MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND VERMONT.
Perhaps I ought to assume that all the world in England knows that
that portion of the United States called New England consists of
the six States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island. This is especially the land of
Yankees, and none can properly be called Yankees but those who belong
to New England. I have named the States as nearly as may be in order
from the North downwards. Of Rhode Island, the smallest State in the
Union, I have already said what little I have to say. Of these six
States Boston may be called the capital. Not that it is so in any
civil or political sense;--it is simply the capital of Massachusetts.
But as it is the Athens of the Western world; as it was the cradle
of American freedom; as everybody of course knows that into Boston
harbour was thrown the tea which George III. would tax, and that at
Boston, on account of that and similar taxes, sprang up the new
revolution; and as it has grown in wealth, and fame, and size beyond
other towns in New England, it may be allowed to us to regard it as
the capital of these six Northern States, without guilt of _lèse
majesté_ towards the other five. To me, I confess, this Northern
division of our once unruly colonies is, and always has been, the
dearest. I am no Puritan myself, and fancy that had I lived in
the days of the Puritans, I should have been anti-Puritan to the
full extent of my capabilities. But I should have been so through
ignorance and prejudice, and actuated by that love of existing rights
and wrongs which men call loyalty. If the Canadas were to rebel now,
I should be for putting down the Canadians with a strong hand; but
not the less have I an idea that it will become the Canadas to rebel
and assert their independence at some future period;--unless it
be conceded to them without such rebellion. Who, on looking back,
can now refuse to admire the political aspirations of the English
Puritans, or decline to acknowledge the beauty and fitness of what
they did? It was by them that these States of New England were
colonized. They came hither stating themselves to be pilgrims, and as
such they first placed their feet on that hallowed rock at Plymouth,
on the shore of Massachusetts. They came here driven by no thirst of
conquest, by no greed for gold, dreaming of no Western empire such as
Cortez had achieved and Raleigh had meditated. They desired to earn
their bread in the sweat of their brow, worshipping God according to
their own lights, living in harmony under their own laws, and feeling
that no master could claim a right to put a heel upon their necks.
And be it remembered that here in England, in those days, earthly
masters were still apt to put their heels on the necks of men. The
Star Chamber was gone, but Jeffreys had not yet reigned. What earthly
aspirations were ever higher than these, or more manly? And what
earthly efforts ever led to grander results?
We determined to go to Portland, in Maine, from thence to the White
Mountains in New Hampshire--the American Alps, as they love to call
themselves,--and then on to Quebec and up through the two Canadas
to Niagara; and this route we followed. From Boston to Portland we
travelled by railroad,--the carriages on which are in America always
called cars. And here I beg, once for all, to enter my protest loudly
against the manner in which these conveyances are conducted. The one
grand fault--there are other smaller faults--but the one grand fault
is that they admit but one class. Two reasons for this are given.
The first is that the finances of the companies will not admit of
a divided accommodation; and the second is that the republican
nature of the people will not brook a superior or aristocratic
classification of travelling. As regards the first, I do not in the
least believe in it. If a more expensive manner of railway travelling
will pay in England, it would surely do so here. Were a better class
of carriages organized, as large a portion of the population would
use them in the United States as in any country in Europe. And it
seems to be evident that in arranging that there shall be only one
rate of travelling, the price is enhanced on poor travellers exactly
in proportion as it is made cheap to those who are not poor. For the
poorer classes, travelling in America is by no means cheap,--the
average rate being, as far as I can judge, fully three halfpence a
mile. It is manifest that dearer rates for one class would allow
of cheaper rates for the other; and that in this manner general
travelling would be encouraged and increased.
But I do not believe that the question of expenditure has had
anything to do with it. I conceive it to be true that the railways
are afraid to put themselves at variance with the general feeling of
the people. If so the railways may be right. But then, on the other
hand, the general feeling of the people must in such case be wrong.
