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M U D C A B I N .





THE MUD CABIN;
OR,
THE CHARACTER AND TENDENCY
B R ITISH INSTITUTIONS,
AS
ILLUSTRATED IN THEIR EFFECT UPON HUMAN
CHARACTER AND DESTINY.
BY
W A R R EN IS HAM.
SECOND EDITION,
NEW YORK :
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY
AND 16 LITTLE BRITAIN, LONDON.
M. DCCC.L.III.
BNTERED, according to act of Congress, in the year f$53, by
D. APPLETON & COMPANY.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Southern District of New-York.
TO THE
WORKING MEN OF THE UNITED STATES,
OF ALL T’IROFESSIONS AND PURSUITS,
Čjiā Şūlā
I S R E S P.E C T F U L L Y D E D I O A T E D
BY
THE AUTHOR.
148] T29
P. R. E. F. A C E .
LEST the title of this book should suggest to the
reader the idea of fiction, the author would remark,
that it has been chosen solely from its identification
with the sober facts and reflections with which its
pages are filled, and which he trusts will be found
not the less interesting because they are true.
These facts and reflections are the result of
careful investigation and research, continued through
a period of eighteen months, and challenge the
severest scrutiny. That there are no mistakes,
would be quite too much to affirm, but that there
are none which should seriously affect the character
of the work, the author confidently believes.
But one design pervades the book, viz., to fur-
nish a test by which to estimate the value of the
institutions of our own country.
Co N T E N T S.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Introductory, d & º º e • 13
CHAPTER II.
Storm upon the Ocean, written on board, . * • 20
CHAPTER III.
Initiatory Impressions, º * tº * , • 26
CHAPTER IV.
Excursions among the Rural Villages and Mud Hovels of
England—Spectacles Witnessed, U. sº . 31
CHAPTER. W.
The Foregoing Confirmed by English Testimony—the Ques-
tion of Capacity, g º g wº . 45
8 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER WI.
The Question Recurring, “Can Nothing be Made of the Ag-
riculural Laborers?” Solved by Facts,
CHAPTER WIT.
Revolting Disclosures—Rural Districts more Corrupt than
Cities,
CHAPTER VIII.
Astounding Facts in reference to the Educational and Intel-
lectual Condition of the Rural Population, and of the
Kingdom, º tº tº e º
CHAPTER, IX.
The Landlord, not the Laborer, Benefited Chiefly by the Abo-
lition of Serfdom, e *>
CHAPTER X.
Woes of Ireland,
CHAPTER XI.
Woes of the Silk Weavers, . o te
CHAPTER XII.
Interview with a Distinguished Political Character—His
Views of the Various Classes, of the Government, &c.
PAGE
52
58
65
74
S2
96
103
CONTENTS. - 9
PAGE
CHAPTER, XIII.
Power of Caste, • . º & © . 111
CHAPTER XIV.
Effect of Caste upon Different Classes, e * . 118
CHAPTER, XV.
Philosophy of Idolatry as here Exemplified, also of the Power
of the Higher Orders for Evil, . e tº . 125
CHAPTER XVI.
The Great Gulf, © º ... tº e - © . 132
CHAPTER XVII
Moral Character of the People Conformable to the Model be
fore them, o º e º • . 138
CHAPTER XVIII.
Police System—its Perfection an Index to the Moral Charac-
ter of the People, © & º º . 148
CHAPTER XIX.
Another Test of Character Examined, and Illustrated by
Facts, º º p s e e . 155
CHAPTER XX.
The Coal District—Extraordinary Monopoly and Extor- -
tion, & º º º & º . 164
10 CONTENTS.
FAGE
CHAPTER XXI.
The London Barristers—their Oppressions, &c.—How they
are Made, & s te i. . 170
* * CHAPTER XXII.
Still Another Wheel in the Social Machine—its Remarkable
Characteristics, . * wº tº g . 175
CHAPTER, XXIII.
National Debt—Government Tricks and Jockeying—Private
Firms and Individuals equally Adepts, . wº , 179
CHAPTER, XXIV.
The Spell of the Past, & e * º , 186
CHAPTER, XXV.
Pastimes of the Higher Orders—their Influence, &c., . 204
CHAPTER XXVI.
How Plebeians are brought out, and what for—Glorious Con-
trast presented by our Institutions, . º . 221
CHAPTER, XXVII.
Indications of Change—British and Continental Govern-
ments Compared, also Condition of the People, . . 232
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Claim to “Similarity of Institutions” Considered, . . 239
CONTENTS. 11
PAGE
CHAPTER, XXIX.
Contrast in the Institutions of the Two Countries, . , 247
CELAPTER XXX.
Election Scenes in England Illustrative of the same Contrast, 255
CHAPTER XXXI.
