CHAPTER V.

UTTERANCE 300

PART IV.

RELIGION 314

CHAPTER I.

SCIENCE OF RELIGION 329

CHAPTER II.

SPIRIT OF RELIGION 336

CHAPTER III.

ADMINISTRATION OF RELIGION 348

CONCLUSION 367

APPENDIX 373

SOCIETY IN AMERICA.

PART II.

CONTINUED.

CHAPTER II.

TRANSPORT AND MARKETS.

"Science and Art urge on the useful toil;

New mould a climate, and create the soil.

On yielding Nature urge their new demands,

And ask not gifts, but tribute, at her hands."

_Barbauld._

Nature has done so much for the United States in this article of their

economy, and has indicated so clearly what remained for human hands to

do, that it is very comprehensible to the traveller why this new country

so far transcends others of the same age in markets and means of

transport. The ports of the United States are, singularly enough,

scattered round the whole of their boundaries. Besides those on the

seaboard, there are many in the interior; on the northern lakes, and on

thousands of miles of deep rivers. No nook in the country is at a

despairing distance from a market; and where the usual incentives to

enterprise exist, the means of transport are sure to be provided, in the

proportion in which they are wanted.

Even in the south, where, the element of wages being lost, and the will

of the labourer being lost with them, there are no adequate means of

executing even the best-conceived enterprises,[1] more has been done

than could have been expected under the circumstances. The mail roads

are still extremely bad. I found, in travelling through the Carolinas

and Georgia, that the drivers consider themselves entitled to get on by

any means they can devise: that nobody helps and nobody hinders them. It

was constantly happening that the stage came to a stop on the brink of a

wide and a deep puddle, extending all across the road. The driver helped

himself, without scruple, to as many rails of the nearest fence as might

serve to fill up the bottom of the hole, or break our descent into it.

On inquiry, I found it was not probable that either road or fence would

be mended till both had gone to absolute destruction.

The traffic on these roads is so small, that the stranger feels himself

almost lost in the wilderness. In the course of several days' journey,

we saw, (with the exception of the wagons of a few encampments,) only

one vehicle besides our own. It was a stage returning from Charleston.

Our meeting in the forest was like the meeting of ships at sea. We asked

the passengers from the south for news from Charleston and Europe; and

they questioned us about the state of politics at Washington. The eager

vociferation of drivers and passengers was such as is very unusual, out

of exile. We were desired to give up all thoughts of going by the

eastern road to Charleston. The road might be called impassable; and

there was nothing to eat by the way. So we described a circuit, by

Camden and Columbia.

An account of an actual day's journey will give the best idea of what

travelling is in such places. We had travelled from Richmond, Virginia,

the day before, (March 2nd, 1835,) and had not had any rest, when, at

midnight, we came to a river which had no bridge. The "scow" had gone

over with another stage, and we stood under the stars for a long time;

hardly less than an hour. The scow was only just large enough to hold

the coach and ourselves; so that it was thought safest for the

passengers to alight, and go on board on foot. In this process, I found

myself over the ankles in mud. A few minutes after we had driven on

again, on the opposite side of the river, we had to get out to change

coaches; after which we proceeded, without accident, though very slowly,

till daylight. Then the stage sank down into a deep rut, and the horses

struggled in vain. We were informed that we were "mired," and must all

get out. I stood for some time to witness what is very pretty for once;

but wearisome when it occurs ten times a day. The driver carries an axe,

as a part of the stage apparatus. He cuts down a young tree, for a

lever, which is introduced under the nave of the sunken wheel; a log

serving for a block. The gentleman passengers all help; shouting to the

horses, which tug and scramble as vigorously as the gentlemen. We ladies

sometimes gave our humble assistance by blowing the driver's horn.

Sometimes a cluster of negroes would assemble from a neighbouring

plantation; and in extreme cases, they would bring a horse, to add to

our team. The rescue from the rut was effected in any time from a

quarter of an hour to two hours. This particular 3rd of March, two hours

were lost by this first mishap. It was very cold, and I walked on alone,

sure of not missing my road in a region where there was no other. When I

had proceeded two miles, I stopped and looked around me. I was on a

rising ground, with no object whatever visible but the wild, black

forest, extending on all sides as far as I could see, and the red road

cut through it, as straight as an arrow, till it was lost behind a

rising ground at either extremity. I know nothing like it, except a

Salvator Rosa I once saw. The stage soon after took me up, and we

proceeded fourteen miles to breakfast. We were faint with hunger; but

there was no refreshment for us. The family breakfast had been long

over, and there was not a scrap of food in the house. We proceeded, till

at one o'clock we reached a private dwelling, where the good woman was

kind enough to provide dinner for us, though the family had dined. She

gave us a comfortable meal, and charged only a quarter dollar each. She

stands in all the party's books as a hospitable dame.

We had no sooner left her house than we had to get out to pass on foot a

bridge too crazy for us to venture over it in the carriage. Half a mile

before reaching the place where we were to have tea, the thorough-brace

broke, and we had to walk through a snow shower to the inn. We had not

proceeded above a quarter of a mile from this place when the traces

broke. After this, we were allowed to sit still in the carriage till

near seven in the morning, when we were approaching Raleigh, North

Carolina. We then saw a carriage "mired" and deserted by driver and

horses, but tenanted by some travellers who had been waiting there since

eight the evening before. While we were pitying their fate, our vehicle

once more sank into a rut. It was, however, extricated in a short time,

and we reached Raleigh in safety.

It was worth undergoing a few travelling disasters to witness the skill

and temper of the drivers, and the inexhaustible good-nature of the

passengers. Men of business in any other part of the world would be

visibly annoyed by such delays as I have described; but in America I

never saw any gentleman's temper give way under these accidents. Every

one jumps out in a moment, and sets to work to help the driver; every

one has his joke, and, when it is over, the ladies are sure to have the

whole represented to them in its most amusing light. One driver on this

journey seemed to be a novice, or in some way inferior in confidence to

the rest. A gentleman of our party chose to sit beside him on the box;

and he declared that the driver shut his eyes when we were coming to a

hole; and that when he called piteously on the passengers for help, it

was because we were taking aim at a deep rut. Usually, the confidence

and skill of the drivers were equally remarkable. If they thought the

stage more full than was convenient, they would sometimes try to alarm

the passengers, so as to induce some of them to remain for the next

stage; and it happened two or three times that a fat passenger or two

fell into the trap, and declined proceeding; but it was easy for the

experienced to see that the alarm was feigned. In such cases, after a

splash into water, in the dark, news would be heard from the box that

we were in the middle of a creek, and could not go a step, back or

forward, without being overturned into the water. Though the assertion

was disproved the next minute, it produced its effect. Again, when the

moon was going down early, and the lamps were found to be, of course,

out of order, and the gentlemen insisted on buying candles by the

road-side, and walking on in bad places, each with a tallow light in his

hand, the driver would let drop that, as we had to be overturned before

dawn, it did not much matter whether it was now or later. After this,

the stoutest of the company were naturally left behind at the next

stopping-place, and the driver chuckled at the lightening of his load.

At the close of a troublesome journey in the south, we drew up, with

some noise, before a hotel, at three in the morning. The driver blew a

blast upon an execrable horn. Nobody seemed stirring. Slaves are the

most slow-moving people in the world, except upon occasion.

"What sleepy folks they are here!" exclaimed the driver.

Another blast on the horn, long and screeching.

"Never saw such people for sleeping. Music has no effect on 'em at all.

I shall have to try fire-arms."

Another blast.

"We've waked the watchman, however. That's something done."

Another blast.

"Never knew such people. Why, Lazarus was far easier to raise."

The best testimony that I can bear to the skill with which travelling is

conducted on such roads as these, and also in steam-boats, is the fact

that I travelled upwards of ten thousand miles in the United States, by

land and water, without accident. I was twice nearly overturned; but

never quite.

It has been seen what the mail routes are like in the south; and I have

mentioned that greater progress has been made in other means of

transport than might have been expected. I referred to the new

rail-roads which are being opened in various directions. I saw few

circumstances in the south with which I was so well pleased. By the free

communication which will thus be opened, much sectional prejudice will

be dispelled: the inferiority of slave to free labour will be the more

speedily brought home to every man's convictions; and new settlers,

abhorring slavery, will come in and mix with the present population; be

the laws regarding labour what they may.

The only rail-roads completed in the south, when I was there, were the

Charleston and Augusta one, two short ones in the States of Alabama and

Mississippi, and one of five miles from Lake Pontchartrain to New

Orleans. There is likely to be soon a magnificent line from Charleston

to Cincinnati; and the line from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York, is now

almost uninterrupted.

The quarter of an hour employed in reaching New Orleans from Lake

Pontchartrain was one of the most delightful seasons in all my travels.

My notion of a swamp was corrected for ever. It was the end of April;

and the flowering reeds and tropical shrubs made the whole scene one gay

garden. It was odd to be passing through a gay garden on a rail-road.

Green cypress grew out of the clear water everywhere; and there were

acres of blue and white iris; and a thousand rich, unknown blossoms

waving over the pools. A negro here and there emerged from a flowery

thicket, pushing himself on a raft, or in a canoe, through the reeds.

The sluggish bayou was on one side; and here and there, a group of old

French houses on the other. It was like skimming, as one does in dreams,

over the meadows of Sicily, or the plains of Ceylon.

That which may be seen on either hand of the Charleston and Augusta

rail-road is scarcely less beautiful; but my journeys on it were by far

the most fatiguing of any I underwent in the country. The motion and the

noise are distracting. Whether this is owing to its being built on

piles, in many places; whether the fault is in the ground or the

construction, I do not know. Almost all the rail-road travelling in

America is very fatiguing and noisy. I was told that this was chiefly

owing to the roads being put to use as soon as finished, instead of the

work being left to settle for some months. How far this is true, I do

not pretend to say. The rail-roads which I saw in progress were laid on

wood instead of stone. The patentee discovered that wood settles after

frost more evenly than stone. The original cost, in the State of New

York, is about two thousand dollars per mile.