Such a feeling argues a total mistake as to the nature of that
liberty and equality for the security of which the people are so
anxious, and that mistake the very one which has made shipwreck so
many attempts at freedom in other countries. It argues that confusion
between social and political equality which has led astray multitudes
who have longed for liberty fervently, but who have not thought of
it carefully. If a first-class railway carriage should be held as
offensive, so should a first-class house, or a first-class horse, or
a first-class dinner. But first-class houses, first-class horses,
and first-class dinners are very rife in America. Of course it may
be said that the expenditure shown in these last-named objects is
private expenditure, and cannot be controlled; and that railway
travelling is of a public nature, and can be made subject to public
opinion. But the fault is in that public opinion which desires to
control matters of this nature. Such an arrangement partakes of all
the vice of a sumptuary law, and sumptuary laws are in their very
essence mistakes. It is well that a man should always have all for
which he is willing to pay. If he desires and obtains more than is
good for him, the punishment, and thus also the preventive, will come
from other sources.
It will be said that the American cars are good enough for all
purposes. The seats are not very hard, and the room for sitting is
sufficient. Nevertheless I deny that they are good enough for all
purposes. They are very long, and to enter them and find a place
often requires a struggle and almost a fight. There is rarely any
person to tell a stranger which car he should enter. One never meets
an uncivil or unruly man, but the women of the lower ranks are not
courteous. American ladies love to lie at ease in their carriages, as
thoroughly as do our women in Hyde Park, and to those who are used
to such luxury, travelling by railroad in their own country must be
grievous. I would not wish to be thought a Sybarite myself, or to be
held as complaining because I have been compelled to give up my seat
to women with babies and bandboxes who have accepted the courtesy
with very scanty grace. I have borne worse things than these, and
have roughed it much in my days from want of means and other reasons.
Nor am I yet so old but what I can rough it still. Nevertheless
I like to see things as well done as is practicable, and railway
travelling in the States is not well done. I feel bound to say as
much as this, and now I have said it, once for all.
Few cities, or localities for cities, have fairer natural advantages
than Portland--and I am bound to say that the people of Portland have
done much in turning them to account. This town is not the capital of
the State in a political point of view. Augusta, which is further to
the North, on the Kenebec river, is the seat of the State Government
for Maine. It is very generally the case that the States do not hold
their legislatures and carry on their Government at their chief
towns. Augusta and not Portland is the capital of Maine. Of the State
of New York, Albany is the capital, and not the city which bears the
State's name. And of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and not Philadelphia
is the capital. I think the idea has been that old-fashioned notions
were bad in that they were old-fashioned; and that a new people,
bound by no prejudices, might certainly make improvement by choosing
for themselves new ways. If so the American politicians have not been
the first in the world who have thought that any change must be a
change for the better. The assigned reason is the centrical position
of the selected political capitals: but I have generally found the
real commercial capital to be easier of access than the smaller
town in which the two legislative houses are obliged to collect
themselves.
What must be the natural excellence of the harbour of Portland will
be understood when it is borne in mind that the Great Eastern can
enter it at all times, and that it can lie along the wharves at any
hour of the tide. The wharves which have been prepared for her--and
of which I will say a word further by-and-by--are joined to and in
fact are a portion of the station of the Grand Trunk Railway, which
runs from Portland up to Canada. So that passengers landing at
Portland out of a vessel so large even as the Great Eastern can walk
at once on shore, and goods can be passed on to the railway without
any of the cost of removal. I will not say that there is no other
harbour in the world that would allow of this, but I do not know any
other that would do so.
