Of new dollars from the mint.
Their industry was pursued cautiously, as the fine old captain is known
to hold strong views about gambling, and there was less on this ship
than any other I have crossed on. No baccarat-table going all day, with
excited youngsters punting their silver (gold, too, now and then) over
the shoulders of the players,--only a quiet hand at euchre or poker at
a corner table, in the afternoon and after dinner; but even with
such straitened opportunities, youngsters may be plucked to a fairly
satisfactory figure. From £10 to £20 was often at stake on one deal at
poker, and, I was told, not seldom much higher sums. I saw myself one
mere boy inveigled into blind-hookey for a minute or two while the poker
party was gathering. He won the first cut; and two minutes later I
saw “Iscariot Ingots, Esq., that highly respectable man,” looking
abstractedly across the room, and dreamily gathering up a large handful
of silver which the boy rattled down as he flung off to take his seat at
the poker-table; and so on, and so on.
It occurs to one to ask, not without some indignation, why this sort of
thing is allowed on these Atlantic steamers. My own observation confirms
the general belief that professionals cross on nearly every boat; and,
on every boat, there are youngsters fresh from school or college, out of
leading-strings for the first time, and with considerable sums in their
pockets. It is a bad scandal, and might be stopped with the greatest
ease. Prohibit all cards, except whist for small points in the
smoking-room; and let it be the purser’s or some other officer’s duty
to see the rule enforced. As things stand, I do not know of a more
dangerous place for youngsters--American or English--than an Atlantic
steamer.
One never gets past Sandy Hook, I think, without some new sensation.
This time, for me, it was the harbour buoys, each of which carried a
brilliant electric lamp. They are lighted from the shore!
Notes from the West, Cincinnati, 24th September 1886.
I never come to this country without stumbling over some startling
differences between our kin here and ourselves, which it puzzles me to
account for. Take this last. Some days ago, I met a young Englishman
from a Western ranche. He had run down some six hundred miles, from
Kansas City, into which he had brought a “bunch” of steers from the
ranche. As he would not be wanted again for a fortnight, he had taken
the opportunity of looking in on his friends down South. In our talk the
question of railway fares turned up. “Oh, yes,” he said, “the fare is
$25; but I only paid $16.”
“How is that?”
“Why, I just went to the ‘ticket-scalpers’,’ right opposite the railway
dépôt--here is their card (handing it to me); and, you see, my ticket is
to Chatanooga; so I might go on for another hundred and fifty miles if I
wanted to.” There was the business card, “Moss Brothers, ticket-brokers,
opposite central dépôt, Kansas City, members of the Ticket Brokers’
Union.” It went on to say that every attention is paid to travellers,
inquiries made, and information given, by these enterprising Hebrews;
and on the back, a list of the towns to which they could issue tickets,
including nearly every important centre in the Northern and Western
States. Since then I have made inquiries at several towns, and find that
the “scalper” is an institution in every one of them; and, apart from
the saving of money, is much in favour with the travelling public, on
account of his civility and intelligence. The ordinary railway clerk is
a remarkably short-tempered and ill-informed person, out of whom you can
with difficulty extract the most trifling piece of information, even as
to his own line; while the despised “scalper” across the road (generally
a Jew) will take any amount of trouble to find out how you can “make
connections,” while furnishing you with a ticket, which he guarantees,
at a third less, on the average, than his legitimate but morose rival
in “the dépôt.” But the strangest thing of all is, that even the railway
directors seem to think it all right; or, at any rate, that it is not
worth their while to try to stop this traffic. One friend, a first-rate
business man, actually said that he should have no scruple what, ever in
going to the “scalpers” when off his own system, over which, of course,
he is “dead-headed.” I heard several explanations of the phenomenon, the
only plausible one being that it is impossible to control the enormous
issues of cheap excursion tickets which are made by all the main lines.
