ETTTTTTTTTTV4 Eºſ | #: H i. º R E. *…*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*. º ~~~~ tºº § § § § % § % º º % § § % § º & §. % §3 §§ § … §§ º º % §% §3.j ſº º 3% %3% % % º § §§ §§ % º 3 3 º º % § sº º º º & §§ % º ğ § § º § º º º §§ º º § & 2. % § % º º º § % Ç º š §§ - 33 § º ś º Č. º º § º º % § Ç § § sº % §§ º § §§ §§§ & . £% º $3 ğ 3. §§ § §§ š º % % º:3& §§ º w w š. % º 32 §§§ % º §§ 3% % % $º 𠧧 § º º º % § º § §§ º § *V3HS GIHJ, NO ALIO V STEAM ER BOOK A PICTURESQUE ACCOUNT OF -> A CITY O N T H E S E A, BEING The Daily Zife on a Steamer of a 7"vans-Atlantic § Seeker aſter Health, ſecreation and Rest. BY WM. TOD IIELMUTH. NEW YORK : copyright, 1880, by rºº º J. L., ... Cº. f* D., J. J.". J. … . §§ º § .. . . MDcccLxxx. . . . . . ; Electrotyped by . º SAMUEL Stoppen, TRow Pirºtypes & strºpolypºn, Painting and Book Binonaco. 90 ANN STREET, N. Y. N. Y. NOTE. In these days of Trans-Atlantic Travel, the invent- ive genius of man has been called continually into requisition to render the ocean voyage as comfortable and pleasant as the sudden variations of wind and wave will allow. Hence the production of “ steamer- steam º hats,” “steamer-bonnets,” “steamer-dresses, er-rugs,” “steamer-trunks,” and “steamer-chairs,” to which requisites, I have ventured to add this “steam- er-book." If, my Dear Reader, you have ever sailed on one of these magnificent boats, read my book to see . if it is true. If you have not, read it to see what the future has yet in store for you. ::::::::::::::::::::::::. w. T. H. tº º So shalt Thou, instant reach the realm assigned, In wondrous ships SELF-Movel) : instinct with mind. Tho' clouds and darkness veil th’ encumbered sky, Fearless thro' darkness and thro' clouds they fly. Tho' tempests rage ; tho' rolls the swelling main, The seas may roll, the tempests swell in vain, E’en the stern God, that o'er the waves presides, (Safe as they pass, and safe re-pass the tides)– With fury burns. While careless they convey ## * Promiscuous every guest to every bay.” ODYSSEY. * Everybody, of course, knows the all:1sion con- veyed above, but for fear they do not, I will mention, for the benefit of those who have not a classical diction- ary on board, that Homer thus describes the ships of King Alconius in B. VIII, as translated by Pope. The idea of steam or innate power for moving ships, may therefore be considered very ancient. CONTENTS. * CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory. . . . . . . . . . . . . - * * * * * * * * * * * * * II II. A City of the Sea.—Its Streets, IIouscs, Restaurants, Telegraph Oſices, and Dathing Establishments. . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 III. The Machine Shop.–The Coal Yards.- The Water-Works and the IIospital.. 43 V. The Lover's Walk, or Love Lane........ 56 V. The Governmental offices, and the Apoth- ecary Shop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - e º 'º e º 'º ºf e is 65 VI. The Club-House and the Library. . . . . . . . 75 VII. Mrs. Grundy and Mal-de-Mer. . . . . . . . . . . IOI VIII. The Inhabitants................. .* * * * * * * II5 IX. The Quarantine Officers and the Discasc which Eludes Them - A STEAMER BOOK. CHAPTER I. I N T R O D U C T O R Y . & 4 & e < * * * * * * | #|HIS time ten years ago, as well as ! this time one year ago, I was £4:# sojourning in this house (the Railway Hotel), at Killarney. I mention the coincidence because I conceive it good practice, at least once in a decade, for every man to view himself in the glass which Father Time holds up for self-inspection, and therefore, in accordance with these [11] T 2 AAV7 RO/D UC 7'OR Y. views, as I take up my pen this most lovely afternoon, I must endeavor to note the changes which have taken place—not in the hotel, or in the accommodations thereof; not in the beauty of the lakes, or in the shady verdure of Mangerton or Torck; not in the character of the country, or in the appearance and social condition of the people, but in myself. Looking, there- fore, at myself, as I appeared in this identical sitting-room in the “ Railway Hotel ” last year, I can see but little difference in my personality ; examining myself, however, as I stopped here ten years since, I can scarcely believe I am the same person. The thought naturally arises, wherein lies the difference As I rode along the gap of Dunloe this morning, or AV7'RO/DUCTOR V. I3 went rushing in the boat beneath the ancient arches of “the old weir bridge,” where the waters of two of the most beautiful lakes in the world mingle their dark currents to- gether, and go bounding in sunshine and shadow, until they are lost in the pools beyond ; as the mist lifted from the famous peaks of Macgillicuddy, or the boughs, heavy with the remarkable verdure of this country, dipped themselves in the dark waters of the stream; as I listened to the legend of O'Don- ohue More, and the mighty McCarthy, as they fell from the lips of an old and true Hibernian driver, who, in his richest brogue, repeated, “Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,” I was (would you believe it), quiet / The exhilaration that, ten years ago, bounded spontaneously forth at the diversified scenery I4 JAW 7"ROAD UC 7'OR V. of this same section of country, unrivaled in beauty and acknowledged in picturesqueness by all travelers—was gone. Then, filled to the brim with excitement (I was the especial correspondent of a home paper), I rushed to this same room, leaped upon my Pegasus, and taking for my metric example Lord Macaulay's “Horatius,” wrote verses to my periodical at home. It would be utterly im- possible for me to-day to perform any such labor. Yet the magnificence of the purple- clad hills is still the same, the wondrous green of the holly and the arbutus mingles with the deep and ever-changing hues of the moun- tains, as it has done for hundreds of years together—but the appreciation was changed ; there was an undefined sense of something wanting, something gone, and I draw the AAV7'RO DUCTOR Y. I5 corollary that I am growing old; that the lack of exultant enjoyment is the necessarium accidens decrepitis et inseparabile. Every individual who has work to do in this world, and does it, needs a vacation. You need recreation, dear reader of either sex, and you must take it too, or woe-betide. your brain, or what is just as bad—your digestion. I have found a vacation on this side of the Atlantic better than a vacation at home, cheaper too, if you understand how to control the strings of your purse as you wander through the temptations of Oxford Street, the Strand or Picadilly, or view the glittering gim-cracks in the Rue Rivoli or Palais Royal. Would you know the reason 2 Simply because “Old ocean's grey and mel- ancholy waste" separates you entirely from 4. ** * * * * * * * * ; I6 JAW 7"RO/D UC 7'OA' V. the immediate scenes of your business. If you are a doctor, you are not worried by the objective and subjective symptoms of your patients, be they imaginary or real. If you are a lawyer, you are not forced to inhale the unwholesome atmosphere of a crowded court-room, or dive into the dusty folios at the law library. If you are a merchant, you are deprived the pleasure of inspecting accounts, invoices and lading - bills. No matter who you may be, you are “away from Åome,” and that does you good. You breathe a new atmosphere ; hear a new language, or a new accent given to your own. You eat a different kind of cooking (sometimes, to be sure, awfully bad), but different. You are obliged, per force, to take a certain amount of a different kind of bodily exercise to AVTRO/DUCTORY. 17 which you have been accustomed. These are the reasons why it is physically better, and really appear to prove the fact, recently stated by a modern medical philosopher, that the true principle of all cure is “Dif- ferentia Differentiis Curantur,” as opposed to the “contrary" doctrine of Hippocrates or the “similar" theory of Hahnemann. The mind needs rest more than the body, and requires the change as much as the more material parts of the “human form divine.” Now, for mental recreation you will find, if you travel, as I do, with a party of six, and have neither courier or valet-de-place, and are obliged to be careful in your expenditures, that the reduction of pounds, shillings and pence to the decimal system of our blessed country, in the evening, after dinner; the 18 JAV7'RO/DUCTOR V. division of the quotient into six equal por- tions; the immense mental effort required to recall the number of tips and fees dis- tributed during the last twenty-four hours, that each traveler may bear his fair propor- tion of the expense, and the mathematics (always subtraction) involved in the calcu- lation of your letters of credit, are quite sufficient exercise for the mental faculties. There are, however, points of higher t importance gained by this different mode of life, viz., the cultivation of your self- control may be most materially increased, and your selfishness reduced to a minimum. To become proficient in these great qualifi- cations requires always constant supervision, and especially in traveling will they be tested in a most practical manner. Every AAV7'RO/D UC 7'OR Y. 19 time you leave your hotel en route for another point on your journey, you will be made painfully aware that there are num- berless chambermaids lurking about your chamber doors, and in the dark recesses of the halls through which you are obliged to pass on your way down stairs. As you emerge into the open air you will be stupe- fied by the number of porters who await you, each with a most determined expression of countenance, carrying an umbrella, or a shawl, or a bag or a strap, which he is apparently anxious to place in the cabs. Remember, there are, on this occasion, six in the party, four of them ladies. A number of bloated, blear-eyed ruffians, or street- crossing sweepers, or deformed specimens of humanity, will beset you every time you 2O AAV7'RO/DUCTOR V. expect to drive, eager to open the doors—all the doors of your vehicles. The keen and expectant eyes of the cabmen, as you get down from their yellow-bodied and sky- blue-wheeled chebangs, will haunt you. The extraordinary politeness of the guard at the railway station, as he tells you he has secured for you a separate compartment in the carriage, will frighten you. The “please-to-give-me-something” look of the porter, as he says to you, “Yer luggage, sir, is behind yer, sir, in the van, sir, and yer won't 'ave to take it hout, sir, no more, sir, till yer gits to the pier, sir,” will utterly amaze you. Now as you are painfully aware that all these manifold, and consecutive, and fre- quently recurring attentions mean, fees | fees ' ' fees ' ' ' to these abominable beggars, ZAV7'RODUCTORY. 2 I you will, in all probability, soon appreciate the amount of self-control that you have been endeavoring “to save up " for the past ten years, and by which, no doubt, in the magnitude of your self-esteem, you are wont to lay great store. The second mental experiment, viz.: the testing of selfishness, is, from the very nature of our composition, most readily effected in traveling. Every one has peculiarities of appreciation, different ideas of beauty, differ- ent ideas of ugliness; every mens sana in corpore sano must shoot off in a different direction. This diversity being one of the divinest blessings ever conferred on man- kind, and which, when combined with what Dr. Johnson is pleased to call “one of the greatest and noblest passions of the human 22 JAW TRODUCTORY. mind," viz.: “Curiosity,” will, in a great measure, account for that which we, in these times, call “Progress.” If it were not for these mental idiosyncrasies—may I so call. them —Plato would not have looked after the immortality of the soul, or Herodotus arrived at his theory of geography. Morse would have neglected the practical applica- tion of electricity, and Howe would have contented himself with the comparatively slow work, even, of the nimble fingers of the poorly-paid sewing-girls at their midnight labor. For a party of six, the very effort to order a dinner is often a severe test, particu- larly if you have suggested some particular entrée, that you thought particularly savory and particularly agreeable to your gustatories ZAV 7"A’O D UC 7'OA’ V. 23 at that particular time ; and have been clam- orously cried down by the “large majority.” The choosing of a route; the appreciation of a picture or a play ; the decision as to “where shall we go to-day 2” the apportion- ment of rooms, some better than others; and the hundred thousand little things which travelers always have to contend with, . if looked upon aright, can easily be made sentinels over that great characteristic of man-kind, viz.: abominable selfishness, which woman-kind always (perhaps inadver- tently, by their love and gentleness), will foster and submit to, in the persons of the lords of creation. In one of my earliest trips abroad I wrote home to the United States a series of letters, which (either fortunately or unfor- 24 /AWTRODUCTORY. tunately) were published. I must say that in these former letters, as I look over them now, there is quite an unwarrantable amount of what I may term guide-book lore, besides a good many figures in the shape of statistics, and a good deal about the natural products and moral characteristics of the inhabitants of the countries through which we traveled, which I did not know before, and have not remembered since. There was also some poetry, too, which I am vain enough (excuse me) to think good—pretty good—even at this minute of time, and which I have slyly published a second, and, with some alteration, a third time. I have for- gotten now the population of Dublin, or the quantity and kind of produce (leaving out, always, JAW 7"RO/DUCTORY. 