Law and Justice in England equally Illustrative, . . 262
CHAPTER, XXXII.
The Public Press used by the Aristocracy to Blind the Eyes
of the People to the Character and Tendency of our Insti-
tutions, g te e & º • . 272
º
Jº
CHAPTER, XXXIII.
Brief History of the Corn-laws—their Repeal a Blow to the
Landlords, but not a Triumph of the Humbler Classes, 282
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Plea, that the Landlord's Rent no more than Pays him a
Fair Interest, Considered, º º e , 290
CHAPTER XXXV.
Hope for England, . & e ſº º . 296
12 CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Tribute to the Memory of Peel—His Achievements over Pri-
vilege and Power, ſº & tº g . 303
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Concluding Reflections. e * tº * • 309
T H E M U D C A BIN.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I HAD read books of travel, and delighted to read them,
enough, one would think, to familiarize me with all the old
World has to show; and yet, upon coming here, I found my-
self as entirely in a new world to me, as though I had not
read a word about it. There are many reasons why.
Every man, and of course every author, has his proclivi-
ties, certain habitudes of thought and of feeling, which are
his own and no one's else. And governed by these, travel-
lers naturally divide themselves off into different departments
of inquiry, which are so numerous, that each investigator
may have one almost entirely to himself.
And even those who enter the same department of in-
quiry, do not see the same objects. What would put one
man into ecstasies, would be passed unnoticed by another
Hence, one man fills his casket with gems, which another
14 THE MUD CABIN.
has trampled under his feet; the richest deposits of gold are
sometimes found right in the track of the miner.
Nor do those who see the same objects, in the same de-
partment of inquiry, see the same things in those objects, or
learn from them the same lessons; one viewing them from
this point of observation, and another from that, one looking
upon them isolated and alone, and another in their bearings
and connections, and each through the medium of his own
peculiar views and feelings. -
These things are not said to establish any claim to supe-
riority for the subject matter of these pages, but solely to
show how inevitably different persons will fall into different
strains of remark, in passing over these broad fields of ob-
servation. - -
But though one may, and should have a controlling power
of the mind, which will lead him to concentrate and expend
his researches upon a particular department of inquiry, this
need not hinder him from borrowing light from every other,
and will not.
There is always, perhaps, some danger, in pursuing any
subject of investigation, that mists of prejudice will rise
from the heart to becloud the intellect, and shut out the
sun-light of truth; but against all such dangers I have en-
deavored to guard, for I should be sorry to be stranded in a
fog. - -
I am free to confess, that amid all the interesting scenes
which have opened upon my observation here, to bewilder
and to charm, but one engrossing subject has occupied my at-
tention, from first to last, viz. the character and condition of
INTRODUCTORY. 15
the people, as affected by the institutions of the country,
viewed in the light of the contrast which my own beloved
country presents.
This one subject has haunted me by day and by night,
and all the beautiful things, and all the wonderful things
I have seen and admired here, have been powerless to charm
it away. Nay; as I have stood entranced before these beau-
tiful and wonderful things, the soft and silent whisper has
never failed to come stealing upon my thoughts, “Are these
things the true exponents of national greatness? Is it here
that we are to look for the development of the great ends of
government, and for its crowning glories?”
And then there would loom up before me, as in a vast
cloud, myriads upon myMads of human beings, arrayed in
the forbidding aspect of want, and seeming to say, “Look on
ws, if you would learn the true value of the institutions of
the country.”
I did look, and wondered that the national vision could
be so perverted as to see little things to be great, and great
things to be little. And I marvelled too, that so many of
our own people should so far yield to the spell, upon coming
here, as to have all their sympathies drawn out in behalf of
a class of objects which, though deserving of regard, are but
as the baubles of children in comparison—that they should
be so bewildered by the glitter of the throne, and of the satel-
lites that revolve around it, as to be struck blind to the mise-
ries it costs to keep those bright and beautiful orbs shining
—that they should be so light and volatile in the midst of
starving want, and think only of chasing from palace to
16 THE MUD CABIN.
palace in quest of wonders and of romance, entirely overlook-
ing the greatest wonder of all.
There have been some faithful witnesses here—some who
have not been ashamed nor afraid to testify. They have
done a good work, honor to their memories But so vast,
so complicated, and so mystified is the subject, that there is
ample room left for investigation and research, without trench-
ing upon the ground occupied by others.
Those who expect to find this book an exponent of na-
tional prejudices, a mere tirade against the institutions of the
Old World, will, perhaps, be disappointed. From beginning
to end, it consists of one continued appeal to the understand-
ing, the conscience, and the heart, sustained by facts and
reasonings which unsophisticated childhood could not fail to
comprehend and appreciate. If there is any severity about
it, it is the severity of truth and of reason alone.
