Last Winter in the United States, being table talk collected during a tour through the late Southern Confederation, etc

Front matter

LAST WINTER r:. THE UNITED STATES LONDON: PF-lSTED ET SPOTTISWOOPE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PAELIAMBNT STREET LAST WINTER IN THE UNITED STATES BEING TABLE TALK COLLECTED during a tour through THE LATE SOUTHERN CONFEDERATION, THE FAE WEST, THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, &c. By F. BAEHAM ZINCKE vicar of wherstead and chaplain m ORDTSAET TO the queex LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1868 The right of translation is reserved TO MY WIFE $ Jkbitah tjj£g£ IJagts BECAUSE, WHILE OF ALL WOMEN I AM ACQUAINTED WITH SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN MOST CAPABLE OF ENTERING INTO THE INTEREST OF THE SCENES AND OF THE STATE OF SOCIETY THEY DESCRIBE, SHE DETERMINED, FOB THE SAKE OF HER ONLY CHILD, TO FOREGO THAT PLEASURE ; AND URGED ME NOT TO LOSE, FROM CONSIDERATION FOB HEB, AN OPPORTUNITY FOB CARRYING OUT A LONG CHERISHED WISH TO VISIT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Wherstead Vicarage: Nov. 24, 1868. PAGE CONTENTS.

Chapter I

The Winter Voyage recommended — A Cabin to oneself may then be had at no additional cost — Advantages of Travelling in America in Winter — A Feeling in a Gale — The Americans on board the Steamer — Divine Service on Board 1

Chapter II

New York — Menu at Fifth Avenue Hotel — How Travel in the States may be arranged for a Winter Tour — The Queen's Book in America — External Appearance of New York — Ignorance of English Immigrants — Industrial Schools — Children's Aid Society — Number of Churches — Broad Views general — A Service at the Rev. H. W. Beecher's Church — Episcopalian Broad Church Club — Chapels in poor Districts annexed to Episcopal Churches in rich ones — American Churches worked at High Pressure — An American Divine's Opinion of a Minister's Duty ... 8

Chapter III

Why an unreasonable Fancy was acted on — The History of the Cause of American Progressiveness — What passes in America important to us— The Northern States sown broadcast with Houses ........... 2i Contents. VIII

Chapter IV

fags The Locomotive in the Streets— In Baltimore Public Opinion first becomes Southern — Growth and Prospects of Baltimore — On Trading Politicians and Ill-will to England — Why an American Tutor thought necessary for an Englishman — Repudiation — The Masses and Middle Class in favour of it— Arguments in favour of it — An Argument used 2,000 Miles from Wall Street — Why Republicans bound to repudiate — Americans addicted to Ab stract Reasoning — Instances 32

Chapter V

Washington — Style of Speaking in Congress — Congress no Nursery for Statesmen — Society in Washington — Episcopal Church in Washington — Some Opinions of an American Bishop — Commissioner of Agriculture — Use of the Department — Its Museum gives an Idea of the Vastness of the Country — Its Natural Advantages — What Variety of Productions has done for England will be repeated in America — Special Excellence of Californian Productions — The Californian himself — California compared with Italy — Why Coloured Waiters preferable to White — Negro Funeral with Masonic Honours — American Birds' Nests — Bill for making Education compulsory — Coloured Schools — Comparative Intelligence of the Negro — Vulgar Errors about Americans — Night Attendants at Hotel read ' Oliver Twist ' — Capitol — Treasury — Patent Office — What our Diplomacy in America should be — Use of Iced Water 44

Chapter VI

Richmond — Way by the Battle-fields — Handiness of American Soldiers — Effect of Slavery on the Virginian Landscape — Appearance of American Forest — Republican Relations of Father and Son — State of Feeling in Virginia — Billiards in America — Why Richmond Millers undersold by Californian — Why American Cities are Large — American Living — Prospects of Richmond — Indi cations of Southern Climatein Richmond — Church-matters in Richmond— Interest that attaches to Richmond, and to the Heroism of the South Contents. IX PAOB

