NEW YORK.
Speaking of New York as a traveller I have two faults to find with
it. In the first place there is nothing to see; and in the second
place there is no mode of getting about to see anything. Nevertheless
New York is a most interesting city. It is the third biggest city
in the known world;--for those Chinese congregations of unwinged
ants are not cities in the known world. In no other city is there
a population so mixed and cosmopolitan in their modes of life. And
yet in no other city that I have seen are there such strong and
ever-visible characteristics of the social and political bearings of
the nation to which it belongs. New York appears to me as infinitely
more American than Boston, Chicago, or Washington. It has no peculiar
attribute of its own, as have those three cities; Boston in its
literature and accomplished intelligence, Chicago in its internal
trade, and Washington in its congressional and State politics.
New York has its literary aspirations, its commercial grandeur,
and,--heaven knows,--it has its politics also. But these do not
strike the visitor as being specially characteristic of the city.
That it is pre-eminently American is its glory or its disgrace,--as
men of different ways of thinking may decide upon it. Free
institutions, general education, and the ascendancy of dollars are
the words written on every paving-stone along Fifth Avenue, down
Broadway, and up Wall Street. Every man can vote, and values the
privilege. Every man can read, and uses the privilege. Every man
worships the dollar, and is down before his shrine from morning to
night.
As regards voting and reading no American will be angry with me
for saying so much of him; and no Englishman, whatever may be his
ideas as to the franchise in his own country, will conceive that
I have said aught to the dishonour of an American. But as to that
dollar-worshipping, it will of course seem that I am abusing the New
Yorkers. We all know what a wretchedly wicked thing money is! How it
stands between us and heaven! How it hardens our hearts, and makes
vulgar our thoughts! Dives has ever gone to the devil, while Lazarus
has been laid up in heavenly lavender. The hand that employs itself
in compelling gold to enter the service of man has always been
stigmatized as the ravisher of things sacred. The world is agreed
about that, and therefore the New Yorker is in a bad way. There
are very few citizens in any town known to me which under this
dispensation are in a good way, but the New Yorker is in about the
worst way of all. Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the
shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whatever
other daily services may be known to the religious houses; but the
New Yorker is always on his knees.
That is the amount of the charge which I bring against New York;
and now having laid on my paint thickly, I shall proceed, like an
unskilful artist, to scrape a great deal of it off again. New York
has been a leading commercial city in the world for not more than
fifty or sixty years. As far as I can learn, its population at the
close of the last century did not exceed 60,000, and ten years later
it had not reached 100,000. In 1860 it had reached nearly 800,000 in
the city of New York itself. To this number must be added the numbers
of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, and the city of New Jersey, in order
that a true conception may be had of the population of this American
metropolis, seeing that those places are as much a part of New York
as Southwark is of London. By this the total will be swelled to
considerably above a million. It will no doubt be admitted that this
growth has been very fast, and that New York may well be proud of it.
Increase of population is, I take it, the only trustworthy sign of
a nation's success or of a city's success. We boast that London has
beaten the other cities of the world, and think that that boast is
enough to cover all the social sins for which London has to confess
her guilt. New York beginning with 60,000 sixty years since has now a
million souls;--a million mouths, all of which eat a sufficiency of
bread, all of which speak _ore rotundo_, and almost all of which can
read. And this has come of its love of dollars.
For myself I do not believe that Dives is so black as he is painted,
or that his peril is so imminent. To reconcile such an opinion with
holy writ might place me in some difficulty were I a clergyman.
Clergymen in these days are surrounded by difficulties of this
nature, finding it necessary to explain away many old-established
teachings which narrowed the Christian Church, and to open the
door wide enough to satisfy the aspirations and natural hopes
of instructed men. The brethren of Dives are now so many and so
intelligent that they will no longer consent to be damned without
looking closely into the matter themselves. I will leave them to
settle the matter with the Church, merely assuring them of my
sympathies in their little difficulties in any case in which mere
money causes the hitch.
To eat his bread in the sweat of his brow was man's curse in Adam's
day, but is certainly man's blessing in our day. And what is eating
one's bread in the sweat of one's brow but making money? I will
believe no man who tells me that he would not sooner earn two loaves
than one;--and if two, then two hundred. I will believe no man who
tells me that he would sooner earn one dollar a day than two;--and
if two, then two hundred. That is, in the very nature of the
argument,--_coeteris paribus_. When a man tells me that he would
prefer one honest loaf to two that are dishonest, I will, in all
possible cases, believe him. So also a man may prefer one quiet loaf
to two that are unquiet. But under circumstances that are the same,
and to a man who is sane, a whole loaf is better than half, and two
loaves are better than one. The preachers have preached well, but on
this matter they have preached in vain. Dives has never believed that
he will be damned because he is Dives. He has never even believed
that the temptations incident to his position have been more than a
fair counterpoise, or even so much as a fair counterpoise, to his
opportunities for doing good. All men who work desire to prosper
by their work, and they so desire by the nature given to them from
God. Wealth and progress must go on hand in hand together, let the
accidents which occasionally divide them for a time happen as often
as they may. The progress of the Americans has been caused by their
aptitude for money-making, and that continual kneeling at the shrine
of the coined goddess has carried them across from New York to San
Francisco. Men who kneel at that shrine are called on to have ready
wits, and quick hands, and not a little aptitude for self-denial. The
New Yorker has been true to his dollar, because his dollar has been
true to him.
But not on this account can I, nor on this account will any
Englishman, reconcile himself to the savour of dollars which pervades
the atmosphere of New York. The _ars celare artem_ is wanting. The
making of money is the work of man; but he need not take his work
to bed with him, and have it ever by his side at table, amidst his
family, in church, while he disports himself, as he declares his
passion to the girl of his heart, in the moments of his softest
bliss, and at the periods of his most solemn ceremonies. That many
do so elsewhere than in New York,--in London, for instance, in Paris,
among the mountains of Switzerland, and the steppes of Russia, I
do not doubt. But there is generally a veil thrown over the object
of the worshipper's idolatry. In New York one's ear is constantly
filled with the fanatic's voice as he prays, one's eyes are always
on the familiar altar. The frankincense from the temple is ever in
one's nostrils. I have never walked down Fifth Avenue alone without
thinking of money. I have never walked there with a companion without
talking of it. I fancy that every man there, in order to maintain the
spirit of the place, should bear on his forehead a label stating how
many dollars he is worth, and that every label should be expected to
assert a falsehood.
I do not think that New York has been less generous in the use of its
money than other cities, or that the men of New York generally are
so. Perhaps I might go farther and say that in no city has more been
achieved for humanity by the munificence of its richest citizens than
in New York. Its hospitals, asylums, and institutions for the relief
of all ailments to which flesh is heir, are very numerous, and beyond
praise in the excellence of their arrangements. And this has been
achieved in a great degree by private liberality. Men in America
are not as a rule anxious to leave large fortunes to their children.