It might be supposed that there must be monotony and
dulness in a book confined to the investigation of a single
subject. Not necessarily so, especially if the subject be one
which admits of a wide range of illustration. In the present
instance, some of the most interesting passages of human
history have been laid under contribution; and besides, I
have been compelled to look into the secrets of the entire
structure of society, and of the government, in search of the
causes which have produced such disastrous results; and yet,
I trust that nothing will be found in any of the investigations
I have instituted, which is not level to the commonest un-
derstanding; and I may go farther, and say—which is not
fruitful in entertainment as well as instruction—should it be
found otherwise, I shall have come titterly short.
INTRODUCTORY. 17
And yet every thing in the book is sober truth; most
rigidly have I confined myself to a statement of facts, which,
for the most part, came under my own personal observation,
and the correctness of which I have had every facility for
testing. But they are facts, which have lain, to a great
extent, without the range of common observation.
This book neither claims consideration nor asks indul-
gence. Its publication was not of my seeking. Some letters
I had written had been published, and so numerous and
earnest were the appeals which came back to me for a book
upon the subjects embraced in those letters, and from such
sources did they emanate, that I finally consented to come
forward and make my bow as an author.
At the same time, I had convictions within me which
panted for utterance. Often, amid the abominations of
these old countries, have I coveted gifts of utterance, equal
to the task of impressing my convictions, warmed into
activity by what I saw, upon every living soul throughout
the length and breadth of our land! These abominations
are so far away, and so dimly are they shadowed forth upon
the printed page, that they fail altogether of that stirring
effect upon our people, which a vivid conception of the
reality would produce. And if I can succeed in adding
any thing to the vividness of that conception, and, more than
all, if it were possible for me to raise such a glow upon these
pages, as would show off the contrast in the institutions of
the two countries, and their effects respectively upon human
weal, with all the power of a reality rising upon the vision,
I should be the happiest of men. Then would our people
18. THE MUD CABIN,
know and understand their privileges—then would they
realize the responsibilities of their position as the only people
upon the wide earth, whose institutions are a shield to the
God-given rights of humanity—and then would they rouse
themselves to duty as the depositories of a trust so sacred.
And what a sight it is for Heaven to look down
upon, to see a great people, rising up under its own aus-
pices, deliberately taking the reins of government into their
own hands, and guiding it safely, quietly, and triumphantly
through all difficulties to a glorious destiny, while the masses
in all the world besides, under the combined influence of
ignorance, superstition, and vice, basely bow the neck to the
heel of power, and grovel out existence as passive under their
burdens as the donkey or the mule!
Andºfrom whom, and from what quarter comes the
remonstrance, that such exposures will only have the effect
to widen the breach between two countries, which should
ever be bound together by the ties of reciprocal good will ?
Who, that has an American heart in his bosom, does not
agree with me, that a temporizing, compromising spirit
towards the institutions of the Old World, would be fatal
alike to the healthful development of our own, and to their
influence upon the nations of the earth? Who does not
agree with me, that if there is ever to be a cordial and abid-
ing bond of union between us and any of the nations of the
old world, they must come to us—that we cannot go to
them? And who does not agree further with me, that in
order to this, the fogs must be blown away, that we may
see clearly where each stands respectively?
INTRODUCTORY. - 19
Gladly would I have said only pleasant things of Eng-
land—there are the graves of my ancestors; and of all the
nations of the earth, next to my own, it has ever held the
uppermost place in my regards. From my infancy up, I
was taught to lisp the name of England with an almost
superstitious veneration, and my heart fairly palpitated with
emotion, as I set foot upon her shores. If any thing
were wanting to fill up the measure of my good will to the
brim, and cause it to “run over,” it has certainly been sup-
plied in the many kindnesses I have received, and the
hospitalities I have enjoyed here.
But because there are kind hearts and hospitable roofs
in England, are we to shut our ears to the cries of her op-
pressed and suffering children? To be grateful on the one
hand, must we be inhuman on the other ? -
CEIAPTER II.
STORM. Upon THE ocFAN, WRITTEN JUST BEFORE LANDING
IN ENGLAND.
I HAVE been so tumbled over and mixed up since I have
been upon the ocean, that I know not whether I shall be
able to get out an idea right side up. “Life on the ocean
wave” is very pretty in the parlor, but very different is the
music of the storm.
I had been tossed up and down our inland seas, and had
enjoyed the wild sport of their truant waters, as they played
responsive to the tempest; I had dashed along the Atlantic
coast, and witnessed the war of the elements off those capes
which are the terror of the mariner; but I had a desire to
look further abroad upon this vast reservoir of waters—to get
out upon its heaving bosom, and far away from coast or
island against which to be dashed, to see Old Ocean lashed in-
to fury, shaking his hoary locks, and roaring in terrible wrath.