Chapter VII

How Southerners describe their own Condition — Each State must be taken separately — Missouri — Tennessee — Kentucky — Texas — Virginia — Georgia — Florida — North Carolina — Arkansas — South Carolina — Louisiana— Mississippi — Will the Blacks get the Franchise ?— No party considers them fit — They will have it for a time — This will weaken the repudiating party — Also the party hostile to this country — The Blacks will not all be republican — The South should have been left alone, to settle the Labour Question — The Bureau suggested false ideas — There will be no war of races — What will kill out the Blacks — The rate of this — Fusion physically impossible — Means of Communication in the South indicate its condition 91 CHAPTER VEIL First Sight of a Cotton-field — Spanish Moss — A Night on the Kails — Many kinds of sameness in America — Maize — Order of Succession in the Forest— Its extent— Evergreens in the Southern Forest — Poor land in the South may be more profitable than rich land in the West — Deadness of Charleston —Its Hotels — A Charleston Sam Weller— The Naples of the United States — Few English Travellers — Sufferings of Southern Families — Want of schools — How the deficiency is being supplied — Blacks should be put on same footing as Whites — Dialogue with Black Memberof Convention — Another Convention— Able Black Member — South Carolina Orphan Asylum 109

Chapter IX

Cold in South Carolina and Georgia — Curious appearance of Ice — Time not valued in the South — Why Americans will not cultivate the Olive — Tea might grow in Georgia — Atlanta bound to be great — Cattle badly off in winter — A Virginian's Recollection of the War— His Position and Prospects— Approach to Mobile by the Alabama River— Mobile— The Harbour— Why no American Ships there — A Day on the Gulf— Ponchatrain — New Orleans — French Sunday Market — French appearance of Town Contents. X PAGB 126 146 164 172 — A New Orleans Gentleman on the Episcopal Church — Bishop Elect of Georgia — Mississippi — The Cemeteries — Expensiveness of everything — Transatlantic News — Fusion of North and South — French Half-breeds— Roads — The best in the World- Approach to Newj Orleans by land — Sugar Plantations — A Prayer for a Brother Minister

Chapter X

My only Delay on an American Railway — No concealing one's Nationality — Railway Cow-plough — Pistols — Memphis — Emigration from the South deprecated — True Method of Resuscitation — The Minister's Study — ConTersation with two Ministers — irritation to ' go to Church '150 Miles off — Luxury does not sap the Military Spirit — Mrs. Read — Entry into Eden — Share a Bedroom with a Californian — How California was cirilised — How a Site upon the Swamp was created for Cairo — Decline the fourth part of a Bedroom at Odin — ' Be good to yourself .

CHAPTER XL

Mississippi frozen OTer at St. Louis — Why the Bridge at St. Louis is built by Chicago Men — General Sherman — Ideas about Education at St. Louis — Liberal Bequests for Educatioual Purposes — How New Englandism leavens the whole Lump — The German Invasion will not Germanise America — St. Louis — Its rapid Growth — Its Church Architecture — An Idea on Mental Culture from the West Bank of the Mississippi — A Thought suggested by hearing the Skaters on the Mississippi talking English

Chapter XII

Instance of American Kindliness — Red-skins and Half-breeds on the Rails — Cincinnati and its Inhabitants — What may be made of Pigs — The influence of its Pork-crop — Machinery for Killing and Curing — Improving effect American Equality has on the highest and lowest Class — Churches only unprosaic Buildings in American Towns — Schools — Merits of Philadelphian style of City-building not obvious — In what it consists — America has but one City — No. 24, G Street, corner of 2oth Street Contents. XI PAGE 182

Chapter XIII

The Valley of the Ohio — Much of the United States will produce Wine — Illinois at Night — First View of Lake Michigan — Chicago — A Sign of outward Religion — ' Small-pox here ' — Fire Alarm — Liberality of Chicago Merchants — The Dollar not all-inall — A Church lighted from the Roof — A handsome American- America has developed a new type of Features — Chicago Schools — An exception to the American way of denouncing the official Class — Chicago Sunday Schools — Programme of one I attended — Excellence of Water at Chicago — How supplied — Lifting up the City— Post Office Arrangements — A disadvantage of frequent change of Clerks— Americans on Aristocracy — How the Germans, the masses of the people, and the upper class feel towards it .

