore traces on its white-crested waves of the perturbation that had been caused in it. On the tenth and eleventh days the sea was calm enough to admit of sports upon the lower deck, and several matches were made at shuftle-ljoard, the marine substi- tute for the game of skittles. It was played Avith the greatest spirit, sometimes Ohio being matched against Kentucky, some- times Charleston against New York, and frequently England against America. And, while this was the amusement on deck, cards, backgammon, and chess afforded relaxation to those who took no pleasure in robustcr sport. Among other pastimes, a kind of masquerade was got up by the sailors, two of whom made a very respectable elephant between them, and one a very superior shaggy bear. On the back of the elephant rode the boatswain. The first part of the fun was that the el- ephant should continually throw him ; and the second part was that he shoidd continually remount— per fas aid nej'as ; all of which was effected according to the programme, and to the groat amusement of the passengers, and especially of one little boy, eight years old, who laughed so immoderately as to suggest a fear that his mirth would end in convulsions. The bear also contributed his due share to the frolic; and the broad farce created as much hilarity among our hundred and fifty travelers as ever was excited on the London boards by Buckstone or Ilarley in the present day, or by Liston and John Reeve in the days of old. At the conclusion of the per- formances two of the passengers volunteered to go round with the hat, and nearly five pounds were the result of their solic- itations. But the chief amusements of the younger and " fast- er" voyagers — smoking always excepted — were bets and lot- teries. How many knots we should run in the next twenty- four hours ; what latitude and longitude we should be in when our excellent captain made his noon-day observation ; with what letter of the alphabet would commence the name of the 14 LIFE AND LIBEKTY IN AMERICA. l)ilot whom he should take on board on approachin"- New York • and how many miles, or scores of miles, we should be from shore when the pilot-boat first made its appearance, were but a few of the subjects of speculation on which inp;cnuity was dis- played to kill time and to have something to think of. Ten to one was offered that on a certain day we should run 258 miles or upward. We ran 257 by the captain's calculation ; and an amount of money changed hands on this question which was variously estimated in the ship at from £150 to £200. It soon became evident that the adverse winds and rough weather ^^'ould make our passage a longer one than the average, and that we should not reach New York under fourteen days. We passed over 1500 miles of ocean without having seen a sad but our own, affording no opportunity for the old maritime joke always palmed oil' upon landsmen, " sometimes we ship a sea, and sometimes Ave see a ship." After the twelfth day sailing-vessels and steam-ships were frequently met with, and Ave had abundant proofs that we were on the great highway of the nations, and in the most crowded part of the "Ferry." On Friday, the IGtli, at eight o'clock in the morning, a pi- lot, who had been on the look-out for us for four days, came on board, and informed us that we were 180 miles from land. He brought, at the same time, the news, distressing to very many of our company, that the connnercial panic in New York had increased in intensity ; that nearly, if not 4ill the banks had suspended payment ; and that there never had been a finan- cial crisis of such seventy in the whole liistory of the United States. At ten o'clock that night Ave Avere off Sandy Hook. The navigation being intricate, our entrance into the harbor Avas deferred until daylight ; and at seven in the morning of Saturday, the 17th, having nearly completed our fourteenth day, Ave steamed for eighteen miles into the beautiful bay at the end of Avhich stands New York, the Queen of the Western ■\^'ovld, AA'ith New Jersey on the one side and Brookljii on the other. The three form but one city in fact, though differinet- ter portion of human kind, truth compels me to state that, as regaixls the mere volume and circumference of hoop or crino- line, the ladies of London and Paris are, to those of New York, but as butterflies compared with canary birds. The caricatures of the crinoline mania which the world owes to its excellent friend FuncJi, if exaggerations of English tashions, are no exaggerations of those of New York ; and to get along Broadway, where there is no tacitly understood and acknowl- edged law of the pavement as in England, and where every- one