powerful, avaricious and corrupt favorite of Henry VIII. Wolsey
commenced it in 1515. Being larger and more splendid than any royal
palace then in being, its erection was played upon by rival courtiers to
excite the King to envy and jealousy of his Premier--whereupon Wolsey
gave it outright to the monarch, who gave him the manor of Richmond in
requital. Wolsey's disgrace, downfall and death soon followed; but I
leave their portrayal to Hume and Shakspeare. This palace became a
favorite residence of Henry VIII. Edward VI. was born here; Queen Mary
spent her honeymoon here, after her marriage with Philip of Spain;
Queen Elizabeth held many great festivals here; James I. lived and Queen
Anne his wife died here; Charles I. retired here first from the Plague,
and afterwards to escape the just resentment of London in the time of
the Great Rebellion. After his capture, he was imprisoned here. Cromwell
saw one daughter married and another die during his residence in this
palace. William III., Queen Anne, George I. and George II. occasionally
resided here; but it has not been a regal residence since the death of
the latter. Yet the grounds are still admirably kept; the shrubbery,
park, fish-pond, &c. are quite attractive; while a famous grape-vine, 83
years old, bears some 1,100 pounds per annum of the choicest "Black
Hamburghs," which are reserved for the royal table, and (being under
glass) are said to keep fresh and sweet on the vine till February. A
fine avenue of trees leads down to the Thames, and the grounds are gay
with the flowers of the season. The Park is very large, and the location
one of the healthiest in the kingdom.
Hampton Court Palace, though surrounded by guards and other
appurtenances of Royalty, is only inhabited by decayed servants of the
Court, impoverished and broken-down scions of the Aristocracy, &c. to
whom the royal generosity proffers a subsistence within its walls. I
suppose about two-thirds of it are thus occupied, while the residue is
thrown open at certain hours to the public. I spent two hours in
wandering through this portion, consisting of thirty-four rooms, mainly
attractive by reason of the Paintings and other works of Art displayed
on their walls. As a whole, the collection is by no means good, the best
having been gradually abstracted to adorn those Palaces which Royalty
still condescends to inhabit, while worse and worst are removed from
those and deposited here; yet it was interesting to me to gaze at
undoubted originals by Raphael, Titian, Poussin, Rembrandt, Teniers,
Albert Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, Tintoretto, Kneller, Lely, &c., though
not their master-pieces. The whole number of pictures, &c. here
exhibited is something over One Thousand, probably five-sixths
Portraits. Some of these have a strong Historical interest apart from
their artistic merit. Loyola, Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, Admiral
Benbow, William III., Mary Queen of Scots, Mary de Medicis, Louis XIV.,
are a few among scores of this character. The Cartoons of Raphael and
some beautifully, richly stained glass windows are also to be seen. The
bed-rooms of William III., Queen Anne, and I think other sovereigns,
retain the beds as they were left; but little other furniture remains,
the mirrors excepted. I think Americans who have a day to spare in
London may spend it agreeably in visiting this Palace, especially as
British Royal Residences and galleries are reputed not very accessible
to common people. At this one, every reasonable facility is afforded,
and no gratuities are solicited or expected by those in attendance. I
should prefer a day for such a jaunt on which there are fewer squalls of
hail, snow and rain than we encountered--which in May can hardly be
deemed unreasonable--but if no better can be found, take such as may
come and make the best of it. This Palace is a good deal larger on the
ground than our Capitol--larger than the Astor House, but, being less
lofty, contains (I should judge) fewer rooms than that capacious
structure. It is built mainly of brick, and if it has great
Architectural merits I fail to discern them.
COUNSEL TO THE SEA-GOING.
LONDON, Tuesday, May 6th, 1851.
I desire to address a few words of advice to persons about to cross the
Atlantic or any other ocean for the first time. I think those who follow
my counsel will have reason to thank me.
I. Begin by providing yourself with a pair of stout, well-made thick
boots--the coarser and firmer the better. Have them large enough to
admit two pair of thick, warm stockings, yet sit easily on the feet. Put
them on before you leave home, and never take them off during the voyage
except when you turn in to sleep.