Chapter XIV

Prairie from Chicago to Omaha — Plains from North Platte to the Mountains — Omaha, the intersection of the Pacific Bailway and the Missouri — Temporary Bridge over the Missouri — Djdifference to Kisks affecting Life — A Prairie Fire — The Forest on the Mountains on Fire — Fire the cause of the Treelessness of the Prairies— First found Animal Life abounding in the Valley of the Platte — ' The hardest place, Sir, on this Continent ' — Its Predecessor — How it is possible to establish Lynch Law at Shyenne — My first Night in Shyenne — A second Night in Shyenne — Necessity and advantages of Lynch Law — ' The use of the Pistol ' — A Man shot because ' he might have done some mischief — Newness of Aspects both of Society and of Nature , . . 202

Chapter XV

The Armament and Experience of a German Herdmaster — A Stage Coach on the Plains — The Party in the Coach — The only Colonel I met in the United States — The Colonel's Wife — A Colorado Herdmaster — A Philadelphian Graduate — Two jocoso Denver Storekeepers — Advantage of having one's Rifle in the Coach — A Californian's account of a Skirmish with Indians — Manners and Life at a house on the Plains — A Lady of the Plains — American Society judges Men fairly — Between Shyenne and Denver ........ ■ Contents. XII PAGE 249

Chapter XVI

The City of Denver— The Ladies give a Ball— Manners of Denver — ' Quite our finest Gentleman '—The Plains will be to America an improved Australia— The adTantages they offer for Flocks and Herds— Will soon be clear of Indians — Markets now opened to them— Size of the Runs — Wealth of the Region . . .233

Chapter XVII

The Rocky Mountains — Golden City— Golden Gates — Mining Towns — Neighbouring Mountains stripped of eTery Tree — What grows on the Mountains — American Horses— Roads and Bridges they have to pass — How, six-in-hand, we went down a Hillside in the Mountains — A nice Distinction as to Accidents on this Hill — Climate — Wind-storms — Birds — Dogs . . . .241

Chapter XVIII

Rocky Mountains a Field for Sporting — Great variety and abundance of Game — Wild Fruit — Excellence of Climate in the 6hooting season — How the Mountains may be reached, and how much seen by the way, in 15 days from Liverpool — Cost of the Expedition — The best Camping Ground is the South Park at foot of Pike's Peak — The Route by Chicago and Denver recommended — Other Route by St. Louis and Leavenworth — Route into the Park — The North Park easier work — The more enterprising may go to Laramie Plains — Will deteriorate every year.

Chapter XIX

Hotel Cars, real First-class Carriages — An Editor on his Countrymen's Knowledge — American Grandiloquence — Of whom this is 6aid — Necessary to repeat some of what one hears — ' Have you seen our Forest ? ' — ' The Pacific Bails will carry the commerce of the world '• — Large Acquaintance Americans have — An American on Letters of Introduction — Niagara — The American and Canadian Falls—What is in the mind magnifies what one sees — The Stone Trough it has chipped out — Ice Bridge — -How Niagara is pronounced — A Week of Canadian Weather — A Snow-bound Party at Niagara . Contents. XIII

Chapter XX. Page

Educational Department at Toronto — Canadian Arguments against Common Schools — A Canadian's Opinion on Secular Schools in England — How the Canadians' Objections are met in the United States — Upper Canadians not yet a People — Advantages possessed by Upper Canada — Service at the Romanist and Anglican Cathedrals — Unmannerly Behaviour permitted on Canadian Railways — Badness of their Carriages — Why Canada is not ' the Land of Freedom ' — Yankee Smartness in Train-driving — Picturesqueness of Vermont — Travelling on American Railways not fatiguing .......... 269

Chapter XXI

Boston is the Hub of America — Mr. Ticknor — Professor Rogers and the Technological — Mr. Norton — Professor Agassiz — Mr. Appleton and Mr. Longfellow — Mr. Philbrick — A Grammar School Commemoration — Humility of the better Literary Men of Boston — Regret at leaving Boston 279

