As for stopping, they will stop to talk to any one on the road about the price of the markets, the news, or any thing else; and the same accommodation is cheerfully given to any passenger who has any business to transact on the way. The Americans are accustomed to it, and the passengers never raise any objections. There is a spirit of accommodation, arising from their natural good temper2.
I was once in a coach when the driver pulled up, and entered a small house on the road side; after he had been there some time, as it was not an inn, I expressed my wonder what he was about. I guess I can tell you, said a man who was standing by the coach, and overheard me; theres a pretty girl in that house, and hes doing a bit of courting, I expect. Such was the fact: the passengers laughed, and waited for him very patiently. He remained about three-quarters of an hour, and then came out. The time was no doubt to him very short; but to us it appeared rather tedious.
Mrs Jamieson, in her last work, says: One dark night, I remember, as the sleet and rain were falling fast, and our Extra was slowly dragged by wretched brutes of horses through what seemed to me Sloughs of Despond, some package ill stowed on the roof, which in the American stages presents no resting-place for man or box, fell off. The driver alighted to fish it out of the mud. As there was some delay, a gentleman seated opposite to me put his head out of window to inquire the cause; to whom the drivers voice replied, in an angry tone, I say, you mister, dont you sit jabbering there; but lend a hand to heave these things aboard! To my surprise, the gentleman did not appear struck by the insolence of this summons, but immediately jumped out and rendered his assistance. This is merely the manner of the people. The driver intended no insolence, nor was it taken as such; and my fellow-travellers could not help laughing at my surprise.
I have mentioned these little anecdotes, as they may amuse the reader; but it must be understood that, generally speaking, the drivers are very good-natured and obliging, and the passengers very accommodating to each other, and submitting with a good grace to what cannot be ameliorated.
Volume OneChapter Two
TravellingIn making my observations upon the rail-road and steam-boat travelling in the United States, I shall point out some facts with which the reader must be made acquainted. The Americans are a restless, locomotive people: whether for business or pleasure, they are ever on the move in their own country, and they move in masses. There is but one conveyance, it may be said, for every class of people, the coach, rail-road, or steam-boat, as well as most of the hotels, being open to all; the consequence is that the society is very much mixedthe millionaire, the well-educated woman of the highest rank, the senator, the member of Congress, the farmer, the emigrant, the swindler, and the pick-pocket, are all liable to meet together in the same vehicle of conveyance. Some conventional rules were therefore necessary, and those rules have been made by public opiniona power to which all must submit in America. The one most important, and without which it would be impossible to travel in such a gregarious way, is an universal deference and civility shewn to the women, who may in consequence travel without protection all over the United States without the least chance of annoyance or insult. This deference paid to the sex is highly creditable to the Americans; it exists from one end of the Union to the other; indeed, in the Southern and more lawless States, it is even more chivalric than in the more settled. Let a female be ever so indifferently clad, whatever her appearance may be, still it is sufficient that she is a female; she has the first accommodation, and until she has it, no man will think of himself. But this deference is not only shewn in travelling, but in every instance. An English lady told me, that wishing to be present at the inauguration of Mr Van Buren, by some mistake, she and her daughters alighted from the carriage at the wrong entrance, and in attempting to force their way through a dense crowd were nearly crushed to death. This was perceived, and the word was givenmake room for the ladies. The whole crowd, as if by one simultaneous effort, compressed itself to the right and left, locking themselves together to meet the enormous pressure, and made a wide lane, through which they passed with ease and comfort. It reminded me of the Israelites passing through the Red Sea with the wall of waters on each side of them, observed the lady. In any other country we must have been crushed to death.
When I was on board one of the steam-boats, an American asked one of the ladies to what she would like to be helped. She replied, to some turkey, which was within reach, and off of which a passenger had just cut the wing and transferred it to his own plate. The American who had received the ladys wishes, immediately pounced with his fork upon the wing of the turkey and carried it off to the young ladys plate; the only explanation given, a lady, Sir! was immediately admitted as sufficient.
The authority of the captain of a steam-boat is never disputed; if it were, the offender would be landed on the beach. I was on board of a steam-boat when, at tea time, a young man sat down with his hat on.
You are in the company of ladies, sir, observed the captain very civilly, and I must request you to take your hat off.