One great inconvenience of the American rail-roads is that, from wood

being used for fuel, there is an incessant shower of large sparks,

destructive to dress and comfort, unless all the windows are shut; which

is impossible in warm weather. Some serious accidents from fire have

happened in this way; and, during my last trip on the Columbia and

Philadelphia rail-road, a lady in the car had a shawl burned to

destruction on her shoulders; and I found that my own gown had thirteen

holes in it; and my veil, with which I saved my eyes, more than could be

counted.

My first trip on the Charleston rail-road was more amusing than

prosperous. The arrangements were scarcely completed, and the apparatus

was then in a raw state. Our party left Columbia at seven in the evening

of the 9th of March, by stage, hoping to meet the rail-road train at

Branchville, sixty miles from Columbia, at eleven the next morning, and

to reach Charleston, sixty-two more, to dinner. Towards morning, when

the moon had set, the stage bumped against something; and the driver

declared that he must wait for the day-spring, before he could proceed

another step. When the dawn brightened, we found that we had, as we

supposed, missed our passage by the train, for the sake of a stump about

two inches above the ground. We hastened breakfast at Orangeburg; and

when we got to Branchville, found we need have been in no hurry. The

train had not arrived; and, some little accident having happened, we

waited for it till near two o'clock.

I never saw an economical work of art harmonise so well with the

vastness of a natural scene, as here. From the piazza of the house at

Branchville, the forest fills the whole scene, with the rail-road

stretching through it, in a perfectly straight line, to the vanishing

point. The approaching train cannot be seen so far off as this. When it

appears, a black dot, marked by its wreath of smoke, it is impossible to

avoid watching it, growing and self-moving, till it stops before the

door. I cannot draw; but I could not help trying to make a sketch of

this, the largest and longest perspective I ever saw. We were well

employed for two hours in basking in the sun, noting the

mock-orange-trees before the house, the turkeys strutting, the robins

(twice as large as the English) hopping and flitting; and the house,

apparently just piled up of wood just cut from the forest. Everything

was as new as the rail-road. As it turned out, we should have been

better employed in dining; but we had no other idea than of reaching

Charleston in three or four hours.

For the first thirty-five miles, which we accomplished by half-past

four, we called it the most interesting rail-road we had ever been on.

The whole sixty-two miles was almost a dead level, the descent being

only two feet. Where pools, creeks, and gullies had to be passed, the

road was elevated on piles, and thence the look down on an expanse of

evergreens was beautiful. This is, probably, the reason why three

gentlemen went, a few days afterwards, to walk, of all places, on the

rail-road. When they were in the middle of one of these elevated

portions, where there is a width of only about three inches on either

side the tracks, they heard a shout, and looking back, saw a train

coming upon them with such speed as to leave no hope that it could be

stopped before it reached them. There was no alternative; all three

leaped down, upwards of twenty feet, into the swamp, and escaped with a

wetting, and with looking exceedingly foolish in their own eyes.

At half-past four, our boiler sprang a leak, and there was an end of our

prosperity. In two hours, we hungry passengers were consoled with the

news that it was mended. But the same thing happened, again and again;

and always in the middle of a swamp, where we could do nothing but sit

still. The gentlemen tried to amuse themselves with frog-hunting: but it

was a poor resource. Once we stopped before a comfortable-looking house,

where a hot supper was actually on the table; but we were not allowed to

stop, even so long as to get out. The gentlemen made a rush into the

house to see what they could get. One carried off a chicken entire, for

his party; another seized part of a turkey. Our gentlemen were not alert

enough. The old lady's table was cleared too quickly for them, and

quite to her own consternation. All that we, a party of five, had to

support us, was some strips of ham, pieces of dry bread, and three sweet

potatoes, all jumbled together in a handkerchief. Our thoughts wandered

back to this supper-table, an hour after, when we were again sticking in

the middle of a swamp. I had fallen asleep, (for it was now the middle

of a second night of travelling,) and was awakened by such a din as I

had never heard. I could not recollect where I was; I looked out of the

window, and saw, by the light of the moon, white houses on the bank of

the swamp, and the waving shrubs of the forest; but the distracting din

was like nothing earthly. It presently struck me that we were being

treated with a frog-concert. It is worth hearing, for once, anything so

unparalleled as the knocking, ticking, creaking, and rattling, in every

variety of key. The swamp was as thick of noises as the forest is of

leaves: but, five minutes of the concert are enough; while a hundred

years are not enough of the forest. After many times stopping and

proceeding, we arrived at Charleston between four and five in the

morning; and, it being too early to disturb our friends, crept cold and

weary to bed, at the Planters' Hotel. It was well that all this happened

in the month of March. Three months later, such detention in the swamps

by night might have been the death of three-fourths of the passengers. I

have not heard of any mismanagement since the concern has been put

fairly in operation.

There are many rail-roads in Virginia, and a line to New York, through

Maryland and Delaware. There is in Kentucky a line from Louisville to

Lexington. But it is in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and

Massachusetts, that they abound. All have succeeded so admirably, that

there is no doubt of the establishment of this means of communication

over nearly the whole of the United States, within a few years, as

by-ways to the great high-ways which Nature has made to run through this

vast country. The evil of a superabundance of land in proportion to

labour will thus be lessened so far, that there will be an economy of

time, and a facility of intercourse, which will improve the intelligence

of the country population. There will, also, be a facility of finding

out where new supplies of labour are most wanted, and of supplying them.

By advantageous employment for small capitals being thus offered within

bounds, it may also be hoped that many will be prevented from straying

into the wilderness. The best friends of the moral as well as economical

interests of the Americans, will afford all possible encouragement to

wise schemes for the promotion of intercourse, especially between the

north and south.

I believe the best-constructed rail-road in the States is the Boston and

Lowell, Massachusetts: length, twenty-five miles. Its importance, from

the amount of traffic upon it, may be estimated from the fact that some

thousands of dollars were spent, the winter after it was opened, in

clearing away a fall of snow from it. It was again covered, the next

night.

Another line from Boston is to Providence, Rhode Island, forty-three

miles long. This opens a very speedy communication with New York; the

distance, two hundred and twenty-seven miles, being performed in twenty

hours, by rail-road and steam-boat.

There is a good line from Boston to Worcester; forty-five miles in

length. Its estimated cost is 883,904 dollars. This road is to be

carried on across the entire State, to the Connecticut; from whence a

line is now in course of construction to the Hudson, to issue opposite

Albany. There are proposals for a tunnel under the Hudson at Albany;

and from Albany, there is already canal and rail-road communication to

Lake Erie. There is now an uninterrupted communication from the Atlantic

to the far end of Lake Michigan. It only remains to extend a line thence

to the Mississippi, and the circle is complete.

The great Erie canal, intersecting the whole State of New York, is too

celebrated to need much notice here. Its entire length is three hundred

and sixty-three miles. It is forty feet wide at top, twenty-eight at

bottom, and four feet deep. There are eighty-four locks on the main

canal. The total rise and fall is six hundred and ninety-two feet. The

cost was 9,500,000 dollars. Though this canal has been opened only since

1825, it is found already insufficient for the immense commerce carried

on between the European world and the great West, through the eastern

ports. There is a rail-road now running across the entire State, which

is expected to exhibit much more traffic than the canal, without at all

interfering with its business.

I traversed the valley of the Mohawk twice; the first time by the canal,

the next by stage, which I much preferred, both on account of the views

being better from the high-road, and from the discomfort of the

canal-boats. I had also the opportunity of observing the courses of the

canal and the new rail-road throughout.

I was amused, the first time, at hearing some gentlemen plan how the bed

of the shoaly Mohawk might be deepened, so as to admit the passage of

steam-boats. It would be nearly as easy to dig a river at once for the

purpose, and pump it full; in other words, to make another canal, twice

as wonderful as the present. The rail-road is a better scheme by far. In

winter the traffic is continued by sleighs on the canal ice: and a

pretty sight it must be.

The aspect of the valley was really beautiful last June. It must have

made the Mohawk Indians heart-sore to part with it in its former quiet

state; but now there is more beauty, as well as more life. There are

farms, in every stage of advancement, with all the stir of life about

them; and the still, green graveyard belonging to each, showing its

white palings and tombstones on the hill-side, near at hand. Sometimes a

small space in the orchard is railed in for this purpose. In a shallow

reach of the river there was a line of cows wading through, to bury

themselves in the luxuriant pasture of the islands in the midst of the

Mohawk. In a deeper part, the chain ferry-boat slowly conveyed its

passengers across. The soil of the valley is remarkably rich, and the

trees and verdure unusually fine. The hanging oak-woods on the ridge

were beautiful; and the knolls, tilled or untilled; and the little

waterfalls trickling or leaping down, to join the rushing river. Little

knots of houses were clustered about the locks and bridges of the canal;

and here and there a village, with its white church conspicuous, spread

away into the middle of the narrow valley. The green and white canal

boats might be seen stealing along under the opposite ridge, or issuing

from behind a clump of elms or birches, or gliding along a graceful

aqueduct, with the diminished figures of the walking passengers seen

moving along the bank. On the other hand, the rail-road skirted the base

of the ridge, and the shanties of the Irish labourers, roofed with turf,

and the smoke issuing from a barrel at one corner, were so grouped as to

look picturesque, however little comfortable. In some of the narrowest

passes of the valley, the high road, the rail-road, the canal, and the

river, are all brought close together, and look as if they were trying

which could escape first into a larger space. The scene at Little Falls

is magnificent, viewed from the road, in the light of a summers'

morning. The carrying the canal and rail-road through this pass was a

grand idea; and the solidity and beauty of the works are worthy of it.

The canal was commenced in 1817; and the first boat from the inland

lakes arrived at New York on the 4th of November 1825. The first year's

revenue amounted to 566,221 dollars. In 1836, the tolls amounted to

1,294,649 dollars.

The incorporated rail-road companies in the State of New York in 1836

were fifty; their capitals varying from fifteen thousand to ten million

dollars.

When I first crossed the Alleghanies, in November 1834, I caught a

glimpse of the stupendous Portage rail-road, running between the two

canals which reach the opposite bases of the mountains. The stage in

which I travelled was on one side of a deep ravine, bristling with

pines; while on the other side was the lofty embankment, such a wall as

I had never imagined could be built, on the summit of which ran the

rail-road, its line traceable for some miles, with frequent stations and

trains of baggage-cars. One track of this road had not long been opened;

and the work was a splendid novelty. I had afterwards the pleasure of

travelling on it, from end to end.