II. Take a good supply of flannels and old woolen clothes, and
especially an overcoat that has seen service and is not afraid of seeing
more. Should you come on board as if just out of a band-box, you will
forget all your dandyism before your first turn of sea-sickness is over,
and will go ashore with your clothes spoiled by the salt spray and your
own careless lounging in all manner of places and positions. Put on
nothing during the voyage that would sell for five dollars.
III. Endure your first day of sea-sickness in your berth; after that, if
you cannot go on deck whenever the day is fair, get yourself carried
there. You may be sick still--the chance is two to one that you will be;
but if you are to recover at all while on the heaving surge this is the
way.
IV. Move about as much as possible; think as little as you can of your
sickness; but interest yourself in whatever (except vomiting) may be
going forward--the run of the ship, the management of her sails, &c. &c.
Keep clear of all sedentary games, as a general rule; they may help you
to kill a few hours, but will increase your headache afterwards. Talk
more than you read; and determine to walk smartly at least two hours
every fair day, and one hour any how.
V. As to eating, you are safe against excess so long as you are sick;
and if you have bad weather and a rough sea, that will be pretty nearly
all the way. I couldn't advise you, though ever so well, to eat the
regular four times per day; though my young friend who constantly took
_five_ hearty meals seemed to thrive on that regimen. In the matter of
drink, if you can stick to water, do so; I could not, nor could I find
any palatable substitute. Try Congress Water, Seidlitz, any thing to
keep clear of Wines and Spirits. If there were some portable, healthful
and palatable acid beverage devoid of Alcohol, it would be a blessed
thing at sea.
VI. Finally, rise early if you can; be cheerful, obliging, and
determined to see the sunny side of everything whereof a sunny side can
be discovered or imagined; and bear ever in mind that each day is
wearing off a good portion of the distance which withholds you from your
destination. The best point of a voyage by steam is its brevity;
wherefore, I pray you, Mr. Darius Davidson, to hurry up that new steamer
or screamer that is to cross the Atlantic in a week. I shall want to be
getting home next August or September.
VII. Don't bother yourself to procure British money at any such rate as
$4.90 for sovereigns, which was ruling when I came away. Bring American
coin rather than pay over $4.86. You can easily obtain British gold here
in exchange for American, and I have heard of no higher rate than $4.87.
VIII. Whatever may be wise at other seasons, never think of stopping at
a London hotel this summer unless you happen to own the Bank of England.
If you know any one here who takes boarders or lets rooms at reasonable
rates, go directly to him; if not, drive at once to the house of Mr.
John Chapman, American Bookseller, 142 Strand, and he will either find
you rooms or direct you to some one else who will.
IX. If the day of your embarkation be fair, take a long, earnest gaze at
the sun, so that you will know him again when you return. They have
something they call the sun over here which they show occasionally, but
it looks more like a boiled turnip than it does like its American
namesake. Yet they cheer us with the assurance that there _will be_ real
sunshine here by-and-by. So mote it be!
V.
THE FUTURE OF LABOR--DAY-BREAK.
LONDON, Friday, May 9, 1851.
I have spent the forenoon of to-day in examining a portion of the Model
Lodging-Houses, Bathing and Washing establishments and Cooperative Labor
Associations already in operation in this Great Metropolis. My companions
were Mr. Vansittart Neale, a gentleman who has usefully devoted much time
and effort to the Elevation of Labor, and M. Cordonnaye, the actuary or
chosen director of an Association of Cabinet-Makers in Paris, who are
exhibitors of their own products in the Great Exposition, which explains
their chief's presence in London. We were in no case expected, and enjoyed
the fairest opportunity to see everything as it really is. The beds were
in some of the lodging-houses unmade, but we were everywhere cheerfully
and promptly shown through the rooms, and our inquiries frankly and
clearly responded to. I propose to give a brief and candid account of
what we saw and heard.