takes the wall as it pleases him or her, is no easy matter. Even without these abominable hoops, it would be ditficult for an Englislunan, accustomed to have the wtdl at bis right hand, to make any pi\"^gress, unless by a series of provoking zigztigs ; but, hustled by crinolines, the best thing for the gal- lant man who is in a hurry is to step off the pavement into the road. Nor haA"e the fair ladies all the hoops to them- selves. The dark ladies share with them the passion, or the sentiment of the monstrosity, and inflate their garments to the most ridiculous proportions. Little negix) girls of four- NEW YORK. 21 teen or fifteen years of age, with bright-colored parasols, bright cotton and silk dresses of a width surpassing any credence but that of the eyes of the beholder, flounder awkwardly to and fro ; and aged negresses, equally splendid and equally rotund, waddle like hippopotami among their Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fellow-creatures, as if they had' been rigged out maliciously by some hater of crinoline, and launched into the street to con- vert their fairer sisters to the use of a more elegant form of dress, upon the same principle as the ancients inculcated so- briety by the spectacle of their drunken slaves. There is not only a craze for crinoline here, but crinoline itself is crazy — huge, unwieldy, pi'eposterous, and in every way offensive. Another feature of Broadway is the number of Irish and Germans who swarm in it, on it, and round about it. The Irish seem to have the news trade to themselves ; and the newsboys and newsgirls, selling the cheap daily newspapers, are to be met with at every corner, and blockade the entrances to all the principal hotels. Eagged, barefooted, and pertina- cious, they are to be found in the streets from dawn till past the dark, crying out " The glorious news of the fall of Delhi!" The last " terrible explosion on the Ohio — one hundred lives lost!" or the last "Attempted assassination in a lager beer cellar !" They recall the memories of the old country by their garb, appearance, and accent, if not by their profession ; while their staid elders, male and female, who monopolize the apple- stalls, look far sleeker and more comfortable than their com- peers do at home, and show by their cozy appearance that they have prospered in the new land. The Germans are more quiet, and pursue more responsible callings. 22 LIFE ^\:N'D I.IBEETY IN AMERICA. CHAPTER III. BKOADW'AY BY NIGHT. New York, Dec. 1, 1S57. " I KXVY von your trip to America," said mine urbane and friendly host of the AYaterloo Hotel, at Liverpool, as, two months ago, he took leave of me at his door, and "wished me a sale and speedy pass;\ge across the Atlantic. There seemed to bo nothing very cua iable in the matter, for the wind had been howling all the night, the mercury in the glass was fall- ing, the rain was beating ag-ainst the windows, and the pros- pects of the voyage, all things considered, seemed the reverse of agro cable. "And why?" said I. with a faint and, doubtless, unsuccess- ful attempt to look comfortable and happy. " Because," I'cplied he, his joyous features beaming out into a still greater refulgence of smiles than they had previously worn, '• vou will get such delicious oysters ! Now York beats all civation for oystei-s." JMine host spoke the truth. Thci'o is no place in the world whei-e there are such tine oysters as in New York, and the sea-board cities of America ; fine in flavor, and of a size un- parallolod in the oyster beds of "NYhitstable, Ostend, or the once celebrated Kocher de Cancale. Nor has the gift of oys- tei-s l^een bestowed upon an ungrateful people. If one may jndgo froni appearances, the delicacy is highly relished and es- tooniod by all classes, from the millionaire in the Fifth Avenue to the '" l>oy" in the Bowery, and the German and Irish emi- gi'ants in their o^ati peculiar quarters of the city, which (soit ifit ai }Xissant) seem to monopolize t\ll the filth to be found in ^Manhattan. In walking up Broadway by day or by night — but more especially by night — the stranger can not but re- mark the groat number of •* Oyster Siiloons," '• Oyster and Coffee Saloons," and " Oyster and Lager Beer Saloons," which solicit him at every turn to 5top and taste. These saloons — BROADWAY BY NIGHT. 