But surely, then, the question occurs, “Why impossible!” At any rate,
the average Briton is inclined to think that if such establishments
appeared opposite the Euston Square or Waterloo termini, they would
soon hear something from Mr. Moon and Mr. Ralph Dutton not to their
advantage.
I gleaned other items of information from my young friend from Kansas
which may be useful to some of your readers, now that there is scarcely
a family in England (so it seems to me, at least) which is not sending
out one or more of its younger members to try their fortunes in the
Far West. This, for instance, seems worth bearing in mind: When a young
fellow comes out from home, he shouldn’t go and hire himself out at once
to a farmer. If he does, he’ll find they’ll make the winter jobs for
an Englishman pretty tough. He’ll get all the hardest work laid out for
him, and mighty poor pay at the end. Let him go and board with a farmer.
Any one will be glad to take him for a few dollars. Then he can learn
all he wants, and they’ll be glad of his help, because they’ll see it’s
a picnic. If you like it, you can buy and settle down. If not, you can
just pull out, and go on somewhere else.
The administration of justice on the plains is still in a primitive
condition. The difficulty of getting a jury of farmers together makes
a gaol delivery a troublesome matter. Another youngster from Dakota
illustrated this from his section. There was a turbulent member of the
community who, after committing other minor offences, at last got lodged
in the shanty which does office for a gaol, on the serious charge of
a murderous attack on a girl who refused any longer to receive his
attentions, and on her father when he came to the rescue. He had lain
in gaol for some weeks, waiting for a judge and jury, when 4th July came
round. The Sheriff-Constable, with all the rest of the neighbours, was
bound for the nearest railway-station, some ten miles off, where the
anniversary of “the glorious Fourth” was to be commemorated, with
trotting marches and other diversions. He had one other prisoner in
charge, and so, after weighing the matter well, and taking the length
of their incarceration into account, came to the ingenious conclusion to
let them out for the day, each going bail for the return of the other on
the following day. On the morrow, however, it was found that the chief
culprit had not turned up, and the fathers of the little community
gathered in indignant council to consider what was to be done. After
some debate the Sheriff-Constable gave it as his opinion that, on the
whole, Dogberry’s advice was sound, and they should let him go, and
thank God they were rid of a knave, “the country having spent too much
already over the darned cuss.” To this the _patres conscripti_
agreed, and went home to their farms. Even stranger is another
well-authenticated story from one of the most active and important of
the new cities in the North-West. Amongst the first settlers there was
one who had dabbled in real estate, and grown with the growth of the
city, until he had become “one of our principal citizens.” No one seemed
to know whether he was a lawyer by profession, and he never conducted a
case in Court. But one thing was quite clear, that he was intimate with
all the judges, had the _entrée_ to their private rooms, and, especially
in the case of the Judges of the Supreme Court, scarcely ever failed to
avail himself of this privilege when the Courts were sitting. He had a
capital cook and good horses, which were always freely at the service
of the representatives of justice. Gradually it began to be quietly
understood, no one quite knew how, amongst suitors, that it was
possible, and very desirable, to interest the gentleman in question in
their cases. He was ready, it would seem, to accept a retaining-fee.
His charge was fixed at a very moderate percentage on the value of the
property in dispute, which nobody need pay unless they thought it worth
while. Moreover, the system was one of “No cure, no pay.” He gave every
one an acknowledgment in writing of the amount paid in their respective
cases, with an undertaking to return the full sum in the event of their
proving unsuccessful. It therefore naturally appeared to the average
Western suitor about as profitable an investment as he could make.