And is there wrong in such a desire ? In a well-built
and well-managed ship, in mid-ocean, there is little to appre-
hend; and then, what though in the prosecution of the
great ends of life, we find a grave beneath the billows, could
we not sleep as sweetly there as beneath the “clods of the
valley,” aye, and wake as readily, and rise as triumphantly,
STORM UPON THE OCEAN. 21
in the resurrection morn, at the sound of the last trump 2
There are gems in that “pearly deep” which are yet to
glitter in the diadem of the Saviour.
Well, I have had my desire; I have witnessed a storm
upon the ocean; and although too near the British coast for
absolute safety, all was well, for all ended well.
Imagine one of the finest mornings that ever rose upon
the world. How placidly sleeps the mighty deep beneath
the beams of the rising sun How gently heaves its broad
bosom, as it rests in its quiet slumbers; and how sweetly the
soft and mellow breeze plays upon and kisses its many-dim-
pled cheek Gentle, lovely ocean, how like a lamb thou
art! And thou, soft and sighing Zephyr, how like those,
methinks, which fanned the walks of Eden | But look
yonder—see the gathering tempest, higher and higher it
rises, onward and onward it rolls—blackness shrouds the
,heavens, and the sleeping abyss awakes, and boils like a pot;
and our noble ship, see how she drives before the storm,
pitching, tumbling, careening and righting, again, and
again, and again, as though a mere plaything for the ele-
ments. And see that monster wave approaching, and hear
the stunning blow, which sends what seems a death quiver.
through all her length; but she holds on her course, now
lifting up her noble prow high above the raging billows, .
and now plunging it beneath the foaming abyss, now giving
way, and accommodating herself to the resistless force of the
waves, and now gallantly meeting them, and ploughing her
way through them, while they meet and dash around her,
and sweep in fury over her decks, burying her in a liquid
22 THE MUD CABIN.
grave; but see, she comes out like a duck, and again dances
upon the raging waters.
Come now with me, and sit here upon this sofa, and,
holding fast, look up through the skylight of the ship, and
what do you see ?' That mountain wave hanging over her,
and threatening to swallow her up, presses upon her, but she
gently careens upon her side, it passes underneath her, and
in a moment she is riding proudly upon its back.
But hold! what is the matter now The ship has
been tripped up, and has fallen into “the troughs of the
sea,” and you would think the great globe itself were rock-
ing upon its axis beneath you. There she lies, rolling like
a log, at the mercy of the waves, having apparently given
up the struggle, and resigned herself to her fate. But wait;
she is only watching her opportunity, and at the lucky mo-
ment she darts out like an eel, and is again battling with
the storm.
And now the dreaded time had come for night to hang
her gloomy curtains around us; and I confess that a sha-
dow passed over my soul as the last rays of the cheerful
light of day went out in the darkness of that dreadful night.
There was no abatement of the storm, but rather the spirit
of the tempest seemed to gather up his energies, and to
Home down upon us with accumulated power as the dark-
ness of night thickened around us. The wind seemed let
loose with increased fury “at every breath of the tempest,”
and our gallant ship staggered and reeled as she worried
her devious way amid the billows, which broke more and
more fiercely upon her as the darkness of night increased.
STORM UPON THE OCEAN. 23
And what a scene within –children screamed, women
shrieked, and stout hearts quailed.
At this fearful crisis, I crawled to the door, and looked
out, and O what a scene ! The tempest howled from
above, the deep bellowed from beneath, and our trusty ship,
now riding upon a mountain wave, in a moment pitched
from it, and went down, down, down—surely, thought I,
at the instant, as the dark waves lifted themselves up on
high all around—surely she is going to the bottom now;
but she rose like a cork, and not a wave was suffered to
come near her decks. Nobly did she rise that time, and sub-
limely stride her way over the opposing billow. But this
was only one of a constant succession of her triumphs; and
the anxious inquiry seemed to sit upon every lip, “How long
will she be able to hold out 3" “Will she never tire and
give up the struggle 2 " . These were questions which I was
willing to leave to herself to answer, for I felt assured that
she would “outride the storm.”
In the excitement of the occasion, I had forgotten that I
was a sick man. I retired to my berth exhausted, but with
difficulty kept myself in. It verily seemed as though the
elements had broken loose from all controlling power, and,
rushing back into old chaos, were tossing the ship hither
and thither in the wild uproar. Heavily and gloomily
assedhway the first hours of that dismal night.