23 many of them very handsomely fitted up — are, like the drink- ing saloons in Germany, situated in vaults or cellars, with steps from the street ; but, unlike their German models, they occupy the undergi-ound stories of the most stately commercial palaces of that city. In these, as in the hotels, oysters as large as a lady's hand are to be had at all hoiu's, either from the sliell, as they are commonly eaten in England, or cooked in twenty, or, perhaps, in forty or a hundred different ways. Oysters pickled, stewed, baked, roasted, fried, and scolloped ; oysters made into soups, patties, and puddings; oysters with condiments and witliout condiments ; oysters for breakfast, dinner, and supper ; oysters without stint or limit — fresh as the fresh air, and almost as abundant — are daily offered to the palates of the Manhattanese, and appreciated with all the gratitude which such a bounty of natui'e ought to inspire. The shore of Long Island, fronting the Long Island Sound, for one hundred and fifteen miles, is one long succession of oyster-beds. Southward, along the coast of New Jersey, and down to Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and northward and eastward to Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the same delicacies abound, and foster a large and very lucrative com- merce. In City Island, the whole population, consisting of 400 persons, is employed in the cultivation of oysters. The City Islanders are represented as a very honest, peculiar, and primitive community, who intermarry entirely among them- selves, and drive a very flourishing business. The oyster which they rear is a particular favorite. Other esteemed varieties come from Shrewsbury, Cow Bay, Oyster Bay, Rock Bay, Saddle Rock, Virginia Bay, and Spuyten Duyvel. It is re- lated of an amiable English earl, who a few years ago paid a visit to the United States, that his great delight was to wander up and down Bi'oadway at night, and visit the principal oyster saloons in succession, regaling himself upon fried oysters at one place, upon stewed oysters at another, upon roasted oysters at a third, and winding up the evening by a dish of oysters a VAnrjlaise. On leaving New York to return to England, he miscalculated the time of sailing of the steamer, and found that he had an hour and a half upon his hands. 24 LIFE AXI) LIBERTY IN AMERICA, " What shall Ave do ?" said the American Mend, who had como to see him olf. '• Return to Broadway," said his lordship, " and have some more oysters." As nearly all the theatres are in Broadway, the Broadway ' oyster saloons command at night a trathc even larger than by day. "iwv/(7« cousumere nati" may designate humanity else- where, but here the quotation may be out of place, for man seems born to consume " oysters." Seated in one of these saloons, and amused at the satisfac- tion with which a company of Germans were consuming pickled oysters, and inhaling the Lager bier, which the United States owe to the German immigration, I heard a sudden rush and rumble in Broadway. " "What is the matter ?" said I, ''Only a tire," replied an American friend; "but don't move. Nobody thinks any tiling about tires here. Fires are familiar incidents. They are an institution of the country; we are proud of them. Besides, Ave do not belieA-e all the alarms of fire that are raised, for the ' boys* like to ImA-e a run. If your OAvn Avails are heated by a contlagTation next door, you may bestir yourself, but not till then." •' But I have heard much of the firemen, and should like to see some of them." '• They also are an ' institution* in America, and if you have not seen them Ave Avill go round to their bunk-rooms." " Bunk-rooms ?" I inquired, suggest iA-ely. for the word was new. " Yes, bunk-rooms ; where they bunk together." *' Bunk together ?" '• Yes ; bunk, sleep, chum, live together." We emerged into BroadAvay. But there was no fire. It was only a procession of firemen, A^■ith their engines (or en- gines, as the AA-ord is generally pronounced in America), their ladders, and their hooks. Thousands of people lined both sides of Broadway. It aa'OS a lovely night, clear, crisp, and cold, and the rays of the moon fell upon the marble edifices with a brilliancy as if they had fallen upon icebergs or the BROADWAY BY NIGHT. 25 snowy summits of hills. Every object was sharp and dis- tinct ; and the white spire of Grace Church, more than a mile distant, stood out in bold relief against the blue sky, as well defined in all its elegant tracery as if it had not been more than a hundred yards off. It wag a grand " turn out" of the fii'emen. Each company had its favorite engine, of Avhich it is as fond as a captain is of his ship, gayly ornamented with ribbons, tlags, streamers, and flowers, and preceded by a band of music. Each engine was dragged along the streets by tlie firemen in their peculiar costume — dark pantaloons, with leathern belt around the waist, large boots, a thick red shirt, with no coat or vest, and the ordinary fireman's helmet. Each man held the rope