Strange to say, this queer practice seems to have gone on for years, and
no shadow of suspicion ever fell on this “principal citizen,” whatever
might have been the case as to his friends the judges. The strong
individuality and secretiveness which marks the Western character may
probably account for the fact that during his life no one would seem to
have taken any public notice of this peculiar industry. If a suitor was
successful, he was content; if not, he got back his money, and it was
nobody’s affair but his own. Well, the good man died, and was buried,
and his executors, in administering his estate, were astonished to
find bundles of receipts from suitors of all classes and degrees,
acknowledging the repayment to them of sums varying in amount from $5
and upwards “in the case of Brown v. Jones,” “in the matter of United
States v. Robinson,” “_ex parte_ White,” etc. This led to further
inquiry, and the facts came ~ gradually to light. The sagacious testator
had, in fact, taken his percentage _from both sides_ in almost every
case of any importance which had been heard in the Courts for years. He
had never mentioned suit or suitor to any of the judges, his visits to
them being simply for the purpose of asking them to dinner, offering
them a drive, or a bed if they were on circuit away from home, or
interchanging gossip as to stocks, railways, or public affairs. And so
for years five honest men had been presiding in the different Courts,
entirely innocent of the fact that almost every suitor was looking upon
each of them as a person who had received valuable consideration for
deciding in his favour. I own that my experience, though, of course,
narrow, is decidedly favourable as to the ability and uprightness of the
judges in out-of-the-way districts; so that nothing but what I could not
but regard as quite unimpeachable evidence would have satisfied me that
a whole-community of litigants should have gone on paying black-mail in
this egregiously stupid manner.
I was considerably astonished, and a little troubled, to find so many
of my friends among Northern Republicans--men who had gone through and
borne the burden of the War of Secession--not, indeed, sympathising with
the Irish, whom they dislike and distrust more than we do, but saying:
“Oh, you had better let them have their own way. Look at our experience
of twenty years after the war. Until we let the Southern States
have their own way, and withdrew the troops, and threw over the
carpetbaggers, we had no peace; and now they are just as quiet as
New England.” To which, of course, I made the obvious reply: “Let
the seceding States have their own way, did you? Why, I had always
understood that they went out because you elected a free-soil President,
pledged to oppose any further extension of their peculiar institution,
and that at the end of the war that institution had not only been
confined within its old limits, but had absolutely disappeared. The
parallel would have held if you had said to Mr. Jefferson Davis and his
backers in the spring of 1861, ‘Do what you please as to your negroes;
take them where you will; it is a purely domestic matter for you to
settle in your own way.’ Instead of this, you said, ‘You shall not take
your slaves where you please, and you shall not go out of the Union.’
In the same way, we have to say now to the Irish, ‘You shall not do what
you please with the owners of property in Ireland, and you shall not go
out of the Union.’”
You will be glad to hear that, wherever I went, there seemed to be
the expectation of a revival of trade in the near future. I can see no
ground myself for the expectation, so long as all industry remains
in its present competitive phase, and the power of production goes on
increasing instead of diminishing. Why should men not desire as eagerly
to take each other’s trade this next year as they did last year? But
the knowing people think otherwise, and I suppose that is good for
something.
Westward Ho! 2nd April 1887.
It must be nearly thirty years since I first wrote to you over
this signature, but never before except in long vacations, and from
outlandish parts. Why not keep to a good rule? you may ask, at this
crowded time of year. Well, the fact is I really want to say something
as to this “Westward Ho!” gadfly, which seems to have bitten young
England with a vengeance in these last months. I am startled, not to
say alarmed, at the number of letters I get from the parents and
guardians--generally professional men--of youngsters eagerly bent on
cattle-ranches, horse-ranches, orange-groves in Florida, vineyards,
peach and strawberry-raising, and I know not what other golden dreams of
wealth quickly acquired in the open air, generally with plenty of wild
sport thrown in. I suppose they write from some fancy that I know a good
deal about such matters. That is not so; but I do know a very little
about them, and may possibly do some good by publishing that little just
now in your columns.
First, then, as to cattle and horse-raising on ranches. This is
practically a closed business on any but a small scale, and as part of
farm work. All the best ranche-grounds are in the hands of large and
rich companies, or millionaires, with whom no newcomer can compete. It
will, no doubt, be a valuable experience for any young man to work for
a year or two on a big ranch as a cowboy; but he must be thoroughly able
to trust his temper, and to rough it in many ways, or he should not try
it. At the end, if prudent, he will only have been able to save a few
hundred dollars. But this is not the kind of thing, so far as I see,
that our youngsters at all expect or want. Orange-groves are excellent
and profitable things, no doubt, and there are parts in Florida and
elsewhere where there is still plenty of land fit for this purpose,
though the choice spots are probably occupied. But an orange-grove
will not give any return till the sixth year, cautious people say the
seventh.