... But they were doled out to us at last as far as midnight,
when there were sºme indications that the fury of the storm
was near being spent. And so it was verily: gradually, the
wind lulled away; the commotion without and within sub-

24 THE MUD CABIN.
sided by slow degrees, and the elements, as though tired
and exhausted, settled down in calm repose. Morning broke,
and O what a morning that was and the sun, as he rose
in placid beauty, and flung his mild beams upon the glassy
deep, as it rolled quietly and lazily around us—did ever so
beauteous an orb rise upon the world before? And the faces
all lighted up, and the voices too so sweetly mingling their
congratulations, O what a contrast to the look and the
howl of the previous night ! From many a lip fell that
morning audible expressions of gratitude and praise to that
great and good Being, whose “way is in the whirlwind and
in the storm,” and who yet had kept us as “in the hollow
of his hand.”
And yet, terrific as was the scene, and reluctant as I
should be to pass through another such, I must say that I
enjoyed it not a little. Having, as I supposed at the time,
all the sea-room that heart could wish, and with full confi-
dence in our commander, and in the strength of his magni-
ficent ship, I felt almost as secure as though I had been in
Noah's Ark, especially when I remembered that the Great
Jehovah was himself riding upon the storm, with his hand
resting calmly upon the helm.
But how changed the scene ! Silently, gently, and yet
rapidly we are wafted on our way, and in due time the
mountains of Cornwall rise in the blue distance, and pre-
sently we enter the Bristol Channel, with the verdant hills
of Devonshire and Somersetshire upon our right, and the
green fields and mountains of Wales upon our left. Andº
now we enter the Avon, upon whose banks hundreds of
ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND. 25
sheep are nibbling the green herbage; and now an iron
river-steamer (a little sharp-pointed thing) darts by us like
a fish, and another, and another, and another, going hither
and thither. And here rise the ledges, hundreds of feet
almost perpendicularly up; and there sits Clifton perched
upon them, regarded as the most romantic place in all Eng-
land, rising, as it does, from tide-water, street after street, to
the very summit, one row of buildings peering above and
overlooking another. It is a great watering-place. And
here is Bristol.
CHAPTER III.
INITIATORY IMPRESSIONS.
AND this is England, the very soil itself of England, which
I had so longed to set eyes on, and which had such a sacred-
ness about it three thousand miles away. But the charm
has all vanished now, and I find that English dirt is just
like American dirt, and is put to just about the same uses.
They have black dirt, red dirt, gray, brown, and yellow dirt,
just as we have, and no better. Surely, it is distance that
lends enchantment; and yet not always, for multitudes, who
have every opportunity to know better, seem to labor under
the delusion, that the earth out of which certain orders here
are formed, is a great deal better than any other, and who
would be shocked at the idea, that the occupant of the palace
and the throne, and the tenants of the mud hovel, are made
from one and the same lump. And having seen some speci-
mens of the latter, I confess that I do not so much wonder
at the delusion, for such “looking objects” I never beheld
before. They remind me of Shakspeare's “forked radish, with
a head fantastically carved with a knife.” Surely, thought
I, they must have sat as the original for that picture.
Specimens of the former I have not yet seen, and of
INITIATORY IMPRESSIONS. 27
course I cannot say how far I might be brought under the
same delusion. I greatly fear, however, that I shall be
thrown off so far upon the opposite extreme by the repub-
lican antipathies to which I was born, that I shall not be
prepared to award them the consideration which is really
their due; an injustice from which I pray that I may be
kept. Already these antipathies have shown a wakefulness
which alarms me; they revolt at the adulation the high
orders receive from every lip, the “graven images” erected:
to them, and the memorials of them inscribed upon every
thing around, upon the signs of the hotels and shops, upon
every corner of the streets, and, I had almost said, upon
the very “bells of the horses.” Why, within one half hour
after my arrival, I was directed, in reply to inquiries, to go
up Prince-street, cross King-street, go down Charlotte-street,
cross Duke-street, pass the Queen's Place, &c., &c.;-quite
an overdose for my republican stomach, to begin with.
I have spoken of Clifton, sitting upon a cliff, which is
properly a part of Bristol, being joined to it. I have just been
climbing its heights, on a visit to the Zoolºgical Gardens,
where I found all sorts of “beasts and fowls, and creeping
things,” with trees and shrubbery, and grass-plats, and gravel
walks, and little lakes and islands, and in the midst, a foun-
tain in full play. Beautiful, beautiful! Why have we no such
things, thought I, in our American cities, not even in New-
York, with its six or seven hundred thousand inhabitants?
And then the thought came over me, that we are a utili-
tarian people, and that it is our great distinction, that with
us labor is in honor, and idleness in disgrace; while here the
28 THE MUD CABIN.
order of things is reversed, and idleness is crowned with
glory and honor, and labor sits in disgrace at her feet.
