The 4th of July, the sixty-first anniversary of American independence!
Pop--pop--bang--pop--pop--bang--bang bang! Mercy on us! how fortunate
it is that anniversaries come only once a year. Well, the Americans may
have great reason to be proud of this day, and of the deeds of their
forefathers, but why do they get so confoundedly drunk? why, on this day
of independence, should they become so _dependent_ upon posts and rails
for support? The day is at last over; my head aches, but there will be
many more aching heads tomorrow morning!
What a combination of vowels and consonants have been put together! what
strings of tropes, metaphors, and allegories, have been used on this
day! what varieties and gradations of eloquence! There are at least
fifty thousand cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, spread over the
surface of America--in each the Declaration of Independence has been
read; in all one, and in some two or three, orations have been
delivered, with as much gunpowder in them as in the squibs and crackers.
But let me describe what I actually saw.
The commemoration commenced, if the day did not, on the evening of the
3rd, by the municipal police going round and pasting up placards,
informing the citizens of New York, that all persons letting off
fireworks would be taken into custody, which notice was immediately
followed up by the little boys proving their independence of the
authorities, by letting off squibs, crackers, and bombs; and cannons,
made out of shin bones, which flew in the face of every passenger, in
the exact ratio that the little boys flew in the face of the
authorities. This continued the whole night, and thus was ushered in
the great and glorious day, illumined by a bright and glaring sun (as if
bespoken on purpose by the mayor and corporation), with the thermometer
at 90 degrees in the shade. The first sight which met the eye after
sunrise, was the precipitate escape, from a city visited with the plague
of gunpowder, of respectable or timorous people in coaches, carriages,
waggons, and every variety of vehicle. "My kingdom for a horse!" was
the general cry of all those who could not stand fire. In the mean
while, the whole atmosphere was filled with independence. Such was the
quantity of American flags which were hoisted on board of the vessels,
hung out of windows, or carried about by little boys, that you saw more
stars at noon-day than ever could be counted on the brightest night. On
each side of the whole length of Broadway, were ranged booths and
stands, similar to those at an English fair, and on which were displayed
small plates of oysters, with a fork stuck in the board opposite to each
plate; clams sweltering in the hot sun; pineapples, boiled hams, pies,
puddings, barley-sugar, and many other indescribables. But what was
most remarkable, Broadway being three miles long, and the booths lining
each side of it, in every booth there was a roast pig, large or small,
as the centre attraction. Six miles of roast pig! and that in New York
city alone; and roast pig in every other city, town, hamlet, and
village, in the Union. What association can there be between roast pig
and independence? Let it not be supposed that there was any deficiency
in the very necessary articles of potation on this auspicious day: no!
the booths were loaded with porter, ale, cyder, mead, brandy, wine,
ginger-beer, pop, soda-water, whiskey, rum, punch, gin slings,
cocktails, mint julips, besides many other compounds, to name which
nothing but the luxuriance of American-English could invent a word.
Certainly the preparations in the refreshment way were most imposing,
and gave you some idea of what had to be gone through on this auspicious
day. Martial music sounded from a dozen quarters at once; and as you
turned your head, you tacked to the first bars of a march from one band,
the concluding bars of Yankee Doodle from another. At last the troops
of militia and volunteers, who had been gathering in the park and other
squares, made their appearance, well dressed and well equipped, and, in
honour of the day, marching as independently as they well could. I did
not see them go through many manoeuvres, but there was one which they
appeared to excel in, and that was grounding arms and eating pies. I
found that the current went towards Castle Garden, and away I went with
it. There the troops were all collected on the green, shaded by the
trees, and the effect was very beautiful. The artillery and infantry
were drawn up in a line pointing to the water. The officers in their
regimental dresses and long white feathers, generals and aides-de-camp,
colonels, commandants, majors, all galloping up and down in front of the
line,--white horses and long tails appearing the most fashionable and
correct. The crowds assembled were, as American crowds usually are,
quiet and well behaved. I recognised many of my literary friends turned
into generals, and flourishing their swords instead of their pens. The
scene was very animating; the shipping at the wharfs were loaded with
star-spangled banners; steamers paddling in every direction, were
covered with flags; the whole beautiful Sound was alive with boats and
sailing vessels, all flaunting with pennants and streamers. It was, as
Ducrow would call it, "A Grand Military and Aquatic Spectacle."