The millionaire when making his will very generally gives back a
considerable portion of the wealth which he has made to the city in
which he made it. The rich citizen is always anxious that the poor
citizen shall be relieved. It is a point of honour with him to raise
the character of his municipality, and to provide that the deaf and
dumb, the blind, the mad, the idiots, the old, and the incurable
shall have such alleviation in their misfortune as skill and kindness
can afford.
Nor is the New Yorker a hugger-mugger with his money. He does not
hide up his dollars in old stockings and keep rolls of gold in hidden
pots. He does not even invest it where it will not grow but only
produce small though sure fruit. He builds houses, he speculates
largely, he spreads himself in trade to the extent of his wings,--and
not seldom somewhat further. He scatters his wealth broadcast over
strange fields, trusting that it may grow with an increase of an
hundred-fold, but bold to bear the loss should the strange field
prove itself barren. His regret at losing his money is by no means
commensurate with his desire to make it. In this there is a living
spirit which to me divests the dollar-worshipping idolatry of
something of its ugliness. The hand when closed on the gold is
instantly reopened. The idolator is anxious to get, but he is anxious
also to spend. He is energetic to the last, and has no comfort
with his stock unless it breeds with transatlantic rapidity of
procreation.
So much I say, being anxious to scrape off some of that daub of
black paint with which I have smeared the face of my New Yorker; but
not desiring to scrape it all off. For myself, I do not love to
live amidst the clink of gold, and never have "a good time," as the
Americans say, when the price of shares and percentages come up in
conversation. That state of men's minds here which I have endeavoured
to explain tends, I think, to make New York disagreeable. A stranger
there who has no great interest in percentages soon finds himself
anxious to escape. By degrees he perceives that he is out of his
element, and had better go away. He calls at the bank, and when he
shows himself ignorant as to the price at which his sovereigns should
be done, he is conscious that he is ridiculous. He is like a man who
goes out hunting for the first time at forty years of age. He feels
himself to be in the wrong place, and is anxious to get out of it.
Such was my experience of New York, at each of the visits that I paid
to it.
But yet, I say again, no other American city is so intensely American
as New York. It is generally considered that the inhabitants of
New England, the Yankees properly so called, have the American
characteristics of physiognomy in the fullest degree. The lantern
jaws, the thin and lithe body, the dry face on which there has
been no tint of the rose since the baby's long-clothes were first
abandoned, the harsh, thick hair, the thin lips, the intelligent
eyes, the sharp voice with the nasal twang--not altogether harsh,
though sharp and nasal,--all these traits are supposed to belong
especially to the Yankee. Perhaps it was so once, but at present they
are, I think, more universally common in New York than in any other
part of the States. Go to Wall Street, the front of the Astor House,
and the regions about Trinity Church, and you will find them in their
fullest perfection.
What circumstances of blood or food, of early habit or subsequent
education, have created for the latter-day American his present
physiognomy? It is as completely marked, as much his own, as is that
of any race under the sun that has bred in and in for centuries. But
the American owns a more mixed blood than any other race known. The
chief stock is English, which is itself so mixed that no man can
trace its ramifications. With this are mingled the bloods of Ireland,
Holland, France, Sweden, and Germany. All this has been done within
but a few years, so that the American may be said to have no claim
to any national type of face. Nevertheless, no man has a type of
face so clearly national as the American. He is acknowledged by it
all over the continent of Europe, and on his own side of the water
is gratified by knowing that he is never mistaken for his English
visitor. I think it comes from the hot-air pipes and from dollar
worship. In the Jesuit his mode of dealing with things divine has
given a peculiar cast of countenance; and why should not the American
be similarly moulded by his special aspirations? As to the hot-air
pipes, there can, I think, be no doubt that to them is to be charged
the murder of all rosy cheeks throughout the States. If the effect
was to be noticed simply in the dry faces of the men about Wall
Street, I should be very indifferent to the matter. But the young
ladies of Fifth Avenue are in the same category. The very pith and
marrow of life is baked out of their young bones by the hot-air
chambers to which they are accustomed. Hot air is the great destroyer
of American beauty.
In saying that there is very little to be seen in New York, I have
also said that there is no way of seeing that little. My assertion
amounts to this,--that there are no cabs. To the reading world at
large this may not seem to be much, but let the reading world go to
New York, and it will find out how much the deficiency means. In
London, in Paris, in Florence, in Rome, in the Havana, or at Grand
Cairo, the cab-driver or attendant does not merely drive the cab or
belabour the donkey, but he is the visitor's easiest and cheapest
guide. In London, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, and Madame Tussaud,
are found by the stranger without difficulty, and almost without a
thought, because the cab-driver knows the whereabouts and the way.
Space is moreover annihilated, and the huge distances of the English
metropolis are brought within the scope of mortal power. But in New
York there is no such institution.
In New York there are street omnibuses as we have,--there are
street cars such as last year we declined to have,--and there
are very excellent public carriages; but none of these give you
the accommodation of a cab, nor can all of them combined do
so. The omnibuses, though clean and excellent, were to me very
unintelligible. They have no conductor to them. To know their
different lines and usages a man should have made a scientific study
of the city. To those going up and down Broadway I became accustomed,
but in them I was never quite at my ease. The money has to be paid
through a little hole behind the driver's back, and should, as I
learned at last, be paid immediately on entrance. But in getting up
to do this I always stumbled about, and it would happen that when
with considerable difficulty I had settled my own account, two or
three ladies would enter, and would hand me, without a word, some
coins with which I had no life-long familiarity in order that I might
go through the same ceremony on their account. The change I would
usually drop into the straw, and then there would arise trouble and
unhappiness. Before I became aware of that law as to instant payment,
bells used to be rung at me which made me uneasy. I knew I was not
behaving as a citizen should behave, but could not compass the exact
points of my delinquency. And then when I desired to escape, the door
being strapped up tight, I would halloo vainly at the driver through
the little hole; whereas, had I known my duty, I should have rung
a bell, or pulled a strap, according to the nature of the omnibus
in question. In a month or two all these things may possibly be
learned;--but the visitor requires his facilities for locomotion at
the first moment of his entrance into the city. I heard it asserted
by a lecturer in Boston, Mr. Wendell Phillips, whose name is there
a household word, that citizens of the United States carried brains
in their fingers as well as in their heads, whereas "common people,"
by which Mr. Phillips intended to designate the remnant of mankind
beyond the United States, were blessed with no such extended cerebral
development. Having once learned this fact from Mr. Phillips,
I understood why it was that a New York omnibus should be so
disagreeable to me, and at the same time so suitable to the wants of
the New Yorkers.
And then there are street cars--very long omnibuses--which run on
rails but are dragged by horses. They are capable of holding forty
passengers each, and as far as my experience goes carry an average
load of sixty. The fare of the omnibus is six cents or three pence.
That of the street car five cents or two pence halfpenny. They run
along the different avenues, taking the length of the city. In the
upper or new part of the town their course is simple enough, but
as they descend to the Bowery, Peckslip, and Pearl Street, nothing
can be conceived more difficult or devious than their courses. The
Broadway omnibus, on the other hand, is a straightforward honest
vehicle in the lower part of the town, becoming, however, dangerous
and miscellaneous when it ascends to Union Square and the vicinities
of fashionable life.