This road is upwards of thirty-six miles in length, and at one point

reaches an elevation of 2,491 feet above the sea. It consists of eleven

levels, and ten inclined planes. About three hundred feet of the road,

at the head and foot of each plane, is made exactly level. The

embankments were made twenty-five feet wide at the top, and the bed of

the road in excavations is twenty-five feet, with wide side ditches.

Much care in drainage was necessary, as the road passes chiefly along

the steep slopes of hills, of clayey soil, and over innumerable small

streams. Sixty-eight culverts of masonry pass under the road, and

eighty-five drains. There are four viaducts of hammer-dressed sandstone,

to carry the line over streams. The most splendid of these is over the

Conemaugh, eight miles from Johnstown. It has a semi-circular arch of

eighty feet span; the top of whose masonry is seventy feet above the

water. There is a tunnel through a spur of the Alleghany, nine hundred

and one feet long, by twenty feet wide, and nineteen high. The

foundations of this road are partly stone and partly wood. Each station

has two steam-engines; one being used at a time, and the other provided

to prevent delay, in case of accident. Four cars, each loaded with 7000

lbs. can be drawn up, and four such let down at a time; and from six to

ten such trips can be accomplished in an hour. A safety-car is attached

to the train, both in ascending and descending; and though not an

absolute safeguard, it much increases the security. This little machine,

when pressed upon from behind, grounds its point, and materially checks

the velocity of the otherwise flying train. The iron rails, and some

other of the metal portions of the work, were imported from Great

Britain.

The cost of constructing this rail-road at the contract prices was

1,634,357 dollars; but this does not include office expenses, or

engineering, or accidental extra allowances to contractors. During the

first year of the two tracks being opened, fifty thousand tons of

freight, and twenty thousand passengers, passed over the road.

Five years before, this line of passage was an untrodden wilderness. The

act authorising the commencement of the work passed the Pennsylvania

legislature on the 21st of March, 1831. On the 12th of the next month,

the tents of the first working party were pitched at the head of the

mountain-branch of the Conemaugh. The party consisted of two engineers,

a surveyor, twelve assistants and axemen, and a cook. A track, one

hundred and twenty feet wide, overgrown with heavy spruce and hemlock

timber, had to be cleared, for a distance of thirty miles. The amount of

labour was increased as the work proceeded; and, at one time, as many as

two thousand men were employed upon the road. On the 26th of November,

1833, the first car traversed the whole length on the single track that

was finished. The canals were then closed for the season; but, during

the next March the road was opened for a public highway. In another year

the enterprise was completed; and in May 1835, the State furnished the

whole motive power. The stupendous work was then in full operation.

Our party (of four, one a child) traversed the entire State from

Pittsburg to Philadelphia by canal and rail-road, in four days, at an

expense of only forty-two dollars, not including provisions. There was

then great competition between the lines of canal-boats. We went by the

new line, whose boats were extraordinarily clean, and the table really

luxurious. An omnibus, sent from the canal, conveyed us from our hotel

at Pittsburg to the boat, at nine in the evening; and we immediately set

off. Berths were put up for the ladies of the party in the ladies'

dressing-room, and removed during the day. We were called early, and

breakfast dispatched before the heat grew oppressive; but, though it was

now the middle of July, I could not remain in the shade of the cabin:

the scenery, during our whole course, was so beautiful. Umbrella and

fan made the heat endurable on deck, except for the two hours nearest to

noon. The only great inconvenience was the having to remember

perpetually to avoid the low bridges, which we passed, on an average,

every quarter of an hour. When we were all together, this was little of

an annoyance; for one or another was sure to remember to give warning;

but a solitary person, reading or in reverie, is really in danger. We

heard of two cases of young ladies, reading, who had been crushed to

death: and we prohibited books upon deck. Charley thought the commotion

caused on our approach to a bridge the best part of our amusement; and

he was heard to complain sometimes that it was very long since we had

had any bridges, or when one chanced to be so lofty that we might pass

under it without stooping. The best of all in his eyes were the

horizontal ones, which compelled us to lie down flat.

The valley of the Kiskiminites is like one noble, fruitful park. Here

and there were harvest fields of small grain, and of the tasselled

Indian corn: and a few coal and salt works, some forsaken, some busy,

showed themselves on reaches of the river; but we were usually enclosed

by a circle of wooded hills, reposing in the brightest lights and

shadows. The canal commonly ran along the base of one of these hills;

but it often let us slip into the broad lucid stream of the river

itself.

After having left the Kiskiminites behind us, we crossed the Conemaugh

by a fine aqueduct, which continued its course through a long dark

tunnel, piercing the heart of the mountain. The reflection of the blue

light behind us on the straight line of water in this cavern made a

beautiful picture. The paths which human hands have piled upon one

another here form a singular combination: the river below, the aqueduct

over it; and higher still, the mountain road, winding steeper and

steeper to the summit. A settler lives on this mountain, the bottom of

whose well was dug out in making the tunnel. In the evening there was

every combination of rock, hill, wood, river, and luxuriant vegetation

that could furnish forth a succession of noble pictures. Charley was as

well amused as the rest of us. He understood the construction and

management of the locks, and was never tired of our rising and falling

in them; and they afforded, besides, an opportunity of stepping ashore

with his father, to get us flowers, and run along the bank to the next

lock. Of these locks there are a hundred and ninety-two between

Pittsburg and Philadelphia, averaging eight feet in depth.

We were called up before four on the second morning, and had barely time

to dress, step ashore, and take our places in the car, before the train

set off. We understood that the utmost possible advantage is taken of

the daylight, as the trains do not travel after dark; it being made a

point of, that the ropes should be examined before each trip. After

having breakfasted by the way, we reached the summit of the Portage

rail-road between nine and ten. There were fine views all the way; the

mountains opening and receding, and disclosing the distant clearings and

nestling villages. All around us were plots of wild flowers, of many

hues.

We were carried on chiefly by steam power, partly by horse, partly by

descending weight, and, at the last, down a long reach, of the slightest

possible inclination, by our own weight. The motion was then

tremendously rapid, and it subsided only on our reaching the canal at

the foot of the mountains.

There was again so much hurry--there being danger of either of two rival

boats getting first possession of the next locks, that we of the last

car had scarcely time to step on board before the team of three horses

began cantering and raising a dust on the towing path, and tugging us

through the water at such a rate as to make the waves lash the canal

bank. Our boat won the race, and we bolted with a victorious force into

the chamber of the first lock.

We had occasionally to cross broad rivers. To-day we crossed the

Juniatta by a rope ferry, moved by water-power; and afterwards we

crossed the Susquehanna (at the junction of two branches of the

Juniatta, the Susquehanna, and two canals) by means of the towing-path

being carried along the outside of the great covered bridge which spans

the river at Duncan's Island.

The next morning we had to leave the broad, clear, but shallow

Susquehanna,--the "river of rocks," as its name imports. I had before

travelled almost its whole length along its banks; and, like every one

who has done so, loved its tranquil beauty.

The last stage of this remarkable journey was from Columbia to

Philadelphia, by rail-road, eighty-one miles, which we were seven hours

in performing, as the stoppages were frequent and long. This work, which

was opened in 1834, includes thirty-one viaducts, seventy-three stone

culverts, five hundred stone drains, and eighteen bridges. Its cost was

about 1,600,000 dollars.--The length of this passage from Philadelphia

to Pittsburg is 394 miles.

Where, I again ask, would have been these great works, but for the

immigration so seriously complained of by some?

The number of considerable canals, varying in length from fourteen to

three hundred and sixty-three miles, was, in 1835, twenty-five. Of

rail-roads, from fifteen to a hundred and thirty-two miles long, there

were fourteen. The cost of these canals was 64,573,099 dollars. The cost

of these rail-roads was nearly thirty millions of dollars.

The Dutch are the best people to apply to for capital when any canal

work is projected. I heard it said that the word "canal" was enough for

them.

The steam-boats of the United States are renowned, as they deserve to

be. There is no occasion to describe their size and beauty here; but

their number is astonishing. I understand that three hundred were

navigating the great western rivers some time ago: and the number is

probably much increased.

Among so many, and where the navigation is so dangerous as on the

Mississippi, it is no wonder that the accidents are numerous. I was

rather surprised at the cautions I received throughout the south about

choosing wisely among the Mississippi steam-boats; and at the question

gravely asked, as I was going on board, whether I had a life-preserver

with me. I found that all my acquaintances on board had furnished

themselves with life-preservers; and my surprise ceased when we passed

boat after boat on the river, delayed or deserted on account of some

accident. We were on board the "Henry Clay," a noble boat, of high

reputation; the present being the ninety-seventh trip accomplished

without accident. Our yawl was snagged one day; and we encountered a

squall and hail storm, one night, which blew both the pilots away from

the helm, and made them look "to see the hurricane deck blown clear

off;" but no mischief ensued.

Notwithstanding the increase of steam-boats in the Mississippi, flat

boats are still much in use. These are large boats, of rude

construction, made just strong enough to hold together, and keep their

cargo of flour, or other articles, dry, from some high point on the

great rivers, to New Orleans. They are furnished with two enormous oars,

fixed on what is, I suppose, called their deck; to be used where the

current is sluggish, or when it is desirable to change the direction of

the boat. The cumbrous machine is propelled by the stream; her

proprietors only occasionally helping her progress, now by pulling at

the branches of overhanging trees, now by turning her into the more

rapid of two currents. She is seen sometimes floating down the very

middle of the river; sometimes gliding under the banks. At noon, a bower

of green leaves is waving on her deck, for shade to her masters; at

night, a pine brand is waved, flaming, to give warning to the

steam-boats not to run her down. The voyage from the upper parts of the

Ohio to New Orleans, is thus performed in from three to five weeks. The

cargo being disposed of at New Orleans, the boat is broken up, and the

materials sold; and her masters work their way home again, as deck

passengers on board a steam-boat, by bringing in wood at all the wooding

places. The "Henry Clay" had a larger company of this kind of passengers

than the captain liked. He declared that the deck was giving way under

their number. It was a pretty sight to see them twice a day,--very early

in the morning, and about sunset,--pour from the boat, when she drew

under the shore, form two lines between the boat and the wood pile, and

bring in their loads. Most of them were tall Kentuckians, who really do

look unlike all other people. I felt a strong inclination for a

flat-boat voyage down the vast and beautiful Mississippi; beautiful with

islands and bluffs, and the eternal forest; but I have lost the

opportunity. If I should ever visit that beloved country again, this

picturesque kind of craft will have disappeared, as the yet more

barbarous raft is now disappearing; and one more characteristic feature

of western scenery will be effaced.