of the engine In one hand, and a blazing torch in the other. The sight was peculiarly impressive and picturesque. I counted no less than twenty different com- panies, twenty engines, and twenty bands of music — the whole procession taking upward of an hour to pass the point at which I stood. The occasion of the gathering was to receive a fire company on its return from a complimentaiy visit to another fire company in the adjoining Commonwealth of Rhode Island, a hundred miles off. Such interchanges of civility and courtesy are common among the " boys," who in- cur very considerable expense in making them, the various companies presenting each other with testimonials of regard and esteem in the shape of silver claret-jugs, candelabra, tea services, etc. But the peculiarities of the firemen, the consti- tution of their companies, the life they lead, and their influ- ence in the local politics and government of the great cities of the Union, are quite a feature in American civic life, totally different from any thing we have in England, and so curious in every way as to deserve the more elaborate consideration which I propose to give them hereafter. My present purpose is with the night aspects of Broadway — a street that quite as much as any street in London or Paris afibrds materials for the study of life and character. In one respect it is superior to the streets of London, Being the main artery of a great and populous capital, it may be sup- posed that vice reigns rampant within it as soon as night has B 26 LIFE AND LIBERTY IN AMERICA. darkened. But, ^vllatcver may be the amount of licentious- ness in the city, it does not expose itself to public view in the open, glaring, unblushing, brazen, and disgusting manner in which Londoners behold it in the Haymarket, Piccadilly, Ke- gent Street, and the Strand. I do not speak of hidden im- morality ; but, as regards the public exhibition of ^ ice. New York is infinitely more modest than London, and almost as modest as Paris. We know, however, that the outside ap- pearance of Paris is but hypocrisy, and a cloak to vice more shameless — or shameful — tlian any thing of Avhich London has ever been guilty ; and perhaps the same may be said of New York. However, upon this point I forbear to dwell. I simply record the fi\ct that, to all outward appearance, New York is much more decent and decorous than London. A few nights after the torchlight procession of the firemen, when making my way from the Astor House to the St. Nicho- las, in the midst of a thick drizzling rain, I was somewhat sur- prisecl to see a shower of rockets and bluo-lights blazing from the middle of the street, and to hear a confused war of shout- ing voices, the blast of trumpets, and the beat of drums. But the majestic roar of the multitude — the grandest sound in nature — predominated above all other noises. Broadway was impassable. All the omnibuses had turned out of their usual track, and Avere making their way by the back streets and parallel avenues to their several points of arrival and depart- ure. Had such a gathering been permitted in the streets of London by night, there might have been fears for the safety of the Bank of England and the 3Iint ; and had it occurred in the streets of Paris, the empire of the third Napoleon would have stood a chance of once more giving way to a republic or some other form of government ; but in New York — where there is scarcely a policeman to be seen — it seemed to excite no alarm, but considerable curiosity. As I pushed, or insin- uated myself as well as I could through the dense mass, the rockets kept pouring up to the sky in more i-apid succession ; the uproar of the people's voices swelled louder and louder ; and Avlion I came within one hundred yards of the St. Nicho- liis, I found that that building was the very point of attrac- BROADWAY BY NIGHT. 27 tion, and that an excited orator Avas addressing a still more excited auditory from the balcony. Thickly scattered among the multitude were grimy fellows in their shirt-sleeves, who held aloft blazing torches, and, at each rounded period of the orator's address, waved them in the air, and signaled the crowd to cheer, shout, and huzza. I could not obtain admission into my own abode for the pi'cssure of the multitude, but, after a quarter of an hour, succeeded in getting ingi'ess by the back door. IVIaking my way to the balcony, I discovered that the speaker was the INIayor of New York, elected by universal suf- frage, who was addressing his constituents at that late hour — nearly eleven o'clock — and soliciting at their hands the honor of re-election to the mayoralty. That upturned sea of human faces, heedless