Vineyards may, with good luck, be giving some return in the third or
fourth year; but the amount of hard work which must be put into the soil
in breaking up, clearing out stumps, and ploughing, even if there is
no timber to fell, is very serious; and the same may be said of
peach-orchards and early, fruit and vegetable-rearing. Moreover, the
choice places for such industry, such as Lookout Mountain, are for the
most part occupied. In a word, though it is quite possible to do well
in other industries, and in ordinary farming, nothing beyond a decent
living can be earned, without at any rate as free an expenditure of
brain and muscle as high farming requires at home. On the other hand,
sport, except for rich ranche-men who can command waggons, horses, and
men, and travel long distances for it, is not to be had generally, and
apt to disappoint where it can be had.
So much for the working side of the problem. The playing side--outside
whisky-shops, which I will assume the young Englishman means to
keep clear of--ought also to be looked fairly in the face before the
experiment is tried. Perhaps the most direct way to bring it home
to inquirers will be to quote from the letter of a young English
public-school boy who has lately finished his first year as a cowboy on
the cattle-ranche of one of the big companies:--
_Friday night_ we had quite a time. We went to an exhibition of the home
talent of----, and really of all shows this was the worst I ever saw.
One man, the town barber, and our greatest “society man,” played a
nigger, and played it so well that one could not help fancying he has at
one time been a “profesh.” The rest were so dull and such sticks that
it made him shine more than ever. After the home talent, there was a
“social hop,” at which Jerry and I shone as being the “bored young men.”
You can, of course, see why I was bored; and Jerry, he is from Ohio, and
of course------ cannot compete with Ohio. However, as Jerry was somewhat
of a great man, the quadrilles being all called by him--i.e. he stood
on the stage and shouted, “balance all,” “swing your partners,” “lady’s
chain,” at the right time--we had to stay, and more or less to dance.
Jerry took great pains to find me partners worthy of a man who had
danced in a dress-coat. He did not succeed but once, when he introduced
me to a very lively little school-lady, “marm,” I should say; the rest
were very wooden in movement and conversation. The school-marm amused me
very much. She had not long returned from the--------- University, where
all the young ladies, though they met the other sex at school, were not
allowed to speak to them at other times. The girls were allowed to give
dances, but she and three or four others thought that a “hen-pie” dance
was too much of a fraud, so they contrived a plan by which they could
get three or four dancing men in without going to the door. They
fastened a pulley on to the beam where the bell hung, and with the aid
of a clothes-basket and a rope they spoiled the “hen-pie” with two or
three young men. This plan worked well several times, till one night
three or four of them were exerting themselves to get a very heavy
boy up, when instead of a boy they perceived the bearded face of the
head-master. In horror they turned loose the rope and fled, leaving
him twelve feet from the ground, hanging on by his fingers to the
window-sill, from which, as no one would respond to his call for help,
he finally dropped. The young lady told it much better than I have.
Jerry was very popular as a “caller.” I noticed he understood his
audience well, and whenever they got a figure they didn’t know, he came
in with “grand chain,” which they all knew and performed very nicely; so
you would see a whole set lost in the intricate feat of “visiting” (say)
and all muddled up, when you would hear the grand voice of Jerry, “grand
chain,” and all the dancers would smile and go to it, and Jerry was
quite the boss. We however lost our reputation as good young men, as
towards midnight we were overcome with a great thirst; so wicked I, a
hardened sinner, persuaded the social barber to let me have half-a-pint
of whisky; and J------ and I were caught in the barber’s shop, eating
tinned oysters with our pocket-knives, and biscuits, and indulging
in whisky-and-water. We were caught by three young men who had “got
religion” last fall, and who were, of course, highly shocked; but I
think they would have overcome all their scruples but for the
stern mothers in the background, and they not only envied us our
whisky-and-water, but also our mothers. Half the fight in drinking, I
think, is to have been “raised” to look upon it as an every-day
luxury, and not as a thing to be had as a great treat on the sly. Well,
good-bye! I have written a lot of rubbish, but beyond that am fatter
than I have ever been in America.