It seems probable that there will be a more rapid increase of ships and

schooners than of steam-boats on the northern lakes. These lakes are so

subject to gusts and storms that steam-boats cannot be considered safe,

and ought to make no promises of punctuality. The captains declare their

office to be too anxious a one. A squall comes from any quarter, without

notice; and the boat no sooner seems to be proceeding prosperously on

her way, than she has to run in somewhere for safety from a sudden

storm.

Of all the water-craft I ever saw, I know none so graceful as the sloops

on the Hudson; unless it be the New York pilot-boats. The North-River

sloops are an altogether peculiar race of boats. They are low, and can

carry a great press of sail, from the smoothness of the water on which

they perform their voyages. A sloop of a hundred and fifty tons will

carry a mast of ninety feet high. I could watch these boats on the

Hudson, a whole summer through; moored beside a pebbly strand, in a

recess of the shore; or lying dark in a trail of glittering sunshine; or

turning the whitest of sails to the sun, startling the fish-hawk with

the sudden gleam, so that he quits his prey, and makes for the hanging

woods. I saw their graceful forms disclosed by lightning, while I was

watching, from the piazza of the West Point Hotel, the progress of a

tremendous storm. I saw them as suddenly disclosed at another time; and

still more strikingly. From the terrace of Pine Orchard House, on the

summit of the Catskill Mountain, I watched, one July morning, at four

o'clock, the breaking of the dawn over the entire valley of the Hudson.

The difference between mountain, forest, and meadow, first appeared.

Then the grey river seemed to grow into sight, for the whole length of

its windings. It was twelve miles off, and looked little more than a

thread. The sun came up, like a golden star resting on the mountain-top;

and, on the instant, the river was seen to be peopled with these sloops.

Their white sails came in one instant into view, together with the

churches in the hamlets, and the bright gables of the farm-houses in the

meadows. The whole scene was made alive by one ray.

There will be no want of markets for produce of all kinds, in the United

States, within any time that can be foreseen. If slavery were to be

abolished to-morrow, and, in consequence, more corn grown and cattle

reared in the slave States, the demand for both from the north-western

States would still go on to increase; so vast and progressive would be

the improvement in the south. The great cities are even yet ill supplied

from the country. Provisions are very dear; and the butcher's meat

throughout the country is far inferior to what it will be when an

increased amount of labour, and means of transport, shall encourage

improvement in the pasturage and care of stock. While, as we have seen,

fowls, butter, and eggs, are still sent from Vermont into Boston, there

is no such thing to be had there as a joint of tender meat. In one house

at Boston, where a very numerous family lives in handsome style, and

where I several times met large dinner parties, I never saw an ounce of

meat, except ham. The table was covered with birds, in great variety,

and well cooked; but all winged creatures. The only tender, juicy meat I

saw in the country, was a sirloin of beef at Charleston, and the whole

provision of a gentleman's table in Kentucky. At one country place,

there was nothing but veal on the table for a month; in a town where I

staid ten days, nothing was to be had but beef: and throughout the south

the traveller meets little else than pork, under all manner of

disguises, and fowls.

Much is said in England about the cheapness of living in the United

States, without its being understood what need there is of equalising,

(or what appears so to the inhabitants of an old country,) by means of

markets. In places where beef and veal are twopence per pound, and

venison a penny, (English,) tea may be twenty shillings per pound, and

gloves seven shillings a pair. At Charlottesville University, fowls were

provided to the professors' families at a dollar a dozen. In the towns

of Kentucky, meat is fourpence per pound; in the rural parts of

Pennsylvania a penny or twopence; and butter sixpence. At Ebensburg, on

the top of the Alleghanies, we staid twenty-five hours. Two of us were

well taken care of, had attendance, good beds, two dinners each, supper,

breakfast, and a supply of buns to carry away with us; and all for one

dollar; the dollar at that time being four shillings and twopence

English. The next week, I paid six dollars for the making of a gown at

Philadelphia; and all the ladies of a country town, not very far off,

were wearing gloves too bad to be mended, or none at all, because none

had come up by the canal for many weeks.

At Washington, I wanted some ribbon for my straw bonnet; and, in the

whole place, in the season, I could find only six pieces of ribbon to

choose from.

Throughout the entire country, (out of the cities,) I was struck with

the discomfort of broken windows which appeared on every side. Large

farm-houses, flourishing in every other respect, had dismal-looking

windows. I was possessed with the idea that the business of a

travelling glazier would be a highly profitable one. Persons who happen

to live near a canal, or other quiet watery road, have baskets of glass

of various sizes sent to them from the towns, and glaze their own

windows. But there is no bringing glass over a corduroy, or mud, or

rough limestone road; and those who have no other highways must "get

along" with such windows as it may please the weather and the children

to leave them.

The following laconic dialogue shows, not unfairly, even if it be a mere

jest, how acceptable means of transport would be to western settlers.

"Whose land was this that you bought?"

"Mogg's."

"What's the soil?"

"Bogs."

"What's the climate?"

"Fogs."

"What do you get to eat?"

"Hogs."

"What did you build your house of?"

"Logs."

"Have you any neighbours?"

"Frogs."

There are only two methods (besides rare accidents) by which dwellers in

such places can get their wants supplied. When a few other neighbours

besides frogs, gather round the settler, some one opens a grocery store.

I went shopping near the Falls of Niagara; about a quarter of a mile

from which place, there is a store on the borders of the forest. I saw

there glass and bacon; stay-laces, prints, drugs, rugs, and crockery;

bombazeens and tin cans; books, boots, and moist sugar, &c. &c.

Pedlars are the other agents of supply. It has been mentioned how bibles

and other books are sold by youths who adopt this method of speedily

raising money. The Yankee pedlars, with their wooden clocks, are

renowned. One of these gentry lately retired with a fortune of a hundred

thousand dollars, made by the sale of wooden clocks alone. These men are

great benefactors to society: for, be their clocks what they may, they

make the country people as well off as the inhabitants of towns, in the

matter of knowing the time; and what more would they have? One would

think there was no sun in the United States, so very imaginative are

most of the population in respect of the hour. Even in New York I found

a wide difference between the upper and lower parts of the city: and

between Canandaigua and Buffalo there was the slight variation of half

an hour. In some parts of the south, we were at the mercy of whatever

clock the last pedlar might have happened to bring, for the appearance

of meals: but it appeared as if the clocks themselves had something of

the Yankee spirit in them; for, while they were usually too fast, I

rarely knew one too slow.

The perplexity about time took a curious form in one instance, in the

south. The lady of the governor of the State had never had sufficient

energy to learn the clock. With both clock and watch in the house, she

was incessantly sending her slave Venus, (lazy, ignorant, awkward, and

ugly,) into a neighbour's house to ask the hour. Three times in one

morning did Venus loll against the drawing-room door, her chin in her

hands, drawling,

"What's the time?"

"Nine, Venus."

Venus went home, and told her mistress it was one. Dinner was hastened;

but it soon appearing from some symptom that it could not be so late,

Venus appeared again, with her chin reposing as before.

"What's the time?"

"Between ten and eleven, Venus."

Venus carries word that it is eight. And so on.

The race of pedlars will decrease, year by year. There will be fewer

carts, nicely packed with boxes and baskets. There will be fewer youths

in homespun, with grave faces and somewhat prim deportment, in

well-laden gigs. There will be fewer horsemen, with saddle-bags, and

compact wooden cases. There will be fewer pedestrians, with pouches

strung before and behind, an umbrella in one hand, and an open book in

the other. The same men, or their sons, will gain in fortune, and lose

perhaps somewhat in mind and manners, by being stationary, or the

frequenters of some established market.

The conveying of vast quantities of cotton and other produce towards the

southern ports is already a matter of pride to the residents, who boast

that they employ the industry of persons a thousand miles off to provide

food for themselves and their dependents. The bustle of the great

northern markets is also very striking to the stranger who sees to what

distance in the interior, the produce of Europe and Asia is to be

conveyed. But, a few years hence, the spread of comfort and luxury will

be as great as that of industry is now. By a vast augmentation of the

means of transport, markets will be opened wherever the soil is

peculiarly rich, the mines remarkably productive, or the locality

especially inviting.

The object is an all-important one. As it is too late to restrict the

territory on which the American people are dispersed, it is most

serviceable that they should be brought together again, for purposes of

intercourse, mutual education and discipline, and wise co-operation in

the work of self-government, by such means as exist for practically

annihilating time and space. The certain increase of wealth by these

means is a good. The certain increase of people is an incalculably

greater. The certain increase of knowledge and civilisation is the

greatest of all.

SECTION I.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

One of the most important constitutional questions that has arisen in

the United States is one, regarding Internal Improvements, which has

grown out of a failure of foresight in the makers of the constitution.

No set of men could be expected to foresee every great question which

must arise during the advancement of a young country; and there is no

evidence of its having occurred to any one, in the early days of the

republic, to inquire whether the general government should have power to

institute and carry on public works, all over the States; and under what

limitations. Many inconsistent and contradictory proceedings have taken

place in Congress, since the question was first raised; and it remains

unsettled.

For some years after the Revolution, the treasury had enough to do to

pay the debts of the war, and defray the expenses attendant upon the

organisation of the new system. As soon as a surplus was found to be in

hand, suggestions were heard about improving the country. In 1796, Mr.