25 “The crest of O'Shaunashane, That's a potato, plain ſ”) of the south of Ireland. I do not now know the number of steamers built. in twelve months upon the Clyde, or how much money is annually expended by the enter- prising inhabitants of Glasgow in dredging the river. As for the number of pounds of flax consumed every month in Mulholland's linen factory, or the peculiarities of the hose manufactured at Balbriggan, I am now as utterly ignorant as I am of the customs and manners of the inhabitants of Cyprus, or the medical character of the plants which are indigenous to that now famous country. Yet, although derelict in these accurate items, I think I have learned others which are more satisfactory to myself and my 26 /AW 7"RO DUCTORY. friends, and have made up my mind to occupy a portion of my time here at Kil- larney (where there is no night bell) in putting a portion of these ideas upon paper. I will not look into Harper, Appleton, Mur- ray, Baedecke, or any other general or local guide-books. I simply forswear them all for the present. Upon my word of honor I shall not examine old Burton for Latin or Greek quotations, nor shall I seek the poetical dictionary for an appropriate head- line or effective distich. The fact is, I have not these books here, nor could I get them were they wanted, without considerable trouble and expense. Therefore, I shall see things with my own eyes, hear things with my own ears, and with the occasional look into a Lexicon, which I was forced to bring IAW TRODUCTORY. 27 * with me to correct proof during my voyage on the steamer, I will strive to be original. Indeed I would even like to be original in my orthography and not disturb the Lexi- con, but the fact is, there are already too many “original" spellers and definers in this and in all countries, and therefore to be really original, or to use a milder term, “different,” a Lexicon is the article to be w sought after and studied. - Most travelers write books concerning their travels on land, while few describe the incidents occurring at sea; but none, at least that I am aware of, ever think of the great boats that carry them over the mighty waters of the ocean—therefore, my effort shall be to describe what I am pleased to call “a city *... of the sea.” CHAPTER II. A CITY OF THE SEA. ITS STREETs, HOUSES, RESTAURANTS, TELE- GRAPH OFFICES, AND BATHING ESTAB- LISHMENTS. TEN days' voyage at sea, or (as a sharp-featured, bright-eyed, wº--ºn #| cleanly-shaven old gentleman, an experienced and retired contractor of rail- ways, with a large solitaire in his shirt-front, told me on board ship) a poker-table is the place to discover the virtues and vices of mankind. -- I quote the poker-table authority, because I think he knew, from experience, what he A C/TY OF THE SEA. 29 talked about, and because I am ignorant, practically of the intricacies of that mysteri- ous game of “pairs,” and “flushes,” and “fulls ;” I don't know how to “call,” or to “see,” “a bob-tail flush ;” and, what is more, I've no desire so to do, and therefore take my friend's statement, because he is an old and reliable man at poker. Certainly, a ten days' sojourn with your fellow-passengers, opens to the close observer the book of their characters, and simply for the reason, that the walls of our “city of the sea " compass them about on every side. Each individual is brought in such close proximity to the others, in sleeping, eating and moving, that every little slip of the tongue, even, indeed, an expression of the face, every attitude, every action is noted, and 3o A C/ 7"Y OF 7AHAE SEA. Each action is a letter, by the aid Of many such an alphabet is made, By which in time, the passengers can scan The book of thought in every fellow-man. The transatlantic steamers of to-day are regular cities. Think, dear reader, of the one you have just quitted, or of the one upon which you are now sailing. There are streets in it, many and winding ; and houses of varied styles of architecture upon those streets, each bearing its separate number, and woe-betide you if you get into premises other than your own. - There is a butcher-shop, where thousands of pounds of meat are disposed of during each week; there is a poulterer's, for ducks and turkeys and geese and game; there is a large huxter-stall for vegetables and fruit; there is a bread and buscuit baker, and a A CITY OF THE SEA. 31 pastry-cook's shop, and a confectioner's, from which daily are sent out beautifully arranged pyramids of jelly, or ice, or pastry, or cake, and where nothing but the “light- est puff" is tolerated in the shape of crust. * There is also a tavern and a bar, which (like most English bars) is nothing but a window, where beer, wines of all grades and kinds, and spirits, and seltzer water and soda water are retailed in great quantities. By the way, I must stop here and ask why our English hotel-keeping brethren are so par- tial to this old-fashioned and miserable window-business 2 You register your name in the window ; pay your bills in the win- dow; get your drinks in the window ; the porters are ordered through the window; the laundry work is handed in at the window 32 A C/7"Y OF THE SEA. and when you look through the window— a narrow little contracted affair it is—what is the prospect 2 Two or three women in a room, often without carpet, and in the utmost disorder ; account books and brandy bottles are side by side; empty dishes and dirty glasses; bill heads and cruets filled with drinks; papers and passenger-lists; and in one corner a large machine for draw- ing beer—all apparently located without system of any kind. Half a dozen bells are hanging above the window, and perhaps, in a little narrow case carefully locked, cigars can be found on the window-sill. I have just now come up-stairs in this—the best hotel at Killarney, and the female clerks were taking in, at the window, the bread for the day, and the butter also. Think A C/7"Y OF 7"HE SEA. 33 even in London, of the Charing Cross Hotel, one considered to be among the best in that (“ city,” I was going to write, but will obey De Quincy and say) “nation ” of nearly five millions of people, having its business done through a dirty little window, whereat I saw a pretty, pert girl sitting and laughing and ogling her flashy beau, while a party of ladies were waiting, upon the dirty and wet tiling, for some chambermaid to show them where to go—tired and bewildered as they appeared to be. Any traveler knows this to be true ; and the city of the sea must, perforce, have its window, too, and it has it. In a little out-of the way passage, stands the barber-shop, with its painted pole, where you can have yourself shaved, your hair cut, or your whiskers curled ; or where you can 3 . 34 A CITY OF THE SAEA. purchase pomatum, collars, handkerchiefs, perfumery aud cosmetics. Then there are vast dining-halls, one of them for the aristocracy, carpeted with ma- terials of the woofs of Axminster or Moquet, with gilded mirrors and lamps : a groined ceiling is supported by silver pillars, and ornamented with magnificent side-boards, whereon china and glass of all colors glisten in the rays of the sun, as it comes shining through the open ports on a fine day. Here the dinners are served in courses, and the tureens and dish-covers and platters are of silver plate; in fact, there is a style of magnificence corresponding with the luxuri- ous age in which we live. Look at this bill of fare . Examine this mend, if you please, and let your admiration of the chéf de cuisine 3 3%.3% * É º :c * 2. t t; * 2. º: º É A CITY OF THE SEA. 35 only be equaled by your appetite, provided, always, you are not suffering from mal de mer. BILL OF FARE. Saturday, June 27, 1879. Dinner, 6 O'CLOCK, P. M. SOUP. Pea. Kidney. FISH. Boiled cod, anchovy sauce. Saimon, parsley sauce. ENTRées. Poulet fricassé aux champignons. Haricot ox tail. Broiled chicken with tomatoes. Pigeon Pies. Curried chicken with rice. Compôte Pigeon aux petits pois. - Joints. Roast beef, baked potatoes. Roast mutton and currant jelly. Corned pork and cabbage. Fillet de veau, sauce blanche. Roast pig and apple sauce. Roast lamb and mint sauce. 36 A C/ ZY OF THE SEA. POULTRY. Roast turkey and bread sauce. Stewed duck with truffles. Boiled fowls and parsley sauce. Roast goose and apple sauce. COLD. Corned beef. Ham. Tongue. ASSORTED VEGETABLEs. PAstry. Almond pudding. - Queen's pudding. Charlotte russe. Gypsy cakes. Pyramids of Pastry. Love rolls. Beignets d'orange. Victoria cakes. Calves' foot jelly. CHEESE. Stilton and Cheshire. CUCUMBERS AND TOMATOES. TEA AND CofFEE. This is a verbatim et literatim copy of one of the “bills of fare,” which is served in the A C/7"Y OF THE SASA. 37 great dining-hall of which I speak, and ex uno, &c., &c., &c. The other eating-room is not by any means so fine. There is no carpet on the floor, or mirrors on the walls ; there are no plated dishes—the service consisting, chiefly, of tin or of delf ware. The dinners are not served in courses ; the soup is not followed by the fish, or the entrées removed at the tap of the bell. There is no red cloth under the soiled white one, for fruits or nuts, or cheese and coffee ; but, for all, where good appe- tites may be appeased by good food; food which is daily tasted and examined by the proper authority, to ascertain that the quality of it is good and its preparation wholesome. I have witnessed this inspec- tion myself, and have tasted the soup, the 38 A CITY OF THE SEA. beef, the potatoes and the “duff,” and found them excellent in character and composition. I have also taken pains to frequent this institution “between meals,” and as the shades of evening deepen around the ship, and the mighty ocean appears to mingle with the dusk of the horizon, I have heard the music of the guitar or accordeon, and “sounds from home " sung sweetly enough from the poorer classes of our inhabitants, or the shuffling of dancing feet has an- nounced that there were light hearts there, although, perhaps, the pockets of the dancers were empty, and they knew not the future to which they were speeding, day and night, through the deep and unfathomable sea. There are also a couple of carpenter shops Inear the last-named hall, with varieties of A CITY OF THE SEA. 39 tools, and artisans prepared for any emer- gency. In one corner also, a dark-looking cranny, is the ſunk store, smelling of tar and oakum, where you may find ropes, and spars and bits of iron, and cable chains, and hempen splicings, and all those odds and ends found in shops of similar character on the wharves of stationary cities. The great bell of this peculiar town strikes day and night with the utmost pre- cision and regularity, marking the hours and the half-hours as they pass. As you lie awake at night you may hear the sound of the bell telling the time, and if you listen you will hear the cry of the watchmen —a pleasant cry it is (peculiar in its sound and curious in its note, as all sounds of Seamen and hucksters appear to be)—as it 4O A C/TY OF THE SEA. comes from the point of look-out and tells you “All's well !” “All's well !” then you turn in your narrow bed, place your knees against the movable weather-board, and your back against the wall of your snug abode, and blessing the watchmen for their cheery sound, and the great God for his goodness, sink off into your second nap. This city has its district telegraph. Every house has its machine, consisting of a mahogany case with an ivory alarm, whereby you may ring for your messenger, send for your servant, the doctor or the steward, or call for any assistance you may desire. I must call attention here to the bathing establishments; they are fitted with marble tubs and tiled floors, and Turkish-bath A CI TY OF THE SEA. 41 towels of good proportion and texture. The attendant is in livery, and here a salt bath may refresh you, and as you roll over and over (or are rolled over and over by the delightful motion of the ship), you may imagine you are Cataline—he had his marble bath-tub and his tiled floor—and are await- ing your servant to envelop you in your toga. One of the bathing establishments of this great city is in quite close proximity to the magnificent dining-hall, of which I have spoken, and as there are innumerable lunch- eons and dinners served in that luxurious apartment, I might suggest to the various waiters who are entrusted with the cleansing of the multitudious dishes and plates, that to set them altogether into one of these Roman bath-tubs, and to turn the water 42 A C/7"Y OF 7"HE SEA. thereon, and rapidly wipe them out with a mop, might save a great deal of valuable time, and “time is money.” Not that these things are done. It is merely a suggestion of my own, given in the same spirit as inspired Dean Swift when he wrote those famous and instructive “Directions to ser- $ vants;” which, by the way, appear to be generally understood by the Hibernian do- mestics of New York, who rule our family circles with rods of iron, and require certifi- cates of our good moral character before they deign to lift a finger to help us. CHAPTER III. * THE MACHINE SHOP. THE COAL YARDS. THE WATER - WORKS AND THE HOSPITAL. 