From Portland a line of railway, called as a whole by the name of the
Canada Grand Trunk line, runs across the State of Maine through the
Northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, to Montreal, a branch
striking from Richmond, a little within the limits of Canada, to
Quebec, and down the St. Lawrence to Rivière du Loup. The main line
is continued from Montreal, through Upper Canada to Toronto, and from
thence to Detroit in the State of Michigan. The total distance thus
traversed is in a direct line about 900 miles. From Detroit there is
railway communication through the immense North-Western States of
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, than which perhaps the surface of
the globe affords no finer districts for purposes of agriculture. The
produce of the two Canadas must be poured forth to the Eastern world,
and the men of the Eastern world must throng into these lands, by
means of this railroad,--and, as at present arranged, through the
harbour of Portland. At present the line has been opened, and they
who have opened are sorely suffering in pocket for what they have
done. The question of the railway is rather one applying to Canada
than to the State of Maine, and I will therefore leave it for the
present.
But the Great Eastern has never been to Portland, and as far as I
know has no intention of going there. She was, I believe, built with
that object. At any rate it was proclaimed during her building that
such was her destiny, and the Portlanders believed it with a perfect
faith. They went to work and built wharves expressly for her; two
wharves prepared to fit her two gangways, or ways of exit and
entrance. They built a huge hotel to receive her passengers. They
prepared for her advent with a full conviction that a millennium of
trade was about to be wafted to their happy port. "Sir, the town has
expended two hundred thousand dollars in expectation of that ship,
and that ship has deceived us." So was the matter spoken of to me by
an intelligent Portlander. I explained to that intelligent gentleman
that two hundred thousand dollars would go a very little way towards
making up the loss which the ill-fortuned vessel had occasioned
on the other side of the water. He did not in words express
gratification at this information, but he looked it. The matter
was as it were a partnership without deed of contract between the
Portlanders and the shareholders of the vessel, and the Portlanders,
though they also have suffered their losses, have not had the worst
of it.
But there are still good days in store for the town. Though the Great
Eastern has not gone there, other ships from Europe, more profitable
if less in size, must eventually find their way thither. At present
the Canada line of packets runs to Portland only during those months
in which it is shut out from the St. Lawrence and Quebec by ice.
But the St. Lawrence and Quebec cannot offer the advantages which
Portland enjoys, and that big hotel and those new wharves will not
have been built in vain.
I have said that a good time is coming, but I would by no means wish
to signify that the present times in Portland are bad. So far from
it, that I doubt whether I ever saw a town with more evident signs of
prosperity. It has about it every mark of ample means, and no mark
of poverty. It contains about 27,000 people, and for that population
covers a very large space of ground. The streets are broad and
well built, the main streets not running in those absolutely
straight parallels which are so common in American towns, and are so
distressing to English eyes and English feelings. All these, except
the streets devoted exclusively to business, are shaded on both sides
by trees--generally, if I remember rightly, by the beautiful American
elm, whose drooping boughs have all the grace of the willow without
its fantastic melancholy. What the poorer streets of Portland may be
like I cannot say. I saw no poor street. But in no town of 30,000
inhabitants did I ever see so many houses which must require an
expenditure of from six to eight hundred a year to maintain them.
The place too is beautifully situated. It is on a long promontory,
which takes the shape of a peninsula;--for the neck which joins it
to the mainland is not above half a mile across. But though the
town thus stands out into the sea, it is not exposed and bleak. The
harbour again is surrounded by land, or so guarded and locked by
islands as to form a series of salt-water lakes running round the
town. Of those islands there are, of course, 365. Travellers who
write their travels are constantly called upon to record that
number, so that it may now be considered as a superlative in local
phraseology, signifying a very great many indeed. The town stands
between two hills, the suburbs or outskirts running up on to each of
them. The one looking out towards the sea is called Mountjoy--though
the obstinate Americans will write it Munjoy on their maps. From
thence the view out to the harbour and beyond the harbour to the
islands is, I may not say unequalled, or I shall be guilty of running
into superlatives myself; but it is, in its way, equal to anything I
have seen. Perhaps it is more like Cork harbour, as seen from certain
heights over Passage than anything else I can remember; but Portland
harbour, though equally landlocked, is larger; and then from Portland
harbour there is as it were a river outlet, running through delicious
islands, most unalluring to the navigator, but delicious to the eyes
of an uncommercial traveller. There are in all four outlets to the
sea, one of which appears to have been made expressly for the Great
Eastern. Then there is the hill looking inwards. If it has a name
I forget it. The view from this hill is also over the water on each
side, and though not so extensive is perhaps as pleasing as the
other.
