October 14th.---In the morning of Tuesday, after breakfast in the
coffee-room, J----- and I walked about to see the remarkables of
Worcester. It is not a particularly interesting city, compared with
other old English cities; the general material of the houses being red
brick, and almost all modernized externally, whatever may be the age of
their original framework. We saw a large brick jail in castellated
style, with battlements,--a very barren and dreary-looking edifice;
likewise, in the more central part of the town, a Guildhall with a
handsome front, ornamented with a statue of Queen Anne above the
entrance, and statues of Charles I. and Charles II. on either side of the
door, with the motto, "Floreat semper civitas fidelis." Worcester seems
to pride itself upon its loyalty. We entered the building, and in the
large interior hall saw some old armor hanging on the wall at one end,--
corselets, helmets, greaves, and a pair of breeches of chain mail. An
inscription told us that these suits of armor had been left by Charles I.
after the battle of Worcester, and presented to the city at a much later
date by a gentleman of the neighborhood. On the stone floor of the hall,
under the armor, were two brass cannon, one of which had been taken from
the French in a naval battle within the present century; the other was a
beautiful piece, bearing, I think, the date of 1632, and manufactured in
Brussels for the Count de Burgh, as a Latin inscription testified. This
likewise was a relic of the battle of Worcester, where it had been lost
by Charles. Many gentlemen--connected with the city government, I
suppose--were passing through the hall; and, looking through its interior
doors, we saw stately staircases and council-rooms panelled with oak or
other dark wood. There seems to be a good deal of state in the
government of these old towns.
Worcester Cathedral would have impressed me much had I seen it earlier;
though its aspect is less venerable than that of Chester or Lichfield,
having been faithfully renewed and repaired, and stone-cutters and masons
were even now at work on the exterior. At our first visit, we found no
entrance; but coming again at ten o'clock, when the service was to begin,
we found the door open, and the chorister-boys, in their white robes,
standing in the nave and aisles, with elder people in the same garb, and
a few black-robed ecclesiastics and an old verger. The interior of the
cathedral has been covered with a light-colored paint at some recent
period. There is, as I remember, very little stained glass to enrich and
bedim the light; and the effect produced is a naked, daylight aspect,
unlike what I have seen in any other Gothic cathedral. The plan of the
edifice, too, is simple; a nave and side aisles, with great clustered
pillars, from which spring the intersecting arches; and, somehow or
other, the venerable mystery which I have found in Westminster Abbey and
elsewhere does not lurk in these arches and behind these pillars. The
choir, no doubt, is richer and more beautiful; but we did not enter it.
I remember two tombs, with recumbent figures on there, between the
pillars that divide the nave from the side aisles, and there were also
mural monuments,--one, well executed, to an officer slain in the
Peninsular war, representing him falling from his horse; another by a
young widow to her husband, with an inscription of passionate grief, and
a record of her purpose finally to sleep beside him. He died in 1803. I
did not see on the monument any record of the consummation of her
purpose; and so perhaps she sleeps beside a second husband. There are
more antique memorials than these two on the wall, and I should have been
interested to examine them; but the service was now about to begin in the
choir, and at the far-off end of the nave the old verger waved his hand
to banish us from the cathedral. At the same time he moved towards us,
probably to say that he would show it to us after service; but having
little time, and being so moderately impressed with what I had already
seen, I took my departure, and so disappointed the old man of his
expected shilling or half-crown. The tomb of King John is somewhere in
this cathedral.
We renewed our rambles through the town, and, passing the Museum of the
Worcester Natural History Society, I yielded to J-----'s wish to go in.
There are three days in the week, I believe, on which it is open to the
public; but this being one of the close days, we were admitted on payment
of a shilling. It seemed a very good and well-arranged collection in
most departments of Natural History, and J-----, who takes more interest
in these matters than I do, was much delighted. We were left to examine
the hall and galleries quite at our leisure. Besides the specimens of
beasts, birds, shells, fishes, minerals, fossils, insects, and all other
natural things before the flood and since, there was a stone bearing a
Roman inscription, and various antiquities, coins, and medals, and
likewise portraits, some of which were old and curious.