This will probably give readers a pretty clear notion of the social
life available in the West. It is, as they will see at a glance, utterly
unlike anything they have been used to. If this kind of social life
(and there is something to be said for it) is what they want, in the
interludes of really hard manual labour and rough board and lodging, let
them start by all means, and they may do very well out West. Otherwise
they had better look the thing round twice or thrice before starting. In
any case, no young man ought to take more ready money with him than will
just keep him from starving for about a month.
If he cannot make his hands keep him by that time, he has no business,
and will do no good, in the West.
The Hermit, Rugby, Tennessee, 19th September 1887.
I have always had a strong curiosity about hermits--remember I paid
a shilling as a small boy, when I could ill afford it, to see one,
somewhere up by Hampstead, a cruel disappointment--used to make shy
approaches to lonely turnpike keepers before they were abolished, with
no success; finding them always, like Johnson’s “hoary sage,” inclined
to cut sentiment short with, “Come, my lad, and drink some beer,” I came
to the conclusion long since that the genuine hermit is as extinct as
the dodo in the British Isles. I was almost excited, therefore, the
other morning, to get a note on a dirty scrap of paper here, asking for
the loan of a book on geology, for, on inquiry, I found it came from
“the Hermit.” He had suddenly appeared to the man who drives the hack,
and sent it in by him. No one could tell me anything more except that
the writer was “the Hermit,” and lived, no one knew how, in a shanty
four miles away in the forest. I got the book out of the library,
“loaned” a pony, and in due course found myself outside a dilapidated
snake-fence, surrounding some three acres of half-cleared forest, and
the rudest kind of log-hut; evidently the place I was in search of, but
no hermit. While I was meditating my next move, a dismal howl, like,
I should think, the “lulilooing” of Central Africa, came from out the
neighbouring bush. I shouted myself, and in a few moments “the
Hermit” appeared, and certainly at first glance “filled the bill”
satisfactorily. His head was a tangled mass of long hair and beard, out
of which shone two big, blue eyes; a long, lean figure, slightly
bent, and clothed in a tattered shirt, and trousers which no old Jew
clothesman would have picked off a dunghill. I explained my errand and
produced the book.
He thanked me, excused his dress; had other clothes, he said, in
the house, which he would have put on had he expected me; was rather
excited, so I must excuse him, as his “buck” had gone right off, in
disgust, he believed, at the smallness of his flock, as he had only
eight ewes. “Buck” I found to be _Anglice_ “ram,” and that it was in the
hope of luring back the insufficiently married lord of his flock that
he had been howling when I came up. On my doubting whether such a call
would not be more likely to speed the flight of the truant “buck,” he
rushed awray in the other direction and uplifted it again; and in two
or three minutes the eight ewes, with several lambs, were all round him,
rubbing against his legs, while an Angora goat looked on with dignity
from some yards off. From our talk I found that he was a Shrewsbury man,
knew three or four languages, and mathematics up to the differential
calculus; found England “too noisy,” and, moreover, could get no land
there; had come out and gone to the agricultural class at Cornell
University; had now bought this bit of land, on which he could live
well, as he was a vegetarian (pointing round to some corn, turnips,
etc., in his enclosure); had indigestion at first, but now had found
out how to make bread which agreed with him. His trouble was the forest
hogs, which were always watching to get at his crops, and his fence,
having weak places, would not keep them out, so he had to be always on
the watch. If he had any one to keep out the hogs, he could go and find
his “buck,” he said, wistfully. The better man within me here was moved
to offer to keep watch and ward against hogs while he sought his “buck”;
but, on the whole, as the sun was already westering, and I had doubts
as to when he might think of relieving guard, my better man did not
prevail, and I changed the subject to the book I had brought. He glanced
at the title-page, was pleased to find that it was of recent date, as
his geology was rusty. Then, as he did not invite me into his log-hut,
I rode away. Next evening, as I was strolling down our street, my
attention was called to the noticeboard outside the chief store, kept by
an excellent, kindly New Englander, Tucker by name, who very liberally
allows any of his neighbours to use it. Here I found the following
notice from “the Hermit,” which had been sent up by the hackman, to be
posted. It opens, you will remark, in the true prophetic style. It ran:
“Ho! all ye passers by! Strayed--like a fool!--a Ram (a male sheep,)
butts like a nipper, and runs after! God will bless the seer if he
lets Isaac Williams, of Sedgemoor Road, know. That is all. Please, Mr.