CHAPTER XXIL

American Hotels — Why some People in America travel without any Luggage — Conversation at Tables-d'hote should be encouraged — The Irish, the African, and the Chinese — Can a Bepublie do without a Servile Class ? — What will be the ultimate Fate of these three races in America — No Children — Motives — Means — Consequences — Why many young Men and young Women make Shipwreck of Happiness in America — The course many Families run — America the Hub of the World .... 286

Introduction

. No ONE would now think of writing a continuous narrative of travel in the United States of America. The only alternative hitherto adopted has been that of Essays on American subjects. But towards these the opinion of the reading public has not been so favourable as to make one desirous of adding to their number. There appears, however, to be another form, as yet, I believe, untried, in which he who has travelled in a country, about which people know much, but from which they are still desirous of bearing something more, may pre sent to the reader wbat he has to say. He may write, I mean, somewhat in the fashion of a book of table-talk. This he may do by confining himself just to what he knows would be listened to with interest in a company of intelligent persons who had some acquaintance with the subject ; and by putting what he has to say of this kind with the conciseness, and, if possible, with the point, required in conversa- Introduction.

XVI tion. This would render it necessary that the book should consist rather of paragraphs than of chapters ; and that these should frequently have little or no connection ; many of them being very brief, because they will contain merely some observation, or the notice of some fact, for which half a dozen lines will suffice. It is in this way that I now propose to write about America, trusting that by so doing I shall spare my readers' time and patience. A WINTER EN THE UNITED STATES.

Chapter I. The Winter

V0TAGE RECOMMENDED — A CABIN TO ONE'S SELF MAT THEN EE HAD AT NO ADDITIONAL COST ADVANTAGES OF TRAVEL LING IN AMERICA IN WINTER A FEELING IN A GALE THE AMERICANS ON BOARD THE STEAMER DIVINE SERVICE ON BOARD. I would recommend the man who begins to feel the effects of long-continued professional labour, or of an idle and luxurious life, if his constitution is still capable of amendment, to try what may be gained by a voyage across the Atlantic, and back again, in winter ; with such an interval between the two as he might be able to allow for a tour in the United States. In the summer the weather is likely to be so fine that the only benefit he would derive from his two voyages would be that of breathing the air of the ocean for as many days as he would spend in making them ; but in winter there would be almost a certainty of some rough weather ; and if after a few days he should prove capable of resisting the usual B CH. I. disturbing effects of such weather at sea, and come to take a pleasure in facing and battling against boisterous winds and tossing waves, I do not know what could more rapidly brace up within him what had begun to fail.

Even the mere finding of one's sea-legs, and the subsequent use of them under difficulties, would not be unattended with advantage, for I suppose it would bring into action and develope muscles not much used at other times. In winter, too, the air would be cool (it is not at all necessarily cold at that season on the track between England and America, except when one nears the American coast), and this coolness of the air would of itself have with many constitutions an invigorating effect. But be the process what it may by which your two ocean voyages bring about their renovating result, that result is that you return to your home a stronger and a hungrier man than you were before you left it. There is always much inconvenience and dis comfort in sharing at sea the ftw square feet a cabin contains with another man, however gentlemanly he may be ; and it is not improbable that one taken pro miscuously from a hundred and fifty Transatlantic travellers would possess some habit or infirmity which would render such close companionship almost in sufferable.

In summer you cannot avoid this misery except at a great cost. To be alone at that season you must pay the fare of the one or two additional berths in your cabin which you wish should remain unoccupied. But in winter the number of passengers being always less than the number of berths, you can stipidate for a cabin to yourself without being put to any additional expense. There are now so many Advantages of Travelling in Winter. 3 CH. I. competing lines of steamers to America, that neither on the outward nor homeward voyage will you find any difficulty on this head. And you need not scruple about asking for this accommodation, for it may be granted to you without at all lessening either the profits of the owners of the ship, or the comforts of auy one of the passengers. Travelling also on the terra firma of America in winter has its advantages.