The street cars are manned with conductors, and therefore are free
from many of the perils of the omnibus, but they have perils of their
own. They are always quite full. By that I mean that every seat is
crowded, that there is a double row of men and women standing down
the centre, and that the driver's platform in front is full, and also
the conductor's platform behind. That is the normal condition of a
street car in the Third Avenue. You, as a stranger in the middle of
the car, wish to be put down at, let us say, 89th Street. In the map
of New York now before me the cross streets running from east to
west are numbered up northwards as far as 154th Street. It is quite
useless for you to give the number as you enter. Even an American
conductor, with brains all over him, and an anxious desire to
accommodate, as is the case with all these men, cannot remember. You
are left therefore in misery to calculate the number of the street
as you move along, vainly endeavouring through the misty glass to
decipher the small numbers which after a day or two you perceive to
be written on the lamp posts.
But I soon gave up all attempts at keeping a seat in one of these
cars. It became my practice to sit down on the outside iron rail
behind, and as the conductor generally sat in my lap I was in a
measure protected. As for the inside of these vehicles, the women
of New York were, I must confess, too much for me. I would no
sooner place myself on a seat, than I would be called on by a mute,
unexpressive, but still impressive stare into my face, to surrender
my place. From cowardice if not from gallantry I would always obey;
and as this led to discomfort and an irritated spirit, I preferred
nursing the conductor on the hard bar in the rear.
And here if I seem to say a word against women in America, I beg that
it may be understood that I say that word only against a certain
class; and even as to that class I admit that they are respectable,
intelligent, and, as I believe, industrious. Their manners, however,
are to me more odious than those of any other human beings that I
ever met elsewhere. Nor can I go on with that which I have to say
without carrying my apology further, lest perchance I should be
misunderstood by some American women whom I would not only exclude
from my censure, but would include in the very warmest eulogium which
words of mine could express as to those of the female sex whom I love
and admire the most. I have known, do know, and mean to continue
to know as far as in me may lie, American ladies as bright, as
beautiful, as graceful, as sweet, as mortal limits for brightness,
beauty, grace, and sweetness will permit. They belong to the
aristocracy of the land, by whatever means they may have become
aristocrats. In America one does not inquire as to their birth, their
training, or their old names. The fact of their aristocratic power
comes out in every word and look. It is not only so with those who
have travelled or with those who are rich. I have found female
aristocrats with families and slender means, who have as yet made
no grand tour across the ocean. These women are charming beyond
expression. It is not only their beauty. Had he been speaking of
such, Wendell Phillips would have been right in saying that they have
brains all over them. So much for those who are bright and beautiful,
who are graceful and sweet! And now a word as to those who to me are
neither bright nor beautiful, and who can be to none either graceful
or sweet.
It is a hard task that of speaking ill of any woman, but it seems
to me that he who takes upon himself to praise incurs the duty of
dispraising also where dispraise is, or to him seems to be, deserved.
The trade of a novelist is very much that of describing the softness,
sweetness, and loving dispositions of women; and this he does,
copying as best he can from nature. But if he only sings of that
which is sweet, whereas that which is not sweet too frequently
presents itself, his song will in the end be untrue and ridiculous.
Women are entitled to much observance from men, but they are entitled
to no observance which is incompatible with truth. Women, by the
conventional laws of society, are allowed to exact much from men,
but they are allowed to exact nothing for which they should not make
some adequate return. It is well that a man should kneel in spirit
before the grace and weakness of a woman, but it is not well that he
should kneel either in spirit or body if there be neither grace nor
weakness. A man should yield everything to a woman for a word, for a
smile,--to one look of entreaty. But if there be no look of entreaty,
no word, no smile, I do not see that he is called upon to yield much.
The happy privileges with which women are at present blessed have
come to them from the spirit of chivalry. That spirit has taught men
to endure in order that women may be at their ease; and has generally
taught women to accept the ease bestowed on them with grace and
thankfulness. But in America the spirit of chivalry has sunk deeper
among men than it has among women. It must be borne in mind that in
that country material well-being and education are more extended than
with us; and that, therefore, men there have learned to be chivalrous
who with us have hardly progressed so far. The conduct of men to
women throughout the States is always gracious. They have learned the
lesson. But it seems to me that the women have not advanced as far
as the men have done. They have acquired a sufficient perception of
the privileges which chivalry gives them, but no perception of that
return which chivalry demands from them. Women of the class to which
I allude are always talking of their rights, but seem to have a most
indifferent idea of their duties. They have no scruple at demanding
from men everything that a man can be called on to relinquish in a
woman's behalf, but they do so without any of that grace which turns
the demand made into a favour conferred.
I have seen much of this in various cities of America, but much
more of it in New York than elsewhere. I have heard young Americans
complain of it, swearing that they must change the whole tenor of
their habits towards women. I have heard American ladies speak of it
with loathing and disgust. For myself, I have entertained on sundry
occasions that sort of feeling for an American woman which the close
vicinity of an unclean animal produces. I have spoken of this with
reference to street cars, because in no position of life does an
unfortunate man become more liable to these anti-feminine atrocities
than in the centre of one of these vehicles. The woman, as she
enters, drags after her a misshapen, dirty mass of battered wirework,
which she calls her crinoline, and which adds as much to her grace
and comfort as a log of wood does to a donkey when tied to the
animal's leg in a paddock. Of this she takes much heed, not managing
it so that it may be conveyed up the carriage with some decency, but
striking it about against men's legs, and heaving it with violence
over people's knees. The touch of a real woman's dress is in itself
delicate; but these blows from a harpy's fins are loathsome. If
there be two of them they talk loudly together, having a theory that
modesty has been put out of court by women's rights. But, though
not modest, the woman I describe is ferocious in her propriety. She
ignores the whole world around her, and as she sits with raised chin
and face flattened by affectation, she pretends to declare aloud that
she is positively not aware that any man is even near her. She speaks
as though to her, in her womanhood, the neighbourhood of men was the
same as that of dogs or cats. They are there, but she does not hear
them, see them, or even acknowledge them by any courtesy of motion.
But her own face always gives her the lie. In her assumption of
indifference she displays her nasty consciousness, and in each
attempt at a would-be propriety is guilty of an immodesty. Who does
not know the timid retiring face of the young girl who when alone
among men unknown to her feels that it becomes her to keep herself
secluded? As many men as there are around her, so many knights has
such a one, ready bucklered for her service, should occasion require
such services. Should it not, she passes on unmolested,--but not, as
she herself will wrongly think, unheeded. But as to her of whom I am
speaking, we may say that every twist of her body, and every tone
of her voice is an unsuccessful falsehood. She looks square at you
in the face, and you rise to give her your seat. You rise from a
deference to your own old convictions, and from that courtesy which
you have ever paid to a woman's dress, let it be worn with ever such
hideous deformities. She takes the place from which you have moved
without a word or a bow. She twists herself round, banging your shins
with her wires, while her chin is still raised, and her face is still
flattened, and she directs her friend's attention to another seated
man, as though that place were also vacant, and necessarily at her
disposal. Perhaps the man opposite has his own ideas about chivalry.
