fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the
backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels
like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with
two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two
spring legs - all sorts of legs and no legs - what is this to him?
And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such
stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his
partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping
gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink,
with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one
inimitable sound!
The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the
stifling atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a
broader street, it blows upon us with a purer breath, and the stars
look bright again. Here are The Tombs once more. The city watchhouse
is a part of the building. It follows naturally on the
sights we have just left. Let us see that, and then to bed.
What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police
discipline of the town, into such holes as these? Do men and
women, against whom no crime is proved, lie here all night in
perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapours which encircle
that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this filthy and
offensive stench! Why, such indecent and disgusting dungeons as
these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in
the world! Look at them, man - you, who see them every night, and
keep the keys. Do you see what they are? Do you know how drains
are made below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ,
except in being always stagnant?
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Well, he don't know. He has had five-and-twenty young women locked
up in this very cell at one time, and you'd hardly realise what
handsome faces there were among 'em.
In God's name! shut the door upon the wretched creature who is in
it now, and put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all
the vice, neglect, and devilry, of the worst old town in Europe.
Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties? -
Every night. The watch is set at seven in the evening. The
magistrate opens his court at five in the morning. That is the
earliest hour at which the first prisoner can be released; and if
an officer appear against him, he is not taken out till nine
o'clock or ten. - But if any one among them die in the interval, as
one man did, not long ago? Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an
hour's time; as that man was; and there an end.
What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of
wheels, and shouting in the distance? A fire. And what that deep
red light in the opposite direction? Another fire. And what these
charred and blackened walls we stand before? A dwelling where a
fire has been. It was more than hinted, in an official report, not
long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly
accidental, and that speculation and enterprise found a field of
exertion, even in flames: but be this as it may, there was a fire
last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager
there will be at least one, to-morrow. So, carrying that with us
for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up-stairs to
bed.
* * * * * *
One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the
different public institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island: I
forget which. One of them is a Lunatic Asylum. The building is
handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and elegant staircase.
The whole structure is not yet finished, but it is already one of
considerable size and extent, and is capable of accommodating a
very large number of patients.
I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of
this charity. The different wards might have been cleaner and
better ordered; I saw nothing of that salutary system which had
impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything had a
lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The
moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the
gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the
vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands
and lips, and munching of the nails: there they were all, without
disguise, in naked ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a
bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but
the empty walls, a woman was locked up alone. She was bent, they
told me, on committing suicide. If anything could have
strengthened her in her resolution, it would certainly have been
the insupportable monotony of such an existence.
The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were
filled, so shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest
limits, and declined to see that portion of the building in which
the refractory and violent were under closer restraint. I have no
doubt that the gentleman who presided over this establishment at
the time I write of, was competent to manage it, and had done all
in his power to promote its usefulness: but will it be believed
that the miserable strife of Party feeling is carried even into
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this sad refuge of afflicted and degraded humanity? Will it be
believed that the eyes which are to watch over and control the
wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful visitation to which
our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some
wretched side in Politics? Will it be believed that the governor
of such a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed
perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable
weathercocks are blown this way or that? A hundred times in every
week, some new most paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and
injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America, sickening
and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was
forced upon my notice; but I never turned my back upon it with
feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I
crossed the threshold of this madhouse.
At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms
House, that is to say, the workhouse of New York. This is a large
Institution also: lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a
thousand poor. It was badly ventilated, and badly lighted; was not
too clean; - and impressed me, on the whole, very uncomfortably.
But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of
commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts
of the States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large
pauper population to provide for; and labours, therefore, under
peculiar difficulties in this respect. Nor must it b
e forgotten
that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a vast
amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.
In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are
nursed and bred. I did not see it, but I believe it is well
conducted; and I can the more easily credit it, from knowing how
mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage in
the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young children.
I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to
the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed
in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like
faded tigers. They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail
itself.
It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan
I have already described. I was glad to hear this, for it is
unquestionably a very indifferent one. The most is made, however,
of the means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a
place can be.