And honorable idleness must have palaces, and parks,
and gardens, and groves, and fountains, and statuary, and
paintings, and race-horses, and hunting-horses, and hounds,
and all the various appliances appertaining to a life of luxu-
rious ease; and labor must furnish them, while it is itself
thrust out as an unclean thing.
Far distant be the day, when our country shall come to
this. At the same time, I would respectfully suggest, whe-
ther we are not inclining a little too far to the opposite
extreme—whether even true utilitarianism itself does not
require some relaxation from business, some diversion of the
mind from the perplexities of life, some unbending of its
energies, some regard to matters of taste, some appreciation
of the beauties and sublimities of nature and of art.
May not labor enjoy all these, and yet sacrifice none of
the honors with which she is crowned by our people? She
may, nor descend one step from her high position. There is
a golden mean, which would open to her all these sources
of enjoyment, without endangering her enviable supremacy.
Aye, and I will go further, and say, that she alone has a
right to them, and she alone can duly appreciate them.
What zest can opulent indolence have for such things? No,
no, it is not in the nature of things; if labor is a curse, idle-
ness is doubly cursed, and yawns its life away in fruitless
longings for enjoyments which are only given as a premium
upon honest toil. An oasis in the desert is not more refresh-
ing to the weary traveller, than are such things to the labor-
INITIATORY IMPRESSIONS, 29
ing man; while the man who lives in idleness upon his toil,
with his collapsed and shrunken capacities for enjoyment,
pants in vain for the same sensations of pleasure.
Bristol is a very old place, and contains now about
170,000 inhabitants. It is signalized as the place where
that incarnate fiend, old King John, perpetrated some of his
greatest villanies. It was here that he kept Queen Eleanor
imprisoned forty years in a castle; and here that he impris-
oned the Jew Abraham in the same castle, and had one
tooth a day knocked out of him, until he consented to pay
the enormous sum demanded; which cruelties, with multi-
tudes of others, aroused the feudal barons to resistance;
which resistance ended in wrenching from the royal monster
what is called Magna Charta, a sort of constitution, compla-
cently denominated by the people, the citadel of their rights;
an instrument, by the way, which exalted, not the people,
but the barons, to supremacy, and placed both monarch and
people very much at their mercy. A great and important
step it undoubtedly was, in the circumstances of the case;
but the wonder to me is, that these people should be so very
amiable, as to be satisfied with a single step or two taken in
one of the darkest eras of human history, and should be
content to wait so many centuries for another. And a
greater wonder still is, that in this era of the world, there
should be multitudes here, who seem to think, that political
institutions given them by a semi-barbarous age, are the
best they could possibly have; institutions which pamper
profligate indolence, and starve honest labor. But this
30 THE MUD CABIN.
subject will receive illustration from time. to time, as I
proceed.
I will only add, that this town is famous as the birth-
place and home of Sebastian Cabot, the great navigator, of
Admiral Penn, and of Hannah More.
CHAPTER IV.
EXCURSIONS AMONG THE RURAL VIII, AGES AND MUD HOVELS
OF ENGLAND–SPECTACLES WITNESSED.
LET us commence with the poor workingman. As a means
he is every thing here, as an end nothing. From the means
we will pass to the end, at which we shall arrive in due
time. * ..sº
And first, my attention was attracted to the field mum-
mies of England, the same which tenanted these hovels and
plied their daily task in these fields centuries ago—the same
in appearance, in character, and in destiny. I think I have
succeeded in initiating myself, to a good degree, into the
mysteries of the class—mysteries as profound as ever re-
posed in the depths of the human heart.
In the first placé they are barricaded, as a class, and
regard themselves as sacred from intrusion, just as much as
the nobility themselves do, being, in their domestic econ-
omy, reduced as much below as those favored ones are
raised. above the range of all curious eyes. And besides, in
their ñtellectual and moral darkness, they are frightened at
the footsteps of a stranger, and instinctively recoil from all
scrutinizing eyes.
32 THE MUD C & BIN,
A cottage embowered in trees, or overgrown with ivy
makes a very pretty figure in a pencil sketch, and it re-
quires but a slight dash of romance to finish out the picture,
and make it the abode of every virtue, and of every enjoy-
ment. And thus these rustic villages have figured in the
pictures which have formerly been drawn of the landscape
scenery of England. But, alas! how sad a reverse does the
reality presentſ -
The first of these villages I approached, shed down a
charm upon me in the distance, from the rising ground on
which it was located, but as I drew near, all its attractions
vanished away. In piles and in pools stood accumulations
of filth, directly in front of the cottages, as though designed
as a defence against intrusion.
Before me stood a dilapidated hovel, its mud walls
cracked, bilged, and leaning, and its thatched roof partly
fallen away. Stepping inside the door, I found but a single
apartment, ten or twelve feet square, and that cold, dark,
damp, and comfortless. Under the roof was a loft where
parents and children slept, through which I could look, in
places, right up into the open sky.