I have seen such a thing, and have rejoiced to see it.
You will meet these women daily, hourly,--everywhere in the streets.
Now and again you will find them in society, making themselves even
more odious there than elsewhere. Who they are, whence they come,
and why they are so unlike that other race of women of which I have
spoken, you will settle for yourself. Do we not all say of our chance
acquaintances after half an hour's conversation,--nay, after half an
hour spent in the same room without conversation,--that this woman
is a lady, and that that other woman is not? They jostle each other
even among us, but never seem to mix. They are closely allied; but
neither imbues the other with her attributes. Both shall be equally
well-born, or both shall be equally ill-born; but still it is so.
The contrast exists in England; but in America it is much stronger.
In England women become ladylike or vulgar. In the States they are
either charming or odious.
See that female walking down Broadway. She is not exactly such a
one as her I have attempted to describe on her entrance into the
street car; for this lady is well-dressed, if fine clothes will
make well-dressing. The machinery of her hoops is not battered, and
altogether she is a personage much more distinguished in all her
expenditures. But yet she is a copy of the other woman. Look at the
train which she drags behind her over the dirty pavement, where dogs
have been, and chewers of tobacco, and everything concerned with
filth except a scavenger. At every hundred yards some unhappy man
treads upon the silken swab which she trails behind her,--loosening
it dreadfully at the girth one would say; and then see the style
of face and the expression of features with which she accepts the
sinner's half-muttered apology. The world, she supposes, owes her
everything because of her silken train,--even room enough in a
crowded thoroughfare to drag it along unmolested. But, according to
her theory, she owes the world nothing in return. She is a woman with
perhaps a hundred dollars on her back, and having done the world
the honour of wearing them in the world's presence, expects to be
repaid by the world's homage and chivalry. But chivalry owes her
nothing,--nothing, though she walk about beneath a hundred times
a hundred dollars,--nothing even though she be a woman. Let every
woman learn this,--that chivalry owes her nothing unless she also
acknowledge her debt to chivalry. She must acknowledge it and pay it;
and then chivalry will not be backward in making good her claims upon
it.
All this has come of the street cars. But as it was necessary that I
should say it somewhere, it is as well said on that subject as on any
other. And now to continue with the street cars. They run, as I have
said, the length of the town, taking parallel lines. They will take
you from the Astor House, near the bottom of the town, for miles and
miles northward,--half way up the Hudson river,--for, I believe, five
pence. They are very slow, averaging about five miles an hour; but
they are very sure. For regular inhabitants, who have to travel five
or six miles perhaps to their daily work, they are excellent. I have
nothing really to say against the street cars. But they do not fill
the place of cabs.
There are, however, public carriages, roomy vehicles dragged by two
horses, clean and nice, and very well suited to ladies visiting the
city. But they have none of the attributes of the cab. As a rule they
are not to be found standing about. They are very slow. They are very
dear. A dollar an hour is the regular charge; but one cannot regulate
one's motion by the hour. Going out to dinner and back costs two
dollars, over a distance which in London would cost two shillings. As
a rule, the cost is four times that of a cab; and the rapidity half
that of a cab. Under these circumstances I think I am justified in
saying that there is no mode of getting about in New York to see
anything.
And now as to the other charge against New York, of there being
nothing to see. How should there be anything there to see of general
interest? In other large cities, cities as large in name as New York,
there are works of art, fine buildings, ruins, ancient churches,
picturesque costumes, and the tombs of celebrated men. But in New
York there are none of these things. Art has not yet grown up there.
One or two fine figures by Crawford are in the town,--especially
that of the sorrowing Indian at the rooms of the Historical Society;
but art is a luxury in a city which follows but slowly on the heels
of wealth and civilization. Of fine buildings,--which indeed are
comprised in art,--there are none deserving special praise or remark.
It might well have been that New York should ere this have graced
herself with something grand in architecture; but she has not done
so. Some good architectural effect there is, and much architectural
comfort. Of ruins of course there can be none; none at least of such
ruins as travellers admire, though perhaps some of that sort which
disgraces rather than decorates. Churches there are plenty, but none
that are ancient. The costume is the same as our own; and I need
hardly say that it is not picturesque. And the time for the tombs of
celebrated men has not yet come. A great man's ashes are hardly of
value till they have all but ceased to exist.
The visitor to New York must seek his gratification and obtain his
instruction from the habits and manners of men. The American, though
he dresses like an Englishman, and eats roast beef with a silver
fork,--or sometimes with a steel knife,--as does an Englishman,
is not like an Englishman in his mind, in his aspirations, in
his tastes, or in his politics. In his mind he is quicker, more
universally intelligent, more ambitious of general knowledge, less
indulgent of stupidity and ignorance in others, harder, sharper,
brighter with the surface brightness of steel, than is an Englishman;
but he is more brittle, less enduring, less malleable, and I think
less capable of impressions. The mind of the Englishman has more
imagination, but that of the American more incision. The American is
a great observer, but he observes things material rather than things
social or picturesque. He is a constant and ready speculator; but all
speculations, even those which come of philosophy, are with him more
or less material. In his aspirations the American is more constant
than an Englishman,--or I should rather say he is more constant
in aspiring. Every citizen of the United States intends to do
something. Every one thinks himself capable of some effort. But in
his aspirations he is more limited than an Englishman. The ambitious
American never soars so high as the ambitious Englishman. He does
not even see up to so great a height; and when he has raised himself
somewhat above the crowd becomes sooner dizzy with his own altitude.
An American of mark, though always anxious to show his mark, is
always fearful of a fall. In his tastes the American imitates the
Frenchman. Who shall dare to say that he is wrong, seeing that
in general matters of design and luxury the French have won for
themselves the foremost name? I will not say that the American is
wrong, but I cannot avoid thinking that he is so. I detest what is
called French taste; but the world is against me. When I complained
to a landlord of an hotel out in the West that his furniture was
useless; that I could not write at a marble table whose outside rim
was curved into fantastic shapes; that a gold clock in my bedroom
which did not go would give me no aid in washing myself; that a
heavy, immoveable curtain shut out the light; and that papier-mache
chairs with small fluffy velvet seats were bad to sit on,--he
answered me completely by telling me that his house had been
furnished not in accordance with the taste of England, but with
that of France. I acknowledged the rebuke, gave up my pursuits of
literature and cleanliness, and hurried out of the house as quickly
as I could. All America is now furnishing itself by the rules which
guided that hotel-keeper. I do not merely allude to actual household
furniture,--to chairs, tables, and detestable gilt clocks. The taste
of America is becoming French in its conversation, French in its
comforts and French in its discomforts, French in its eating, and
French in its dress, French in its manners, and will become French in
its art. There are those who will say that English taste is taking
the same direction. I do not think so. I strongly hope that it is not
so. And therefore I say that an Englishman and an American differ in
their tastes.