㺠IKE Major Pendennis, I always, when I am abroad, go to church on Sundays, and, like that weak and worldly old snob, always carry the “Church of England service” in my coat pocket. He had his motives for being so punctilious in his observance of the moral code, and so have I. His mode of life exhibited his “spurs to action," and to the end he was consistent, to say the least; I hope I am also. This morning we had a 44 THE MACH//AWAZ SA/OA. pleasant service—not in the least ritualistic– and heard a most excellent extemporaneous sermon from an Irish-Church-of-England- man, who in this portion of Ireland, is rather an exception. Fluency, appropriateness of expression and adaptability of language are characteristic of the Irish people, and the readiness with which they often coin a word for the occasion, or express their meaning by a curious interrogation would surprise even Mr. Trench or Mezzofanti. I have also noticed, that when an educated Irish gentle- man is in company with his English brother, the former is generally very brilliant when the latter is often very dull. - The text this morning was that famous speech made the Queen of Sheba, when she was about to return to her native country, THE MACHINE SHOP. 45 after having enjoyed the hospitality and wit- nessed the unparalleled magnificence of that remarkable king who sung such a remark- able song. I always have thought that She- ba was in love with Solomon. She had seen his ivory throne overlaid with gold, guarded by the twelve lions; she had been amused by the apes from Tharshish, and as she lay on her bedstead of carved cedar of Lebanon, she may have heard the lovely notes of his peacocks. She had listened to his powers of conversation, and perhaps had enjoyed his > song—in sections (it is too long for one re- hearsal)—and she is reported to have said, as she was about to mount her camel, that she had heard of all his magnificence, but that the half had not been told her. I must say that, as I walked home through the narrow 46 THE MACHIAWE SHOP. streets of the village, I was thinking that this same beautiful queen could not have been more amazed than would have been Blasco dé Garcy, the day after he had propelled his little ship of two hundred tons burthen at the rate of two miles an hour, and had astonished and bewildered not only so august a person as Charles V., but also his most wise com- missioners—if he had been suddenly trans- ported from Spain to the “great city,” about which I am trying to write. I am not much of a linguist myself, and my first thought on this auspicious occasion would be to hunt up a gentleman whom I saw yesterday strolling along the “Lovers' walk,” on the outskirts of the city. He had dark hair, and dark eyes, and dark skin, and small feet and trim boots to put them in. His complexion was sallow THE MACH/AVE SHOP. 47 and the cigar he smoked was long. I know he spoke Spanish, and as I do not, I would select him for my interpreter. After Blasco and I had been introduced, I would ask him to look at “our great machine shop.” First, however, knowing what was likely to follow, by way of precaution, I would lay across his pneumogastric nerve the end of an electric wire, detached from the “indicator,” and or- der the steward, at a word from me, to press the nearest ivory ball. There's nothing like Faradazation in the treatment of rapid col- lapse or severe shock, and one or other, or perhaps both, would be likely to ensue on this occasion. I would then quietly ask the distinguished gentleman, through our inter- preter, to walk down three flights of stairs. Down, down, down would we go, the tem- 48 ZTA/A2 MAC///AVA, SAF O P. perature going rapidly up, up, up, as we would be descending. When at the bottom of this awful chasm—black and hot, with a temperature of 160° F.—I would ask our in- terpreter to whisper in his ear such brief sen- tences as these : “The capacity of this vessel is 5,400 tons.” “Her power is that of 1,000 to 5,000 horses.” “There are, as you see, 36 furnaces and twelve immense boil- ers, which have a heating surface of 16,000 square feet, to make that ‘heated air,’ on which yesterday you so eloquently enlarged before your sovereign.” I im- agine, and do not you, dear reader P that after these few words the sweating Blasco, with coaly brow, would desire, not only on account of the heat, but from the most vivid impression that he was nearer the TAZAZ MACAIAWE SHO/’. 49 “inferno,” than ever Dante conceived (which impression would in no wise be diminished by the sight of the half-naked, blackened stokers, as the red glare of the terrible heat flamed out upon their grimy frames) to get to the upper atmosphere. Then to make the triumphs of this century more com- plete, and with malicious persecution in my tone, as the fated man would slowly ascend the ladders, I would scream to the interpre- ter, who would, in turn, scream out to him : “2,124 tubes in the boilers”—“ heating sur- face of 16,ooo square feet”—and as he reached the upper air, I would shout : “one dozen extra engines, the smallest ten times larger than that machine of yours, are ready always for extra service " “Think of it, Blasco !” “one dozen more " “Steward, - 4. * - 5o THE COAZ F/A2ZZO.S. stand by—press away on the conductor, let the electric current freely anastomose on his spinal column. Good-bye, Blasco de Garcey !” So much, dear reader, for our machine shop. ... We have, underneath our city, large coal-yards, vast and deep, wherein a great business is done. Eighty tons of coal per diem are disposed of, and numbers of colliers are constantly employed in handling this most necessary mineral. You do not often see these hard-working men ; they are as invisible to you as are the miners in a col- liery, as you ride over the surface of the earth above one ; the only indication of the presence of these men being the huge air shafts that send light and oxygen to the depths below. Yes, these coal fields are THE WATER Worx.S. 51 there beneath you, and the men hard at work in them, as you take your promenade, arm-in-arm with your friend after breakfast, or as, in the night, alone with your cigar, you lean over the city's wall and watch the millions and billions of animalculae, which, disturbed by the ever-revolving wheels, spread a soft halo upon the dark waters, showering forth myriads of bright diamond flecks, which, for a moment, sparkle with a steely luster, and sink into the waves as the great city of the deep speeds on towards the loved ones at home, or bears you to un- known countries and pleasant anticipations. And what more is there 2 Say you, what more ?' I've scarcely begun. Think of the water-works. Think of five thousand five hundred solid brass pipes, having a surface 52 THAE WA TEAE WORKS. of over fifteen thousand square feet, lying, as it were, under ground, not only to convey the water, in the same manner as in our cities on terra firma, but where, in addition, the water is actually “manufactured on the premises.” These pipes are of solid metal, and in them that very breath from the mighty respirator, which moves onward the city in which we are sojourning, is caught— caught and held and transformed into water for our bodily use, just as the leaves and trees and plants and flowers, catch up at night the carbonic acid which we exhale during the day, and transform it into life- giving oxygen for our healthful sustenance. This water is conveyed to all the houses in which we reside, and to the pumps through- out the town, whereat, on many a fine morn- THE MACHINE SHOP. 53 ing, you may see the people of the lower classes, filling their buckets and their cans, nay, even performing their ablutions; or peeling potatoes, or doing the ordinary gossip belonging to their section of the city. The pumping-engine of the water depart- ment throws over seven thousand gallons of water per minute, and six hundred gallons per minute for washing our streets, supply- ing our great machine shop, or extinguish- ing a fire; which latter work, may God grant, it will never have to perform I must not forget here to note a partic- ular and important public building, viz.: the hospital. It is situated toward the out- skirts of the city in front of the great bridge, whereon the dignitaries of the town are constantly seen, with a few of the aristocracy 54 7"HE MACH//AVE SHOP. or estate owners. The building is sur- rounded by a narrow walk, and is con- structed on the best principles for ventila- tion. Its beds are comfortable and its beef- tea excellent. It is generally clean, and I am glad to record that on account of the well-devised sanitary regulations of the city, is rarely occupied by patients. I have a notion, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer sometimes, particularly when the Club House is closed, together with the city physician and a few select friends, pass pleasant evenings in this retired spot. I must own myself, on one or two occasions I have been present when a sly game of “draw " was going on, and where the parties refreshed themselves with innumera- ble pipes and cigars (no doubt for the proper THE MACHIME SHOP. 55 purification of the atmosphere of the house, and other antiseptic purposes), and where, when thirsty, bottles of various shapes were produced from under the mattrasses of the hospital beds (no doubt kept there in case of accident or other necessity), to the infinite satisfaction and delight of the company assembled. These gentlemen, I noticed, rarely made their appearance at breakfast, or if they did their appetites had to be stim- ulated by soda, seltzer, or appolinaris water. Verbum sap. CHAPTER IV. THE LOVER's WALK, or LOVE LAN.E. （HERE is a narrow and secluded walk in the extreme end of the city, connecting the two main avenues, and sheltered by a large building, in which are wheels, and ſlags, and ropes, and steamer chairs, and perhaps a bed for the deck steward. This house is deserted and quiet, and is only used as necessity may demand or when danger threatens the city. Most effectually, however, does it shut out from the public gaze this street—the name of which is “Love Lane,” or “the lover's 7"HAE ZO VAZA’”.S WAZAT. 57 walk.” Ah how many flirtations, des- perate and deep, have there been carried on ; how many hours of star-lit love have slipped away unnoticed there; how many explana- tions have been made ; how many eternal vows of faithfulness have been sealed by noiseless osculation* none can tell. Many years ago, I sought myself this same se- cluded spot. Let me tell you all about it. First, as to the sensations I experienced then, and afterwards, as I feel mow. LONG AGO. 7 he sentimental—Ten years ago. - See the moonbeams sweetly breaking O'er the ever restless sea, * Osculation. The contact between any given curve and its osculatory circle, that is, a circle of the same curvature, with the given curve at the point of contact. You understand. 