Our first visit was paid to the original or primitive Model
Lodging-House, situated in Charles-st. in the heart of St. Giles's. The
neighborhood is not inviting, but has been worse than it is; the
building (having been fitted up when no man with a dollar to spare had
any faith in the project) is an old-fashioned dwelling-house, not very
considerably modified. This attempt to put the new wine into old bottles
has had the usual result. True, the sleeping-rooms are somewhat
ventilated, but not sufficiently so; the beds are quite too abundant,
and no screen divides those in the same room from each other. Yet these
lodgings are a decided improvement on those provided for the same class
for the same price in private lodging-houses. The charge is 4_d._ (eight
cents) per night, and I believe 2_s._ (50 cents) per week, for which is
given water, towels, room and fire for washing and cooking, and a small
cupboard or safe wherein to keep provisions. Eighty-two beds are made up
in this house, and the keeper assured us that she seldom had a spare one
through the night. I could not in conscience praise her beds for
cleanliness, but it is now near the close of the week and her lodgers do
not come to her out of band-boxes.--Only men are lodged here. The
concern pays handsomely.
We next visited a Working Association of Piano Forte Makers, not far
from Drury Lane. These men were not long since working for an employer
on the old plan, when he failed, threw them all out of employment, and
deprived a portion of them of the savings of past years of frugal
industry, which they had permitted to lie in his hands. Thus left
destitute, they formed a Working Association, designated their own
chiefs, settled their rules of partnership; and here stepped in several
able "Promoters" of the cause of Industrial Organization of Labor, and
lent them at five per cent. the amount of capital required to buy out
the old concern--viz: $3,500. They have since (about six weeks) been
hard at work, having an arrangement for the sale at a low rate of all
the Pianos they can make. The associates are fifteen in number, all
working "by the piece," except the foreman and business man, who receive
$12 each per week; the others earn from $8 to $11 each weekly. I see
nothing likely to defeat and destroy this enterprise, unless it should
lose the market for its products.
We went thence to a second Model Lodging House, situated near Tottenham
Court Road. This was founded subsequently to that already described, its
building was constructed expressly for it, and each lodger has a
separate apartment, though its division walls do not reach the ceiling
overhead. Half the lodgers have each a separate window, which they can
open and close at pleasure, in addition to the general provision for
ventilation. In addition to the wash-room, kitchen, dining-tables, &c.,
provided in the older concern, there is a small but good library, a
large conversation room, and warm baths on demand for a penny each. The
charge is _2s. 4d._ (58 cents) per week; the number of beds is 104, and
they are always full, with numerous applications ahead at all times for
the first vacant bed. Not a single case of Cholera occurred here in
1849, though dead bodies were taken out of the neighboring alley
(Church-lane) six or eight in a day. So much for the blasphemy of
terming the Cholera, with like scourges, the work of an "inscrutable
Providence." The like exemption from Cholera was enjoyed by the two or
three other Model Lodging-Houses then in London. Their comparative
cleanliness, and the coolness in summer caused by the great thickness of
their walls, conduce greatly to this freedom from contagion.
The third and last of the Model Lodging-Houses we visited was even more
interesting, in that it was designed and constructed expressly to be
occupied by Families, of which it accommodates forty-eight, and has
never a vacant room. The building is of course a large one, very
substantially constructed on three sides of an open court paved with
asphaltum and used for drying clothes and as a children's play-ground.