But of all differences between an Englishman and an American that
in politics is the strongest, and the most essential. I cannot here,
in one paragraph, define that difference with sufficient clearness
to make my definition satisfactory; but I trust that some idea of
that difference may be conveyed by the general tenor of my book. The
American and the Englishman are both Republicans. The governments
of the States and of England are probably the two purest republican
governments in the world. I do not, of course, here mean to say that
the governments are more pure than others, but that the systems
are more absolutely republican. And yet no men can be much further
asunder in politics than the Englishman and the American. The
American of the present day puts a ballot-box into the hands of every
citizen and takes his stand upon that and that only. It is the duty
of an American citizen to vote, and when he has voted he need trouble
himself no further till the time for voting shall come round again.
The candidate for whom he has voted represents his will, if he have
voted with the majority, and in that case he has no right to look
for further influence. If he have voted with the minority, he has no
right to look for any influence at all. In either case he has done
his political work, and may go about his business till the next year
or the next two or four years shall have come round. The Englishman,
on the other hand, will have no ballot-box, and is by no means
inclined to depend exclusively upon voters or upon voting. As far
as voting can show it, he desires to get the sense of the country;
but he does not think that that sense will be shown by universal
suffrage. He thinks that property amounting to a thousand pounds
will show more of that sense than property amounting to a hundred;
but he will not on that account go to work and apportion votes to
wealth. He thinks that the educated can show more of that sense than
the uneducated; but he does not therefore lay down any rule about
reading, writing, and arithmetic, or apportion votes to learning. He
prefers that all these opinions of his shall bring themselves out and
operate by their own intrinsic weight. Nor does he at all confine
himself to voting in his anxiety to get the sense of the country. He
takes it in any way that it will show itself, uses it for what it is
worth,--or perhaps for more than it is worth,--and welds it into that
gigantic lever by which the political action of the country is moved.
Every man in Great Britain, whether he possess any actual vote or no,
can do that which is tantamount to voting every day of his life, by
the mere expression of his opinion. Public opinion in America has
hitherto been nothing, unless it has managed to express itself by a
majority of ballot-boxes. Public opinion in England is everything,
let votes go as they may. Let the people want a measure, and there
is no doubt of their obtaining it. Only the people must want
it;--as they did want Catholic emancipation, reform, and corn-law
repeal;--and as they would want war if it were brought home to them
that their country was insulted.
In attempting to describe this difference in the political action of
the two countries, I am very far from taking all praise for England
or throwing any reproach on the States. The political action of the
States is undoubtedly the more logical and the clearer. That indeed
of England is so illogical and so little clear that it would be quite
impossible for any other nation to assume it, merely by resolving to
do so. Whereas the political action of the States might be assumed by
any nation to-morrow, and all its strength might be carried across
the water in a few written rules as are the prescriptions of a
physician or the regulations of an infirmary. With us the thing has
grown of habit, has been fostered by tradition, has crept up uncared
for and in some parts unnoticed. It can be written in no book, can be
described in no words, can be copied by no statesmen, and I almost
believe can be understood by no people but that to whose peculiar
uses it has been adapted.
In speaking as I have here done of American taste and American
politics I must allude to a special class of Americans who are to be
met more generally in New York than elsewhere,--men who are educated,
who have generally travelled, who are almost always agreeable, but
who as regards their politics are to me the most objectionable of all
men. As regards taste they are objectionable to me also. But that is
a small thing; and as they are quite as likely to be right as I am I
will say nothing against their taste. But in politics it seems to me
that these men have fallen into the bitterest and perhaps into the
basest of errors. Of the man who begins his life with mean political
ideas, having sucked them in with his mother's milk, there may be
some hope. The evil is at any rate the fault of his forefathers
rather than of himself. But who can have hope of him who, having been
thrown by birth and fortune into the running river of free political
activity, has allowed himself to be drifted into the stagnant level
of general political servility? There are very many such Americans.
They call themselves republicans, and sneer at the idea of a limited
monarchy, but they declare that there is no republic so safe, so
equal for all men, so purely democratic as that now existing in
France. Under the French empire all men are equal. There is no
aristocracy; no oligarchy; no overshadowing of the little by the
great. One superior is admitted;--admitted on earth, as a superior is
also admitted in heaven. Under him everything is level, and--provided
he be not impeded--everything is free. He knows how to rule, and the
nation, allowing him the privilege of doing so, can go along its
course safely;--can eat, drink, and be merry. If few men can rise
high, so also can few men fall low. Political equality is the one
thing desirable in a commonwealth, and by this arrangement political
equality is obtained. Such is the modern creed of many an educated
republican of the States.
To me it seems that such a political state is about the vilest to
which a man can descend. It amounts to a tacit abandonment of the
struggle which men are making for political truth and political
beneficence, in order that bread and meat may be eaten in peace
during the score of years or so that are at the moment passing over
us. The politicians of this class have decided for themselves that
the _summum bonum_ is to be found in bread and the circus games.
If they be free to eat, free to rest, free to sleep, free to drink
little cups of coffee while the world passes before them on a
boulevard, they have that freedom which they covet. But equality is
necessary as well as freedom. There must be no towering trees in this
parterre to overshadow the clipped shrubs, and destroy the uniformity
of a growth which should never mount more than two feet above the
earth. The equality of this politician would forbid any to rise above
him instead of inviting all to rise up to him. It is the equality
of fear and of selfishness, and not the equality of courage and
philanthropy. And brotherhood too must be invoked,--fraternity as we
may better call it in the jargon of the school. Such politicians tell
one much of fraternity, and define it too. It consists in a general
raising of the hat to all mankind; in a daily walk that never hurries
itself into a jostling trot, inconvenient to passengers on the
pavement;--in a placid voice, a soft smile, and a small cup of coffee
on a boulevard. It means all this, but I could never find that it
meant any more. There is a nation for which one is almost driven to
think that such political aspirations as these are suitable; but that
nation is certainly not the States of America.
And yet one finds many American gentlemen who have allowed themselves
to be drifted into such a theory. They have begun the world as
republican citizens, and as such they must go on. But in their
travels and their studies, and in the luxury of their life, they have
learned to dislike the rowdiness of their country's politics. They
want things to be soft and easy;--as republican as you please, but
with as little noise as possible. The President is there for four
years. Why not elect him for eight, for twelve, or for life?--for
eternity if it were possible to find one who could continue to live?
It is to this way of thinking that Americans are driven, when the
polish of Europe has made the roughness of their own elections odious
to them.
"Have you seen any of our great institootions, sir?" That of course
is a question which is put to every Englishman who has visited New
York, and the Englishman who intends to say that he has seen New
York, should visit many of them. I went to schools, hospitals,
lunatic asylums, institutes for deaf and dumb, water works,
historical societies, telegraph offices, and large commercial
establishments. I rather think that I did my work in a thorough
and conscientious manner, and I owe much gratitude to those who
guided me on such occasions. Perhaps I ought to describe all these
institutions; but were I to do so, I fear that I should inflict fifty
or sixty very dull pages on my readers. If I could make all that I
saw as clear and intelligible to others as it was made to me who saw
it, I might do some good. But I know that I should fail. I marvelled
much at the developed intelligence of a room full of deaf and dumb
pupils, and was greatly astonished at the performance of one special
girl, who seemed to be brighter and quicker, and more rapidly easy
with her pen than girls generally are who can hear and talk; but I
cannot convey my enthusiasm to others. On such a subject a writer may
be correct, may be exhaustive, may be statistically great; but he
can hardly be entertaining, and the chances are that he will not be
instructive.