of the rain that beat doA\Ti upon them, eagerly intent upon the hai'd words that the mayor was launching against his political opponents — the moving, ex- cited, surging, roaring mass, irradiated, as it swayed to and fro, by the gleam and glare of hundreds of torches wildly waved in the air, formed a most picturesque spectacle. The mayor, brother of the theatrical speculator, to wliom the world owes the nuisance and the slang of the so-called "negro" minstrelsy, had been accused by his opponents in the press, and at public meetings, of every crime, public and pri- vate, which it was possible for a man to commit short of mur- der, and in terms so gross and open that the horsehair wig of any judge in England might have stood on end with surprise at the audacity of the libels, if brought under his cognizance for trial. But the mayor, unabashed and undismayed, seemed to consider the charges against his character to be quite con- sistent with the ordinary tactics of party strife, and contented himself with simple retaliation, and the use of the broadest, most vernacular ta quoqiie which it was possible to apply. It was difficult to avoid feeling some alarm that, if the police were not requisite in such a meeting, the firemen speedily would be, either from the effects of the rockets and Roman candles, or from those of the torches. But no hai'm came of the demonstration ; and a dozen or twenty similar meetings by torchlight have since been held by the mayor and his rivals 28 LIFE AND LIBERTY IN AMERICA. in other parts of the city. Surely a population among whom such nightly saturnalia are possible without a general assault upon all the shops and stores in the city has an innate respect for the laws of meum and tuum % But politics are the life of this people. Every man is a voter ; and every officer, general or local, president, governor, mayor, alderman, city or state treasurer, the officers of the militia, even the firemen, are elect- ed by universal suffrage and the ballot-box. But, with all this I'espect for property — if these midnight and torchlight meetings of an excited multitude in one of the richest streets in the world prove, as they seem to do, the in- herent peaceableness and respect for law of citizens — New York is not a city where either life or property is very secure. The daily journals teem with accounts of murder, robbery, and outrage; and this morning one of the most influential papers asserts in its most prominent leading article that during the past three years New York has been sinking in the scale of public respectability ; that citizens resort to the expedients of border life, and assume the habits of a semi-barbarous society for the preservation of their property and the safety of their persons ; that ladies are stopped and robbed in the broad light of day ; that murderous affrays take place Avith practical im- punity to the perpetrators within reach of the public offices and under the very eye of the chief magistrate of the city ; and that decent people go about their daily business armed as if an enemy lui'ked in every lane and gateway of the streets. This, it is to be hoped, is an exaggeration in the interest of the rival candidate for the office of mayor ; but there can, unfortunately, be no doubt that the police of New York is not equal to its duties, and that robberies, accompanied with vio- lence and murder, are of more frequent occurrence here than in any other city in the world of the same size and popula- tion. Whether the citizens of New York relish the prospect or not, they will have, ere many years, to increase their taxes and their police force, and regulate it more stringently, and by some more efficacious mode than by universal suffrage, and by the votes of the very " rowdies" and blackguards they wish HOTEL LIFE. 29 to repress, if they will not resort, in the last extremity of des- peration, to the Californian substitution of a Vigilance Com- mittee. CHAPTER IV. HOTEL LIFE. New York, Dec. 9, 1857. Praise the cities of America, admire the greatness and wealth of the country, extol the enterprise and "go-ahcad- ativeness" of the people, or expatiate on the. glorious future before the republic, and there is a class of persons in this city who reply to your enthusiasm with a sneer, and assert that they have "heard all that sort of thing before," and "can stand a great deal of it" without evil consequences to their health or digestion. But if, on the other hand, the stranger, in the exercise of his independent judgment, presume to dis- approve or condemn any thing in the manners of the people, or hint a doubt as to the perfect wisdom of any one of their social or political