In the room were two broken chairs, a stool, a bench,
and an old chest, a small kettle, some broken crockery upon
a shelf, a broken pitcher upon the window-sill, and what
seemed a table, supported in part against the wall, the whole
being shrouded in twilight gloom at noon-day, light gaining
admission through the crevices, while the window was dark-
ened with rags.
But there were more forbidding objects than these—
THE FARM LABORER. 33
there were the mother and six children—the former hag-
gard and wan, with a sepulchral cough, and both mother
and children the very pictures of want. Three of the latter
sat huddled in one corner, gazing upon me in vacant, almost
idiotic wonder. I asked them if they could read, to which
they made no reply, but the mother spoke and said, “They
goes to Sunday school sometime, but they not learns to
read.” -
But you appear to be very sick, said I to the woman.
“Yes,” she replied, “I’s been sick long time. I was work-
in’ in the field, and master was drea'ful put to it in his
harvest; the weather was so awful catchin', and we worked
so hard that day, and it was a desp'rate hot day; and then
the weather took a sudden turn, and there came up a rain
just as we got ready to come home, and we all got drenched
and chilled, and then the rain cum down on us all night.
Gen'ally we manages to get our beds in some place where
it won't drop down much, but that night it seemed like
it made no difference, one place was as good as another,
and it did seem as though mornin' would never come ; and
then we lay wet and chilly all night, and we all got sick,
and I has never seed a well day since, and I never shall
agin.”
**In reply to my inquiries, she said her “mon arned eight
shilling a week in summer, and in winter five or six when
he get work, and sometimes he get no work.”
And how do you manage to live upon so small a sum,
and what do you live upon said I. “We gets nothin' but
bread,” said she, “and sometimes p'raters, and then some-
2%
34 THE MUD CABIN.
times when he get no work, and we not wants to go to
workhouse, we gets nothin’ all day and all might, and it
seem like we starve; and then we haves the chil’ren
cryin' for bread, and nothin' to give 'em, and can't get
nothin’.” t
But did you never see better times? “Yes,” she said,
“them was good times, when we could get a mou'ful of
mait of a Sunday, and a little drop of tea; but we not gets
it now, and it is so hard.”
Here she was interrupted by a fit of coughing, which
seemed to have taken deep hold upon her vitals. I threw
her a trifle, so small that I was fairly ashamed of it, but it
broke up the deep fountain of her soul, the tears flowed
freely, her utterance choked, and I heard nothing but sobs as
I left the house.
Proceeding to the next hovel, and the next and the next,
I went the rounds, and although there were some better,
there were others even worse, and there was not one among
them all which presented the aspect of comfort.
In the route I passed the Snug farm-house of the tenant
farmer, surrounded with indications of comfortable and even
of luxurious living. I also passed the stately mansion of the
landlord, with a beautiful park, ornamented with lawns, and
shrubbery, and gravel-walks, terraces and fountains. . But
that death-cough was still sounding in my ears, and I sick-
ened at the sight. This, thought I, is the price of the
degradation, the privation and suffering, the tears and anguish
and wasting away of life I have witnessed—else had it been
a lovely scene; and I turned sadly away.
THE FARM LABOR.E.R. 35
•
Taking up a London magazine at the hotel, on my
return to town, my attention was attracted to an article on
this very subject of the privation and suffering of the labor-
ing poor. The writer, after assuring the reader that he has
no desire to pull down the palace, makes an earnest appeal
to its lordly occupant in behalf of the tenant of the mud
hovel, and calls on him to see to it, as a matter of self-
interest, that the foundations on which he himself stands
are thus made strong. Mistaken man The landlord
thanks you not. How can his foundations be stronger than
they are ? Know ye not that it is only mind in ignorance,
mind without self-respect, and mind bereft of all the higher
attributes of humanity, which can possibly lie still as the
foundation of such a system 2 Light up that inert mass with
intelligence, infuse into it the elements of self-respect, give it
a taste of the decencies of life, and open up to it facilities to
rise, and, I apprehend, you would soon see a heaving and •
tossing of these low-lying foundations, and a reeling to and
fro of the entire fabric of British caste, and of the govern-
ment itself.
And what interest has the landlord in the comfort,
health, or life of the laborer? The horse, the Ox, and the
hog even, are objects of interest to their owners, and they
cannot be neglected with impunity. There comes up an
appeal from these brutes which is irresistible! But the men,
on whose earnings the landlord revels, can touch no such
tender chord in his heart; it is enough for him to know that,
if they die of destitution, there are enough others to take
their places and labor for the same pittance.
