I wish the remarks in this chapter to receive peculiar attention, as in
commenting upon the character of the Americans, it is but justice to
them to point out that many of what may be considered their errors,
arise from _circumstances_ over which they have no control; and one
which has no small weight in this scale is the peculiar climate of the
country; for various as is the climate, in such an extensive region,
certain it is, that in one point, that of _excitement_, it has, in every
portion of it, a very pernicious effect.
When I first arrived at New York, the effect of the climate upon me was
immediate. On the 5th of May, the heat and closeness were oppressive.
There was a sultriness in the air, even at that early period of the
year, which to me seemed equal to that of Madras. Almost every day
there were, instead of our mild refreshing showers, sharp storms of
thunder and lightning; but the air did not appear to me to be cooled by
them. And yet, strange to say, there were no incipient signs of
vegetation: the trees waved their bare arms, and while I was throwing
off every garment which I well could, the females were walking up and
down Broadway wrapped up in warm shawls. It appeared as if it required
twice the heat we have in our own country, either to create a free
circulation in the blood of the people, or to stimulate nature to rouse
after the torpor of a protracted and severe winter. In a week from the
period I have mentioned, the trees were in full foliage, the _belles_ of
Broadway walking about in summer dresses and thin satin shoes; the men
calling for ice, and rejoicing in the beauty of the weather, the heat of
which to me was most oppressive. In one respect there appears to be
very little difference throughout all the States of the Union; which is,
in the extreme heat of the summer months, and the rapid changes of
temperature which take place in the twenty-four hours. When I was on
Lake Superior the thermometer stood between 90 degrees and 100 degrees
during the day, and at night was nearly down to the freezing point.
When at St Peter's, which is nearly as far north, and farther west, the
thermometer stood generally at 100 degrees to 106 degrees during the
day, and I found it to be the case in all the northern States when the
winter is most severe, as well as in the more southern. When on the
Mississippi and Ohio rivers, where the heat was most insufferable during
the day, our navigation was almost every night suspended by the thick
dank fogs, which covered not only the waters but the inland country, and
which must be anything but healthy. In fact, in every portion of the
States which I visited, and in those portions also which I did not
visit, the extreme heat and rapid changes in the weather were (according
to the information received front other persons) the same.
But I must proceed to particulars. I consider the climate on the sea
coasts of the eastern States, from Maine to Baltimore, as the most
unhealthy of all parts of America; as, added to the sudden changes, they
have cold and damp easterly winds, which occasion a great deal of
consumption. The inhabitants, more especially the women, shew this in
their appearance, and it is by the inhabitants that the climate must be
tested. The women are very delicate, and very pretty; but they remind
you of roses which have budded fairly, but which a check in the season
has not permitted to blow. Up to sixteen or seventeen, they promise
perfection; at that age their advance appears to be checked. Mr
Sanderson, in a very clever and amusing work, which I recommend to every
one, called "Sketches of Paris," says: "Our climate is noted for three
eminent qualities--extreme heat and cold, and extreme suddenness of
change. If a lady has bad teeth, or a bad complexion, she lays them
conveniently to the climate; if her beauty, like a tender flower, fades
before noon, it is the climate; if she has a bad temper, or a snub nose;
still it is the climate. But our climate is active and intellectual,
especially in winter, and in all seasons more pure and transparent than
the inking skies of Europe. It sustains the infancy of beauty--why not
its maturity? It spares the bud--why not the opened blossom, or the
ripened fruit? Our negroes are perfect in their teeth--why not the
whites? The chief preservation of beauty in any country is health, and
there is no place in which this great interest is so little attended to
as in America. To be sensible of this, you must visit Europe--you must
see the deep bosomed maids of England upon the Place Vendome and the Rue
Castiglione."
I have quoted this passage, because I think Mr Sanderson is not just in
these slurs upon his fair countrywomen. I acknowledge that a bad temper
does not directly proceed from climate, although sickness and suffering,
occasioned by climate, may directly produce it. As for the snub nose, I
agree with him, that climate has not so much to do with that. Mr
Sanderson is right in saying, that the chief preservative of beauty is
health; but may I ask him, upon what does health depend but upon
_exercise_? and if so, how many days are there in the American summer in
which the heat will admit of exercise, or in the American winter in
which it is possible for women to _walk_ out? for carriage driving is
not exercise, and if it were, from the changes in the weather in
America, it will always be dangerous. The fact is, that the climate
will not admit of the exercise necessary for health, unless by running
great risks, and very often contracting cold and chills, which end in
consumption and death. To accuse his countrywomen of natural indolence,
is unfair; it is an indolence forced upon them. As for the complexions
of the females, I consider they are much injured by the universal use of
close stoves, so necessary in the extremity of the winters. Mr S's
implication, that because negroes have perfect teeth, therefore so
should the whites, is another error. The negroes were born for, and in,
a torrid clime, and there is some difference between their strong ivory
masticators and the transparent pearly teeth which so rapidly decay in
the eastern states, from no other cause than the variability of the
climate. Besides, do the teeth of the women in the western states decay
so fast? Take a healthy situation, with an intermediate climate, such
as Cincinnati, and you will there find not only good teeth, but as
deep-bosomed maids as you will in England; so you will in Virginia,
Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin, which, with a portion of Ohio, are
the most healthy states in the Union. There is another proof, and a
positive one, that the women are affected by the _climate_ and not
through any fault of their own, which is, that if you transplant a
delicate American girl to England, she will in a year or two become so
robust and healthy as not to be recognised upon her return home; showing
that the even temperature of our damp climate is from the capability of
constant exercise, more conducive to health, than the sunny, yet
variable atmosphere of America.