All the suits of apartments on each floor are connected by a corridor
running around the inside (or back) of the building, and the several
suits consist of two rooms or three with entry, closets, &c., according
to the needs of the applicant. That which we more particularly examined
consisted of three apartments (two of them bed-rooms) with the
appendages already indicated. Here lived a workman with his wife and six
young children from two to twelve years of age. Their rent is 6s. ($1.50
per week, or $78 per annum); and I am confident that equal
accommodations in the old way cannot be obtained in an equally central
and commodious portion of London or New York for double the money. Suits
of two rooms only, for smaller families, cost but $1 to $1.25 per week,
according to size and eligibility. The concern is provided with a
Bath-Room, Wash-Room, Oven, &c., for the use of which no extra charge is
made. The building is very substantial and well constructed, is
fire-proof, and cost about $40,000. The ground for it was leased of the
Duke of Bedford for 99 years at $250 per annum. The money to construct
it was mostly raised by subscription--the Queen leading off with $1,500;
which the Queen Dowager and two Royal Duchesses doubled; then came
sundry Dukes, Earls, and other notables with $500 each, followed by a
long list of smaller and smaller subscriptions. But this money was given
to the "Society for Bettering the Condition of the Laboring Classes," to
enable them to try an experiment; and that experiment has triumphantly
succeeded. All those I have described, as well as one for single women
only near Hatton Garden, and one for families and for aged women near
Bagnigge Wells, which I have not yet found time to visit, are constantly
and thoroughly filled, and hundreds are eager for admittance who cannot
be accommodated; the inmates are comparatively cleanly, healthy and
comfortable; and _the plan pays_. This is the great point. It is very
easy to build edifices by subscription in which as many as they will
accommodate may have very satisfactory lodgings; but even in England,
where Public Charity is most munificent, it is impossible to build such
dwellings for _all_ from the contributions of Philanthropy; and to
provide for a hundredth part, while the residue are left as they were,
is of very dubious utility. The comfort of the few will increase the
discontent and wretchedness of the many. But only demonstrate that
building capacious, commodious and every way eligible dwellings for the
Poor is a safe and fair investment, and that their rents may be
essentially reduced thereby while their comfort is promoted, and a very
great step has been made in the world's progress--one which will not be
receded from.
I saw in the house last described a newly invented Brick (new at least
to me) which struck me favorably. It is so molded as to be hollow in the
centre, whereby the transmission of moisture through a wall composed of
this brick is prevented, and the dampness often complained of in brick
houses precluded. The brick is larger than those usually made, and one
side is wedge-shaped.
We went from the house above described to the first constructed Bathing
and Washing establishment, George-st. Euston-square. In the Washing
department there are tubs, &c., for one hundred and twenty washers, and
they are never out of use while the concern is open--that is from 9
A. M. to 7 P. M. There is in a separate Drying Room an apparatus for
freeing the washed clothes from water (instead of Wringing) by whirling
them very rapidly in a machine, whereby the water is thrown out of them
by centrifugal force or attraction. Thence the clothes, somewhat damp, are
placed in hot-air closets and speedily dried; after which they pass into
the Ironing-room and are finished. The charge here is 4 cents for two
hours in the Washing-room and 2 cents for two hours in the Ironing-room,
which is calculated to be time enough for doing the washing of an average
family. Everything but soap is supplied. The building is not capacious
enough for the number seeking to use it, and is to be speedily enlarged.
I believe that the charges are too small, as I understand that the concern
merely supports itself without paying any interest on the capital which
created it.
The Female part of the Bathing establishment is in this part of the
building, but that for men is entered from another street. Each has Hot
and Vapor Baths of the first class for 12 cents; second class of these
or first-class cold baths for 8 cents; and so down to cold water baths
for 2 cents or hot ditto for 4 cents each. I think these,
notwithstanding their cheapness, are not very extensively--at least not
regularly--patronized. The first class are well fitted up and contain
everything that need be desired; the others are more naked, but well
worth their cost. Cold and tepid Plunge Baths are proffered at 6 and 12
cents respectively.
I must break off here abruptly, for the mail threatens to close.
VI.
BRITISH PROGRESS.
LONDON, Thursday, May 15, 1851.
Apart from the Great Exhibition, this is a season of intellectual
activity in London. Parliament is (languidly) in session; the
Aristocracy are in town; the Queen is lavishly dispensing the
magnificent hospitalities of Royalty to those of the privileged caste
who are invited to share them; and the several Religious and
Philanthropic Societies, whether of the City or the Kingdom, are
generally holding their Anniversaries, keeping Exeter Hall in blast
almost night and day. I propose to give a first hasty glance at
intellectual and general progress in Great Britain, leaving the subject
to be more fully and thoroughly treated after I shall have made myself
more conversant with the facts in the case.