At this season of the year you find everybody at home ; and if your object is rather to see the people than the country in which they live, this will alone outweigh all other considerations. The Americans being the most locomotive people in the world, are seldom to be found at home in summer. I travelled through the States in the winter and the early spring, and had letters of introduction to persons in every city I stayed at, and in no instance did I find anyone absent from home, with the single exception of a gentleman who happened to be just at that time discharging his duties as Member of Congress at Washington, whereas the letter which had been given me was directed to him at his house at Chicago, where I presented it. In winter, also, one escapes the persecutions of the mosquitoes, and of the creeping things that bite in beds, of the withering heat, and tormenting dust — those inevitable concomitants of travel under an American summer sun.

What is lost by confining one's travels in America to the (botanically) dead season of the year is, that nothing is seen of the summer and autumn aspects of the vegetation of the country. Its winter aspect, however, is not without interest to the Englishman, B A Winter in the United States. CH. I. 4 whose eye is accustomed to the perennial green of his own parks and meadows, which are generally, indeed, even greener at Christmas than at Mid-. summer. While in America I did not see in the winter and early spring a blade of grass that was even faintly tinted with green, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, or from New York to the Rocky Mountains. I was told that the blue grass of parts of Kentucky and Virginia is an exception, but of this I saw nothing myself. I found the roadsides, pas tures, and prairies everywhere clothed in unrelieved drab.

To look out from one of the Cunard Company's magnificent steam-ships, where everything is going on with the precision of clockwork, while a gale is raging on the ocean around you, and to see that in the Mid- Atlantic you are master of the winds and waves, makes you feel that it is something to be a man. As I was going to America to see the Americans, I took the first opportunity which presented itself — that of the voyage to America — for weighing and measuring the specimens of that very compound race who happened to be on board the ship in which I was sailing. About half the passengers, forty-five in all, were of German extraction ; and about half of this half were of the Hebrew persuasion. One young fellow among these latter, who I suppose might be regarded as a representative of the broad syna gogue, delivered it as his opinion, that the time had come when the Jews should give up all their peculiar practices which modern knowledge had proved to be founded in misconceptions and mistakes.

He in- A mcrican Fellow-Passengers. CH. 1. 5 stanced their abstinence from pork, and from the blood of the animals they used for food, and their method of killing animals. One of these Teutonic Americans, a youth with such a width of shoulder, and massiveness of neck and head, that no one could look upon him without being reminded of a buffalo, was an Indian trader from the borders of Kansas. His practice was to give the Indians four dollars' worth of goods for such a buffalo robe as sells in London for fifty or sixty shillings. It was his opinion that Indians were vermin which should on every opportunity have a dose of lead administered to them. When asked if this was justifiable, ' Well,' he replied, ' they are a set of bloodthirsty, treacherous skunks ; and they must all die out, or be shot down, and it can't matter much to them which it is.

It comes to much the same in the end. They shot my brother, and my plan is to take a shot at them whenever I have a chance.' All these German Americans spoke English as fluently as they did German. Their most prominent idea appeared to be hatred of all aristocracies. That of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland they regarded with their purest hatred, because it seemed to them the most developed and the most powerful. The best mannered people of the party were the Yankee and New York traders ; some of these were buyers for large wholesale and retail houses, others on their own account. There were about a dozen of them on board. They were very careful about their dress, and their conversation was pleasing and intelligent. The majority of them were entirely free from the Yankee tone of voice.

They were the very A Winter in the United States. CH. I. reverse of pushing, and they never guessed. In appearance and manners they would have passed amongst ourselves for gentlemen. We had, however, among the passengers one genuine Yankee of the received type. He had been a successful inventor of improvements in machinery, though medicine, not mechanics or engineering, was his business. He thought that anything by which he could make money was as much his business as his profession was. He was always talking, and ready to argue on any subject : if unacquainted with it, that made no difference — he still had a right to express his opinion. His favourite idea was that discussion led to know ledge, and that books came after knowledge, and that therefore they were not of much value. This dictum he fearlessly applied to everything — to history, to science, and to religion.

Theoretically he was a strong Negrophilist. He believed that the patriarchs and prophets, that the Saviour of the world and His apostles were all Negroes. He thought that the amount of wealth a man had been able to accumulate was the true measure of a man, because all pursued wealth, and employed in the pursuit the whole of their power. If a man was idle or stupid, he em ployed what power was left him, after so much had been cancelled by his idleness or stupidity. And therefore — for this was his conclusion — if he could produce several blacks, which he was sure he could do, who had accumulated more wealth than anyone present, then they were better men than any of the present company. I say he was theoretically a Negrophilist, because, although he liked the Negro, he liked him best at a distance.