Madison proposed a resolution to cause a survey to be made for a road

from north to south, through all the Atlantic States. No appropriation

was made for the purpose: but no objection was offered on the ground of

the general government not having power to make such appropriation. The

difficulty of access to the great western wilderness was represented to

Congress under Mr. Jefferson's administration, in 1802; and a law was

passed, making appropriations for opening roads in the north-west

territory. This was the first appropriation made by Congress for

purposes of internal improvement. Many similar acts followed; and

road-making and surveying the coast went on expeditiously, and to a

great extent. In 1807, Mr. Gallatin prepared the celebrated Report to

the Senate, which contains a systematic plan for the improvement of the

whole country. In 1812, during Mr. Madison's administration, a survey

was authorised of the main post road from Maine to Georgia. Improvement

under the sanction of Congress went on with increased activity into the

administration of Mr. Monroe, by whom the first check was given. Mr.

Monroe vetoed the bill authorising the collection of tolls for the

repair of the Cumberland road. The reason assigned for the veto was,

that it was one thing to make appropriations for public works, and

another thing to assume jurisdiction and sovereignty over the soil on

which such works were erected; and President Monroe did not believe that

Congress could assume power to levy toll.[2] By his adoption of a

subsequent act, involving the same principles, however, it seemed that

he had changed his opinion, or resolved to yield the question.

Mr. J. Q. Adams's advocacy of internal improvements removed some

lingering difficulties; and, while he was President, the public works

were carried on with great activity. The southern members of Congress,

however, were generally opposed to the exercise of this power by the

general government: and it has ever since been a strongly-debated

question.

President Jackson's course on the subject has not been very consistent.

Before his election, he always voted for internal improvements, going so

far as to advocate subscriptions by government to the stock of private

canal companies, and the formation of roads beginning and ending within

the limits of particular States. In his message at the opening of the

first Congress after his accession, he proposed the division of the

surplus revenue among the States, as a substitute for the promotion of

internal improvements by the general government. He attempted a

limitation and distinction too difficult and important to be settled and

acted upon on the judgment and knowledge of one man;--a distinction

between general and local objects. It is manifestly impossible to draw

the line with any precision. The whole Union is benefited by the Erie

canal, though it lies wholly within the limits of the State of New York;

and a thousand positions of circumstances may be imagined by which local

advantages may become general, and general local, so as to confound the

limitation altogether. At any rate, the judgment and knowledge of any

individual, or any cabinet, are obviously unequal to the maintenance of

such a distinction.

In 1829 and 1830, the President advocated such an amendment of the

constitution as would authorise Congress to apply the surplus revenue to

certain specified objects, involving the general good; and he strongly

objected to the general government exercising a power, considered by

him unconstitutional, merely because there was a quantity of money in

the treasury which must be disposed of. He has since changed his

opinion, and believes that less evil would be incurred by even suddenly

reducing the revenue to the amount of the wants of the government, than

by conferring on the general government immense means of patronage, and

opportunity for corrupt and wasteful expenditure.

These changes of opinion in President Jackson prove nothing so clearly

as the great difficulty of the subject. It is, however, so pressing and

so important that, notwithstanding its difficulty, it must be settled

before long.

The opposing arguments seem to me to be these.

The advocates of a concession to Congress of the power of conducting

internal improvements plead, with regard to the constitutionality of the

power, that it is conferred by the clauses which authorise Congress to

make post-roads: to regulate commerce between the States: to make and

carry on war; (and therefore to have roads by which to transport

troops;) to lay taxes, to pay the debts, and provide for the general

welfare of the United States: and to pass all laws necessary to carry

into effect its constitutional powers.

The answer is, that to derive from these clauses any countenance of the

practice of spending without limit the public funds, for objects which

any present government may declare to be for the general welfare, is an

obvious straining of the instrument: that, by such methods, the

constitution may be made to authorise the spending of any amount

whatever, for any purpose whatever: that it is the characteristic of the

constitution to specify the powers given to Congress with a nicety which

is wholly inconsistent with such a boundless conveyance of power as is

here presumed: and that, accordingly, the permission to lay taxes, to

pay the debts, and provide for the general welfare of the United States,

is limited as to its objects by the preceding specifications: and that,

finally, the powers allotted to the State governments exclude the

supposition that Congress is authorised to assume such territorial

jurisdiction as it has been allowed to practise within the limits of the

several States.

This last set of opinions appears to disinterested observers so

obviously reasonable, that the wonder is how so weak a stand on the

provisions of the constitution can have been maintained for any length

of time. The reason is, that the pleas of expediency are so strong as to

counterbalance the weakness of the constitutional argument. But, this

being the case, the truly honest and patriotic mode of proceeding would

be to add to the constitution by the means therein provided; instead of

straining the instrument to accomplish an object which was not present

to the minds of its framers.

The pleas of the advocates of Internal Improvements are these: that very

extensive public works, designed for the benefit of the whole Union, and

carried through vast portions of its area, must be accomplished: that an

object so essential ought not to be left at the mercy of such an

accident as the cordial agreement of the requisite number of States, to

carry such works forward to their completion; that the surplus funds

accruing from the whole nation cannot be so well employed as in

promoting works by which the whole nation will be benefited: and that,

as the interests of the majority have hitherto upheld Congress in the

use of this power, it may be assumed to be the will of the majority that

Congress should continue to exercise it.

The answer is, that it is inexpedient to put a vast and increasing

patronage into the hands of the general government: that only a very

superficial knowledge can be looked for in members of Congress as to the

necessity or value of works proposed to be instituted in any parts of

the States but those in which they are respectively interested: that

endless jealousies would arise between the various States,[3] from the

impossibility or undesirableness of equalising the amount of

appropriation made to each: that useless works would be proposed from

the spirit of competition, or individual interest:[4] and that

corruption, co-extensive with the increase of power, would deprave the

functions of the general government.

There is much truth on both sides here. In the first set of pleas there

is so much force that they have ceased to be, what they were once

supposed, the distinctive doctrines of the federal party. Mr. Webster is

still considered the head of the Internal Improvements party; and Mr.

Calhoun was for some time the leader of its opponents. Jefferson's

latest opinions were strong against the power claimed and exercised by

Congress. Yet large numbers of the democratic party are as strenuous

for internal improvements as Adams and Webster themselves; the interests

of the majority being clearly on that side.

To an impartial observer it appears that Congress has no constitutional

right to devote the public funds to internal improvements, at its own

unrestricted will and pleasure: that the permitted usurpation of the

power for so long a time indicates that some degree of such power in the

hands of the general government is desirable and necessary: that such

power should be granted through an amendment of the constitution, by the

methods therein provided: that, in the mean time, it is perilous that

the instrument should be strained for the support of any function,

however desirable its exercise may be.

In case of the proposed addition being made to the constitution,

arrangements will, of course, be entered into for determining the

principles by which general are to be distinguished from local objects,

or whether such distinction can, on any principle, be fixed; for testing

the utility of proposed objects; for checking extravagant expenditure,

jobbing, and corrupt patronage: in short, the powers of Congress will be

specified, here, as in other matters, by express permission and

prohibition. These details, difficult or unmanageable amidst the

questionable exercise of a great power, will, doubtless, be arranged so

as to work with precision, when the will of the majority is brought to

bear directly upon them.

It is time that this great question should be settled. Congress goes on

making appropriations for a road here, a canal there, a harbour or a

light-house somewhere else. All these may or may not be necessary.

Meantime, those who have law on their side, exclaim against

extravagance, jobbing, and encroachment on popular rights. Those who

have expediency on their side plead necessity, the popular will, and the

increasing surplus revenue.

If the constitution provides means by which law, expediency, and the

prevention of abuse, can be reconciled to the satisfaction of all,

surely the sooner it is done the better. Thus the matter appears to a

passing stranger.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "The income of the public works of the State" (South Carolina) "is

very small, not exceeding 15,000 dollars per annum, over the cost of

management, although the State has incurred a debt of 2,000,000 in

constructing them. In many parts of the State, canals have been

constructed, which do not yield sufficient to pay their current

expenses; and, with the exception of the State road, and the Columbia

canal, there is hardly a public work in the State, which, put up at

public auction, would find a purchaser."

1833. _American Annual Register_, p. 285.

[2] President Jackson is of opinion that no toll should be levied on

ways provided by the public revenue. It should be a complete and final

outlay, and none of the people compelled to pay for works effected by

the people's money. This seems clearly right.

[3] South Carolina was in favour of Internal Improvements, till it was

found how much larger a share of the benefit would be appropriated by

the active and prosperous northern States than by those which are

depressed by slavery. Since that discovery, South Carolina's sectional

jealousy has been unbounded, and her opposition to the exercise of the

power very fierce. In her periodical publications, as well as through

other channels, she has declared herself neglected, or likely to be

neglected, on account of her being southern. The enterprise of the North

and depression of the South are, as usual, looked upon as favour and

neglect, shown by the general government.

[4] When I was ascending the Mississippi, I observed a light-house

perched on a bluff, in a ridiculous situation. On asking the meaning of

the phenomenon, I was told that a senator from the State of Mississippi,

wishing to make a flourish about his zeal for the improvement of his

State, had obtained an appropriation from Congress to build this

light-house, which is of no earthly use.

CHAPTER III.

MANUFACTURES.

"The crude treasures, perpetually exposed before our eyes, contain

within them other and more valuable principles. All these,

likewise, in their numberless combinations, which ages of labour

and research can never exhaust, may be destined to furnish, in

perpetual succession, new sources of our wealth and of our

happiness."

BABBAGE.

The whole American people suffered, during the revolutionary war, from

the want of the comforts and some of the necessaries of life, now so

called. Their commerce with the world abroad being almost wholly

intercepted, they had nothing wherewith to console themselves but the

stocks which might be left in their warehouses, and the produce of their

soil. It is amazing, at this day, to hear of the wants of the commonest

articles of clothing and domestic use, undergone in those days by some

of the first families in the republic.

The experience of these troubles suggested to many persons the

expediency of establishing manufactures in the United States: but there

was an almost universal prejudice against this mode of employment. It is

amusing now to read Hamilton's celebrated Report on Manufactures,

presented in 1790, and to see how elaborately the popular objections to

manufactures are answered. The persuasion of the nation was that America

was designed to be an agricultural country; that agriculture was wholly

productive, and manufactures not productive at all; and that agriculture

was the more honourable occupation. The two former prejudices have been

put to flight by happy experience. The last still lingers. It is not

five years since the President's message declared that "the wealth and

strength of a country are its population; and the best part of that

population are the cultivators of the soil."