58 TA/E ZO WEA'S WALK, And the waves my mem'ry waking, Tell a story unto me. § Tell a tale ; ah me, a sad one, In their never-ceasing flow, Tell a tale of love—a mad one, Of those years so long ago. Here, when quiet stars were beaming O'er the waters of the sea, Walk'd a youth and maiden, dreaming What their future was to be ; Ev'ry word with love was laden, All was bright with rosy glow, To that youth and fair-hair'd maiden, In those years—so long ago. What are now those vows then spoken 2 Where the pressure of the hands 2 Hark! the wind is whispering “ broken /* Broken far in other lands. After years of toil and sorrow Mingled happiness and woe, Can we hope for joy to-morrow, As in years so long ago 2 O/Q J O VAZ ZAAVE. 59 Oh those blesséd youthful visions, Love, and hope, and faith, and trust, Could they stand 'gainst Fate's decisions, Never crumble into dust— Could we keep them here forever, Could we bid them not to go, Then the yearning heart would never Cry for years pass'd long ago. LONG AGO. The real—The present time. I'm smoking a quiet cigar By the “Lover's walk ’’ on the sea, A happier man, by far, Than e'er I expected to be. The moon is uncommonly bright, The heavens with stars are aglow, And while I am smoking to-night, I think of the times long ago. I remember this very same spot, Years ago, on this very steamer, 6o TZ/Z ZO WER'S WALK, And in the wide world there was not, At that time, a more fanciful dreamer. I was then a “delightful young man,” Just fresh from my lectures at college: My thoughts—if I had any—ran On every thing else but on knowledge. A damsel was here in her teens— My passion for her was the keenest, And though I was verdant as greens, I fancy Miss Nancy was greenest. So here, on this very same spot, Frequented by only a few, I poured out my passion so hot, My heart thumping just like the screw. 'Tis funny to look back and see How the moon, and the stars, and the sight Of the salty old waves of the sea Put a man in such horrible plight. For Miss Nancy she gave me the slip, And left me heart-broken, to dye . For another the down on my lip, For another fair maiden to sigh. OR / O VE LAAVAZ. 61 And here once again on the ocean, I laugh as I see to the fore, A couple of figures in motion, As I and Miss Nancy of yore. I'm sure he is swearing to love her, And talking 'bout “heart-strings” and “woe,” And “gushing sweet moonbeams above her,” As I did in years long ago. It's just exactly the same now as it was years ago, and ever will be, “sacula sæcu- lorum, Amen.” At this moment, I take from my pocket-book a bit of paper, dirty and crumpled, which I picked up in the “Lover's walk.” I saw this tell-tale scrap as I took my early walk one morning before break- fast. I picked it from the box in which work the great rudder-chains, it having been drawn in accidentally, as the rudder was being moved by the forward wheel. Let 62 THE ZO VER'S WAZA, this be a warning to all young ladies, not only in regard to being careless with their love letters, but especially let them take heed how they stand over these chains and boxes. On two occasions, I have known ladies' skirts drawn so rapidly and forcibly into the box, as the chain moved through it, that the wearer was thrown precipitately on deck, and in one instance the dress had to be actually cut away before the unfortunate one could be liberated from her unpleasant and uncomfortable position. To return to this scrap. Oh love-sick swain, could'st thou see this ten years from now, how you would smile. Oh fair damsel (by this time you must have observed your loss), how funny this would read a decade hence And, dear reader, look at it too, and OR LOVE ZAME. 63 you will remember the time, perhaps not so long ago either, when, if you did not write, you loved to read such trash. There is not the shadow of a doubt in my mind that the poor soul who poured out his plaintive notes in this extreme and gushing manner felt, really felt, all, and even more, than he at- tempted to write. But it is awful—really awful, nevertheless. The first part of the paper is torn, and was damp and crumpled when I picked it up. Here is what I can de- cipher: “What bliss more perfect could there be, Than when last night, thy dear devoted head Upon my bosom rested, and I did feel, That soft, sweet cheek upon my own, and hear Thy darling voice in sweetest accents say, ‘My dearest'—Oh! then it was I clasped.” [Aſiatus in MS.] 64 THE LOVER'S WAZA. , “Would have thee nearer and more near, until ---> Our hearts sent forth their eager fibres and did grow - Each to the other in an holy love. Thy last dear kiss - Has not yet left my lips, thrice blessed,” &c., &c. : * * * * * * I need not write any more of the “Lovers' walk,” because I desire to guide my readers through the other parts of the city. CHAPTER V. THE GOVERNMENTAL OFFICES, AND THE APOTHECARY SHOP. tº ET me here briefly state that our government is monarchical. The B. sovereign has supreme command, and his orders are obeyed with alacrity and precision. The other officers with whom I have become acquainted, are the Prime Min- isters, Secretary of State and of the Treas- ury, the Lord Mayor and Staff, the Lord High Steward of the Realm, together with the usual number of attendants and officials. The residences of these dignitaries, who al- 5 v 66 GO VERAVMEAV ZAL OFF/CES. ways appear in public dressed in the insignia of their respective offices, are found in the very best parts of the city. Some, indeed, have places of abode in the upper and lower sections of the town. These apartments are fitted up with elegance and taste; cushions of velvet, curtains of damask, pictures, and ornaments surround you. Lounges, easy chairs, hassocks and other appointments of luxury and ease are found in profusion. I have noticed that most of these royal per- sonages, especially the younger ones, are fond of photographic pictures, not of land- scape, or wood, or dell, or plashing water- fall, or placid lake, but of ladies—beautiful women, with bare necks and arms and shoulders, weariñg hats of fantastical shape and feathers of graceful bend. Their cos- GOVERNMENTAL OFFICES. 67 tume is very neglige, and their mantles are cast over one shoulder; their heads are in semi-profile, with eyes askance, which seem to say “sic iter ad astra.” But as I have become familiar with many of these mighty personages of our city, and have had, on more than one occasion, the run of these great houses for days together, I must in this connection disclose to the credit of the occupants, a fact—and one which is not generally known (because these gentlemen, as a rule, are very reticent), and that is, that in addition to these pic- tures which look so attractive upon the walls, as they are stuck into the mirror- frames which decorate their apartments, there is generally a picture—nay, perhaps two in one case—of loved faces (lovely 68 GOVERAVMEAVTAL OFFICES. at least to the possessor), which are not to be found conspicuous on the walls, but lie hidden in a worn and battered morocco cover close to the very heart of its owner, from whence, when the day's duty is over, the watch on the bridge ended, the lights of the great city out, and the inhabitants mostly asleep; or when the ashes have been knocked away from the last pipe, and silence reigns supreme, it is carefully and tenderly taken. * * * * The heart of the mighty city beats on with regularity and precision— the sailor hears it not. The watchman's cry, the boatswain's whistle, the rushing wind, the dashing waves, are nothing to him now ; he is “off duty,” and, in spirit, is commun- ing with the loved ones at home. See the tender gaze come into those eyes, that can so GOVERNMENTAL OFFICES. 69 calmly watch the fearful warfare of the ele- ments; the glistening tear upon the cheek bronzed by a thousand storms; the gentle smile upon those lips, that through the trumpet on a stormy night, and off a danger- Ous coast, can hoarsely cheer a fainting crew to duty and to courage. Ah dear reader, what is that element in the nature of man, that can produce such wonderful transforma- tions Not sickly sentimentality, surely No, in plain English, it is love! It is the love that an all-seeing Providence has made a part of your being ; it is the ruling passion of a man's life—either for good or for evil ; it raises him, when it is pure and holy, to the highest pinnacle of excellence; it conquers his passions and subdues his selfishness; it renders the thorny paths of life more easy 7o GOVERAVMENTAL OFFICES. to tread, and overcomes the inevitable diffi- culties and disappointments which beset him on every side; it brightens the drearier por- tions of his walk of life, and opens with a gentle hand the golden hinges of the eternal gates, whereon are graven the inspired words, “He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” Ah! why need we look on the other side of the picture, why need we turn to the misery, the degradation, the remorse, which always results from the love (the word seems out of place) of the bad. “Love of the bad (" Such a combination of words is paradoxical ; it is a misapplication of terms, it belongs to the devil, and I drop it here forthwith. - At the end of the main street stands the apothecary shop. As you take your morning A POTHECAR Y SHOP. 71 walk, observe the little window on the right, at the corner of the street. The red curtain has been drawn aside, and the bright morn- ing sun shines merrily into the room, made sacred to Hippocrates. I should, in this con- nection, more properly say Galen, because the latter gentleman, although a follower of old Hippo's, was more disposed toward a love of the pharmacopoeia than his elder, whose chief delight was in constructing aphorisms, and in watching the varied oper- ations of what medical men are pleased to term the “vis medicatrix natura.” This is the reason why Galen's head (generally richly gilded) used to stand over the red and blue lights of the windows of the apothecary shops of the olden time, while a pestle and mortar (also gilded) bristled above his bald 72 A POTHECAR Y SHOP. calvarium. But we must not digress—peep through the window I have already desig- nated. Look | do you see that array of bottles, with glass stoppers and gilded labels, “wini antimonii syrup scilla ; tinctura opii, &c.;” do you see, as the sun shines on them, those mysterious bundles of brown paper, evenly creased and regularly folded down the middle, with gently tapering ends turned over, and rectangularly tied and la- belled Observe those long cylindical boxes of plasters, and the stately rows of high blue jars, rimmed with white and marked with gilded letters : See the variety of bottles on which you read syrupi, which I avow is a misapplication of the word Syrup, as generally understood, is sweet and pleasant to the taste, and the love of it even teaches AA’OTP/ECA R Y SAMOA". 