The Englishwoman in America - Isabella Lucy Bird (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

the bridges or viaducts are composed of logs of wood, with little ironwork and less paint, except in a few instances. Except where the lines intersect cultivated districts, fences are seldom seen, and the paucity of porters and other officials materially reduces the working expenses. The common rate of speed is from 22 to 30 miles an hour, but there are express trains which are warranted to perform 60 in a like period. The fuel is very cheap, being billets of wood. The passenger and goods traffic on nearly all the lines is enormous, and it is stated that most of them pay a dividend of from 8 to 15 per cent.

The primary design has been to connect the sea-coast with all parts of the interior, the ulterior is to unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At the present time there are about 25,000 miles of railway in operation and course of construction, and the average rate of fare is seldom more than 1_d._ per mile. Already the chief cities of the Atlantic have been connected with the vast valley of the Mississippi, and before long the regions bordering on Lake Huron and Lake Superior will be united with Mobile and New Orleans. In addition to this enormous system of railway communication, the canal and river navigation extends over 10,000 miles, and rather more than 3000 steamboats float on American waters alone.

The facilities for telegraphic communication in the States are a further evidence of the enterprise of this remarkable people. They have now 22,000 miles of telegraph in operation, and the cost of transmitting messages is less than a halfpenny a word for any distance under 200 miles. The cost of construction, including every outlay, is about 30_l._ per mile. The wires are carried along the rail ways, through forests, and across cities, rivers, and prairies. Messages passing from one very distant point to another have usually to be re-written at an intermediate station; though by an improved plan they have been transmitted direct from New York to Mobile, a distance of 1800 miles. By the Cincinnati telegraphic route to New Orleans, a distance from New York of 2000 miles, the news brought by the British steamer to Sandy Hook at 8 in the morning has been telegraphed to New Orleans, and before 11 o'clock the effects produced by it upon speculations there have been returned to New York--the message accomplishing a distance of 4000 miles in three hours. The receipts are enormous, for, in consequence of the very small sum charged for transmitting messages, as many as 600 are occasionally sent along the principal lines in one day. The seven principal morning papers in New York paid in one year 50,000 dollars for despatches, and 14,000 for special messages. Messages connected with markets, public news, the weather, and the rise and fall of stocks, are incessantly passing between the great cities. Any change in the weather likely to affect the cotton-crop is known immediately in the northern cities. While in the Exchange at Boston, I witnessed the receipt of a telegraphic despatch announcing that a heavy shower was falling at New Orleans!

It must not be supposed that there is no poverty in the New World. During one year 134,972 paupers were in the receipt of relief, of whom 59,000 were in the State of New York; but to show the evil influence of the foreign, more especially the Irish, element in America, it is stated that 75 per cent. of the criminals and paupers are foreigners.

The larger portion of the crime committed is done under the influence of spirits; and to impose a check upon their sale, that celebrated enactment, known under the name of the "_Maine Law_" has been placed upon the statute-books of several of the States, including the important ones of New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Nebraska. This law prohibits, under heavy penalties, the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquors. It has been passed in obedience to the will of the people, as declared at the elections; and though to us its provisions seem somewhat arbitrary, its working has produced very salutary effects.

When so much importance is attached to education, and such a liberal provision is made for it, it is to be expected that a taste for reading would be universally diffused. And such is the case: America teems with books. Every English work worth reading is reprinted in a cheap form in the States as soon as the first copy crosses the Atlantic. Our reviews and magazines appear regularly at half price, and Dickens' 'Household Words' and 'Chambers' Journal' enjoy an enormous circulation without any pecuniary benefit being obtained by the authors. Every one reads the newspapers and 'Harper's Magazine,' and every one buys bad novels, on worse paper, in the cars and steamboats. The States, although amply supplied with English literature, have many popular authors of their own, among whom may be named Prescott, Bancroft, Washington Irving, Stowe, Stephens, Wetherall, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, and Bryant. Books are very cheap wherever the editions of English works are concerned, and a library is considered an essential part of the fitting up of a house. In many of the States there are public libraries supported by a rate. In the State of New York, in the year ending 1854, the Commissioners of Education received 90,579 dollars for libraries.