Such prepossessions may be left to die out. They arise mainly from a

very good notion, not very clearly defined;--that the more intercourse

men have with Nature, the better for the men. This is true; but Nature

is present in all places where the hands of men work, if the workmen can

but see her. If Nature is supposed present only where there is a blue

sky overhead, and grass and trees around, this shows only the narrowness

of mind of him who thus supposes. Her forces are at work wherever there

is mechanism; and man only directs them to his particular purpose. In

America, it may be said that her beauty is present wherever her forces

are at work; for men have there set up their mechanism in some of the

choicest spots in the land. There is a good and an evil aspect belonging

to all things. If tourists are exasperated at fine scenery being

deformed by the erection of mills, (which in many instances are more of

an ornament than a deformity,) let others be awake to the advantage that

it is to the work-people to have their dwellings and their occupation

fixed in spots where the hills are heaped together, and the waters leap

and whirl among rocks, rather than in dull suburbs where they and their

employments may not annoy the eye of the lover of the picturesque. It

always gave me pleasure to see the artisans at work about such places as

Glen's Falls, the Falls of the Genessee, and on the banks of some of the

whirling streams in the New England valleys. I felt that they caught, or

might catch, as beautiful glimpses of Nature's face as the western

settler. If the internal circumstances were favourable, there was little

in the outward to choose between. If they had the open mind's eye to see

beauty, and the soul to feel wonder, it mattered little whether it was

the forest or the waterfall (even though it were called the

"water-privilege") that they had to look upon; whether it was by the

agency of vegetation or of steam that they had to work. It is deplorable

enough, in this view, to be a poor artisan in the heart of our English

Manchester: but to be a thriving one in the most beautiful outskirts of

Sheffield is, perhaps, as favourable a lot for the lover of nature as to

be a labourer on any soil: and the privileges of the American artisans

are like this.

As to the old objection to American manufactures, that America was

designed to be an agricultural country,--it seems to me, as I said

before, that America was meant to be everything. Her group of republics

is merged in one, in the eyes of the world; and, for some purposes, in

reality: but this involves no obligation to make them all alike in their

produce and occupations; but rather the contrary. Here, as everywhere

else, let the laws of nature be followed, and the procedure will be

wise. Nature has nothing to do with artificial boundaries and arbitrary

inclosures. There are many soils and many climates included within the

boundary line of the United States; many _countries_; and one rule

cannot be laid down for all. If there be any one or more of these where

the requisites for manufactures are present, and those for agriculture

deficient, there let manufactures arise. If there is poor land, and good

mill-seats; abundant material, animal and mineral, on the spot, and

vegetable easily to be procured; a sufficiency of hands, and talent for

the construction and use of machinery, there should manufactures spring

up. This is eminently the case with New England, and some other parts of

the United States. It was perceived to be so, even in the days when the

growth of cotton in the south was spoken of as a small experiment, not

likely to produce great consequences.

New England formerly depended chiefly on the carrying trade. When that

resource was diminished, after the war, it is difficult to see how her

people were to be prevented setting up manufactures, or why they needed

any particular exhortation or assistance to do it. They had the

opportunity of obtaining foreign capital; their previous foreign

intercourses having pointed out to them where it had accumulated, and

might therefore be obtained with advantage. They had a vast material,

left from their fisheries, of skins, oil, and the bones of marine

animals; they had bark, hides, wood, flax, hemp, iron, and clay. They

had also the requisite skill; as may be seen by the following list of

domestic manufactures, carried on in private houses only, in 1790.

"Great quantities of coarse cloths, coatings, serges and flannels,

linsey-woolseys, hosiery of wool, cotton, and thread, coarse fustians,

jeans, and muslins, coverlets and counterpanes, tow linens, coarse

shirtings, sheetings, towellings, and table-linen, and various mixtures

of wool and cotton, and of cotton and flax, are made in the household

way; and, in many instances, to an extent not only sufficient for the

supply of the family in which they are made, but for sale, and even in

some cases for exportation. It is computed, in a number of districts,

that two-thirds, three-fourths, and even four-fifths of all the clothing

of the inhabitants, are made by themselves."[5] If all this was done

without the advantage of division of labour, of masses of capital, or of

other machinery than might be set up in a farm-house parlour, it is

clear that this region was fully prepared, five-and-forty years ago, for

the introduction of manufactures on a large scale; and there appears

every reason to believe that they might have been left to their natural

growth.

The same Report mentions seventeen classes of manufacture going on as

distinct trades, at the same time, in the northern States.

The only plausible objection to the establishment of manufactures was

the scarcity and dearness of labour, in comparison with that of the old

countries of Europe. But, if the exportation of some articles actually

took place, while the labour which produced them was scattered about in

farm-houses, what might not be expected if the same labour could be

called forth and concentrated, and aided by the introduction of

machinery? A great immigration of artisans might also be looked for,

when once any temptation was held out to the poor of Europe to come over

to a young and thriving country. Moreover, improvements in machinery are

the invariable consequence of a deficiency of manufacturing labour; for

the obvious reason that men's wits are urged to supply the want under

which their interests suffer. Again: manufactures can, to a considerable

degree, be carried on by the labour of women; and there is a great

number of unemployed women in New England, from the circumstance that

the young men of that region wander away in search of a settlement on

the land; and, after being settled, find wives in the south and west.

Thus much of the case might have been, and was by some, foreseen. What

has been the event?

In 1825, the amount of manufactures exported from the United States, was

5,729,797 dollars. Of these about one-fourth were cotton-piece goods, in

the sale of which the American merchants were now able to compete with

the English, in some foreign markets. The manufacture of cottons in the

United States afforded a market for one hundred and seventy-five

thousand bales of cotton annually; and the printed cottons manufactured

at home amounted annually to fourteen millions of yards. The importation

of cotton goods into the country in 1825 was in value between twelve and

thirteen millions of dollars; and in 1826, between nine and ten

millions. The woollen manufacture has never flourished like the cotton;

the bad effects of the tariff being more immediately visible in regard

to articles of manufacture whose raw material must be chiefly derived

from abroad.

In 1828, the legislature of Massachusetts passed resolutions deploring

the increasing depression of the woollen manufacture, and praying for

increased protection from Congress. The exportation of cotton goods that

year amounted to upwards of a million of dollars; and the next year to

nearly a million and a half. The importation of cotton goods was all but

prohibited by the tariff of 1824: and the consequence was an immense

investment of capital in the cotton manufacture, almost on the instant;

and some perilous fluctuations since, too nearly resembling the

agitations of older countries, where the pernicious policy of ages has

accumulated difficulties on the present generation.

At Lowell, in Massachusetts, there was in 1818, a small satinet mill,

employing about twenty hands; the place itself containing two hundred

inhabitants. In 1825, the Merrimack Manufacturing Company was formed;

it was joined by others; and in 1832, the capital invested was above six

millions of dollars. The whole number of operatives employed was five

thousand; of whom three thousand eight hundred were women and girls. The

quantity of raw cotton used was upwards of twenty thousand bales. The

quantity of pure cotton goods manufactured was twenty-five millions of

yards. The woollen fabric manufactured in these establishments was, at

the same time, one hundred and fifty thousand yards. Sixty-eight

carpet-looms were at work also. The workmen employed in all these

operations received for wages about 1,200,000 dollars per annum. About

two hundred mechanics, of a high order of ability, are constantly

employed. The fuel consumed in a year is five thousand tons of

anthracite coal, besides charcoal and wood.

The same protective system which caused the sudden growth of such an

establishment as this, tempted numerous capitalists to seek their share

of the supposed benefits of the tariff. The manufacturing interest was

well nigh ruined by the protection it had asked for. The competition and

consequent over-manufacture were tremendous. Failure after failure took

place, till forty-five thousand spindles were standing idle, and

thousands of operatives were thrown into a state of poverty unnatural

enough in such a country as theirs. A cry was raised by many for a

repeal of the tariff: this created a panic among those who, on the

strength of the tariff, had withdrawn their capital from commerce, and

invested it in manufactures. The stock of all the manufacturing

companies was offered in vain, at prices ruinously low. Thus stood

matters in 1829.

The history of the quarrel between the north and south about the tariff,

and the nature of the Compromise Bill, is already known. The mischief

done will be repaired, as far as reparation is possible, by the

reduction of the import duties, year by year, till 1842. If the demands

of the country and of foreign customers should not rise to the limit of

the over-manufacture which has taken place, time is thus allowed for the

gradual withdrawing of the capital and industry which have been seduced

into this method of employment. Meantime, the manufactures of the

northern States are permanently established, though not in the wisest

way. If they had been left to themselves, they would have been an

unmixed good to the community. As it is, society has suffered the

inevitable consequences of an irrational policy,--a policy indefensible

in a republic. It is well that the experiment wrought out its

consequences so speedily and so plainly that any repetition is

unlikely,--little as the natural laws which regulate commerce are yet

understood.

In 1831, the total number of looms employed in the cotton manufacture of

the United States was 33,433. Of these, 21,336 were in New England;

3,653 in New York State; 6,301 in Pennsylvania; and the rest in

Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Virginia.

Next to the cotton and woollen manufactures, the most valuable are

manufactures from flax and hemp; from tobacco and grain; sugar, soap,

and candles, gunpowder, gold and silver coin, iron, copper and brass,

hats, medicinal drugs, and shoes.

The shoe manufacture is one of the most remarkable in the States, from

the suddenness and extent of its spread. It has been mentioned that the

shoe trade of New York State is more valuable than the total commerce of

Georgia. The extent to which the manufacture is carried on in one

village in Massachusetts, with which I am acquainted, shows the

prosperity of the business.

In order to shoemaking, there must be tanning. There are many and large

tanneries in Danvers and the outskirts of Salem, for the supply of the

Lynn shoe-manufacture. The largest tannery in the United States is at

Salem. The hides are partly imported. The bark is brought from Maine.