The ways of the people seemed to be quiet, smooth, orderly, and
republican. There is nothing to drink in Portland of course, for,
thanks to Mr. Neal Dow, the Father Mathew of the State of Maine, the
Maine Liquor Law is still in force in that State. There is nothing
to drink, I should say, in such orderly houses as that I selected.
"People do drink some in the town, they say," said my hostess to
me; "and liquor is to be got. But I never venture to sell any. An
ill-natured person might turn on me, and where should I be then?" I
did not press her, and she was good enough to put a bottle of porter
at my right hand at dinner, for which I observed she made no charge.
"But they advertise beer in the shop-windows," I said to a man
who was driving me--"Scotch ale, and bitter beer. A man can get
drunk on them." "Wa'al, yes. If he goes to work hard, and drinks a
bucket-full," said the driver, "perhaps he may." From which and other
things I gathered that the men of Maine drank pottle deep before Mr.
Neal Dow brought his exertions to a successful termination.
The Maine Liquor Law still stands in Maine, and is the law of the
land throughout New England; but it is not actually put in force in
the other States. By this law no man may retail wine, spirits, or, in
truth, beer, except with a special license, which is given only to
those who are presumed to sell them as medicines. A man may have what
he likes in his own cellar for his own use--such at least is the
actual working of the law--but may not obtain it at hotels and
public-houses. This law, like all sumptuary laws, must fail. And it
is fast failing even in Maine. But it did appear to me from such
information as I could collect that the passing of it had done much
to hinder and repress a habit of hard drinking which was becoming
terribly common, not only in the towns of Maine, but among the
farmers and hired labourers in the country.
But if the men and women of Portland may not drink they may eat, and
it is a place, I should say, in which good living on that side of the
question is very rife. It has an air of supreme plenty, as though the
agonies of an empty stomach were never known there. The faces of the
people tell of three regular meals of meat a day, and of digestive
powers in proportion. Oh happy Portlanders, if they only knew their
own good fortune! They get up early, and go to bed early. The women
are comely and sturdy, able to take care of themselves without
any fal-lal of chivalry; and the men are sedate, obliging, and
industrious. I saw the young girls in the streets, coming home from
their tea-parties at nine o'clock, many of them alone, and all with
some basket in their hands which betokened an evening not passed
absolutely in idleness. No fear there of unruly questions on the way,
or of insolence from the ill-conducted of the other sex! All was, or
seemed to be, orderly, sleek, and unobtrusive. Probably of all modes
of life that are allotted to man by his Creator, life such as this is
the most happy. One hint, however, for improvement I must give, even
to Portland! It would be well if they could make their streets of
some material harder than sand.
I must not leave the town without desiring those who may visit it to
mount the Observatory. They will from thence get the best view of the
harbour and of the surrounding land; and, if they chance to do so
under the reign of the present keeper of the signals, they will find
a man there able and willing to tell them everything needful about
the State of Maine in general, and the harbour in particular. He will
come out in his shirt sleeves, and, like a true American, will not
at first be very smooth in his courtesy; but he will wax brighter in
conversation, and if not stroked the wrong way will turn out to be an
uncommonly pleasant fellow. Such I believe to be the case with most
of them.
From Portland we made our way up to the White Mountains, which lay on
our route to Canada. Now I would ask any of my readers who are candid
enough to expose their own ignorance whether they ever heard, or
at any rate whether they know anything of the White Mountains. As
regards myself I confess that the name had reached my ears; that I
had an indefinite idea that they formed an intermediate stage between
the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies, and that they were inhabited
either by Mormons, Indians, or simply by black bears. That there was
a district in New England containing mountain scenery superior to
much that is yearly crowded by tourists in Europe, that this is
to be reached with ease by railways and stage-coaches, and that
it is dotted with huge hotels, almost as thickly as they lie in
Switzerland, I had no idea. Much of this scenery, I say, is superior
to the famed and classic lands of Europe. I know nothing, for
instance, on the Rhine equal to the view from Mount Willard, down the
mountain pass called the Notch.