Are you the captain of the boat? observed the young man, in a sulky tone.
Yes, sir, I am.
Well, then, I suppose I must, growled the passenger, as he obeyed.
But if the stewards, who are men of colour, were to attempt to enforce the order, they would meet with such a rebuff as I have myself heard given.
If its the captains orders, let the captain come and give them. Im not going to obey a Nigger like you.
Perhaps it is owing to this deference to the sex that you will observe that the Americans almost invariably put on their best clothes when they travel; such is the case whatever may be the cause; and the ladies in America, travelling or not, are always well, if not expensively dressed. They dont all swap bonnets as the two young ladies did in the stage-coach in Vermont.
But, notwithstanding the decorum so well preserved as I have mentioned, there are some annoyances to be met with from gregarious travelling. One is, that occasionally a family of interesting young citizens who are suffering from the whooping-cough, small-pox, or any other complaint, are brought on board, in consequence of the medical gentlemen having recommended change of air. Of course the other children, or even adults, may take the infection, but they are not refused admittance upon such trifling grounds; the profits of the steam boat must not be interfered with.
Of all travelling, I think that by railroad the most intriguing, especially in America. After a certain time the constant coughing of the locomotive, the dazzling of the vision from the rapidity with which objects are passed, the sparks and ashes which fly in your face and on your clothes become very annoying; your only consolation is the speed with which you are passing over the ground.
The railroads in America are not so well made as in England, and are therefore more dangerous; but it must be remembered that at present nothing is made in America but to last a certain time; they go to the exact expense considered necessary and no further, they know that in twenty years they will be better able to spend twenty dollars than one now. The great object is to obtain quick returns for the outlay, and, except in few instances, durability or permanency is not thought of. One great cause of disasters is, that the railroads are not fenced on the sides, so as to keep the cattle off them, and it appears as if the cattle who range the woods are very partial to take their naps on the roads, probably from their being drier than the other portions of the soil. It is impossible to say how many cows have been cut into atoms by the trains in America, but the frequent accidents arising from these causes has occasioned the Americans to invent a sort of shovel, attached to the front of the locomotive, which takes up a cow, tossing her off right or left. At every fifteen miles of the rail-roads there are refreshment rooms; the cars stop, all the doors are thrown open, and out rush the passengers like boys out of school, and crowd round the tables to solace themselves with pies, patties, cakes, hard-boiled eggs, ham, custards, and a variety of railroad luxuries, too numerous to mention. The bell rings for departure, in they all hurry with their hands and mouths full, and off they go again, until the next stopping place induces them to relieve the monotony of the journey by masticating without being hungry.
The Utica railroad is the best in the United States. The general average of speed is from fourteen to sixteen miles an hour; but on the Utica they go much faster.3 A gentleman narrated to me a singular specimen of the ruling passion which he witnessed on an occasion when the rail-cars were thrown off the road, and nearly one hundred people killed, or injured in a greater or less degree.
On the side of the road lay a man with his leg so severely fractured, that the bone had been forced through the skin, and projected outside his trowsers. Over him hung his wife, with the utmost solicitude, the blood running down from a severe cut received on her head, and kneeling by his side was his sister, who was also much injured. The poor women were lamenting over him, and thinking nothing of their own hurts; and he, it appears, was also thinking nothing about his injury, but only lamenting the delay which would be occasioned by it.
Oh! my dear, dear Isaac, what can be done with your leg? exclaimed the wife in the deepest distress.
What will become of my leg! cried the man. Whats to become of my business, I should like to know?
Oh! dear brother, said the other female, dont think about your business now; think of getting cured.
Think of getting curedI must think how the bills are to be met, and I not there to take them up. They will be presented as sure as I lie here.
Oh! never mind the bills, dear husbandthink of your precious leg.
Not mind the bills! but I must mind the billsmy credit will be ruined.
Not when they know what has happened, brother. Oh! dear, dearthat leg, that leg.
Dn the leg; whats to become of my business, groaned the man, falling on his back from excess of pain.
Now this was a specimen of true commercial spirit. If this man had not been nailed to the desk, he might have been a hero.
I shall conclude this chapter with an extract from an American author, which will give some idea of the indifference as to loss of life in the United States.