Tucker, post this. Oh, I forgot,--Buy of Tucker!” I think you will agree
that I have struck a _bona fide_ hermit in my old age.
But to return to my loafing idyll. Perhaps, if I had to select out of
several the ideal loafing haunt in these parts, it would be the verandah
of our doctor, another bright New Englander, a graduate of Harvard, and
M.D., who, after fourteen years’ practice at Boston, was driven South
by threatenings of chest troubles, and happily pitched on this tableland
amongst the mountains. Not that he is a loaf-brother, except on rare
occasions; a man diligent in his business, and prompt to answer any
professional call; but as nobody seems ever to be ill, his leisure is
abundant. The greater part of this he spends in the study and practice
of grape-culture, in which he has, in the five years since he took
it up, earned a high reputation. But in these autumn months, all the
pruning, thinning, and tending are over in the forenoon, and in the
hours which follow, which are delightfully hot and enjoyable to all
sun-lovers, he is generally to be found in his verandah, well supplied
with rocking-chairs. In front of the verandah is his principal vineyard,
sloping south, and at the bottom of the slope, right away to the distant
mountain-range (with Pike’s Peak soaring to the clouds, the centre
of the military telegraph system in the war, from which messages were
flashed to Look-out Mountain, over Chattanooga, in the critical days
of battle, before Sherman started on his march to the sea), wave beyond
wave, as it were, of many-coloured forest, each taking fresh tints as
clouds flit over, and the triumphant old sun slopes to the West. There
one may find the doctor in his rocker, his feet higher than his head on
one of the verandah supports--and all who have learnt to appreciate the
rocking-chair will agree that “heels up” is half the battle--his tobacco
and a book on vines on a small table by his side, and over his head,
within easy reach, a rope depending from the verandah roof. At first I
took it for the common domestic bell-pull, but soon discovered its
more subtle bearing on the luxury of loafing. The doctor had been much
exercised by the visits of birds of outrageous appetite to his “Norton’s
Virginia,” and other precious vines. At first he had resorted to his
double-barrelled gun and small shot--indeed, it yet stood in a corner of
the balcony, loaded--but had soon abandoned it. Its use was compatible
neither with his love for birds nor the enjoyment of his rocking-chair.
So, by an ingenious arrangement, he had hung bells at five or six points
in the vineyard, connecting each and all with the depending-rope, so
that no sooner did a bird settle with a view to lunch or dinner, than it
was saluted by a peal from a bell close by, which sent it skirling back
to the forest, while the doctor had neither to lower his heels nor take
the pipe from his mouth.