These tanneries were in a state of temporary adversity when I saw them.

Some kinds of skins are two or three years in tanning; and capital is

thus locked up in such amounts as render fluctuation dangerous. It had

lately been discovered that oak bark could be had cheaper, and tanning

consequently carried on to a greater advantage up the Hudson than on the

Massachusetts coast: so that the tanners and curriers of Salem and

Danvers were descending somewhat from their high prosperity. But nothing

could exceed the nourishing aspect of Lynn, the sanctum of St. Crispin.

In 1831, the value of boots and shoes, (very few boots, and chiefly

ladies' shoes,) made at Lynn was nearly a million of dollars a year. The

total number made was above a million and a half pairs: the number of

people employed, three thousand five hundred; being about seven-eighths

of the population of the place, partially employed; and some hundreds

from other places, wholly employed. Last year, the place was much on the

increase. A green, with a piece of water in the middle, and trees, was

being laid out in the centre of the town. New houses were rising in all

directions, and fresh hands were welcomed from any quarter; for the

orders sent could not be executed. Besides the domestic supply, two

million pairs of ladies' shoes a-year were sent off to the remotest

corners of the States; and, as they have once penetrated there, it seems

difficult to imagine where the demand will stop; for those remote

corners are all being more thickly peopled every day. Their united

demand will be enough to make the fortune of a whole State.

It seems probable that a few more manufactures may be added to those

which are sure to flourish in the United States: as silk and wine. If

the government firmly refuses to interfere again in the way of

protection, it will be easily and safely discoverable what resources the

country really possesses; and what direction her improving industry may

naturally and profitably take.

SECTION I.

THE TARIFF.

If I were to go into anything like a detailed account of what I heard

about the tariff, during my travels, no room would be left for more

interesting affairs. The recrimination on the subject is endless. With

all this we have nothing to do, now that it is over. The philosophy and

fact of the transaction, and not the changes of opinion and

inconsistency of conduct of public men, are now of importance. It would

be well now to leave the persons, and look at the thing.

Almost the only fact in relation to the tariff that I never heard

disputed is that it was, under one aspect, a measure of retaliation.

Rendering evil for evil answers no better in economical than in moral

affairs; even if it take the name of self-defence. Because the British

are foolish and wrong in refusing to admit American corn, the Americans

excluded British cottons and woollens. More was said, and I believe

sincerely, about self-defence than about retaliation: but it is very

remarkable that men so clear-headed, inquiring, and sagacious as the

authors of the American system, should not have seen further into the

condition of their own country, and learned more from the unhappy

experience of Europe, than to imagine that they could neutralise the

effects of the bad policy of England by adopting the same bad policy

themselves. It is strange that they did not see that if British cottons

and woollens found easy entrance into their country, it must have been

in exchange for something, though that something was not corn. It was

strange that they did not see that if the apparent facilities for

manufactures in the northern States were really great enough to justify

manufactures, individual enterprise would be sure to find it out; and

all the more readily for the deficiency in the resources of New England,

which is assigned as the reason for offering her legislative protection.

There was not even the excuse for interference which exists in old

countries; that by intricate complexities of mismanagement, economical

affairs have been perverted from their natural course. Here, in America,

a new branch of industry was to be instituted. The skill was ready; the

material was ready; the capital was procurable, if the object was good;

and ought not to be, if the object was unsound. The interests of the

people might have been trusted in their own hands. They would of

themselves have taken less of British cotton goods, and more of

something else which they could not get at home, if cotton goods could

be made better and cheaper at home than in England; which it is proved

that, for the most part, they can be. It is anticipated that when the

Compromise method expires, the home manufacture of some kinds of fine

cotton goods will diminish; but that the bulk of the manufacture is

beyond the reach of accident. The effect of the tariff has been to

over-stimulate a natural process, and thus to cause over-manufacture,

panic, and ruin to many. It is said, and with truth, that America can

afford to try experiments; that America is the very country that should

learn by experience; and so forth. But it should be remembered that

those who suffer are not always those who should be the learners. In New

England, there is a large class of very poor women,--ladies; some

working; some unable to work. I knew many of these; and was struck with

the great number of them who assigned as the cause of their poverty the

depreciation of factory stock, or the failure in other ways of factory

schemes, in which their parents or other friends had, beguiled by the

promises of the tariff, invested what should have been their

maintenance.

No more need be said on the policy of the tariff. The truth is now very

extensively acknowledged; and though some of those who are answerable

for the American system continue to assume that manufactures could not

have been instituted without its assistance, I believe it is pretty

generally understood that no more infant manufactures will be burdened

with this cruel kind of protection.

A far more important question than that of the policy is that of the

principle of a protective system in the United States.

It is known that the strongest resistance was made to the American

system on the ground of its being unconstitutional. Its advocates

relied, for the necessary sanction, on the clauses which provide that

"Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, and duties,

imposts, and excises;"----and "to regulate commerce with foreign

nations." With regard to the first of these clauses, both parties seem,

more or less, in the right. By the tariff, Congress proposed "to lay and

collect duties and imposts," as the constitution gives it express leave

to do. Yet it is clear to those who view the constitution in the light

of the sun of the revolution, that, such permission was given solely

with a view to the collection of the revenue. No one of the framers of

the constitution could have foreseen that any proposal would be made to

lay duties for the protection of the productive interests of a section

of the Union. Such a use of the clause is forbidden in spirit, though

not in the letter, by the clause which ordains, "but all duties,

imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

This clause is, in its spirit, wholly condemnatory of partial

legislation by Congress.

Remarks somewhat analogous may be made respecting the other clause,

which empowers Congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations." By

the letter of this clause, Congress may appear to a superficial observer

authorised so to regulate its commerce with Great Britain as to cause an

arbitrary distribution of property and industry within her own

boundaries; but such a double action could never have been in

contemplation of the framers of the instrument. What they had in view

was obviously the guardianship of the national commercial rights, and

the promotion of the national commercial, not sectional manufacturing,

interests.

Where the letter and the spirit of the constitution are made, by lapse

of time and change of circumstance, to bear out opposite modes of

conduct, there is an appeal which every man must make, for his

individual satisfaction and conviction. He must appeal to the

fundamental republican principles, out of which grew both the spirit and

the letter of the constitution.

By these the tariff is hopelessly condemned. It is contrary to all sound

republican principle that the general government of a nation, widely

spread over regions, and separated into sections diversified in their

productions, occupations, and interests, should use its power of

legislating for the whole to provide for the particular interests of a

part. The principle of perfect political and social equality is violated

when the general government takes cognisance of local objects so far as

to do a deed which must materially affect the distribution of private

property; so far as to lay a tax on the whole of the nation for the

avowed object of benefiting a part. The government of a republic has no

business with distinctions among its subjects. It is to have no respect

of classes, more than of individuals. Its functions are to be discharged

for the common interest; and it is to entertain no fancies as to what

new institutions or arrangements will be beneficial or the contrary to

the nation.

All such institutions and arrangements must be made within the several

States, or by an agreement of States; subject, of course, to the

permissions and prohibitions of the constitution. If one State, or

several States, should be pleased to decree bounties on their own

manufactures, let them do so. Whether the measure were wise or unwise,

no one out of the limits of such State or States would have a right to

complain. This could not be said under the tariff. It was a just

complaint which was urged by many States, that the federal

representation was made useless to the minority, from the moment that

the federal government applied itself to favour local and particular

interests. The case is not altered by the possible result being highly

beneficial to the whole country; which is the plea industriously

advanced by the advocates of the tariff. Whatever direction and

application of industry and capital may be ultimately most beneficial,

Congress has, on principle, no more business with it than with the

support of what may prove in the end to be the purest religious

doctrine.

If America had been as free, from the beginning, in all respects, as a

young country ought to be,--free to run her natural course of

prosperity, subject only to the faithful laws which regulate the economy

of society as beneficially as another set of laws regulates the seasons,

we might never have heard of the American system. The poisonous anomaly

which has caused almost all the diseases that have afflicted the

republic, appears to be the original infection here also. If labour in

the southern States had been free long ago, the deterioration of

southern property would not have caused the southern planters to clamour

for legislative protection. The arbitrary tenure of labour made them

desire an arbitrary distribution of capital. They desired it for the

north, as eagerly as for themselves, expecting the result to be that the

cotton-growers would be protected by heavy import duties on cotton; and

that the prosperity of the north, depending, as they supposed, wholly on

its commerce, would be crippled by the same means; and thus, something

like an equality between north and south be restored. The effect was

different from what had been anticipated. The deterioration of the south

went on; and manufactures first replaced, and then renovated, the

commerce of the north. The next consequence was natural enough. The

south became infuriated against the tariff, not only on the reasonable

ground of its badness of principle, but on the allegation that it was

the cause of all the woes of the south,[6] and all the prosperity,

diversified with woes, of the north. It has always been the method of

slaveholders to lay the blame of their sufferings upon everything but

the real cause. Any one who reads the history of slavery in the book of

events, will find slave-holders of every country complaining bitterly

and incessantly of the want of legislative protection to themselves, or

of its being granted to others. In the present instance, it was a device

of the slave-holders, to renovate their falling fortunes, turned against

themselves.

The true dignity of America would have been, had circumstances allowed

of it, to have followed out her own republican principles, instead of

adopting the false principles and injurious policy of older and less

favoured nations. If she had left labour and commerce, and capital

free; disdaining interference at home and retaliation abroad; showing

her faith in the natural laws of social economy by calmly committing to

them the external interests of her people, she would by this time have

been the pattern and instructress of the civilised world, in the

philosophy of production and commerce. But she had not the knowledge nor

the requisite faith; nor was it to be reasonably expected that she

should. Her doctrine was, and I fear still is, that she need not study

political economy while she is so prosperous as at present: that

political economy is for those who are under adversity. If in other

cases she allows that prevention is better than cure, avoidance than

reparation, why not in this? It may not yet be too late for her to be in

the van of all the world in economical as in political philosophy. The

old world will still be long in getting above its bad institutions. If

America would free her servile class by the time the provisions of the

Compromise Bill expire, and start afresh in pure economical freedom, she

might yet be the first to show, by her transcendent peace and

prosperity, that democratic principles are the true foundation of

economical, as well as political, welfare.