institutions, the porcupines of the press raise their quills, and grow exceedingly angry. To them optimism or pessimism, or the medium between the two, is equally dis- tasteful. No matter how honest may be the praise or how gentle the expression of disapproval, they do not like it. They seem to suspect all praise to be a sham or a mockery, and to feel all dispraise to be an insult and an outrage. In these respects they differ from Englishmen, all of whom can bear with the most patient equanimity the rubs that would almost drive such sensitive Americans out of their wits. It must be confessed, however, that the more reflective among the Amer- icans, who have seen the world, and are more assured of the strength and position of their mighty republic, take things mere easily ; accept praise as their due in the same generous spirit in v/hich it is offered ; and endeavor to learn wisdom from the criticism of people Avho cross the Atlantic to see, hear, and judge for themselves. Even if they do not agree with the adverse criticism, they have philosophy and common 80 LIFE AND LIBERTY IN AMEUICA. sense enough to be undistui'bed by it, even when it seems to be hostile. It is a pity, hoAvever, that such gentlemen and philosophers are not more common both in the press and in society. In describing the aspects of hotel life in New York and in the other great cities of America as they have impressed me, it is possible that I may incur the displeasure of those who hold that the " things of America" should, like the ^^ cosas de Esjmna," be kept sacred from all foreigners as things which they can not understand, and Avhich they must not touch upon except under the penalty of ridicule or misinterpretation of motives. Nevertheless, if my judgment be imperfect, it shall, at all events, be honest ; and, as regards this particular ques- tion of hotel life, there arc many thousands of estimable and reflecting men and women in America who, I feel confident, will agree in the estimate I form of it. The hotels in the great cities of America — in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Ncav Orleans, Chicago, Boston, etc. — are conducted on a peculiar system, and in a style of much magnificence. The British Isles possess no such caravansaries. Even the monster Hotel du Louvre in Paris is scarcely to be compared with such establishments as the St. Nicholas, the Metropolitan, the Astor House, and many others in New York. Some of them make up from five hundred to a thousand beds, and others from two to five hundred. The country is so immense, the distances from point to point are so gi'eat — such as from New Orleans to Boston, or from New York to Chicago, Detroit, and the Far West ; the activity of commerce is so incessant, and its rami- fications so extensive, that a much larger class of people than with us is compelled by business, public and private, to be continually upon the move. In England, hotels are conduct- ed in a style suitable to the da}'S of solitary horsemen, gigs, and the mail-coach, and moulded upon such limited necessi- ties as then existed ; but in America the hotels and the rail- ways grew together, and have been made to fit into each oth- er. Large hotels are of positive necessity ; and, Avere they solely confined to travelers, would deserve the praise of being, HOTEL LIFE. 81 what tliey really ai'C, the finest, most convenient, and best ad- ministered establishments in the world. It is not their fault that they have, in the course of time, and by the force of cir- cumstances, been devoted to other uses, and that they have become the permanent homes of families, instead of remaining the temporary residences of strangers. For a fixed charge of two dollars and a half a day (about ten and sixpence English) the traveler has a comfortable bed- room, the use of a drawing-room, dining-room, reading-room, and smoking-room, and the full enjoyment of a liberal tarift', or bill of fare, for breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and supper. The two dollars and a half include all charges for servants, and every charge whatever that can be fairly included under the head of board and lodging, except wine, beer, and spirits. There is no charge for wax-lights — that flaring pretext for extortion in England. The cookery is in general excellent. The breakfast is bounteous, and at the leading hotels is spread from eight o'clock till twelve, between which hours fish, flesh, and fowl, fresh meat and salt meat, eggs, omelets, wheaten bread, rye bread, corn bread, corn cakes, rice cakes, and buck- wheat cakes (the last-mentioned a greater delicacy than En- gland can show), are liberally distributed. From twelve