In all such matters, however, New York is preeminently great. All
through the States suffering humanity receives so much attention that
humanity can hardly be said to suffer. The daily recurring boast of
"our glorious institootions, sir," always provokes the ridicule of an
Englishman. The words have become ridiculous, and it would, I think,
be well for the nation if the term "Institution" could be excluded
from its vocabulary. But, in truth, they are glorious. The country in
this respects boasts, but it has done that which justifies a boast.
The arrangements for supplying New York with water are magnificent.
The drainage of the new part of the city is excellent. The
hospitals are almost alluring. The lunatic asylum which I saw was
perfect,--though I did not feel obliged to the resident physician
for introducing me to all the worst patients as countrymen of my own.
"An English lady, Mr. Trollope. I'll introduce you. Quite a hopeless
case. Two old women. They've been here fifty years. They're English.
Another gentleman from England, Mr. Trollope. A very interesting
case! Confirmed inebriety."
And as to the schools, it is almost impossible to mention them with
too high a praise. I am speaking here specially of New York, though
I might say the same of Boston, or of all New England. I do not know
any contrast that would be more surprising to an Englishman, up to
that moment ignorant of the matter, than that which he would find by
visiting first of all a free school in London, and then a free school
in New York. If he would also learn the number of children that are
educated gratuitously in each of the two cities, and also the number
in each which altogether lack education, he would, if susceptible of
statistics, be surprised also at that. But seeing and hearing are
always more effective than mere figures. The female pupil at a free
school in London is, as a rule, either a ragged pauper, or a charity
girl, if not degraded at least stigmatized by the badges and dress
of the Charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, and have a
fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is imparted to
them. We see the result afterwards when the same girls become our
servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The female pupil
at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a charity girl.
She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is perfectly cleanly. In
speaking to her, you cannot in any degree guess whether her father
has a dollar a day, or three thousand dollars a year. Nor will you
be enabled to guess by the manner in which her associates treat her.
As regards her own manner to you, it is always the same as though
her father were in all respects your equal. As to the amount of her
knowledge, I fairly confess that it is terrific. When, in the first
room which I visited, a slight slim creature was had up before me
to explain to me the properties of the hypothenuse I fairly confess
that, as regards education, I backed down, and that I resolved to
confine my criticisms to manner, dress, and general behaviour. In
the next room I was more at my ease, finding that ancient Roman
history was on the tapis. "Why did the Romans run away with the
Sabine women?" asked the mistress, herself a young woman of about
three-and-twenty. "Because they were pretty," simpered out a
little girl with a cherry mouth. The answer did not give complete
satisfaction; and then followed a somewhat abstruse explanation
on the subject of population. It was all done with good faith and
a serious intent, and showed what it was intended to show,--that
the girls there educated had in truth reached the consideration of
important subjects, and that they were leagues beyond that terrible
repetition of A B C, to which, I fear, that most of our free
metropolitan schools are still necessarily confined. You and I,
reader, were we called on to superintend the education of girls of
sixteen, might not select as favourite points either the hypothenuse,
or the ancient methods of populating young colonies. There may be,
and to us on the European side of the Atlantic there will be, a
certain amount of absurdity in the transatlantic idea that all
knowledge is knowledge, and that it should be imparted if it be not
knowledge of evil. But as to the general result, no fair-minded man
or woman can have a doubt. That the lads and girls in these schools
are excellently educated comes home as a fact to the mind of any one
who will look into the subject. That girl could not have got as far
as the hypothenuse without a competent and abiding knowledge of much
that is very far beyond the outside limits of what such girls know
with us. It was at least manifest in the other examination that the
girls knew as well as I did who were the Romans, and who were the
Sabine women. That all this is of use, was shown in the very gestures
and bearings of the girl. _Emollit mores_, as Colonel Newcombe used
to say. That young woman whom I had watched while she cooked her
husband's dinner upon the banks of the Mississippi, had doubtless
learned all about the Sabine women, and I feel assured that she
cooked her husband's dinner all the better for that knowledge,--and
faced the hardships of the world with a better front than she would
have done had she been ignorant on the subject.
In order to make a comparison between the schools of London and those
of New York, I have called them both free schools. They are in fact
more free in New York than they are in London, because in New York
every boy and girl, let his parentage be what it may, can attend
these schools without any payment. Thus an education as good as the
American mind can compass, prepared with every care, carried on by
highly paid tutors, under ample surveillance, provided with all that
is most excellent in the way of rooms, desks, books, charts, maps,
and implements, is brought actually within the reach of everybody.
I need not point out to Englishmen how different is the nature of
schools in London. It must not, however, be supposed that these are
charity schools. Such is not their nature. Let us say what we may
as to the beauty of charity as a virtue, the recipient of charity
in its customary sense among us is ever more or less degraded by
the position. In the States that has been fully understood, and
the schools to which I allude are carefully preserved from any
such taint. Throughout the States a separate tax is levied for the
maintenance of these schools, and as the tax-payer supports them,
he is of course entitled to the advantage which they confer. The
child of the non-tax-payer is also entitled, and to him the boon, if
strictly analysed, will come in the shape of a charity. But under
the system as it is arranged, this is not analysed. It is understood
that the school is open to all in the ward to which it belongs, and
no inquiry is made whether the pupil's parent has or has not paid
anything towards the school's support. I found this theory carried
out so far that at the deaf and dumb school, where some of the poorer
children are wholly provided by the institution, care is taken to
clothe them in dresses of different colours and different make, in
order that nothing may attach to them which has the appearance of a
badge. Political economists will see something of evil in this. But
philanthropists will see very much that is good.
It is not without a purpose that I have given this somewhat glowing
account of a girls' school in New York so soon after my little
picture of New York women, as they behave themselves in the streets
and street cars. It will, of course, be said that those women of whom
I have spoken, by no means in terms of admiration, are the very girls
whose education has been so excellent. This of course is so; but I
beg to remark that I have by no means said that an excellent school
education will produce all female excellences. The fact, I take it,
is this,--that seeing how high in the scale these girls have been
raised, one is anxious that they should be raised higher. One is
surprised at their pert vulgarity and hideous airs, not because they
are so low in our general estimation but because they are so high.
Women of the same class in London are humble enough, and therefore
rarely offend us who are squeamish. They show by their gestures that
they hardly think themselves good enough to sit by us; they apologise
for their presence; they conceive it to be their duty to be lowly
in their gestures. The question is which is best, the crouching and
crawling or the impudent unattractive self-composure. Not, my reader,
which action on her part may the better conduce to my comfort or to
yours! That is by no means the question. Which is the better for
the woman herself? That I take it is the point to be decided. That
there is something better than either we shall all agree;--but to my
thinking the crouching and crawling is the lowest type of all.