73 boys at school to break the commandments; raspberry syrup ! strawberry syrup ! pine- apple syrup ! lemon syrup ! these are all good ; but to call a vile compound of squills or antimony a syrup, because, forsooth, it chances to be boiled with sugar is a most unromantic perversion of terms, and is an abomination unto individuals of right appreciation. At all events, I say to you, as you look through the open window on the bright day I mention, after your Roman bath in the tiled bathing room alluded to, and you have had a fair breakfast of kippered herrings, poached eggs, toast and coffee, and are smoking one of your best Havanas, and feel your circulation and digestion in rather a normal condition, and have, with an occasional twist of the neck, 74 APO 7"HECA R Y SHOP. carefully observed all these beautifully arranged medicines, each in its appropriate place, just turn on your heel and walk rapidly away, and pray Providence that the look may be sufficient for you forever. Don't begin to take medicine if you can possibly help it; don't, I say (and I'm a “professional "), for it is like beginning to borrow or to steal. You have to take more to do away with the effects of the previous doses, until finally you turn your stomach into a medicine vat, and your brain to a disease-making machine, and you will be afraid to eat, or drink, or sleep, or laugh, or talk, or exercise, lest some mischance may come to your own miserable body. CHAPTER VI. THE CLUB-HOUSE AND THE LIBRARY. ſº S an offset to the drug-store, let me point out the club-house, stand- ing in the center of the square, and having the most fashionable thorough- fares surrounding it. It has windows on all sides for the admission of light and air, and which are curtained with red reps. It has two entrances from two streets; its walls and ceilings are paneled and gilded, and the cushions on the lounges are covered with goat skin in dark green. Scattered through- out this apartment are small round tables, 76 THE CL UAE-AſO USA, some of them having mosaic tops, showing the well-known parti-colored squares for chess or checkers, while others are of plain marble and covered with a cloth, for the convenience of those who prefer to interest themselves in any of the many games of cards—whist, poker, euchre (with or without the joker), nap, Boston or any others that suit the fancy. By the way, among the thousands who daily, or perhaps I ought to say, mightly, handle cards, how very few there are who know, nay, who even stop to think of the history of these bits of paper. Could such a narrative be written, what a pro- longed and interesting, what a wild and romantic tale would it be, with its preface dated in centuries long past, and a continu- ous succession of exciting chapters to this AAVAD 7"HE Z/E RAR V. 77 very hour. There is now carefully preserved in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, a pack of Hindustani cards, over one thousand years old, having as regular a high-caste Brahman pedigree as belongs to the lineal descendants of the Conqueror. Think, dear reader, what dramatis persona would figure in the pages of such a book. Kings and princes, popes and cardinals, queens and courtezans, warriors and statesmen, mer- chants and mechanics, laborers and pot-boys, young and old, rich and poor, shuffling, cutting, dealing, playing with these wonder- ful figured paste-boards. What commingled sounds and shifting scenes would be depicted in that book. The happy laugh of the inno- cent child at her first game of “old maid,” would mingle with the discordant groan of 78 THE CLUB-HOUSE the ruined gamester; the glare of a thou- sand lights flickering in a perfumed atmos- phere deepening the lines in the sallow and determined face of the desperate gamester, would display to additional advantage the laughing dimples of the reckless beauty, just . entering upon her career of dissipation, both shuffling, cutting, dealing and playing. Another page would bring a pleasing chapter of a happy home and home enjoy- ment: a winter night, a comfortable room, a crackling fire, a cheery light, with father and mother, sister and brother, who, assembled round the family table with many a laugh and pointed discussion (always ending in a reference to Hoyle), would be shuffling and cutting, dealing and playing as millions of persons have done before them. Again the AAV/O ZTA/A2 Z//3/8A/C Y. 79 leaf might turn, the scene would shift to show the pale rays of the early morning, breaking ghastly white amid the red gas lights of the fashionable gaming hell, and reveal, in the confusion and disorder of the apartment, the desperate battles of hazard that have just been fought. See, as the day- light creeps through the heavy velvet cur- tains, how it deepens the pallor of the few remaining wan and unhappy faces of ruined men and wretched women (vexat mentes insania cupido) who still hug to their breasts these infatuating cards, and shuffle, and cut, and deal and play, until the clear daylight scares them from their occupation. We need not follow them to the gambler's home, the untimely death, the misery, the bloodshed, which would have to be depicted in such a 8o THE CL UAE-AMOUSE book—could it be written. Thank Heaven, it never can, and therefore let us for a mo- ment look at the card-players in the club- house. On a rainy night, the place is a sight to behold. The streets are dark without, but the weather being rather warm, the doors are ajar, and through the open space, the light streams out on the wet wooden walks, which look as polished as the floors of the Louvre or Versailles. The windows are open, and the light, shining through the red curtains, casts a peculiar halo on the scene without. I have often thought with what longing, if not envious eyes, the officers pacing the bridge, on a wintry night, in a northwest- ern gale, must look towards those red lights in the distance, and almost curse a seaman's AAV/D 7///Z Z//5/CAA’ Y. 8 I lot, as the occasional merry laugh is borne to their ears, mingled with the peculiar moan- ing hum or melancholy whistling of the wind, as it freshens or lulls among the shrouds and cordage of the city of the sea. Within, however, the chandeliers are all ablaze, and there is a Babel of confusion—all manner of voices, in all manners of modula- tions, and in different languages, are blended with the clinking of glasses, the knockings of pipes, the laugh or the discussions of the card-players, and the general observations of those around. The room is full of tobacco- smoke, and were it not for the currents of air, which, coming from the broad sea with. out, rush through the apartment from time to time, asphyxia would be imminent. Look at the party in the corner, they are playing 6 82 THE CLUB-Hovsz “all-fours,” “seven up,” or “seven's up.” That's the game for me, and though it is, at the present refined era, considered vulgar, I am proud to say that it was the game of all others that so captured the French clergy in the fifteenth century, that the Synod of Lan- gres issued a special edict forbidding any ser- vant of the church from indulging in it. I used to play “high low Jack and the game,” sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, in the re- cesses of the woods (called in the circular “a beautiful grove ") adjoining the school house (called also in the same periodical “recita- tion room"). The pack of cards was greasy, the pipes made of reed and corn-cob, and - the tobacco about as cheap as could be pro- cured in the neighboring village. Yet, the fun was good, perhaps better, than if we had AAWD THE Z/BRARY. 83 been smoking an Elfin pipe on a velvet cushion, and playing with gilded or illumin- ated cards. See the eagerness of that set of men. The old man smoking a new meer- schaum (bought in Vienna) with a red cap on his head, has been around the world, is a good traveler, a nasty story-teller, and the most awfully profane person I ever even sat by. His partner, a young man with a green cap, smokes cigarettes and is making his first trip. The clear American visage of watchful keen-sightedness can be seen as he saves his ten spots, or his jack, even while listening to the ribaldry of the old sinner who sits oppo- site. * . The other parties to the game are dis- similar. One is an American, who has been over on business, who is half sea-sick during 84* THE C/, UAE-AſO USA2 the entire voyage, who has not been abroad for a sufficient length of time to understand the language, ways, manners, or customs of foreign people, and who introduces the American eagle and the United States on every occasion. Clear-headed he is when well, but languid now, as he drops his cards listlessly on the lead of his friends. The last man is, I believe, a “sharper.” He is one of those nondescripts whom one meets ever and anon upon steamers. This class of men appear to have no especial history—to have been a good deal about New York and London. They are acquainted with the names and location of the best restaurants in Paris “nd Vienna, and although they conduct themselves with propriety, and drink with moderation, there is some un- AAV/O 7"HE Z/A RAAE Y. 85 definable halo of the scamp or the “black sheep” forever surrounding them, that can- not be shaken off, and which often, sooner or later, develops itself. These men play for pastime, as we now see them, but gener- ally, later in the evening, or in their own rooms, or somewhere else, they will stake a desperate venture upon a desperate game. In this club-house the lights go out, or should go out, at eleven at night. They are not, however, always extinguished at that hour, and many a pleasant story and hearty laugh tell the ladies outside that the men for once are having “a good time,” in a spot where female loveliness is not allowed to intrude itself. There are a great many other points of interest to be regarded in this peculiar city 86 TATA, CZ UAE-ANO U.S.A.' on the sea, a noticeable one being its modest, and, in many respects, most excellent library. The books are mostly well selected to suit the many tastes of the many inhabitants, most of whom patronize the institution. There is, of course, some sentimental trash, well-thumbed, wherein the most g ishing passages are underlined with lead pencil, with appropriate marginal notes in delicate female handwriting. These are found always where the author has become super- lative in his expressions of great pathos, burning love, intense hate, wasting affection, or delicious reunion. These are the books of which the celebrated Coleman (Younger) thus writes : “If I were mistress of a boarding-school, I’d quash such books in toto, -if I couldn't, A M/D 7"H.A. Z//5/8A A' V. 87 Let me but catch a miss who broke my rule, I'd flog her soundly, d-n me, if I wouldn't.” The community would prosper if such precepts were well carried out. The works of Bulwer, Dickens and Thackeray, and the newer novels of Farjeon, Blackmore, and Wilkie Collins, are all found here. Occasionally Ouida sprinkles in her knowledge of the private habits of mankind, and Cooper tells his tales of the sea. The life of Napoleon, and Nelson's biography, together with a couple of bound copies of Punch, in the times of John Leech, I also noticed in the collection. The librarian is ttentive and polite, and records your book, your name and the number of your resi- dence, as you receive from him the volume of your selection. 88 7//E CZ UAE-AſO USA, It is said that Schiller wrote his best when there was a plate of rotten apples before him on the table ; that Pope could compose his most musical rhymes while he was galloping on horse-back ; that Swift was most fertile in his productions after a huge dinner, even while the servants were carry- ing off the dishes and debris of the feast, clat- tering the knives and forks, and fighting over the remains of the half-emptied bottles. De Quincy says he could make his best essays in the small hours of the morning, with a decanter of laudanum before him and daybreak stealing in at his windows. It is just so with readers, as it is with writers, and having but little to do in the city, I have employed my time in watching the “styles” of reading , as they appear in the fre- AMD THE LIBRAR Y. 89 quenters of our library. Yon stout gentle- man with a round face and grey, but short whiskers, seizes a book—a biography—and sits down by the club window. He begins to read, in a moment or two becomes interested, and then nothing moves him. Neither the boisterous call for brandy-and- water, nor the altercations at cards, nor the boys playing checkers, nor the conversations that are being carried on around him, appear either to disturb or annoy him. He reads straight on, from the beginning to the end of his book. That young man with a bright eye and sharp features, whose hair is cropped, whose feet are encased in striped stockings and thin patent leather shoes, reads in a spasmodic manner, stops often, turns his book over on his knee and has a 9o THE CL UAE-AſO USA, modicum of conversation with a pale young lady reclining on a steamer-chair by his side ; then he resumes his book, to break with it again in a few moments. This tall young lady on my left hand, with a melan- choly eye, holds “Friendship ’’ in her grasp, and reads with an eager expression of countenance, as if delighted with the Amer- icanisms of Mrs. Henry V. Clams, the representative of our glorious country among the élite of Rome, during a fashiona- ble season. Ouida draws pictures with sharp outlines. There goes a gentleman with variegated mustache and whiskers: a quiet fellow, who looks about him with an observant eye ; a man with a clear head and a. good memory, not talking much, but saying something when he does essay con- AND THE LIBRAR Y. 91 versation. He holds Thackeray in his hand, and smiles to himself as he reads the quarrel scene between the Major and his man Morgan, or grows serious because the unfortunate Warrington can't marry Laura. This reader reads hard for a while, then stops and thinks and smiles again, and returns to his book. After all, there's a good deal of habit in the style of a man's reading, of course it being more or less influenced by the character of the book under observation. It is like travelers visiting places of interest. Some people read merely to be able to say they have read such or such a book, others again to pass away time; they give a little mental attention to the subject matter, time slips away, and their object is accomplished. Many persons become deeply interested in 92 7TP/A2 CZ UAE-AſO