Let the visitor of these regions be as late in the year as he can,
taking care that he is not so late as to find the hotels closed.
October, no doubt, is the most beautiful month among these mountains,
but according to the present arrangement of matters here, the hotels
are shut up by the end of September. With us, August, September, and
October are the holiday months; whereas our rebel children across the
Atlantic love to disport themselves in July and August. The great
beauty of the autumn, or fall, is in the brilliant hues which are
then taken by the foliage. The autumnal tints are fine with us. They
are lovely and bright wherever foliage and vegetation form a part
of the beauty of scenery. But in no other land do they approach the
brilliancy of the fall in America. The bright rose colour, the rich
bronze which is almost purple in its richness, and the glorious
golden yellows must be seen to be understood. By me at any rate they
cannot be described. These begin to show themselves in September, and
perhaps I might name the latter half of that month as the best time
for visiting the White Mountains.
I am not going to write a guide-book, feeling sure that Mr. Murray
will do New England, and Canada, including Niagara and the Hudson
river, with a peep into Boston and New York before many more seasons
have passed by. But I cannot forbear to tell my countrymen that
any enterprising individual with a hundred pounds to spend on his
holiday,--a hundred and twenty would make him more comfortable, in
regard to wine, washing, and other luxuries,--and an absence of two
months from his labours, may see as much and do as much here for the
money as he can see or do elsewhere. In some respects he may do more;
for he will learn more of American nature in such a journey than he
can ever learn of the nature of Frenchmen or Americans by such an
excursion among them. Some three weeks of the time, or perhaps a day
or two over, he must be at sea, and that portion of his trip will
cost him fifty pounds,--presuming that he chooses to go in the most
comfortable and costly way;--but his time on board ship will not be
lost. He will learn to know much of Americans there, and will perhaps
form acquaintances of which he will not altogether lose sight for
many a year. He will land at Boston, and staying a day or two there
will visit Cambridge, Lowell, and Bunker Hill; and, if he be that
way given, will remember that here live, and occasionally are to
be seen alive, men such as Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne, and a
host of others whose names and fames have made Boston the throne of
Western Literature. He will then,--if he take my advice and follow
my track,--go by Portland up into the White Mountains. At Gorham, a
station on the Grand Trunk line, he will find an hotel as good as any
of its kind, and from thence he will take a light waggon, so called
in these countries;--and here let me presume that the traveller
is not alone; he has his wife or friend, or perhaps a pair of
sisters,--and in his waggon he will go up through primeval forests to
the Glen House. When there he will ascend Mount Washington on a pony.
That is _de rigueur_, and I do not, therefore, dare to recommend him
to omit the ascent. I did not gain much myself by my labour. He will
not stay at the Glen House, but will go on to--Jackson's I think they
call the next hotel; at which he will sleep. From thence he will take
his waggon on through the Notch to the Crawford House, sleeping there
again; and when here let him of all things remember to go up Mount
Willard. It is but a walk of two hours, up and down, if so much. When
reaching the top he will be startled to find that he looks down into
the ravine without an inch of fore-ground. He will come out suddenly
on a ledge of rock, from whence, as it seems, he might leap down at
once into the valley below. Then going on from the Crawford House
he will be driven through the woods of Cherry Mount, passing,
I fear without toll of custom, the house of my excellent friend
Mr. Plaistead, who keeps an hotel at Jefferson. "Sir," said Mr.