At that school I saw some five or six hundred girls collected in one
room, and heard them sing. The singing was very pretty, and it was
all very nice; but I own that I was rather startled, and to tell the
truth somewhat abashed, when I was invited to "say a few words to
them." No idea of such a suggestion had dawned upon me, and I felt
myself quite at a loss. To be called up before five hundred men is
bad enough, but how much worse before that number of girls! What
could I say but that they were all very pretty? As far as I can
remember I did say that and nothing else. Very pretty they were, and
neatly dressed, and attractive; but among them all there was not a
pair of rosy cheeks. How should there be, when every room in the
building was heated up to the condition of an oven by those damnable
hot-air pipes!
In England a taste for very large shops has come up during the last
twenty years. A firm is not doing a good business, or at any rate
a distinguished business, unless he can assert in his trade card
that he occupies at least half a dozen houses--Nos. 105, 106, 107,
108, 109, and 110. The old way of paying for what you want over
the counter is gone; and when you buy a yard of tape or a new
carriage,--for either of which articles you will probably visit the
same establishment,--you go through about the same amount of ceremony
as when you sell a thousand pounds out of the stocks in propriâ
personâ. But all this is still further exaggerated in New York. Mr.
Stewart's store there is perhaps the handsomest institution in the
city, and his hall of audience for new carpets is a magnificent
saloon. "You have nothing like that in England," my friend said to
me as he walked me through it in triumph. "I wish we had nothing
approaching to it," I answered. For I confess to a liking for
the old-fashioned private shops. Harper's establishment for the
manufacture and sale of books is also very wonderful. Everything is
done on the premises, down to the very colouring of the paper which
lines the covers, and places the gilding on their backs. The firm
prints, engraves, electroplates, sews, binds, publishes, and sells
wholesale and retail. I have no doubt that the authors have rooms in
the attics where the other slight initiatory step is taken towards
the production of literature.
New York is built upon an island, which is I believe about ten
miles long, counting from the southern point at the Battery up
to Carmansville, to which place the city is presumed to extend
northwards. This island is called Manhattan,--a name which I have
always thought would have been more graceful for the city than that
of New York. It is formed by the Sound or East river, which divides
the continent from Long Island, by the Hudson river which runs into
the Sound or rather joins it at the city foot, and by a small stream
called the Haarlem river which runs out of the Hudson and meanders
away into the Sound at the north of the city, thus cutting the city
off from the main land. The breadth of the island does not much
exceed two miles, and therefore the city is long, and not capable of
extension in point of breadth. In its old days it clustered itself
round about the Point, and stretched itself up from there along
the quays of the two waters. The streets down in this part of the
town are devious enough, twisting themselves about with delightful
irregularity; but as the city grew there came the taste for
parallelograms, and the upper streets are rectangular and numbered.
Broadway, the street of New York with which the world is generally
best acquainted, begins at the southern point of the town and goes
northward through it. For some two miles and a half it walks away in
a straight line, and then it turns to the left towards the Hudson,
and becomes in fact a continuation of another street called the
Bowery, which comes up in a devious course from the south-east
extremity of the island. From that time Broadway never again takes
a straight course, but crosses the various Avenues in an oblique
direction till it becomes the Bloomingdale road, and under that
name takes itself out of town. There are eleven so-called Avenues,
which descend in absolutely straight lines from the northern, and
at present unsettled, extremity of the new town, making their way
southward till they lose themselves among the old streets. These are
called First Avenue, Second Avenue, and so on. The town had already
progressed two miles up northwards from the Battery before it had
caught the parallelogrammic fever from Philadelphia, for at about
that distance we find "First Street." First Street runs across the
Avenues from water to water, and then Second Street. I will not name
them all, seeing that they go up to 154th Street! They do so at least
on the map, and I believe on the lamp-posts. But the houses are not
yet built in order beyond 50th or 60th Street. The other hundred
streets, each of two miles long, with the Avenues which are mostly
unoccupied for four or five miles, is the ground over which the young
New Yorkers are to spread themselves. I do not in the least doubt
that they will occupy it all, and that 154th Street will find itself
too narrow a boundary for the population.
I have said that there was some good architectural effect in New
York, and I alluded chiefly to that of the Fifth Avenue. The Fifth
Avenue is the Belgrave Square, the Park Lane, and the Pall Mall of
New York. It is certainly a very fine street. The houses in it are
magnificent, not having that aristocratic look which some of our
detached London residences enjoy, or the palatial appearance of an
old-fashioned hotel in Paris, but an air of comfortable luxury and
commercial wealth which is not excelled by the best houses of any
other town that I know. They are houses, not hotels or palaces; but
they are very roomy houses, with every luxury that complete finish
can give them. Many of them cover large spaces of ground, and their
rent will sometimes go up as high as £800 and £1000 a year. Generally
the best of these houses are owned by those who live in them, and
rent is not therefore paid. But this is not always the case, and the
sums named above may be taken as expressing their value. In England
a man should have a very large income indeed who could afford to pay
£1000 a year for his house in London. Such a one would as a matter of
course have an establishment in the country, and be an Earl or a Duke
or a millionaire. But it is different in New York. The resident there
shows his wealth chiefly by his house, and though he may probably
have a villa at Newport or a box somewhere up the Hudson he has no
second establishment. Such a house therefore will not represent a
total expenditure of above £4,000 a year.
There are churches on each side of Fifth Avenue,--perhaps five or
six within sight at one time,--which add much to the beauty of the
street. They are well-built, and in fairly good taste. These, added
to the general well-being and splendid comfort of the place, give it
an effect better than the architecture of the individual houses would
seem to warrant. I own that I have enjoyed the vista as I have walked
up and down Fifth Avenue, and have felt that the city had a right to
be proud of its wealth. But the greatness and beauty and glory of
wealth have on such occasions been all in all with me. I know no
great man, no celebrated statesman, no philanthropist of peculiar
note who has lived in Fifth Avenue. That gentleman on the right made
a million of dollars by inventing a shirt-collar; this one on the
left electrified the world by a lotion; as to the gentleman at the
corner there,--there are rumours about him and the Cuban slave-trade;
but my informant by no means knows that they are true. Such are the
aristocracy of Fifth Avenue. I can only say that if I could make a
million dollars by a lotion, I should certainly be right to live in
such a house as one of those.
The suburbs of New York are, by the nature of the localities, divided
from the city by water. New Jersey and Hoboken are on the other side
of the Hudson, and in another State. Williamsburgh and Brooklyn are
in Long Island, which is a part of the State of New York. But these
places are as easily reached as Lambeth is reached from Westminster.