Leaving the museum, we walked down to the stone bridge over the Severn,
which is here the largest river I have seen in England, except, of
course, the Mersey and the Thames. A flight of steps leads from the
bridge down to a walk along the river-side, and this we followed till we
reached the spot where an angler was catching chubs and dace, under the
walls of the bishop's palace, which here faces the river. It seems to be
an old building, but with modern repairs and improvements. The angler
had pretty good success while we were looking at him, drawing out two or
three silvery fish, and depositing them in his basket, which was already
more than half full. The Severn is not a transparent stream, and looks
sluggish, but has really movement enough to carry the angler's float
along pretty fast. There were two vessels of considerable size (that is,
as large as small schooners) lying at the bridge. We now passed under an
old stone archway, through a lane that led us from the river-side up past
the cathedral, whence a gentleman and lady were just emerging, and the
verger was closing the door behind them.
We returned to our hotel, and ordered luncheon,--some cold chicken, cold
ham, and ale, and after paying the bill (about fifteen shillings, to
which I added five shillings for attendance) we took our departure in a
fly for the railway. The waiter (a young woman), chambermaid, and boots,
all favored us with the most benign and deferential looks at parting,
whence it was easy to see that I had given them more than they had any
claim to receive. Nevertheless, this English system of fees has its good
side, and I never travel without finding the advantage of it, especially
on railways, where the officials are strictly forbidden to take fees, and
where, in consequence, a fee secures twice as much good service as
anywhere else. Be it recorded, that I never knew an Englishman to refuse
a shilling,--or, for that matter, a halfpenny.
From Worcester we took tickets to Wolverhampton, and thence to
Birkenhead. It grew dark before we reached Chester, and began to rain;
and when we got to Birkenhead it was a pitiless, pelting storm, under
which, on the deck of the steamboat, we crossed the detestable Mersey,
two years' trial of which has made me detest it every day more and more.
It being the night of rejoicing for the taking of Sebastopol and the
visit of the Duke of Cambridge, we found it very difficult to get a cab
on the Liverpool side; but after much waiting in the rain, and afterwards
in one of the refreshment-rooms, on the landing stage, we took a Hansom
and drove off. The cloudy sky reflected the illuminations, and we saw
some gas-lighted stars and other devices, as we passed, very pretty, but
much marred by the wind and rain. So we finally arrived at Mrs.
Blodgett's, and made a good supper of ham and cold chicken, like our
luncheon, after which, wet as we were, and drizzling as the weather was,
and though it was two hours beyond his bedtime, I took J----- out to see
the illuminations. I wonder what his mother would have said. But the
boy must now begin to see life and to feel it.
There was a crowd of people in the street; such a crowd that we could
hardly make a passage through them, and so many cabs and omnibuses that
it was difficult to cross the ways. Some of the illuminations were very
brilliant; but there was a woful lack of variety and invention in the
devices. The star of the garter, which kept flashing out from the
continual extinguishment of the wind and rain,--V and A, in capital
letters of light,--were repeated a hundred times; as were loyal and
patriotic mottoes,--crowns formed by colored lamps. In some instances a
sensible tradesman had illuminated his own sign, thereby at once
advertising his loyalty and his business. Innumerable flags were
suspended before the houses and across the streets, and the crowd plodded
on, silent, heavy, and without any demonstration of joy, unless by the
discharge of pistols close at one's ear. The rain, to be sure, was quite
sufficient to damp any joyous ebullition of feeling; but the next day,
when the rain had ceased, and when the streets were still thronged with
people, there was the same heavy, purposeless strolling from place to
place, with no more alacrity of spirit than while it rained. The English
do not know how to rejoice; and, in their present circumstances, to say
the truth, have not much to rejoice for. We soon came home; but I
believe it was nearly, if not quite, eleven.
At Mrs. Blodgett's, Mr. Archer (surgeon to some prison or house of
correction here in Liverpool) spoke of an attorney who many years ago
committed forgery, and, being apprehended, took a dose of prussic acid.
Mr. Archer came with the stomach-pump, and asked the patient how much
prussic acid he had taken. "Sir," he replied, attorney-like, "I decline
answering that question!" He recovered, and afterwards arrived at great
wealth in New South Wales.