The Americans are fond of their climate, and consider it, as they do
every thing in America, as the very best in the world. They are, as I
have said before, most happy in their delusions. But if the climate be
not a healthy one, it is certainly a beautiful climate to the eye; the
sky is so clear, the air so dry, the tints of the foliage so
inexpressibly beautiful in the autumn and early winter months: and at
night, the stars are so brilliant, hundreds being visible with the naked
eye which are not to be seen by us, that I am not surprised at the
Americans praising the _beauty_ of their climate. The sun is terrific
in his heat, it is true, but still one cannot help feeling the want of
it, when in England, he will disdain to shine for weeks. Since my
return to this country, the English reader can hardly form an idea of
how much I have longed for the sun. After having sojourned for nearly
two years in America, the sight of it has to me almost amounted to a
necessity, and I am not therefore at all astonished at an American
finding fault with the climate of England; nevertheless, our climate,
although unprepossessing to the eye, and depressive to the animal
spirits, is much more healthy than the exciting and changeable
atmosphere, although beautiful in appearance, which they breathe in the
United States.
One of the first points to which I directed my attention on my arrival
in America, was to the diseases most prevalent. In the eastern States,
as may be supposed, they have a great deal of consumption; in the
western, the complaint is hardly known: but the general nature of the
American diseases are _neuralgic_, or those which affect the nerves, and
which are common to almost all the Union. Ophthalmia, particularly the
disease of the ophthalmic nerve, is very common in the eastern States.
The medical men told me that there were annually more diseases of the
eye in New York city alone, than perhaps all over Europe. How far this
may be correct I cannot say; but this I can assert, that I never had any
complaint in my eyes until I arrived in America, and during a stay of
eighteen months, I was three times very severely afflicted. The oculist
who attended me asserted that he had _seven hundred_ patients.
The _tic doloureux_ is another common complaint throughout America,--
indeed so common is it, that I should say that one out of ten suffers
from it, more or less; the majority, however, are women.
I saw more cases of _delirium tremens_ in America, than I ever _heard_
of before. In fact, the climate is one of _extreme excitement_. I had
not been a week in the country before I discovered how impossible it was
for a foreigner to drink as much wine or spirits as he could in England,
and I believe that thousands of emigrants have been carried off by
making no alteration in their habits upon their arrival. See Note 1.
The winters in Wisconsin, Ioway, Missouri, and Upper Canada, are dry and
healthy, enabling the inhabitants to take any quantity of exercise, and
I found that the people looked forward to their winters with pleasure,
longing for the heat of the summer to abate.
Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and a portion of Ohio, are very unhealthy
in the autumns from the want of drainage; the bilious congestive fever,
ague, and dysentery, carrying off large numbers, Virginia, Kentucky,
North Carolina, and the eastern portions of Tennessee, are comparatively
healthy. South Carolina, and all the other southern States, are, as it
is well known, visited by the yellow fever, and the people migrate every
fall to the northward, not only to avoid the contagion, but to renovate
their general health, which suffers from the continual demand upon their
energies, the western and southern country being even more exciting than
the east. There is a fiery disposition in the Southerners which is very
remarkable; they are much more easily excited than even the Spaniard or
Italian, and their feelings are more violent and unrestrainable, as I
shall hereafter show. That this is the effect of climate I shall now
attempt to prove by one or two circumstances, out of the many which fell
under my observation. It is impossible to imagine a greater difference
in character than exists between the hot-blooded Southerner, and the
cold calculating Yankee of the eastern States. I have already said that
there is a continual stream of emigration from the eastern States to the
southward and westward the farmers of the eastern States leaving their
comparatively barren lands to settle down upon the more grateful soils
of the interior. Now, it is a singular, yet a well known fact, that in
a very few years the character of the Eastern farmer is completely
changed. He arrives there a hard-working, careful, and sober man; for
the first two or three years his ground is well tilled, and his crops
are abundant; but by degrees he becomes a different character: he
neglects his farm, so that from rich soil he obtains no better crops
than he formerly did upon his poor land in Massachusetts; he becomes
indolent, reckless, and often intemperate. Before he has settled five
years in the Western country, the climate has changed him into a Western
man, with all the peculiar virtues and vices of the country.