SECTION II.

MANUFACTURING LABOUR.

So much is said in Europe of the scarcity of agricultural labour in the

United States, that it is a matter of surprise that manufactures should

have succeeded as they have done. It is even supposed by some that the

tariff was rendered necessary by a deficiency of labour: that by

offering a premium on manufacturing industry, the requisite amount was

sought to be drawn away from other employments, and concentrated upon

this. This is a mistake. There is every reason to suppose that the

requisite amount of labour would have been forthcoming, if affairs had

been left to take their natural course.

It has been shown that domestic manufactures were carried on to a great

extent, so far back as 1790. From that time to this, they have never

altogether ceased in the farm-houses, as the homespun, still so

frequently to be seen all over the country, and the agricultural

meetings of New England, (where there is usually a display of domestic

manufactures,) will testify. The hands by which these products are

wrought come to the factories, when the demand for labour renders it

worth while; and drop back into the farm-houses when the demand

slackens.

It is not the custom in America for women (except slaves) to work out of

doors. It has been mentioned that the young men of New England migrate

in large numbers to the west, leaving an over-proportion of female

population, the amount of which I could never learn. Statements were

made to me; but so incredible that I withhold them. Suffice it that

there are many more women than men in from six to nine States of the

Union. There is reason to believe that there was much silent suffering

from poverty before the institution of factories; that they afford a

most welcome resource to some thousands of young women, unwilling to

give themselves to domestic service, and precluded, by the customs of

the country, from rural labour. We have seen how large a proportion of

the labour in the Lowell factories is supplied by women.

Much of the rest is furnished by immigrants. I saw English, Irish, and

Scotch operatives. I heard but a poor character of the English

operatives; and the Scotch were pronounced "ten times better." The

English are jealous of their 'bargain,' and on the watch lest they

should be asked to do more than they stipulated for: their habits are

not so sober as those of the Scotch, and they are incapable of going

beyond the single operation they profess. Such is the testimony of their

employers.

The demand for labour is, however, sufficiently imperious in all the

mechanical departments to make it surprising that prison labour is

regarded with such jealousy as I have witnessed. When it is considered

how small a class the convicts of the United States are, and are likely

to remain, how essential labour is to their reformation, how few are the

kinds of manufacture which they can practise, and that it is of some

importance that prison establishments should maintain themselves, it

seems wholly unworthy of the intelligent mechanics of America that they

should be so afraid of convict labour as actually to obtain pledges from

some candidates for office, to propose the abolition of prison

manufactures. I believe that the Sing-Sing and Auburn prisons, in the

State of New York, turn out a greater variety and amount of products

than any others; and they have yet done very little more than maintain

themselves. The Sing-Sing convicts quarry and dress granite: the Auburn

prisoners make clocks, combs, shoes, carpets, and machinery. They are

cabinet and chair-makers, weavers, and tailors. There were 650 prisoners

when I was there; and of these many were inexperienced workmen; and all

were not employed in manufactures. Jealousy of such a set of craftsmen

is absurd, in the present state of the American labour-market.

I saw specimens of each of these kinds of labour. A few days after I

entered the country, I was taken to an agricultural meeting, held

annually at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We were too late to see the best

part of it,--the dispensing of prizes for the best agricultural skill,

and for the choicest domestic manufactures. But there were specimens

left which surprised me by the excellence of their quality;--table and

bed-linen, diapers, blankets, and knitted wares. There was an ingenious

model of a bed for invalids, combining many sorts of facilities for

change of posture. There were nearly as many women as men at this

meeting; all were well dressed, and going to and fro in the household

vehicle, the country-wagon, with the invariable bear-skin covering the

seat, and peeping out on all sides. A comfortable display, from the

remains of the dinner, was set out for us by smart mulatto girls, with

snow-berries in their hair. The mechanics' houses in this beautiful

village would be enough, if they could be exhibited in England, to tempt

over half her operatives to the new world.

The first cotton-mill that I saw was at Paterson, New Jersey. It was set

up at first with nine hundred spindles, which were afterwards increased

to fifteen hundred; then to six thousand. Building was still going on

when I was there. The girls were all well-dressed. Their hair was

arranged according to the latest fashions which had arrived, viâ New

York, and they wore calashes in going to and fro between their dwellings

and the mill. I saw some of the children barefooted, but carrying

umbrellas, under a slight sprinkling of rain. I asked whether those who

could afford umbrellas went barefoot for coolness, or other convenience.

The proprietor told me that there had probably been an economical

calculation in the case. Stockings and shoes would defend only the feet;

while the umbrella would preserve the gloss of the whole of the rest of

the costume. There seems, however, to be a strong predilection for

umbrellas in the United States. A convict, in solitary confinement in

the Philadelphia prison, gave me the history of all his burglaries. The

proximate cause of his capture after the last was an umbrella. He had

broken into a good-looking house, and traversed it in vain in search of

something worth the risk of carrying away. On leaving the house, he

found it rained. He went back, and took a new cotton umbrella. It dawned

as he entered the city, and he was afraid of being seen with the

umbrella; but thought suspicion would be excited if he "heaved it away."

He met an acquaintance who was further from home than himself, and

insisted on his accepting the loan of the umbrella. The acquaintance, of

course, was caught, and told from whom he had had the umbrella; and the

burglar was, in consequence, lodged in jail. What English burglar would

have thought of minding rain? If, however, there ever was a case of

amateur burglary, this was one.

I visited the corporate factory-establishment at Waltham, within a few

miles of Boston. The Waltham Mills were at work before those of Lowell

were set up. The establishment is for the spinning and weaving of cotton

alone, and the construction of the requisite machinery. Five hundred

persons were employed at the time of my visit. The girls earn two, and

some three, dollars a-week, besides their board. The little children

earn one dollar a-week. Most of the girls live in the houses provided by

the corporation, which accommodate from six to eight each. When sisters

come to the mill, it is a common practice for them to bring their mother

to keep house for them and some of their companions, in a dwelling built

by their own earnings. In this case, they save enough out of their board

to clothe themselves, and have their two or three dollars a-week to

spare. Some have thus cleared off mortgages from their fathers' farms;

others have educated the hope of the family at college; and many are

rapidly accumulating an independence. I saw a whole street of houses

built with the earnings of the girls; some with piazzas, and green

venetian blinds and all neat and sufficiently spacious.

The factory people built the church, which stands conspicuous on the

green in the midst of the place. The minister's salary (eight hundred

dollars last year) is raised by a tax on the pews. The corporation gave

them a building for a lyceum, which they have furnished with a good

library, and where they have lectures every winter,--the best that money

can procure. The girls have, in many instances, private libraries of

some merit and value.

The managers of the various factory establishments keep the wages as

nearly equal as possible, and then let the girls freely shift about from

one to another. When a girl comes to the overseer to inform him of her

intention of working at the mill, he welcomes her, and asks how long she

means to stay. It may be six months, or a year, or five years, or for

life. She declares what she considers herself fit for, and sets to work

accordingly. If she finds that she cannot work so as to keep up with the

companion appointed to her, or to please her employer or herself, she

comes to the overseer, and volunteers to pick cotton, or sweep the

rooms, or undertake some other service that she can perform.

The people work about seventy hours per week, on the average. The time

of work varies with the length of the days, the wages continuing the

same. All look like well-dressed young ladies. The health is good; or

rather, (as this is too much to be said about health any where in the

United States,) it is no worse than it is elsewhere.

These facts speak for themselves. There is no need to enlarge on the

pleasure of an acquaintance with the operative classes of the United

States.

The shoe-making at Lynn is carried on almost entirely in private

dwellings, from the circumstance that the people who do it are almost

all farmers or fishermen likewise. A stranger who has not been

enlightened upon the ways of the place would be astonished at the number

of small square erections, like miniature school-houses, standing each

as an appendage to a dwelling-house. These are the "shoe shops," where

the father of the family and his boys work, while the women within are

employed in binding and trimming. Thirty or more of these shoe-shops may

be counted in a walk of half-a-mile. When a Lynn shoe manufacturer

receives an order, he issues the tidings. The leather is cut out by men

on his premises; and then the work is given to those who apply for it;

if possible, in small quantities, for the sake of dispatch. The shoes

are brought home on Friday night, packed off on Saturday, and in a

fortnight or three weeks are on the feet of dwellers in all parts of the

Union. The whole family works upon shoes during the winter; and in the

summer, the father and sons turn out into the fields, or go fishing. I

knew of an instance where a little boy and girl maintained the whole

family, while the earnings of the rest went to build a house. I saw very

few shabby houses. Quakers are numerous in Lynn. The place is

unboundedly prosperous, through the temperance and industry of the

people. The deposits in the Lynn Savings' Bank in 1834, were about

34,000 dollars, the population of the town being then 4,000. Since that

time, both the population and the prosperity have much increased. It

must be remembered, too, that the mechanics of America have more uses

for their money than are open to the operatives of England. They build

houses, buy land, and educate their sons and daughters.[7]

It is probably true that the pleasures and pains of life are pretty

equally distributed among its various vocations and positions: but it is

difficult to keep clear of the impression which outward circumstances

occasion, that some are eminently desirable. The mechanics of these

northern States appear to me the most favoured class I have ever known.

In England, I believe the highest order of mechanics to be, as a class,

the wisest and best men of the community. They have the fewest base and

narrow interests: they are brought into sufficient contact with the

realities of existence, without being hardened by excess of toil and

care; and the knowledge they have the opportunity of gaining is of the

best kind for the health of the mind. To them, if to any, we may look

for public and private virtue. The mechanics of America have nearly all

the same advantages, and some others. They have better means of living:

their labours are perhaps more honoured; and they are republicans,

enjoying the powers and prospects of perfectly equal citizenship. The

only respect in which their condition falls below that of English

artisans of the highest order is that the knowledge which they have

commonly the means of obtaining is not of equal value. The facilities

are great: schools, lyceums, libraries, are open to them: but the

instruction imparted there is not so good as they deserve. Whenever they

have this, it will be difficult to imagine a mode of life more

favourable to virtue and happiness than theirs.