Plaistead, "I have everything here that a man ought to want; air,
sir, that ain't to be got better nowhere; trout, chickens, beef,
mutton, milk,--and all for a dollar a day. A top of that hill, sir,
there's a view that ain't to be beaten this side of the Atlantic, or
I believe the other. And an echo, sir!--We've an echo that comes back
to us six times, sir; floating on the light wind, and wafted about
from rock to rock till you would think the angels were talking to
you. If I could raise that echo, sir, every day at command I'd give a
thousand dollars for it. It would be worth all the money to a house
like this." And he waved his hand about from hill to hill, pointing
out in graceful curves the lines which the sounds would take. Had
destiny not called on Mr. Plaistead to keep an American hotel, he
might have been a poet.
My traveller, however, unless time were plenty with him, would pass
Mr. Plaistead, merely lighting a friendly cigar, or perhaps breaking
the Maine Liquor Law if the weather be warm, and would return to
Gorham on the railway. All this mountain district is in New
Hampshire, and presuming him to be capable of going about the world
with his mouth, ears, and eyes open, he would learn much of the way
in which men are settling themselves in this still sparsely populated
country. Here young farmers go into the woods, as they are doing
far down west in the Territories, and buying some hundred acres at
perhaps six shillings an acre, fell and burn the trees and build
their huts, and take the first steps, as far as man's work is
concerned, towards accomplishing the will of the Creator in those
regions. For such pioneers of civilization there is still ample room
even in the long settled States of New Hampshire and Vermont.
But to return to my traveller, whom having brought so far, I must
send on. Let him go on from Gorham to Quebec, and the heights of
Abraham, stopping at Sherbrooke that he might visit from thence the
lake of Memphra Magog. As to the manner of travelling over this
ground I shall say a little in the next chapter, when I come to the
progress of myself and my wife. From Quebec he will go up the St.
Lawrence to Montreal. He will visit Ottawa, the new capital, and
Toronto. He will cross the Lake to Niagara, resting probably at the
Clifton House on the Canada side. He will then pass on to Albany,
taking the Trenton falls on his way. From Albany he will go down the
Hudson to West-Point. He cannot stop at the Catskill Mountains, for
the hotel will be closed. And then he will take the river boat, and
in a few hours will find himself at New York. If he desires to go
into American city society, he will find New York agreeable; but in
that case he must exceed his two months. If he do not so desire, a
short sojourn at New York will show him all that there is to be seen,
and all that there is not to be seen in that great city. That the
Cunard line of steamers will bring him safely back to Liverpool
in about eleven days, I need not tell to any Englishman, or, as
I believe, to any American. So much, in the spirit of a guide,
I vouchsafe to all who are willing to take my counsel,--thereby
anticipating Murray, and leaving these few pages as a legacy to him
or to his collaborateurs.
I cannot say that I like the hotels in those parts, or indeed the
mode of life at American hotels in general. In order that I may not
unjustly defame them, I will commence these observations by declaring
that they are cheap to those who choose to practise the economy which
they encourage, that the viands are profuse in quantity and wholesome
in quality, that the attendance is quick and unsparing, and that
travellers are never annoyed by that grasping greedy hunger and
thirst after francs and shillings which disgrace in Europe many
English and many continental inns. All this is, as must be admitted,
great praise; and yet I do not like the American hotels.
One is in a free country and has come from a country in which one
has been brought up to hug one's chains,--so at least the English
traveller is constantly assured--and yet in an American inn one can
never do as one likes. A terrific gong sounds early in the morning,
breaking one's sweet slumbers, and then a second gong sounding some
thirty minutes later, makes you understand that you must proceed to
breakfast, whether you be dressed or no. You certainly can go on with
your toilet and obtain your meal after half an hour's delay. Nobody
actually scolds you for so doing, but the breakfast is, as they say
in this country, "through." You sit down alone, and the attendant
stands immediately over you. Probably there are two so standing. They
fill your cup the instant it is empty. They tender you fresh food
before that which has disappeared from your plate has been swallowed.