Watching the entire discomfiture of the birds adds, I must own, a keener
zest even to the delicious view and air, and to the racy stories of
Western life poured out by one or another of the loaf-brethren. A
specimen or two may amuse your readers. Placard over the piano in a
favourite resort of Texan cowboys: “Don’t shoot the musician; he is
doing his best.” Cowboy entering the cars at midnight, thermometer below
zero, after snorting for a minute, lets down a window, is remonstrated
with, and replies, “Wal, I’d as soon sleep with my head in a dead
horse as in this car with the windows shut!” Another tale I repeat with
hesitation, though it was seriously vouched for by the narrator as going
on in his neighbourhood, and within his own cognisance. An eccentric
settler, who played the fiddle powerfully, and lived next a man who had
thrown a bridge over a creek, in respect of which the knotty question
of “right of way” had arisen between them, read, or discovered somehow,
that excessive vibration was the cause of the fall of bridges, and that
a well-known railway iron bridge had been distinctly felt to vibrate to
the notes of a fiddle, all that was necessary being to find the right
chord and play up. Thereupon he set himself on the peccant bridge,
and fiddled till he had hit on the sympathetic chord to his own
satisfaction; since which he has put in all his spare time at the
bridge, fiddling on the right chord and looking for the signs of a crash
and the discomfiture of his neighbour. A mad world, my masters! And
lucky for the world, say I. But for the cracked fellows going up and
down, what a dull place it would be!
The whole neighbourhood, or, at any rate, the men of hunting age,
have suddenly been roused into unwonted excitement and activity by the
presence of a specimen of the larger carnivora close to this town. It is
either a large panther or what they call a Mexican lion--at any rate, as
big a beast of this kind as are bred over here, as his footprint, seen
of many persons, clearly proves. He has been heard to roar by numbers,
and Giles, the saw-mill man, who, passing along wholly unarmed, saw him
gliding through the bush close by, puts him at five feet from nose to
tail (root, not tip) at least. Giles adds that, at the sight, his hair
stood up and distinctly lifted his straw hat--so perhaps his evidence
must be discounted considerably. Any way, a party, now collecting dogs
to bring him to bay, start to-morrow at dawn to give an account of
him. It is more than a year since one has ventured down this way. A
slaughter-house which has lately been set up in the woods near by would
seem to have drawn him. Let us hope that no cunning old sportsman will
watch there to-night and bag him single-handed, and I may possibly have
to tell you of a memorable hunt next week.
American Opinion on the Union, SS. Umbria, 5th October 1887.
That panther-hunt went off in a “fizzle.” Our contingent of determined
sportsmen kept tryst at daylight, fully armed, but some neighbours who
were to bring the proper dogs failed. The sun rose, broad and bright,
and so, after a short advance in skirmishing order over the ground
where the sawmill man had been so scared--just to save their credit
as Nimrods--the chase was abandoned; wisely, I should think, for I
can scarcely imagine a more hopeless undertaking than the pursuit of a
panther in a Tennessee forest in broad daylight without dogs. Whether
Sawyer Giles had grounds for his scare, and what was the length of
that panther, must now remain for all time in that useful category of
insoluble questions--like the identity of “Junius,” and Queen Mary’s
guilt--which innocently employ so much of the spare time of the human
race.
I have been back for the last fortnight “in amongst the crowd of men,”
and if the things they have done are but “earnest of the things that
they shall do,” well, our grandchildren will have a high old time of it!
At any rate, our cousins hold this faith vigorously. Take, for instance,
the case of a leading dry-goods man who has been sitting by me in the
smoking-room of this ship, which has been carrying us for the last four
days against a head-wind at the average rate of twenty miles an hour.
Recollect, sir, that this ship is about 400 feet in length, of 8800 tons
register, with engines of 14,000 horse-power, and must at this moment be
as heavy as (say) lour big luggage-trains. I ventured to suggest that,
whatever may be in store for us in the way of flying, science has about
said her last word in the direction of driving steam or any other ships
on the Atlantic. I felt almost inclined to resent the pity tinged
with scorn with which he said, “Why, _sir!_ this is the hundred and
twenty-eighth time I have crossed this ocean. The first time it took me
twenty-two days. This vessel does it in six days and a half, and I shall
do it in half that time yet,--yes, _sir!_” My friend must be at least
sixty!