Steam ferries ply every three or four minutes, and into these boats
coaches, carts, and waggons of any size or weight are driven. In fact
they make no other stoppage to the commerce than that occasioned by
the payment of a few cents. Such payment no doubt is a stoppage, and
therefore it is that New Jersey, Brooklyn, and Williamsburgh are, at
any rate in appearance, very dull and uninviting. They are, however,
very populous. Many of the quieter citizens prefer to live there; and
I am told that the Brooklyn tea-parties consider themselves to be, in
æsthetic feeling, very much ahead of anything of the kind in the more
opulent centres of the city. In beauty of scenery Staten Island is
very much the prettiest of the suburbs of New York. The view from the
hill side in Staten Island down upon New York harbour is very lovely.
It is the only really good view of that magnificent harbour which I
have been able to find. As for appreciating such beauty when one is
entering a port from sea, or leaving it for sea, I do not believe in
any such power. The ship creeps up or creeps out while the mind is
engaged on other matters. The passenger is uneasy either with hopes
or fears; and then the grease of the engines offends one's nostrils.
But it is worth the tourist's while to look down upon New York
harbour from the hill side in Staten Island. When I was there Fort
Lafayette looked black in the centre of the channel, and we knew that
it was crowded with the victims of secession. Fort Tomkins was being
built, to guard the pass,--worthy of a name of richer sound; and Fort
something else was bristling with new cannon. Fort Hamilton, on Long
Island, opposite, was frowning at us; and immediately around us a
regiment of volunteers was receiving regimental stocks and boots from
the hands of its officers. Everything was bristling with war; and one
could not but think that not in this way had New York raised herself
so quickly to her present greatness.
But the glory of New York is the Central Park;--its glory in the mind
of all New Yorkers of the present day. The first question asked of
you is whether you have seen the Central Park, and the second is as
to what you think of it. It does not do to say simply that it is
fine, grand, beautiful, and miraculous. You must swear by cock and
pie that it is more fine, more grand, more beautiful, more miraculous
than anything else of the kind anywhere. Here you encounter, in its
most annoying form, that necessity for eulogium which presses you
everywhere. For, in truth, taken as it is at present, the Central
Park is not fine, nor grand, nor beautiful. As to the miracle, let
that pass. It is perhaps as miraculous as some other great latter-day
miracles.
But the Central Park is a very great fact, and affords a strong
additional proof of the sense and energy of the people. It is very
large, being over three miles long, and about three quarters of
a mile in breadth. When it was found that New York was extending
itself, and becoming one of the largest cities of the world, a space
was selected between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, immediately outside
the limits of the city as then built, but nearly in the centre of
the city as it is intended to be built. The ground around it became
at once of great value; and I do not doubt that the present fashion
of the Fifth Avenue about Twentieth Street will in course of time
move itself up to the Fifth Avenue as it looks, or will look, over
the Park at Seventieth, Eightieth, and Ninetieth Streets. The great
waterworks of the city bring the Croton River, whence New York is
supplied, by an aqueduct over the Haarlem river into an enormous
reservoir just above the Park; and hence it has come to pass that
there will be water not only for sanitary and useful purposes, but
also for ornament. At present the Park, to English eyes, seems to be
all road. The trees are not grown up, and the new embankments, and
new lakes, and new ditches, and new paths give to the place anything
but a picturesque appearance. The Central Park is good for what it
will be, rather than for what it is. The summer heat is so very great
that I doubt much whether the people of New York will ever enjoy such
verdure as our parks show. But there will be a pleasant assemblage of
walks and water-works, with fresh air, and fine shrubs and flowers,
immediately within the reach of the citizens. All that art and energy
can do will be done, and the Central Park doubtless will become one
of the great glories of New York. When I was expected to declare
that St. James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens,
altogether, were nothing to it, I confess that I could only remain
mute.
Those who desire to learn what are the secrets of society in New
York, I would refer to the Potiphar Papers. The Potiphar Papers are
perhaps not as well known in England as they deserve to be. They were
published, I think, as much as seven or eight years ago; but are
probably as true now as they were then. What I saw of society in New
York was quiet and pleasant enough; but doubtless I did not climb
into that circle in which Mrs. Potiphar held so distinguished a
position. It may be true that gentlemen habitually throw fragments of
their supper and remnants of their wine on to their host's carpets;
but if so I did not see it.
As I progress in my work I feel that duty will call upon me to write
a separate chapter on hotels in general, and I will not, therefore,
here say much about those in New York. I am inclined to think
that few towns in the world, if any, afford on the whole better
accommodation, but there are many in which the accommodation is
cheaper. Of the railways also I ought to say something. The fact
respecting them which is most remarkable is that of their being
continued into the centre of the town through the streets. The cars
are not dragged through the city by locomotive engines, but by
horses; the pace therefore is slow, but the convenience to travellers
in being brought nearer to the centre of trade must be much felt. It
is as though passengers from Liverpool and passengers from Bristol
were carried on from Euston Square and Paddington along the New Road,
Portland Place, and Regent Street to Pall Mall, or up the City Road
to the Bank. As a general rule, however, the railways, railway cars,
and all about them are ill-managed. They are monopolies, and the
public, through the press, has no restraining power upon them as it
has in England. A parcel sent by express over a distance of forty
miles will not be delivered within twenty-four hours. I once made my
plaint on this subject at the bar or office of an hotel, and was told
that no remonstrance was of avail. "It is a monopoly," the man told
me, "and if we say anything, we are told that if we do not like it
we need not use it." In railway matters and postal matters time and
punctuality are not valued in the States as they are with us, and the
public seem to acknowledge that they must put up with defects,--that
they must grin and bear them in America, as the public no doubt do in
Austria where such affairs are managed by a government bureau.
In the beginning of this chapter I spoke of the population of
New York, and I cannot end it without remarking that out of that
population more than one-eighth is composed of Germans. It is, I
believe, computed that there are about 120,000 Germans in the city,
and that only two other German cities in the world, Vienna and
Berlin, have a larger German population than New York. The Germans
are good citizens and thriving men, and are to be found prospering
all over the northern and western parts of the Union. It seems that
they are excellently well adapted to colonization, though they have
in no instance become the dominant people in a colony, or carried
with them their own language or their own laws. The French have
done so in Algeria, in some of the West India islands, and quite as
essentially into Lower Canada, where their language and laws still
prevail. And yet it is, I think, beyond doubt that the French are not
good colonists, as are the Germans.
Of the ultimate destiny of New York as one of the ruling commercial
cities of the world, it is, I think, impossible to doubt. Whether or
no it will ever equal London in population I will not pretend to say.
Even should it do so, should its numbers so increase as to enable
it to say that it had done so, the question could not very well be
settled. When it comes to pass that an assemblage of men in one
so-called city have to be counted by millions, there arises the
impossibility of defining the limits of that city, and of saying who
belong to it and who do not. An arbitrary line may be drawn, but that
arbitrary line, though perhaps false when drawn as including too
much, soon becomes more false as including too little. Ealing, Acton,
Fulham, Putney, Norwood, Sydenham, Blackheath, Woolwich, Greenwich,
Stratford, Highgate, and Hampstead, are, in truth, component parts of
London, and very shortly Brighton will be as much so.