They begrudge you no amount that you can eat or drink; but they
begrudge you a single moment that you sit there neither eating nor
drinking. This is your fate if you're too late, and therefore as a
rule you are not late. In that case you form one of a long row of
eaters who proceed through their work with a solid energy that is
past all praise. It is wrong to say that Americans will not talk at
their meals. I never met but few who would not talk to me, at any
rate till I got to the far west; but I have rarely found that they
would address me first. Then the dinner comes early; at least it
always does so in New England, and the ceremony is much of the same
kind. You came there to eat, and the food is pressed on you almost
_ad nauseam_. But as far as one can see there is no drinking. In
these days, I am quite aware, that drinking has become improper, even
in England. We are apt at home to speak of wine as a thing tabooed,
wondering how our fathers lived and swilled. I believe that as a fact
we drink as much as they did; but nevertheless that is our theory. I
confess, however, that I like wine. It is very wicked, but it seems
to me that my dinner goes down better with a glass of sherry than
without it. As a rule I always did get it at hotels in America.
But I had no comfort with it. Sherry they do not understand at
all. Of course I am only speaking of hotels. Their claret they get
exclusively from Mr. Gladstone, and looking at the quality, have a
right to quarrel even with Mr. Gladstone's price. But it is not the
quality of the wine that I hereby intend to subject to ignominy, so
much as the want of any opportunity for drinking it. After dinner,
if all that I hear be true, the gentlemen occasionally drop into the
hotel bar and "liquor up." Or rather this is not done specially after
dinner, but without prejudice to the hour at any time that may be
found desirable. I also have "liquored up," but I cannot say that
I enjoy the process. I do not intend hereby to accuse Americans of
drinking much, but I maintain that what they do drink, they drink in
the most uncomfortable manner that the imagination can devise.
The greatest luxury at an English inn is one's tea, one's fire, and
one's book. Such an arrangement is not practicable at an American
hotel. Tea, like breakfast, is a great meal, at which meat should
be eaten, generally with the addition of much jelly, jam, and sweet
preserve; but no person delays over his tea-cup. I love to have my
tea-cup emptied and filled with gradual pauses, so that time for
oblivion may accrue, and no exact record be taken. No such meal is
known at American hotels. It is possible to hire a separate room and
have one's meals served in it; but in doing so a man runs counter to
all the institutions of the country, and a woman does so equally. A
stranger does not wish to be viewed askance by all around him; and
the rule which holds that men at Rome should do as Romans do, if true
anywhere, is true in America. Therefore I say that in an American inn
one can never do as one pleases.
In what I have here said I do not intend to speak of hotels in the
largest cities, such as Boston or New York. At them meals are served
in the public room separately, and pretty nearly at any or at all
hours of the day; but at them also the attendant stands over the
unfortunate eater, and drives him. The guest feels that he is
controlled by laws adapted to the usages of the Medes and Persians.
He is not the master on the occasion, but the slave; a slave well
treated and fattened up to the full endurance of humanity; but yet a
slave.
From Gorham we went on to Island Pond, a station on the same Canada
Trunk Railway, on a Saturday evening, and were forced by the
circumstances of the line to pass a melancholy Sunday at the place.
The cars do not run on Sundays, and run but once a day on other days
over the whole line; so that in fact the impediment to travelling
spreads over two days. Island Pond is a lake with an island in it,
and the place which has taken the name is a small village, about
ten years old, standing in the midst of uncut forests, and has been
created by the railway. In ten years more there will no doubt be
a spreading town at Island Pond; the forests will recede, and men
rushing out from the crowded cities will find here food and space
and wealth. For myself I never remain long in such a spot without
feeling thankful that it has not been my mission to be a pioneer of
civilization.
The farther that I got away from Boston the less strong did I find
the feeling of anger against England. There, as I have said before,
there was a bitter animosity against the mother country in that she
had shown no open sympathy with the North. In Maine and New Hampshire
I did not find this to be the case to any violent degree. Men spoke
of the war as openly as they did at Boston, and in speaking to me
generally connected England with the subject. But they did so simply
to ask questions as to England's policy. What will she do for cotton
when her operatives are really pressed? Will she break the blockade?