The New York hotels were crammed as I came through with men who had
come from all parts of the States for the yacht-race. I went out on a
friend’s steam-yacht on the Thursday, when the second day’s race should
have come off. There was fog and no wind off Sandy Hook, so after
lying-to in a lopping sea for a couple of hours, we just steamed
back, some hundred of us. But the game had been well worth the candle.
Anything so beautiful as the movements of those two yachts in and out
amongst the expectant fleet of sightseers, I never beheld. There were
several old yachtsmen (Americans) on board, who seemed rather to think
the _Thistle_ the more perfect of the two, and when the second and
deciding race had been sailed, still guessed that if their Commodore,
Pain, or Malcolm Forbes had sailed the _Thistle_, she would not have
been twelve, or any, minutes behind.
As to more serious matters, you may be sure I lost no chance of talking
on our crisis with every intelligent American or Canadian,--and I
happened upon a great number of the latter. Amongst the majority of
Americans I was much struck, and, I own, surprised, to find a sort of
lazy fatalism prevailing, so far as they troubled their heads at all
about the Irish question. Not a man of them believed in the tyranny of
the British Government or the wrongs of the Irish; but they seemed to
think it was somehow destiny. They knew the Irish--were likely to have
at least as bad a time with them as we are having--but, unless you made
up your minds to shoot, there was no putting them down or bringing them
to reason. They had had to shoot--in New York during the war, and at
other times--and might probably have to shoot again \ but then, that
was over vital matters. We should never make up our minds to shoot over
letting them have a Parliament at Dublin, and so they would get it by
sheer insolence and intrigue. Such views would have depressed me had
I not found, on the other hand, that the few men who had mastered
the situation, without a single exception saw that it was a matter,
nationally, of life or death, and hoped our Government would shrink
from no measure necessary to restore the rule of law, and preserve the
national life.
Amongst the Canadians, on the other hand, I did not happen upon a single
Home-ruler--in fact, was obliged to own to myself that they seemed
to set more store by the unity of the Empire than we do in the
as-yet-United Kingdom. Indeed, if my acquaintances are at all
representative of the views of our Canadian fellow-subjects, I feel
very sure that the slight bond which holds the Dominion to us would
part within a few months of the triumph of the Home-rule agitation.
This possible fiasco, however, did not seem to them much worth thinking
about; but what was really exercising them was the probability of a
more intimate union or federation with the Mother-country. For defensive
purposes, I was glad to find that they saw no difficulty whatever;
believed, indeed, that that question was already solved. But all
felt that the really difficult problem was a commercial union, which,
nevertheless, must be managed somehow, if the Empire is to hold
together. On this there were wide differences of opinion, but, on the
whole, a decided inclination to a plan which I will endeavour to put in
a few words. It is, that every portion of the Empire shall be free, as
at present, to impose whatever tariff of customs it might think best
for raising its own revenue; but an agreed discount (say, ten per
cent) should be allowed on all goods the manufacture or product of the
Mother-country, or any of its possessions. Inasmuch, it was argued, as
such à plan would allow the free admission of all food and raw material,
it ought not to hurt the Free-trade susceptibilities of England, while
leaving the self-governing Colonies and India free to raise their own
revenue as might suit their own views or circumstances. On the other
hand, it would give an equal and moderate advantage to all subjects of
the Empire. A similar advantage might also, under this plan, be given to
importations made in ships belonging to any portion of the Empire.
You, sir, may very probably have heard of and considered this plan, as I
have been told that it, or one almost identical, has been submitted both
to the London Chamber of Commerce, and to the Colonial Office, by
Sir Alexander Galt. I do not remember, however, to have ever seen it
discussed in your columns, as I think it might be with advantage. One’s
brain possibly is not so fit for the examination of political problems
on even such a magnificent ship as the _Umbria_ as on shore; but “after
the best consideration I can give it,” it does seem to me to be a
solution which might go far to satisfy the scruples of all but fanatics
of the “buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market” gospel.
We have run 435 miles in the teeth of the wind, in the last twenty-four
hours.