Then the troops marched up into town again, and so did I follow them as
I used to do the reviews in England, when a boy. All creation appeared
to be independent on this day; some of the horses particularly so, for
they would not keep "in no line not no how." Some preferred going
sideways like crabs, others went backwards, some would not go at all,
others went a great deal too fast, and not a few parted company with
their riders, whom they kicked off just to shew their independence; but
let them go which way they would, they could not avoid the squibs and
crackers. And the women were in the same predicament: they might dance
right, or dance left, it was only out of the frying-pan into the fire,
for it was pop, pop; bang, bang; fiz, pop, bang, so that you literally
trod upon gunpowder.
When the troops marched up Broadway, louder even than the music were to
be heard the screams of delight from the children at the crowded windows
on each side. "Ma! ma! there's pa!" "Oh! there's John." "Look at
uncle on his big horse."
The troops did not march in very good order, because, independently of
their not knowing how, there was a great deal of independence to contend
with. At one time an omnibus and four would drive in and cut off the
general and his staff from his division; at another, a cart would roll
in and insist upon following close upon the band of music; so that it
was a mixed procession--Generals, omnibus and four, music, cart-loads of
bricks, troops, omnibus and pair, artillery, hackney-coach, etcetera.
etcetera. Notwithstanding all this, they at last arrived at the City
Hall, when those who were old enough heard the Declaration of
Independence read for the sixty-first time; and then it was--"Begone,
brave army, and don't kick up a row."
I was invited to dine with the mayor and corporation at the City Hall.
We sat down in the Hall of Justice, and certainly, great justice was
done to the dinner, which (as the wife says to her husband after a
party, where the second course follows the first with unusual celerity)
"went off remarkably well." The crackers popped outside, and the
champagne popped in. The celerity of the Americans at a public dinner
is very commendable; they speak only now and then; and the toasts follow
so fast, that you have just time to empty your glass, before you are
requested to fill again. Thus the arranged toasts went off rapidly, and
after them, any one might withdraw. I waited till the thirteenth toast,
the last on the paper, to wit, the ladies of America; and, having
previously, in a speech from the recorder, bolted Bunker's Hill and New
Orleans, I thought I might as well bolt myself, as I wished to see the
fireworks, which were to be very splendid.
Unless you are an amateur, there is no occasion to go to the various
places of public amusement where the fireworks are let off, for they are
sent up every where in such quantities that you hardly know which way to
turn your eyes. It is, however, advisable to go into some place of
safety, for the little boys and the big boys have all got their supply
of rockets, which they fire off in the streets--some running
horizontally up the pavement, and sticking into the back of a passenger;
and others mounting slantingdicularly and Paul-Prying into the bed-room
windows on the third floor or attics, just to see how things are going
on _there_. Look in any point of the compass, and you will see a shower
of rockets in the sky: turn from New York to Jersey City, from Jersey
City to Brooklyn, and shower is answered by shower on either side of the
water. Hoboken repeats the signal: and thus it is carried on to the
east, the west, the north, and the south, from Rhode Island to the
Missouri, from the Canada frontier to the Gulf of Mexico. At the
various gardens the combinations were very beautiful, and exceeded
anything that I had witnessed in London or Paris. What with
sea-serpents, giant rockets scaling heaven, Bengal lights, Chinese
fires, Italian suns, fairy bowers, crowns of Jupiter, exeranthemums,
Tartar temples, Vesta's diadems, magic circles, morning glories, stars
of Colombia, and temples of liberty, all America was in a blaze; and, in
addition to this mode of manifesting its joy, all America was tipsy.
There is something grand in the idea of a national intoxication. In
this world, vices on a grand scale dilate into virtues; he who murders
one man, is strung up with ignominy; but he who murders twenty thousand
has a statue to his memory, and is handed down to posterity as a hero.
A staggering individual is a laughable and, sometimes, a disgusting
spectacle; but the whole of a vast continent reeling, offering a
holocaust of its brains for mercies vouchsafed, is an appropriate
tribute of gratitude for the rights of equality and the _levelling
spirit_ of their institutions.