Will she insist on a right to trade with Charlestown and New Orleans?
I always answered that she would insist on no such right, if that
right were denied to others and the denial enforced. England, I took
upon myself to say, would not break a veritable blockade, let her be
driven to what shifts she might in providing for her operatives. "Ah;
that's what we fear," a very stanch patriot said to me, if words may
be taken as a proof of stanchness. "If England allies herself with
the Southerners, all our trouble is for nothing." It was impossible
not to feel that all that was said was complimentary to England. It
is her sympathy that the Northern men desire, to her co-operation
that they would willingly trust, on her honesty that they would
choose to depend. It is the same feeling whether it shows itself
in anger or in curiosity. An American whether he be embarked in
politics, in literature, or in commerce, desires English admiration,
English appreciation of his energy, and English encouragement. The
anger of Boston is but a sign of its affectionate friendliness. What
feeling is so hot as that of a friend when his dearest friend refuses
to share his quarrel or to sympathize in his wrongs? To my thinking
the men of Boston are wrong and unreasonable in their anger; but were
I a man of Boston I should be as wrong and as unreasonable as any
of them. All that, however, will come right. I will not believe it
possible that there should in very truth be a quarrel between England
and the Northern States.
In the guidance of those who are not quite _au fait_ at the details
of American Government, I will here in a few words describe the
outlines of State Government as it is arranged in New Hampshire.
The States in this respect are not all alike, the modes of election
of their officers and periods of service being different. Even the
franchise is different in different States. Universal suffrage is not
the rule throughout the United States; though it is I believe very
generally thought in England that such is the fact. I need hardly
say that the laws in the different States may be as various as the
different legislatures may choose to make them.
In New Hampshire universal suffrage does prevail; which means that
any man may vote who lives in the State, supports himself, and
assists to support the poor by means of poor rates. A governor of the
State is elected for one year only, but it is customary or at any
rate not uncustomary to re-elect him for a second year. His salary is
a thousand dollars a year, or £200. It must be presumed therefore
that glory and not money is his object. To him is appended a council,
by whose opinions he must in a great degree be guided. His functions
are to the State what those of the President are to the country, and
for the short period of his reign he is as it were a Prime Minister
of the State with certain very limited regal attributes. He however
by no means enjoys the regal attribute of doing no wrong. In every
State there is an Assembly, consisting of two houses of elected
representatives; the Senate, or upper house, and the House of
Representatives so called. In New Hampshire this Assembly, or
Parliament, is styled The General Court of New Hampshire. It sits
annually; whereas the legislature in many States sits only every
other year. Both Houses are re-elected every year. This Assembly
passes laws with all the power vested in our Parliament, but such
laws apply of course only to the State in question. The Governor
of the State has a veto on all bills passed by the two Houses. But,
after receipt of his veto, any bill so stopped by the Governor can
be passed by a majority of two thirds in each House. The General
Court usually sits for about ten weeks. There are in the State eight
judges, three Supreme who sit at Concord, the capital, as a court
of appeal both in civil and criminal matters; and then five lesser
judges, who go circuit through the State. The salaries of these
lesser judges do not exceed from £250 to £300 a year; but they are, I
believe, allowed to practise as lawyers in any counties except those
in which they sit as judges,--being guided in this respect by the
same law as that which regulates the work of assistant barristers
in Ireland. The assistant barristers in Ireland are attached to the
counties as judges at Quarter Sessions, but they practise or may
practise as advocates in all counties except that to which they
are so attached. The judges in New Hampshire are appointed by
the Governor with the assistance of his Council. No judge in New
Hampshire can hold his seat after he has reached seventy years of
age.
So much at the present moment with reference to the Government of New
Hampshire.