Every now and then is a tale of railroad disaster in some part of the country, at inclined planes, or intersecting points, or by running off the track, making splinters of the cars, and of mens bones; and locomotives have been known to encounter, head to head, like two rams fighting. A little while previous to the writing of these lines, a locomotive and tender shot down the inclined plain at Philadelphia, like a falling star. A woman, with two legs broken by this accident, was put into an omnibus, to be carried to the hospital, but the driver, in his speculations, coolly replied to a man, who asked why he did not go on?that he was waiting for a full load.
Volume OneChapter Three
TravellingThe most general, the most rapid, the most agreeable, and, at the same time, the most dangerous, of American travelling is by steam boats. It will be as well to give the reader an idea of the extent of this navigation by putting before him the lengths of some of the principal rivers in the United States.
Voice from America.
Many of the largest of these rivers are at present running through desertsothers possess but a scanty population on their banks; but, as the west fills up, they will be teeming with life, and the harvest of industry will freight many more hundreds of vessels than those which at present disturb their waters.
The Americans have an idea that they are very far ahead of us in steam navigation, a great error which I could not persuade them of. In the first place, their machinery is not by any means equal to ours; in the next, they have no sea-going steam vessels, which after all is the great desideratum of steam navigation. Even in the number and tonnage of their mercantile steam vessels they are not equal to us, as I shall presently show, nor have they yet arrived to that security in steam navigation which we have.
The return of vessels belonging to the Mercantile Steam Marine of Great Britain, made by the Commissioners on the Report of steam-vessel accidents in 1839, is, number of vessels, 810; tonnage, 157,840; horse power, 63,250.
Mr Levi Woodburys Report to Congress in December, 1838, states the number of American steam vessels to be 800, and the tonnage to be 155,473; horse power, 57,019.
It is but fair to state, that the Americans have the credit of having sent the first steam vessel across the Atlantic. In 1819, a steam vessel, built at New York, crossed from Savannah to Liverpool in twenty-six days.
The number of sea-going steam vessels in England is two hundred and eighty-two, while in the United States they have not more than ten at the outside calculation. In the size of our vessels also we are far superior to them. I here insert a table, shewing the dimensions of our largest vessels, as given in the Report to the House of Commons, and another of the largest American vessels collected from the Report of Mr Levi Woodbury to Congress.
Table shewing some of the Dimensions of the Hull and Machinery of the five largest ships yet built or building.
(Table to be added in a later edition.)
But the point on which we are so vastly superior to the Americans, is in our steam vessels of war. They have but one in the United States, named the Fulton the Second. The following is a list of those belonging to the Government of Great Britain, with their tonnage:
Government Steam Vessels Building.
I trust that the above statement will satisfy the Americans that we are ahead of them in steam navigation. In consequence of their isolation, and having no means of comparison with other countries, the Americans see only their own progress, and seem to have forgotten that other nations advance as well as themselves. They appear to imagine that while they are going ahead all others are standing still: forgetting that England with her immense resources is much more likely to surpass them than to be left behind.
We must now examine the question of the proportionate security in steam boat travelling in the two countries. The following table, extracted from the Report of the Commissioners on Steam boat Accidents, will show the casualties which have occurred in this country in ten years.
Abstract of ninety-two Accidents. Table not included.
The principal portion of this loss of life has been occasioned by vessels having been built for sale, and not sea-worthy; an occurrence too common, I am afraid, in both countries.
The author of A Voice from America states the list of steamboat disasters, on the waters of the United States, for twelve months out of the years 1837-38, by bursting of boilers, burning, wrecks, etcetera, besides numerous others of less consequence, comprehends the total loss of eight vessels and one thousand and eighty lives.
So that we have in England, loss in ten years, 634; one year, 63.
In America, loss in one year, 1,080.
The report of Mr Woodbury to Congress is imperfect, which is not to be wondered at, as it is almost impossible to arrive at the truth; there is, however, much to be gleaned from it. He states that, since the employment of steam vessels in the United States, 1,300 have been built, and of them two hundred and sixty have been lost by accidents.
The greatest loss of life by collision and sinking, was in the Monmouth, (Indians transporting to the West), in 1837, by which three hundred lives were lost; Oronoka, by explosion, by which one hundred and thirty or more lives were lost and Moselle, at Cincinnati, by which from one hundred to one hundred and twenty lives were lost.