In politics, he held A merican Fellow-Passengers. 7 CH. I. that clever men, and men with ideas, were the bane of the country. They had already got their constitution and their laws. The people did not want a letter of either altered, or anything added to either. All officers, therefore, elected by the people, whether for the general or the local government, were in the position of servants with written instructions. No one would tolerate a domestic servant who, in the face of his instructions, thought for himself; nor ought the people ever to re-elect a public servant who acted in this way. Indeed he held that no man should ever be re-elected, but that all public offices should be made ' to go as far as possible ' in bringing into notice deserving young men, and in helping them on a little, and in rewarding in a temporary way those who had exerted themselves on behalf of their party.

He was always joking; his jokes consisting of grotesque impossibilities and laughable exaggerations. But his unconscious and unfailing conceit, and his assumptions of omniscience, were as ridiculous as his jokes. On Sunday Divine Service was celebrated in the saloon. The service was that of the Established Church. The Germans absented themselves. The Americans were all present, and behaved very well, many of them making the responses audibly. The Bishop of Ontario read the prayers, and an English clergyman preached. Some of the Americans pro posed to him that he should, as they expressed it, ' hold another meeting ' in the evening ; but it would not have been right to drive the Germans a second time on to the deck,

Chapter II. New York

— MENU AT FIFTH AVENUE HOTFX HOW TRAVEL IN THE STATES MAT BE ARRANGED FOE A WINTER TOUR THE QUEEN'S BOOK IN AMERICA EXTERNAL APPEAEANCE OF NEW YORK—IGNOE ANCE OF ENGLISH IMMIGRANTS INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS CHILDEEN'S AID SOCIETY NUMBER OF CHURCHES BROAD VIEWS GENERAL A SEEVICE AT THE REV. H. W. BEECHEr's CHURCH EPISCOPALIAN BEOAD CHURCH CLUB — CHAPELS IN POOR DISTRICTS ANNEXED TO EPISCOPAL CHURCHES IN RICH ONES AMERICAN CHURCHES WORKED AT HIGH PRESSURE AN AMERICAN DIVINE'S OPINION OF A minister's DUTY. During my first visit to New York I stayed at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which I had been told was the largest and best managed of the monster hotels of the city. I arrived just in time for dinner. On being shown into the dining-saloon, I found between two and three hundred people at table. I had lately been staying at Paris at the Grand Hotel du Louvre, where it was thought we were treated rather liberally in having seven plats at dinner, including two sweets, and one cream or water ice.

The ice was served in infinitesimal morsels ; and if you asked for a second morsel, it was represented by an additional franc in your bill. With this experience of a great European hotel fresh in my mind, a waiter in the dining saloon of the Fifth Avenue Hotel placed in my hand the bill of fare for the dinner then going on. Seeing almost an interminable Menu of an American Hotel. CH. II. 9 printed list of comestibles, and not knowing how these things were managed in America, I supposed that this was the list of dishes the hotel undertook to prepare; and that, had I arrived some hours earlier, and then made my selection, what I might have ordered would have now been ready. The menu contained turtle soup, venison, turtle steaks, soft-shelled crabs, canvas-back ducks ; in short, whatever fish, flesh, fowl, vegetable, and fruit were then in season.

But the attendant informed me that the paper he had given me was the bill of fare for that day, and that everything mentioned in it was then actually ready ; and that I might order whatever I pleased, and it would be immediately brought to me. I made my selection ; and while he was bringing what I had ordered, I counted the number of dishes provided that day for our dinner, and found that the total amounted to seventy-five. Nothing was supplied in the scanty way in which everything was doled out at the Grand Hotel du Louvre ; but as a general rule more of everything was set before you than you could require : for in stance, instead of setting before you a morsel of ice cream, a whole mould was left with you till you ordered it to be taken away. The next morning I found fifty-two things mentioned on the bill of fare for breakfast.