USA, the plot or other actual mechanism of a story, but care not for the “side shows” of the author, wherein often the best bits of his knowledge are apparent—these latter are skimmed over or entirely skipped. Others, again, go at the work laboriously, and make reading a task, the sooner over the better. I am inclined to the opinion that the person reads best who, without lagging, endeavors to impress upon his memory the best parts of what he reads, and tries to bring that “best” into play in his daily walks through life. Such an one would be what might be called “a practical reader,” and, as a rule, it is the practical man who profits most by what he reads. There is a certain axiom, however, that must always be borne in mind in connection AAV/D 7///? ///3 RAR V. 93 with reading at sea, viz.: sea-sickness unfits for heavy brain work. Speaking of books and the varied and peculiar methods of read- ing, by some curious psychological combina- tion, an incident in my life occurs to me. I was, on one occasion, journeying from Hali- fax to St. John, Newfoundland. On ac- count of the extreme danger of the Labra- dor coast, and the persistent and dense fogs, which are more to be apprehended than— with the exception of fire—any dangers of the sea—an experienced mariner, called by the sailors “a fog pilot,” was taken on board at the former place, and our city of the sea steamed away in a moderately clear atmos- phere. About ten miles from Halifax, the fog dropped like a pall upon us; it came in a moment of time ; it enveloped us as if by 94 THE CLUB-HOUSE magic; it hung heavily upon the masts and cordage of the ship ; it actually appeared to leap upon the smoke, as it poured from the funnel, and bore it heavily and drearily down to the water's edge. The warning whistle— which is always melancholy—the constant tolling of the bell ; the frequent stoppages to “heave the lead ;” the careful examination made as to the character of the soil found at the bottom of the plummet, and the frequent recourse of the pilot—(guiding us now by the bottom of the ocean, rather than by the heavens, the stars, or the sun)—to his large charts, all conspired to make me uneasy in many ways, especially when day after day passed and not a single glance at zenith or horizon could be obtained. We were sail- ing by “dead reckoning,” and “dead reckon- AAVAD 7TA/A2 Z//5 RAAC V. 95 ing ” off the Labrador coast, where there are many and powerful currents, where the wind fluctuates and the compass declines, is but a poor guidance for any sailing craft. Often at night, in my berth, as I listened to the continuous and dreary sound of the whistle, did I think, and often have I on other occasions thought, that such signals are really of little import ; for though sur- rounding navigators may, by the sound, be made aware that a steamship is somewhere about them, yet the direction in which the ves- sel is going can by no means be ascertained, and this is the important point to be known in the prevention of collisions. This hor- rible fog continued for days ; for a week I never saw the sun. There were but two other cabin passengers besides myself, al- 96 THE CLUB-Hovsz though our population was large when we left New York, but most of the inhabitants had left our city at Halifax. Our town was certainly deserted, our streets vacant ; we could possess ourselves of half a dozen houses if we so desired, and the monotony and depression were terrible. I think I never fully understood the actual value of cigars until that period. There was no library in this deserted place ; every atom of literature I had brought with me was utterly exhausted ; writing was out of the question, and so one miserable dreary day, I took up “Little Dorritt" as about the only thing within reach which would bear re-reading. I was just in the beginning of the first chapter, in which the author so well depicts the heat, the dust, the dryness, and AAV/D 7"HE Z/A RAA’ \'. 97 the glare of Marseilles on that fierce August day. I had laid the book down for a mo- ment, and—as I had frequently done before —was wondering whether Dickens was in the habit of correcting and re-writing his M.S. for the press, or whether his powers of description were of such a wonderful order that he could thus depict the vivid whiteness of the heat of Marseilles, or any other place, without going over and over his notes. I had just finished this remarkable sentence : “Every thing that lived or grew was op- pressed by the glare, except the lizard pass- ing swiftly over the rough stone walls, and the cicala chirping his dry hot chirp, like a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in the atmosphere as if the air were panting.” “ * * * * 7 98 T///2 C/, UAE-ZZO U.S.A.' Suddenly there was a great commotion for- ward. I rushed to the port side of the ship, and close on our bow, I could barely distin- guish through the denseness of the fog, a small fishing boat, with a man standing in its forward part, with both hands to his mouth, in the act of shouting to some one on our ship. I ran forward to the pilot house, and saw the captain, with a scared, white face, stretching his neck to listen ; he could not, nor could I, hear anything but an indis- tinct and muffled human voice. A second time the fisherman essayed. This time we heard. He said : “ Hullo, skipper you're heading straight on Shetland Reefs.” In a second of time, the wheel flew round, and in obedience to its command, the vessel slowly turned in an opposite direction, and I knew, AAWD THE LIBRAR Y. 99 and the captain knew, we were saved. This happened to me in the month of June, 1876, on board the steamer George Washington. A very short time after, both this vessel and her sister ship, the Cromwell, of the same line, were lost on the same coast, at the same time, the one outward bound from Halifax the other sailing from St. John. Not a soul survived from either ship to tell the story of the wreck. - - But this is not the ending of the incident, the mnemonics is yet to be chronicled. Three weeks ago, as I was wandering through South Kensington Museum, a place I gener- ally manage to see every time I am in Lon- don, I strayed into the room containing the Dyce collection of autographs and manu- scripts, when, what should I see before me, I OO THE CLUB-HOUSE. carefully preserved in a glass-case, but the “copy" of several of Dickens's works. The second one my eye lit upon was “Little Dorritt.” As I looked at its scratched pages, its erasures, its interlining and its blots, I could scarcely decipher the very passage that I have already quoted, but as I did, as if by magic, the scene I have just described rose in a mist before my eyes ; again I was upon “a city of the sea,” watching and listening with breathless anxiety ; again I heard the fisherman's voice, and saw the white face of our captain, and as the painful remembrances shot themselves athwart my mind, a shudder passed over me, as I recol- lected how near we had been to death, or at least to the perils and suffering of a wreck at Sea. : CHAPTER VII. MRS. GRUNDY AND MAL-DE-MER. *O sooner does the “City of the $ 9. Sea " leave her moorings than Mrs. Grundy comes aboard— Mrs. Grundy, old, wicked, experienced, facile and observant, in other words, worldly. The first item she notes, as she endeavors to draw her lines of demarcation, after taking up her abode with us, is in regard to a stout lady, dressed in uncut velvet, with a white-netted scarf about her head, diamond rings on her ungloved hands and a green plaid shawl of enormous pat- I O2 MA’.S. GA’ UAV/D Y tern hanging over arm. This elegantly- dressed female is amiably chewing a green apple, and after having masticated it suffici- ently to express from it all its sweetness, the remnant is forcibly ejected, with quite an explosive sound, upon the deck. Mrs. G. immediately places that person where she belongs. The eye-glass goes up once more to the orbit of Mrs. Grundy, and close to the aforesaid cider-mill, she sees a slim, bright- eyed, active—yes, I will say—smart (in the American sense) woman. She is enveloped in a light ulster, and has a round cloth hat a man's hat—upon her head. She talks loudly of her former voyages, calls the cap- tain by his first name, knows the deck stew- ard, and smiles often to show her false tecth. Occasionally, amid the hurry and scurry of AAVZ) MAJC-AD/Z-M/2/3. IO3 new arrivals, the claiming of luggage to be carried below, the arranging of steamer-chairs and the running to and fro of everybody, a gentleman approaches the lady (Mrs. Grundy looks alert). The gentleman is a widower, wealthy, and hailing from Jersey city ; he certainly is a fine-looking man, wears a diamond pin, and yellow gloves, and a youthful straw hat. He whispers a word or two in the lady's ear; she smiles, giggles, then laughs quite loud enough to attract general attention, and after a feeble remonstrance, takes his arm for a promen- ade. Mrs. Grundy books “another happy thought,” and in anticipation, sees volumes of pleasure. A slight undulatory movement of the “city of the sea” cuts short Mrs. Grundy's observations, and directs her I O4 MRS. GRUAVD Y attention to her own dear self. Mrs. G. certainly feels a peculiar qualm ; she ap- plies her nostrils to her cut-glass vinai- grette, but her powers of observation be- came clouded, her genius becomes less comprehensive, and her eye begins to lose its restless brilliancy. From mere force of habit, however, she still holds her ubiqui- tous eye-glass to its place, and tries to take general observations. The “city of the sea" by this time passes Fastnet Rock, and dear, dear Mrs. Grundy is compelled to go below. What a uniform leveler of all grades and classes is mal-de-mer. Who, that has been an inhabitant of the city of which I write, has not seen the fashionable promen- ades crowded with fair damsels, in pictur- esque traveling costume, escorted by young AAV/D MAZ-DA.-MAEA’. IC 5 dandies, who affect a love for “the briny,” and wear semi-sailor-like clothes, gradually become more and more deserted, until, in a few hours, the walks are desolate and unoc- cupied, save by the fortunate few who escape the dire epidemic? I once sailed with a young gentleman from Yale, who disap- peared into his cabin no less than three times during the passage from New York to Sandy IIook, and each time he reappeared in the vicinity of the club-house, his head was blooming in a new head-gear. I cannot call the appurtenance “hat,” its shape was too fantastical. Oh ! how that young man did suppose Mrs. Grundy would admire him, and did, for aught I know ; but as neither Mrs. Grundy or himself were seen on prom- enade, in the dining-room, at church, or any Ioé M/C.S. GA8 UAV ZD V. where else during the voyage, I cannot pre- cisely say. Ingoldsby tells the story, in wonderful rhythm, in “The Bagman's Dog.” Get it, dear reader, and begin with “The sea, the sea, the open sea.” What shall I say of sea-sickness 2 Well I believe this awful prostrator of society, this mighty disheveler of hair, this eternal enemy of female beauty and stalwart manliness; this distorter of the human countenance and annihilator of appetite, digestion and mental qualifications, whose culmination appears in such a spasmodic and unpleasant manner— is a peculiar disease of the nervous system, about which doctors know very little and theorize a great deal. It is a condition over which, as over many nervous disorders, the will has partial—mark, my dear suffering AAV/O MAZ-DAE-MAZR. Io? lady, I say partial control. I once was delayed at the pier at New Haven, on board of one of those miserable packets which traverse the channel to Dieppe.