November 14th.--At dinner at Mr. Bright's, a week or two ago, Mr.
Robertson Gladstone spoke of a magistrate of Liverpool, many years since,
Sir John ------. Of a morning, sitting on the bench in the police court,
he would take five shillings out of his pocket and say, "Here, Mr. Clerk,
so much for my fine. I was drunk last night!" Mr. Gladstone witnessed
this personally.
November 16th.--I went to the North Hospital yesterday, to take the
deposition of a dying man as to his ill treatment by the second and third
mates of the ship Assyria, on the voyage from New Orleans. This hospital
is a very gloomy place, with its wide bleak entries and staircases, which
may be very good for summer weather, but which are most congenial at this
bleak November season. I found the physicians of the house laughing and
talking very cheerfully with Mr. Wilding, who had preceded me. We went
forthwith, up two or three pairs of stairs, to the ward where the sick
man lay, and where there were six or eight other beds, in almost each of
which was a patient,--narrow beds, shabbily furnished. The man whom I
came to see was the only one who was not perfectly quiet; neither was he
very restless. The doctor, informing him of my presence, intimated that
his disease might be lethal, and that I was come to hear what he had to
say as to the causes of his death. Afterwards, a Testament was sought
for, in order to swear him, and I administered the oath, and made him
kiss the book. He then (in response to Mr. Wilding's questions) told how
he had been beaten and ill-treated, hanged and thwacked, from the moment
he came on board, to which usage he ascribed his death. Sometimes his
senses seemed to sink away, so that I almost thought him dead; but by and
by the questions would appear to reach him, and bring him back, and he
went on with his evidence, interspersing it, however, with dying groans,
and almost death rattles. In the midst of whatever he was saying, he
often recurred to a sum of four dollars and a half, which he said he had
put into the hands of the porter of the hospital, and which he wanted to
get back. Several times he expressed his wish to return to America (of
which he was not a native), and, on the whole, I do not think he had any
real sense of his precarious condition, notwithstanding that he assented
to the doctor's hint to that effect. He sank away so much at one time,
that they brought him wine in a tin cup, with a spout to drink out of,
and he mustered strength to raise himself in his bed and drink; then
hemmed, with rather a disappointed air, as if it did not stimulate and
refresh him, as drink ought to do. When he had finished his evidence
(which Mr. Wilding took down in writing from his mouth), he marked his
cross at the foot of the paper, and we ceased to torment him with further
question. His deposition will probably do no good, so far as the
punishment of the persons implicated is concerned; for he appears to have
come on board in a sickly state, and never to have been well during the
passage. On a pallet, close by his bed, lay another seaman of the same
ship, who had likewise been abused by the same men, and bore more
ostensible marks of ill usage than this man did, about the head and face.
There is a most dreadful state of things aboard our ships. Hell itself
can be no worse than some of them, and I do pray that some New-Englander
with the rage of reform in him may turn his thoughts this way. The
first step towards better things--the best practicable step for the
present--is to legalize flogging on shipboard; thereby doing away with
the miscellaneous assaults and batteries, kickings, fisticuffings,
ropes'-endings, marline-spikings, which the inferior officers continually
perpetrate, as the only mode of keeping up anything like discipline. As
in many other instances, philanthropy has overshot itself by the
prohibition of flogging, causing the captain to avoid the responsibility
of solemn punishment, and leave his mates to make devils of themselves,
by habitual and hardly avoidable ill treatment of the seamen.
After I left the dying sailor, his features seemed to contract and grow
sharp. Some young medical students stood about the bed, watching death
creep upon him, and anticipating, perhaps, that in a day or two they
would have the poor fellow's body on the dissecting-table. Dead
patients, I believe, undergo this fate, unless somebody chooses to pay
their funeral expenses; but the captain of the Assyria (who seems to be
respectable and kind-hearted, though master of a floating hell) tells me
that he means to bury the man at his own cost. This morning there is a
note from the surgeon of the hospital, announcing his death, and likewise
the dangerous state of his shipmate whom I saw on the pallet beside him.