The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose. If I
remember right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it
may, the greater part of them labour in certain stone-quarries near
at hand. The day being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended,
and the prisoners were in their cells. Imagine these cells, some
two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man locked up;
this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the
grate; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember); and
this one flung down in a heap upon the ground, with his head
against the bars, like a wild beast. Make the rain pour down,
outside, in torrents. Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot,
and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron. Add a
collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand
mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full
of half-washed linen - and there is the prison, as it was that day.
The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a
model jail. That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best
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examples of the silent system.
In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute: an
Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and
female, black and white, without distinction; to teach them useful
trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them
worthy members of society. Its design, it will be seen, is similar
to that at Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable
establishment. A suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of
this noble charity, whether the superintendent had quite sufficient
knowledge of the world and worldly characters; and whether he did
not commit a great mistake in treating some young girls, who were
to all intents and purposes, by their years and their past lives,
women, as though they were little children; which certainly had a
ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in theirs
also. As the Institution, however, is always under a vigilant
examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and
experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted; and whether I am
right or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to its
deserts and character, which it would be difficult to estimate too
highly.
In addition to these establishments, there are in New York,
excellent hospitals and schools, literary institutions and
libraries; an admirable fire department (as indeed it should be,
having constant practice), and charities of every sort and kind.
In the suburbs there is a spacious cemetery: unfinished yet, but
every day improving. The saddest tomb I saw there was 'The
Strangers' Grave. Dedicated to the different hotels in this city.'
There are three principal theatres. Two of them, the Park and the
Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I
grieve to write it, generally deserted. The third, the Olympic, is
a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and burlesques. It is singularly
well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour
and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by London
playgoers. I am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that
his benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings
with merriment every night. I had almost forgotten a small summer
theatre, called Niblo's, with gardens and open air amusements
attached; but I believe it is not exempt from the general
depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously
called by that name, unfortunately labours.
The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely
picturesque. The climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat
of the warmest. What it would be, without the sea breezes which
come from its beautiful Bay in the evening time, I will not throw
myself or my readers into a fever by inquiring.
The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of Boston;
here and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the
mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always
most hospitable. The houses and tables are elegant; the hours
later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a greater spirit of
contention in reference to appearances, and the display of wealth
and costly living. The ladies are singularly beautiful.
Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage
home in the George Washington packet ship, which was advertised to
sail in June: that being the month in which I had determined, if
prevented by no accident in the course of my ramblings, to leave
America.
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I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who
are dear to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a
part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured,
when I parted at last, on board this ship, with the friends who had
accompanied me from this city. I never thought the name of any
place, so far away and so lately known, could ever associate itself
in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances that now
cluster about it. There are those in this city who would brighten,
to me, the darkest winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in
Lapland; and before whose presence even Home grew dim, when they
and I exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every
thought and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and
closes up the vista of our lives in age.
CHAPTER VII - PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
THE journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and
two ferries; and usually occupies between five and six hours. It
was a fine evening when we were passengers in the train: and
watching the bright sunset from a little w
indow near the door by
which we sat, my attention was attracted to a remarkable appearance
issuing from the windows of the gentleman's car immediately in
front of us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a
number of industrious persons inside, ripping open feather-beds,
and giving the feathers to the wind. At length it occurred to me
that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case; though how
any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to
contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower
of expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand:
notwithstanding the experience in all salivatory phenomena which I
afterwards acquired.
I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young
quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave
whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor
oil. I mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that
this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in
question was ever used as a conversational aperient.
We reached the city, late that night. Looking out of my chamberwindow,
before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the
way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a mournful
ghost-like aspect, dreary to behold. I attributed this to the
sombre influence of the night, and on rising in the morning looked
out again, expecting to see its steps and portico thronged with
groups of people passing in and out. The door was still tight
shut, however; the same cold cheerless air prevailed: and the
building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone
have any business to transact within its gloomy walls. I hastened
to inquire its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished. It
was the Tomb of many fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment;
the memorable United States Bank.
The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had
cast (as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under
the depressing effect of which it yet laboured. It certainly did
seem rather dull and out of spirits.
It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular. After walking
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about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the
world for a crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to
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