A Boston friend of mine told me that he was once on board of a steamboat
on the Mississippi, and found that an old schoolfellow was first mate of
the vessel. They ran upon a snag, and were obliged to lay the vessel on
shore until they could put the cargo on board of another steamboat, and
repair the damage. The passengers, as usual on such occasions, instead
of grumbling at what could not be helped, as people do in England, made
themselves merry; and because they could not proceed on their voyage
they very wisely resolved to drink champagne. They did so: a further
supply being required, this first mate was sent down into the hold to
procure it. My Boston friend happened to be at the hatchway when he
went down with a flaring candle in his hand, and he observed the mate
creep over several small barrels until he found the champagne cases, and
ordered them up.
"What is in those barrels?" inquired he of the mate when he came up
again.
"Oh, _gunpowder_!" replied the mate.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Bostonian, "is it possible that you could
be so careless? why I should have thought better of you; you used to be
a prudent man."
"Yes, and so I was, until I came into this part of the country," replied
the mate, "but somehow or another, I don't care for things now, which,
when I was in my own State, would have frightened me out of my wits."
Here was a good proof of the Southern recklessness having been imbibed
by a cautious Yankee.
I have adduced the above instances, because I consider that the
excitement so general throughout the Union, and forming so remarkable a
feature in the American character, is occasioned much more by climate
than by any other cause: that the peculiarity of their institutions
affords constant aliment for this excitement to feed upon is true, and
it is therefore seldom allowed to repose. I think, moreover, that their
climate is the occasion of two bad habits to which the Americans are
prone, namely, the use of tobacco and of spirituous liquors. An
Englishman could not drink as the Americans do; it would destroy him
here in a very short time, by the irritation it would produce upon his
nerves. But the effect of tobacco is narcotic and anti-nervous; it
allays that irritation, and enables the American to indulge in
stimulating habits without their being attended with such immediate ill
consequences.
To the rapid changes of the climate, and to the extreme heat, must be
also to a great degree ascribed the excessive use of spirituous liquors;
the system being depressed by the sudden changes demanding stimulus to
equalise the pulse. The extraordinary heat during the summer is also
another cause of it. The Rev Mr Reid says, in his Tour through the
States, "the disposition to drink now became intense; we had only to
consider how we might safely gratify it; the thermometer rose to low,
and the heat and perspiration were intolerable." Now, if a Christian
divine acknowledged this feeling, it is not to be supposed but that
others must be equally affected. To drink pure water during this
extreme heat is very dangerous: it must be qualified with some wine or
spirit; and thus is an American led into a habit of drinking, from which
it is not very easy, indeed hardly possible, for him to abstain, except
during the winter, and the winters in America are too cold for a man to
leave off _any_ of his _habits_. Let it not be supposed that I wish to
excuse intemperance: far from it; but I wish to be just in my remarks
upon the Americans, and show, that if they are intemperate (which they
certainly are), there is more excuse for them than there is for other
nations, from their temptation arising out of circumstances.
There is but one other point to be considered in examining into the
climate of America. It will be admitted that the American stock is the
very best in the world, being originally English, with a favourable
admixture of German, Irish, French, and other northern countries. It
moreover has the great advantage of a continual importation of the same
varieties of stock to cross and improve the breed. The question then
is, have the American race improved or degenerated since the first
settlement? If they have degenerated, the climate cannot be healthy.
I was very particular in examining into this point, and I have no
hesitation in saying, that the American people are not equal in strength
or in form to the English. I may displease the Americans by this
assertion, and they may bring forward their backwoodsmen and their
Kentuckians, who live at the spurs of the Alleghany Mountains, as
evidence to the contrary; but although they are powerful and tall men
they are not well made, nor so well made as the Virginians, who are the
finest race in the Union. There is one peculiar defect in the American
figure common to both sexes, which is, _narrowness of the shoulders_,
and it is a very great defect; there seems to be a check to the
expansion of the chest in their climate, the physiological causes of
which I leave to others. On the whole, they certainly are a taller race
than the natives of Europe, but not with proportionate muscular
strength. Their climate, therefore, I unhesitatingly pronounce to be
bad, being injurious to them in the two important points, of healthy
vigour in the body, and healthy action of the mind; enervating the one,
and tending to demoralise the other.
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Note 1. Vermont, New Hampshire, the interior portion of the State of
New York, and all the portions of the other States which abut on the
great lakes, are healthy, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere being
softened down by the proximity of such large bodies of water.