A spirit of active and generous philanthropy is widely prevalent in this
country. While the British pay more in taxes for the support of Priests
and Paupers than any other people on earth, they at the same time give
more for Religious and Philanthropic purposes. Their munificence is not
always well guided; but on the whole very much is accomplished by it in
the way of diffusing Christianity and diminishing Human Misery. But I
will speak more specifically.
The _Religious Anniversaries_ have mainly been held, but few or none of
them are reported--indeed, they are scarcely alluded to--in the Daily
press, whose vaunted superiority over American journals in the matter
of Reporting amounts practically to this--that the debates in Parliament
are here reported _verbatim_, and again presented in a condensed form
under the Editorial head of each paper, while scarcely anything else
(beside Court doings) is reported at all. I am sure this is consistent
neither with reason nor with the public taste--that if the Parliamentary
debates were condensed one-half, and the space so saved devoted to
reports of the most interesting Public Meetings, Lectures, &c., after
the New-York fashion, the popular interest in the daily papers would
become wider and deeper, and their usefulness as aids to General
Education would be largely increased. To a great majority of the reading
class, even here, political discussions--and especially of questions so
trite and so unimportant as those which mainly engross the attention of
Parliament--are of quite subordinate interest; and I think less than one
reader in four ever peruses any more of these debates than is given in
the Editorial synopsis, leaving the _verbatim_ report a sheer waste of
costly print and paper.--I believe, however, that in the aggregate, the
collections of the last year for Religious purposes have just about
equaled the average of the preceding two or three years; some Societies
having received less, others more. I think the public interest in
comprehensive Religious and Philanthropic efforts does not diminish.
For _Popular Education_, there is much doing in this Country, but in a
disjointed, expensive, inefficient manner. Instead of one all-pervading,
straight-forward, State-directed system, there are three or four in
operation, necessarily conflicting with and damaging each other. And yet
a vast majority really desire the Education of All, and are willing to
pay for it. John Bull is good at paying taxes, wherein he has had large
experience; and if he grumbles a little now and then at their amount as
oppressive, it is only because he takes pleasure in grumbling, and this
seems to afford him a good excuse for it. He would not be deprived of
it if he could: witness the discussions of the Income Tax, which every
body denounces while no one justifies it abstractly; and yet it is
always upheld, and I presume always will be. If the question could now
be put to a direct vote, even of the tax-payers alone--"Shall or shall
not a system of Common School Education for the United Kingdoms be
maintained by a National Tax?"--I believe Free Schools would be
triumphant. Even if such a system were matured, put in operation, and to
be sustained by Voluntary Contributions alone or left to perish, I
should not despair of the result.
But there is a lion in the path, in the shape of the Priesthood of the
Established Church, who insist that the children shall be indoctrinated
in the dogmas of their creed, or there shall be no State system of
Common Schools; and, behind these, stand the Roman Catholic Clergy, who
virtually make a similar demand with regard to the children of
Catholics. The unreasonableness, as well as the ruinous effects of these
demands, is already palpable on our side of the Atlantic. If, when our
City was meditating the Croton Water Works, the Episcopal and Catholic
Priesthood had each insisted that those works should be consecrated by
their own Hierarchy and by none other, or, in default of this, we should
have no water-works at all, the case would be substantially parallel to
this. Or if there were in some city a hundred children, whose parents
were of diverse creeds, all blind with cataract, whom it was practicable
to cure altogether, but not separately, and these rival Priesthoods were
respectively to insist--"They shall be taught our Creed and Catechism,
and no other, while the operation is going on, or there shall be no
operation and no cure," that case would not be materially diverse from
this. In vain does the advocate of Light say to them, "Pray, let us give
the children the inestimable blessing of sight, and then _you_ may teach
your creed and catechism to all whom you can persuade to learn them,"
they will have the closed eyes opened according to Loyola or to Laud, or
not opened at all! Do they not provoke us to say that their insisting on
an impossible, a suicidal condition, is but a cloak, a blind, a fetch,
and that their real object is to keep the multitude in darkness? I am
thankful that we have few clergymen in America who manifest a spirit
akin to that which to this day deprives half the children of these
Kingdoms of any considerable school education whatever.