o'clock till two the luncheon is spread with equal profusion ; and from two to six there is a succession of dinners, the get- ting up of which, at the St. Nicholas, the Metropolitan, or the New York, would do credit to the Keform Club and its ex- cellent chef de cuisine. As soon as dinner is over, tea com- mences, and as soon as tea is cleared away the cloths are laid for supper, so that from eight in the morning till midnight there is one continual succession of feasts, at which governors of states, members of Congress, judges, generals, ex-presidents of the republic, the magnates of commerce and the law, and all the miscellaneous and less distinguished public, male and female, sit down. Whether the traveler do or do not par- take, it is the same to the landlord. He may eat once, twice, thrice, or all day long, if he pleases. Tlic price is two dollars and a half, even should he be a popular celebrity — have many friends — and take all his meals abroad. If ladies and fami- o2 LIFE AXD LIBERTY IN AMERICA. lies prefer to have apartments of their own, the price for lodg- ing varies from three to five or ten dollars a day, according to the extent or elegance of accommodation required. In liko manner, the board of each individual, supplietV-in a private apartment, is raised from two and a half to four dollars per diem. The consequence is that very few people board in their private rooms, and that nearly all breakfast, dine, and sup in public, except the very young children, for whose con- venience there is a separate table d'hote. It will thus be seen that for the ti-aveling community these hotels are very comfortable, very luxurious, very cheap, and very lively. In consequence of the great difficulty which pri- vate families experience in procuring cooks and housemaids in a country where menial service is considered beneath the dignity of a native-born American, where service is called "help," to avoid wounding the susceptibility of free citizens, and left almost exclusively to negfoes and the newly-imported Irish, who too commonly, more especially the female portion of them, know nothing whatever of any household duties, and whose skill in cookery scarcely extends to the boiling of a potato, the mistresses of fomilics keeping house on their o\\ti account lead but an imcomfortable life. Li England the newly-married couple take a house, furnish it, and live quietly at home. In the cities of America — for the rule does not ap- ply to the rural districts — they too commonly t;xke apartments at the hotel, and live in public, glad to take advantage of the ready means which it affords of escape from the nuisances at- tendant upon inefficient, incomplete, and insolent service. The young wife linds herself relieved from the miseries and re- sponsibilities of housekeeping, and has nothing to think of but di'css, visiting, i-eading, and amusement. Brides who begin married life in hotels often continue in them from youth to maturity, without possessing the inestimable advantage and privilege of anv more secluded home. To those who know nothing of domestic afiairs, and to those who are willing to attend to them, but can not procure proper '• help" in their household, the hotel system is equally well adapted. It saves trouble, annoyance, and expense ; but at what a cost of the HOTEL LIFE. 33 domestic amenities ! Perhaps not above one half of the peo- ple "who daily sit down to dinner in these superb establish- ments are travelers. The remainder are permanent residents — husbands, wives, and children. To eat in public now and then may be desirable ; but for ladies to take all their meals every day, and all the year round, in the full glare of publicity ; to be always full dressed ; to associate daily — almost hourly — with strangers from every part of America and of tlie world ; to be, if young and handsome, the cynosure of all idle and va- grant eyes, either at the tabic cThute or in the public drawing- room — these are certainly not the conditions which to an En- glishman's mind are conducive to the true happiness and charm of wedded life. And it is not only the influence of this state of things upon the husband and Avife to which an Englishman objects, but its influence upon the young children, who play about the corridors and halls of such mansions, and become prematurely old for want of fresh air and exercise, and over- knowing from the experiences they acquire and the acquaint- ances they contract. Perhaps "fast" people may consider such objections to savor of " old fogyism." But reasonable people will not. The system is peculiar to America, and, therefore, strikes the attention more forcibly than if it were common to the