Perhaps the greatest advantage offered to emigrants is the opportunity everywhere afforded of investing small sums of money advantageously. In England, in most branches of trade, the low rate of wages renders it impossible for the operative to save any portion of his earnings; and even when he is able to do so, he can rarely obtain a higher rate of interest for his money than that which the savings-banks offer. Economise as he may, his hard-won savings seldom are sufficient to afford him a provision in old age. In America, on the contrary, the man who possesses 5_l._ or 10_l._ has every hope of securing a competence. He may buy land in newly- settled districts, which sometimes can be obtained at 7_s._ an acre, and hold it till it becomes valuable, or he may obtain a few shares in any thriving corporate concern. A hundred ways present themselves to the man of intelligence and industry by which he may improve and increase his little fortune. The necessaries of life are abundant and cheap, and, aided by a free education, he has the satisfaction of a well-grounded hope that his children will rise to positions of respectability and affluence, while his old age will be far removed from the pressure of want. The knowledge that each shilling saved may produce ten or twenty by judicious investment is a constant stimulus to his industry.

Yet, from all that I have seen and heard, I should think that Canada West offers a more advantageous field for emigrants. Equally free and unburdened by taxation, with the same social and educational advantages, with an increasing demand for labour of every kind, with a rich soil, extraordinary facilities of communication, and a healthy climate, pauperism is unknown; fluctuations in commercial affairs are comparatively small, and, above all, the emigrant is not exposed to the loss of everything which he possesses as soon as he lands.

An infamous class of swindlers, called "emigrant-runners," meet the poor adventurer on his arrival at New York. They sell him second-class tickets at the price of first-class, forged passes, and tickets to take him 1000 miles, which are only available at the outside for 200 or 300. If he holds out against their extortions, he is beaten, abused, loses his luggage for a time, or is transferred to the tender mercies of the boarding-house keeper, who speedily deprives him of his hard-earned savings. These runners retard the westward progress of the emigrant in every way; they charge enormous rates for the removal of his luggage from the wharf; they plunder him in railway-cars, in steamboats, in lodging-houses; and if Providence saves him from sinking into drunkenness and despair, and he can be no longer detained, they sell him a lot in some non-existent locality, or send him off to the west in search of some pretended employment. Too frequently, after the emigrant has lost his money and property, sickened by disappointment and deserted by hope, he is content to remain at New York, where he contributes to increase that "dangerous class" already so much feared in the Empire City.

One point remains to be noticed, and that is, the feeling which exists in America towards England. Much has been done to inflame animosity on each side; national rivalries have been encouraged, and national jealousies fomented. In travelling through the United States I expected to find a very strong anti-English feeling. In this I was disappointed. It is true that I scarcely ever entered a car, steamboat, or hotel, without hearing England made a topic of discussion in connexion with the war; but, except on a few occasions in the West, I never heard any other than kindly feelings expressed towards our country. A few individuals would prognosticate failure and disaster, and glory in the anticipation of a "busting-up;" but these were generally "Kurnels" of militia, or newly- arrived Irish emigrants. These last certainly are very noisy enemies, and are quite ready to subscribe to the maxim, "That wherever England possesses an interest, there an American wrong exists." Some of the papers likewise write against England in no very measured terms; but it must be borne in mind that declamatory speaking and writing are the safety-valves of a free community, and the papers from which our opinion of American feeling is generally taken do not represent even a respectable minority in the nation. American commercial interests are closely interwoven with- ours, and "Brother Jonathan" would not lightly go against his own interests by rushing into war on slight pretences.

While I was dining at an hotel in one of the great American cities a gentleman proposed to an English friend of his to drink "Success to Old England." Nearly two hundred students of a well-known college were present, and one of them begged to join in drinking the toast on behalf of his fellow-students. "For," he added, "we, in common with the educated youth of America, look upon England as upon a venerated mother." I have frequently heard this sentiment expressed in public places, and have often heard it remarked that kindly feeling towards England is on the increase in society.

The news of the victory of the Alma was received with rejoicing; the heroic self-sacrifice of the cavalry at Balaklava excited enthusiastic admiration; and the glorious stand at Inkermann taught the Americans that their aged parent could still defend the cause of freedom with the vigour of youth. The disasters of the winter, and the gloomy months of inaction which succeeded it, had the effect of damping their sympathies; the prophets of defeat were for a time triumphant, and our fading prestige, and reputed incapacity, were made the subjects of ill-natured discussion by the press. But when the news of the fall of Sebastopol arrived, the tone of the papers changed, and, relying on the oblivious memories of their readers, they declared that they had always prophesied the demolition of Russia. The telegraphic report of the victory was received with rejoicing, and the ship which conveyed it to Boston was saluted with thirty-one guns by the States artillery.

The glory of the republic is based upon its advanced social principles and its successful prosecution of the arts of peace. As the old military despotisms cannot compete with it in wealth and enlightenment, so it attempts no competition with them in standing armies and the arts of war. National vanity is a failing of the Americans, and, if their military prowess had never been proved before, they might seek to display