* I never shall forget a stout, burly English woman, accompanied by a maid in a cap, and a flunky in a green coat, with a crest stamped on his eruption of but- tons, who carried an endless variety of shawls, umbrellas and portmanteaus. The party attracted general attention. The day was warm and bright, and not a ripple showed upon the water, but the action of the lady was peculiar. She complacently se- lected her seat—(I should say seats, for she occupied an entire bench, upon the back of * These boats, I am glad to say, are now of a better class in size and accommodation than at the time of which I write, although they are uncomfortable enough even at present. + w 108 MA’.S. GA’ UAV ZD Y which was painted “seats for six persons)”— sent for the steward, who brought her a pe. culiarly shaped tin box, and having been covered by a tarpaulin and innumerable “wraps,” beckoned her maid to sit by her head and hold the tin, and began being ac- tively sick immediately. Not a quiet effort either, but one quite audible to the passen- gers at lunch below stairs. This, dear reader, is a positive fact. I therefore say again that the disease is a nervous one, and that you can as certainly aid in making your- self sick as you can assist in making yourself well, and that, moreover, the disorder mani- fests itself in many ways besides that which is supposed to be pathognomonic. I know one gentleman, whose sickness displays it- self with the most outrageous and continued AAWD MAZ-DAE-MER. Io9 sneezing ; I know another, who has asthma until he is relieved ; and still another, whose gastric apparatus is not at all affected, so long as he suffers acutely with neuralgia over the right eye, but immediately upon the ces- sation of the pain the characteristic features of the complaint are developed. Whichever way you look at it, the affection is nervous, and, to the looker-on, actually “funny.” If a sea-sick or semi sea-sick reader has patiently perused these sheets to this point, I know—be it he or she— that now revenge and utter scorn will be depicted o'er the countenance. But let me ask you did you ever see a calf, a fine good-sized calf, in the hands of a butcher just before, or as it is being made veal. As the life passes out of the unfortunate animal I IO MA’.S. GA2 UAV ZD Y the eye becomes glassy, and rolls upward with a hazy vacancy, showing the white circle around the orbit. See the utter relaxa- tion of the limbs, the pinched nose, the mouth drawn at the corners, the nodding head, the jaculating diaphragm, and you may begin to fancy the appearance of Mrs. Grundy's chief ornament when mal-de-mer is upon her. Come up with me to the prom- enade, cast an observant eye upon that steamer - chair near “ Lover's walk.” The occupant is the beauty who fascinated you yesternoon in a dainty cashmere dress with silk trimming, from beneath the lower border of which peeped the end of a kid slipper, and a small modicum of a blue silk stocking embroidered down the front. That's the woman of whom you spoke to A M D MAZ-ZX E-ME/e. I I I me in such glowing terms, as she leaned over the side, and, shading her fair complex- ion from the sun with a black silk umbrella tipped with a scarlet bow, waved a graceful adieu with her tiny lace kerchief to her friends on the pier. Yes, that's the same young woman, whose brown velvet hat sat jauntily on her head, or rather her hair, which fringed her white forehead with crimps in curl. I,ook at her now. I defy the gods to tell what kind of a costume she has upon her person. She looks like a patient in a water-cure establishment under- going “the packing” process, or, to be more precise, like a bundle of comfortables tied with a rope about the middle. From a hole in the top of this bundle her head is visible: not a crimp is there, not a ringlet, a curl or I I 2 MA’.S. GA’ UAV/D Y a puff; her hair is in such a state of disorder that tufts of it stick through the meshes of the white-knitted scarf which surrounds her. The dark line around the nose and eyes, that yellow skin, the glassy, vacuous eye, the wob- bling head, the look of unutterable woe, and utter disregard for all the amenities of civilization, tell you she is sea-sick, and let you know what wonderful transforma- tion this curious disorder may effect in the “human form divine " in the space of a few hours. I can recollect well, and a smile steals over my countenance as the scene rises before me, that one of this young lady's admirers, himself in a most relaxed condi- tion, attempted to put power in his down- cast eye, and was just in the act of extend- ing, to the bundle of comfortables aforesaid, AAWD MAZ-DAE-MER. II 3 a plate containing a single triangular piece of dry toast, when the screw suddenly Went out of water. His face at once became green, and with an indistinct utterance he went away somewhere—I can't tell where, but I imagine the spot was a secluded one. But why need we dwell longer on this interesting subject? From a careful consider- ation of all the symptoms of this miserable affection I have arrived at one conclusion, especially with regard to the fairer sex, and that is, if you regard your life or health or future welfare, don't, when a paroxysm threatens, ask the patient “to take a drink of hot beef-tea,” and when the even swell of “grand old ocean " is kicking up all kind of miseries with the patient, don't be too assiduous in your attentions. Many a poor II.4 MRS. GRUAVD V. woman wishes, for heaven's sake, people would let her alone when she is sea-sick, and often shuts her eyes and feigns sleep to be rid of the pestiferous attentions of well- meaning but officious men. CHAPTER VIII. T II F I N II A I, I T A N T S. sº OCIETY has its rules everywhere; they may be arbitrary, they may be unjust, they may be snobbish, but they are rigid, and must be obeyed to the letter, otherwise the iconoclast is cast out— ejected beyond the sacred circle. -- In our city of the sea, in which the inhabitants are constantly changing, it can- not be expected that society should exhibit that permanency of type, so much contended for by Gliddon, but for all that, there are certain social lines drawn in a mysterious, 1 16 THE INHABITAAVT.S. I may say, in an automatic manner, as soon as the ship begins to move, aye, even before she gets under way, which lines appear to deepen and widen as the land disappears from your gaze, and finally becomes per- manently fixed, after a twenty-four or thirty-six hours' sojourn in the town. It is a marvel, indeed, to observe how rapidly acquaintances form, or antipathies (appar- ently indigenous) develop, and opinions— generally correct ones—are formed of our inhabitants. It is a peculiar fact, that those individuals who, at the journey's start, appear to be ubiquitous, conversational, and loud, in manner, dress, and tone, are gener- ally completely subdued by the time the passengers are ready to disembark. They find their level, and rise or sink to it in a THE /AWHA/3/7'AAV7'S. I 17 short space of time. Society knows just where they belong, and she puts them in their places, notwithstanding all their efforts to the contrary. This is true of both women and men, and the reverse of the problem is also a fact, viz.: The quiet and unosten- tatious inhabitants of the city, as a general rule, grow in reputation and in popularity, and finally become the respected, if not the admired citizens. Cast your eye on the chief promenader. See, there he comes | That must surely be a well-known literary character, a follower of Dibdin, a bibliomaniac; his dress, his hat, his unshorn countenance show it. He must intend to exercise his talents within the next few hours, for behold, in his hand he carries a huge inkstand; a bundle of quills and I 18 THE /AWHAB / 7"A W 7 S. MSS. are under his arm, and, in the pleni- tude of his acquirements, he smiles on every- body. That inkstand, that identical, square, big, rosewood inkstand, in size as large as a traveling bag, was indeed his bite moir. As I was walking past the residence of this “literary character” the next morning, I saw him flat on his back, with a towel round his head, and his eyes closed. His inkstand on the floor (there were no shelves large enough to accommodate it), in company with the roll of MS., which together, were implicitly obeying the eternal law of gravita- tion, and sliding with a rattle and a bang from one side of the room to the other, as the vessel rolled in a continuous and agree- able manner. I never saw that individual afterward, excepting when we arrived at 7A/E /AVA/A A/ 7"AAV7'S. I IQ Sandy Hook, and then he looked so grave, and sad, and melancholy, that I knew his inkstand must have perished below, to his unutterable horror, he, from his disease, being physically unable to prevent its demo- lition. At all events, that inkstand never went ashore ; if it did, it went in sections, under cover, and very differently from its manner of introduction. Among the élite I have often found pro- fessional men, especially clergymen and doctors—not that specimens of the race which Holy Writ especially anathematizes * are not frequently citizens of our “city of the sea,” but because I have more frequently encoun- tered the former classes in those seasons in which I have enrolled myself as one among St. Luke, chap. xi., 46-52. I 2 O THAE JAVAIA DITAAV7'.S. the populations. In our especial city, there are several disciples of Æsculapius, some worshiping at the shrine of Hippocrates and Galen, others bowing down before the shade of Hahnemann. These learned indi- viduals are off on their summer vacation ; pills and plasters, globules and powders are forgotten, and there exists between them a latent desire to be friendly, though neither of the adherents of the opposing schools are anxious to make definite advances, because of an undefined uncertainty how they may be met. By and by they come together. They are sweetness personified when they talk to each other, but when they talk of each to the non-professional inhabitants, each tells cvery item he knows or has ever heard about the other, and finishes the gossip 7//E /AVAZAARZ 7.4 AV 7.S. I 2 I with a most patronizing encomium, thus: “He’s a mighty clever fellow after all, and deserves to be doing well.” It is quite amusing to watch the poli- ticians. There are among us two distin- guished fellows of that class, who, like the doctors, are directly opposed to each other, and diametrically opposite in their ideas regarding the government of the State of Indiana, and all the States generally. They occupy at table high places by the chief officers of the government. The one is a “jolly good fellow,” with bright eyes full honest countenance, a good voice and manner, and a capital hand at an after-dinner speech; the other representative is thin and meagre, has sharp cycs, and wears a thread- bare, shiny coat. IIc has, by rigid economy I 2.2 THE WAVAIA/3/7'AAV7'.S. laid up a small amount of money, and is patronizing in his manner, even to the captain. This man (every body sees thou- sands of such as they walk through life) has a nasal twang and drawls in his speech, has a sanctified air and manner, and never refuses his toddy, hot or cold, when any one else will pay for it. Both of these gentlemen have “stumped" the State of Indiana, and, strangely enough, in the same campaign; they know more stories about each other than would fill a book, and delight to rehearse them to any one of the inhabitants who will give a ready ear. They are face- tious and complimentary when they are obliged to be together at the table, and even take wine together, but when I am on the promenade or in the club, either one says in THE WAV//A BATA AV 7"S. I 23 my ear, “What a consummate old ass IBrown is,” or, “What an old fool Smith is,” and then comes out something of the cam- paign, sometimes with, and sometimes (I am sorry to say) without a point—at least none that my poor wits could detect. In this same sojourn of which I write, among our pleasant people there is an old gentleman with a family of girls—their first, trip over—and Europe is, in their estima- tion, “a sell.” They are good company. There is also the Honorable Mrs. Slinkum and maid, and four children, who are perfectly exclusive. The lady herself is as ugly and badly dressed as she possibly can be ; indeed, the maid appeared so much the superior of the Honorable Mrs. Slinkum. (who had her name painted in full on the I 24 TAZAZ /AVA/AARZ 7"AAW T.S. back of all her chairs and boxes) that, on one occasion, I was on the point of addressing the domestic with some of the ordinary ex- pressions of the season, such as “We’ve a dead head-wind this morning,” or “The poor captain must be tired, being up all night in the fog,” taking her for her mistress, when I discovered my mistake in time to avoid the contretemps. The delight of the ship is an old militia colonel, wearing a red Turkish fez. A good - natured, honorable, quick-tempered man, just as conceited as he is high. He sets great store by his figure which is, at his age, really remarkable. This individual smokes immensely ; has a red nose, which bothers him to death, because he never drinks any- thing, and loves to play cards at night. IIe 7A/A2 /AVA/A A/Z"AAV7'S. I 25 says cross things when he is excited, and apologizes afterward, being in reality tender- hearted. The son-in-law of this gentleman, with whom he traveled, however, always seemed to cast a gloom over his presence ; why, I could never understand. I thought always that this same son-in-law appeared to me to be snobbish and exclusive, although once or twice, when I arrested him in con- versation, I found him quite affable and agreeable. Perhaps