civilized world. It is, doubtless, more the misfortune than the fault of American families that they live so much in this style ; for, without good servants who know their duty, and are not too supercilious and saucy to perform it, it is impossible for a lady, without shortening her life and making herself worse than a slave, to have a comfortable and happy home, or to govern it with pleasure or advantage either to herself or her family. Recently the New York and Philadelphia newspa- pers have been filled with the details of two scandalous cases — one ending in a tragedy — of which a New York and a Phil- adelphia hotel were the scenes, and in both of which the fair fame of ladies Avas sacrificed'. To these painful exposures it is not necessary to make farther allusion ; but they are so fresh in the public recollection that they can not be passed over, even in this cursory glance at some of the evils attend- P. 2 84 LIFE jSJ^D liberty IN AMERICA. ant upon the undue publicity of female life in such monster hotels as I have endeavored to describe. To all the hotels is attached an establishment kno^\'n as the " bar," Avhcre spirituous liquors are retailed under a nomen- clature that puzzles the stranger, and takes a long acquaint- anceship "with American life and manners to become familiar ■with. Gin-sling, brandy-smash, whisky-skin, streak of light- ning, cock-tail, and rum-salad, are but a few of the names of the drinks 'which are consumed at the bar, morning, noon, and night, by persons who in a similar rank of life in En- gland would no moi'c think of going into a gin-shop than of robbing the bank. Fancy a gin-palace under the roof of, and attached to, the Reform or the Carlton Club, and free not only to the members, but to the world without, and both classes largely availing themselves of it to di-ink and smoke, both by day and by night, and you will be able to form some concep- tion of the "bar" of an American hotel, and of the class of people who frequent it. But can such a system conduce to any virtuous development of young men in this republic? The question admits of many replies ; and without presum- ing, on so short an acquaintance Avith the country, to speak with authority, I leave it for the consideration of those who desire that America should be as wise and happy in the pri- vate relations of her citizens as she is free and independent in her relations to the great comity of the world. CHAl'TER V. AJIEKICAN FIREMEN. Kcw York. Dec. 21, 1S57. Whatever the Americans are proud of — whatever they consider to be peculiarly good, useful, brilliant, or character- istic of themselves or their climate, they designate, half in jest, though scarcely half in earnest, as an "institution." Thus the memory of General Washington — or " Saint" Washington, as he might be called, considering the homage paid to him — is an institution; the Falls of Niagtvra, are an institution; the AMERICAN FIREMEN. 35 Plymouth Rock, on -which the Pilgrim Fathers first set foot, is an institution, as much so as the Blarney Stone in Ireland, to which an eloquent Irish orator, at a public dinner, com- pared it, amid great applause, by affirming that the Plymouth Rock was the "Blarney Stone of New England." "Sweet potatoes" are an institution, and pumpkin (or punkin) pie is an institution ; canvas-back ducks are an institution ; squash is an institution ; Bunker's Hill is an institution ; and the firemen of New York a great institution. The fire system, in nearly all the principal cities of the Union is a peculiarity of American life. Nothing like it ex- ists in any European community. As yet the city of Boston appears to be the only one that has had the sense and the courage to organize the fire-brigades on a healthier plan, and bring them under the direct guidance and control of the mu- nicipality. Every where else the firemen are a power in the state, wielding considerable political influence, and uncon- trolled by any authority but such as they elect by their own free votes. They are formidable by their numbers, dangerous by their organization, and in many cities are principally com- posed of young men at the most reckless and excitable age of life, who glory in a fire as soldiers do in a battle, and who are quite as ready to fight with their fellow-creatures as with the fire which it is more particularly their province to subdue. In New York, Philadelphia, Baltimoi-e, and other large cities, the fire service is entirely voluntary, and is rendered for " the love of the thing," or for " the fun of the thing," whichever it may be. The motto of one fire company at Ncav York, in- scribed on their banner, is, "Firemen with pleasure, Soldiers