he was only modest. No one, however, can tell the motives that, lying deeply locked up in one man's heart, may influence his actions and regulate his conversation and associations. CHAPTER IX. * THE QUARANTINE OFFICERS AND THE DISEASE which ELUDES THEM. wººl HEN the city nears our good country, the quarantine officers - come aboard to inspect the cer- tificate of our surgeon, and ascertain whether contagion of any kind lurks either in the narrow streets, the hospital, or the residences of the population we have attempted to describe, in order that disease be not brought into New York. I mention New York, because a greater number of “cities of the sea '.' arrive in that cosmo- QUAAAAWTIME OFFICERS. , 127 politan Babel, than in any others of the United States, and because Gotham-the- Great exhibits, at the present, more symp- toms of an alarming and disgusting disease, of which I am about to speak, than any other city of the Union, and also because the malady eludes the most careful scrutiny of the health officers, and the most minute examination of the doctor. Everybody knows that cholera may be brought from its home in the east, shut tight in a seaman's chest ; or that yellow fever may be conveyed by an old pair of stockings, and so “Toady- ism” and “Snobbishness” come, smuggled, as it were, into the pure and wholesome American air, like the yeast plant and Bacillus subtilis, to set society first into fermentation, which, if not arrested, soon 128 QUAAAAWTINE OFFICERS. proceeds to actual decomposition. This poison comes in a most unctuous, insinuat- ing, and seductive manner from that mighty country—and indeed it is a mighty country —where, as Thackeray, who fully under- stood, by personal observation, its social institutions, declares that “ Lordolatry is acknowledged as its creed, and the Peerage as its second Bible.” Do you doubt it, gentle reader 2 I ask you to walk up Fifth Avenue on an autumn afternoon (a street which, I think, contains a greater number of elegant private residences, than any in the world), when the summer excursions are over, when disappointed mammas have returned with their prizes (unclaimed) from the watering-places; when the delicate and refined Episcopal clergy have come home QUARAMT/AWE OFFICERS. 129 from Europe, and the churches are begin- ning to be opened for the benefit of fashion- able sinners; when the Misses' Seminaries, where, according to the circulars, “young ladies will receive the best instruction in polite etiquette and social science,” are shining like spider-webs in the sun, to entangle their prey; when the French mil- liners display their latest importation of hats and feathers, on the heads of fair women, ugly old dowagers, or spinsters who own to forty; when Mrs. James O'Sullivan contem- plates with pleasure her first reception, and Richard Featherston, Esq., cotton broker, of the old house of Featherston, which has ex- isted for a century, thinks of his first grand dinner. Then, I say, walk with an observant eye up the avenue, and while the landeaus, Q 130 O UARAAWTIME OFFICERS. in which recline gayly-dressed young women, the shining broughams, the flashing harness, the fancy dog-carts and the pony phaetons thread their way between the stages and the more cumbrous vehicles which crowd the street, step into the café at Delmonico's, or cross the street to the Brunswick, or walk higher up and enter the billiard-room at the Windsor. See those young gentlemen as they enter, and mark the swagger. Look at the shape of the hat, the color of the gaiters, the long pointed toes of their shoes, to give that magnificent proportion to the feet, which is so characteristic of the male or female Briton. Observe the full plaid trowsers, the light cut-away coat of a roughish mate- rial, the check patterned neck-tie—perhaps of etruscan hue—the suggestive device of the QUARAM TVNE OFFICERS. 131 scarf-pin, and oh ! the characteristic single eye-glass and the yellow walking-stick. Take this all carefully into contemplation and mark the actions of the young swells. They are familiar with the place, and with the names of the attendants; they at once take the best tables in the room, by a window overlooking the street, whereat they may see and not be seen. They sit there in their dawdling majesty for a while and call for brandy and soda. One remarks, “Aw ! I say, Hawkins, what a doocid dwaft you have here, by Jove my boy, I'll take cold, I can't stand it, you know. Here, you (calling the waiter as though he were a dog, and a cur at that) shut down that window at once, do you hear, sir.” Or Hawkins says to Charley— little Charley they call him from the diminu- 132 ovak Awz/NE of FICERS tive size of his cranium—“What a doocid jolly young woman you dwove with yester- day in your swell dog-cart ' Gwandfather common, they say, kept a cigar shop in the Bowery; made a pot of money, though. Stick to her, old boy.” Now, Charley's grandfather had been an honest stone-mason, his father had owned a line of stages and made a large fortune, and sent his son to Harvard, from the classic precincts of which he had been twice dismissed and was coached by a poor, scholarly but consump- tive clergyman, who he bullied to such a degree that the pupil actually learned noth- ing. However, he came up for a second ex- amination, was “plucked,” and then sent to England, and was well supplied with money. Here he remained for two years, making QUARAMT/AVE OFFICERS. 133 Morley's his place of abode, and Paris and Vienna his “stamping ground,” and became thoroughly saturated with the infusion of toadyism. When he returned to America he found himself an heir. A third in the party speaks to this end : “By gad, boys, Dooly is a lucky dog ; think of it ! had actually Lord Proudfoot with him in his drag on Thursday : we must do the straight thing too, you know ; cultivate the stranger. He's a lord, you know. They say he's awfully jolly, smokes a hundred pipes a day, and has forty pairs of patent leather boots,” &c. Why should I write more of this non- sensical twaddle 2 The disease of which I speak is rife in New York at this minute, and is actually raging in some quarters of 134 ovakAwz/NE of FICERS. Murray Hill. Its symptoms develop in aping, in admiring, in straining every nerve, and in spending every dollar that belongs to the individual so suffering, and perhaps the dollars of somebody else, in the insane effort to emulate the weakest, the narrowest, the most deplorable points in the character of a great people. That this toadyism is infectious, there can be no doubt. That it belongs to every grade of English society, from the nobility in their castles, to the pot-boys at Hounds- ditch, is an undeniable fact, and one which is acknowledged and deplored by the major- ity of right-minded, educated Englishmen. That it is, in a great measure, unavoidable, on account of the institutions and customs of the country is also a fact, but why should QUARAAWTIME OFFICERS. 135 Americans, who do not possess these tradi- tional and indigenous peculiarities, while endeavoring to imitate this great nation in its reputation for learning, its honesty, its bravery, its magnificent institutions, its happy domestic life, and its loyalty, not set our foot upon the miserable weaknesses which blot the fair fame of our English brother? Why should we endeavor to emulate their lamentable snobbishness and miserable toadyism 2 Are we a race of par- z/entles 2 - - r I think I hear the benevolent reader remark, that what I have written applies merely to young, inexperienced, and vacuous youths; that when “little Charley” grows older, and his knowledge of human nature becomes greater, he will mend his ways. 136 QUARANTINE OFFICERS. This I deny, and deny in the most positive manner, and can prove my position in a hundred ways. When old Snobson, the retired leather merchant of “the swamp,” who has his country house on the Hudson, and his town house on Madison square, asks Podson, and Maudlin, and Rademacher to dine with him, and sits after dinner with his claret, and his almonds, and raisins, and at every turn “puts on airs," and in a super- cilious manner surveys the elegance of his apartments, his flunkeys (imported from London), his cut-glass and his china, and in his very conversation, endeavors to drop the nasal twang of Connecticut, where he was born, and substitute the broad a of our trans- atlantic brethren, is a greater snob than the younger men. This magnate is proud to QUARAM 7/NE OFFICERS. 137 lord it over Podson, who, a quarter of a cen- tury ago, kept a stationery and periodical establishment in Fulton Street (to which, however, he never now refers), or to display his magnificence to Maudlin and Rade- macher—Maudlin being forty years since a young buck, with rather knock-knees, who sold tin-ware and stoves in Cliff Street, by day, and danced all night in a dress-coat and white choker, hired for the occasion, while Rademacher was the inventor of “a bitters,” which he sold out at an immense profit, and opened a banking house on Wall Street. These men are all ashamed of that portion of their lives, in which honest toil and personal attention to business, early rising and regular hours, economy at home and frugality abroad, made them what they 138 QUARAMT/AWE OFFICERS. are. These epochs in their history are not alluded to, as they sit assembled in the in- elegant dining-rooms on the Hudson, or are closeted together in a private state-room on the Jessie Hoyt on her afternoon trip to Long Branch, where Rademacher has an elegant cottage. Oh, no their former lives, better perhaps a hundred fold than those they are now leading, are dead letters, even to their children. These men are just as full of snobbery as their narrow minds are con- tracted, and are at heart just as eager to imi. tate the manners, customs, speech, or enter- tainments of some autocrat whom they have seen, or perhaps merely have read about, as are the young men at Delmonico's of whom we were just now writing. - When Mr. Flashey, of Fifth Avenue, takes QUARAAWTINE OFFICERS. 139 his poorer neighbor Jones into his magnifi- cent dining room, and opens, without the slightest warrantable necessity, the enameled door of his fire-proof safe, and exposes to view his plate, his crystal vases, and his finely-cut glasses of every conceivable color and pattern, and says, “Jones, my boy, aren't these beautiful ?” he actually means to say : “See how much finer my plate is than your delf; how much more splendid are my egg-shell cups and saucers than your iron- stone china ; how superior I am in all my appointments to you and your surround- ings.” These things are done daily, and the men who allow themselves so to act, sacrifice themselves, and often their families, body and soul, to snobbishness and toadyism. Men of this class endeavor to vie with 140 QUARANTINE OFFICERS. each other in imitating the poorer qualities of mind and body, of one or two persons of questionable rank, with whom perhaps they have had business (mind you, not social) relations abroad. They speak fre- quently of the time when Sir Fooley Squeezum came to America, for the double purpose of examining a railroad muddle and shooting buffaloes, at which time they enter- tained him in the most extravagant manner. They will tell you, as three of these mag- nates of New York, who had the supreme honor of traveling with Sir Fooley in a sleeping-car from Boston, told me, that their brains were so exhausted from long mental effort expended upon their large financial schemes, that they expected to sail by the next “city of the sea,” to seek the society of QUARAMTIME OFFICERS. 141 Sir Fooley, and had accepted his invitation to spend a fortnight with him, go down to Epsom, and make havoc among his preserves in Scotland, to repair their worn-out mental energies. The fact I discovered afterwards was that Sir Fooley was a confidence man. It seems to me that the true gentleman is a man, a man who has cultivated his mind and takes care of his body; a man ambitious to excel in all that is good, and to despise and avoid all that is weak, or low, or narrow- minded; a man who does not toady to the rich—for their riches, or insult, or even give the cold shoulder to those who chance to be below him in wealth or position. It is the mean imitation of mean things; it is the attempt to sail under false colors; it is the preposterous effort to do with a dime 142 QUARAN TIME OFF/CPAS, what other people do with a dollar, that con- stitutes this demoralizing and rapidly spread- ing disorder which is imported on our cities of the sea. Beware of it, as of the pestilence which walketh in the darkness | the END.