36 THE MUD CABIN.
Does he ever interest himself to know whether their
habitations are comfortable or otherwise? Does he ever direct
his steps to their lowly abodes to inquire into their condition
and wants? Does he ever send anything from the leavings
of his loaded tables to relieve them : Does he ever know
when they are sick and suffering for the necessaries of life?
And do their funeral obsequies even draw from him a sigh,
or interrupt for a moment the flow of his enjoyments?
Never. To stoop to such things would be letting down his
dignity as a landlord. There is the workhouse; let them be
taken to that. -
I will here remark, that I found no such landlords in
France. There the humble dependant is an object of care
and sympathy; and when sickness and destitution overtake
him, his landlord, or his landlord's wife, is often at his bed-
side with cheering words and helping hand, and from their
full stores his wants are supplied. That savors of hu-
manity.
This was in Somersetshire. My next excursion was in
Wiltshire. In this case, as in the other, as I approached
the hovels, the same rank odor came steaming upon me,
forcing me to hold my breath. The hovel I was approach-
ing was a crumbling ruin without; and, stepping within, I
wondered if it was the habitation of man. But there were
the inmates, and there could be no mistake; and they too
seemed to be equally struck with wonder. What earthly
reason could have brought you here? was the silent lan-
guage of their vacant stare. And the first chill upon my
heart came of the conviction that they felt themselves so far
tº:
TEIE FARM LABORER. 37
beneath me as scarcely to recognize me as a brother-man—
shrinking away, and returning none but the shortest answers
to my inquiries.
And how do you manage to live in such a place as
this? said I. “We manages somehow,” said the woman,
gruffly. But I should suppose you would get tired of such
a world as this, said I, and give up trying to live. “It’s
mighty little we gets, to be sure,” said she. And do you
ever have to go hungry 3 quoth I. “Lor bless me !” was
her emphatic reply. And do you ever suffer with cold and
wet? “You sees for yourself” she replied.
And I did see. The water stood in puddles upon the
clay floor, which was lower than the ground without; so .
that, in wet weather, water, saturated with filth, would run
in. The walls were crumbling within, as well as without;
and, standing upon the ladder, and touching my umbrella
to the thatched roof, down came a whole peck of it in
powder, filled with vermin, while the end wall was parted
from the roof, and leaned outwards, threatening to fall, and
exposing the interior to the weather. As in the other case
the small window-hole was plugged with rags, and light
straggled in only through the crevices. I looked for another
room, but found none; overhead was a sort of floor, extend-
ing over perhaps three-quarters of the area below; and this
was the family sleeping-apartment. Again, standing upon
the ladder, I looked into it, and what a sight, truly In
each of the two corners, lay what seemed a pile of rags, but
they were the two beds in which slept parents and seven
children, wedged in, I suppose, like pigs.
38 THE MUD CABIN.
As I was about to step down, a ragged little urchin
came in with some billets of wood. I asked him where he
got them—he made no reply, but appeared terribly fright-
ened, for he had doubtless stolen them from the copse of the
manor, and had a lurking suspicion, that I might be the
landlord's attorney. I asked the mother if she could buy
wood on seven shillings a week; to which she replied mood-
ily, “It’s mighty little wood we gets.”
She kindles a fire, hangs on the little kettle, with some
water in it, takes what seems some dough, breaks off pieces,
flattens them with her hands, wraps them around some
pieces of turnip, and “souses” them in, I in the mean time
prolonging my visit to see the sight.
And now the table is set, and mother and children
gather around the dish of turnip dumplings, as their sole
repast, seated on stools and benches, the former having
about three-quarters of a plate, and a knife worn well-nigh
to the back, while the latter had only a small fragment of a
plate each, and were armed with one-tined forks, broken
spoons, &c. But the dumplings soon disappeared, being
devoured with great greediness, and with frequent ejacula-
tions from the children, “How good these is ſ”—“good
good!” &c.
As I was about to take my departure, I met a laboring
man in his smock-frock, whom I detained a moment with
my questions. I told him it was reported and generally
believed, that the wages of laborers were so small, that they
often had to pick up their living where they could find it,
to save themselves from starvation. To which he replied,
THE FARM LABOR.E.R. 39
“We does, and let 'em carry us to jail if they likes, we lives
better there than to hum.”
The correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle,
who had traversed the rural districts, and looked thoroughly
into these matters, more than confirms all I have here said.
He speaks of having met with laborers who confessed to
him, that they had to steal or starve; and one remarked to
him, that he didn't care, for he “would as soon be in jail
as out.” He also speaks of a landlord, who, being asked
how the laborers could possily live on the pittance they
received, replied sternly, They steal. It probably never
occurred to him, that he was as guilty in robbing the la-
borer, as the laborer in robbing him.
From the same authority I derive the following facts.
The expense of boarding a single prisoner in the Dorset-
shire jail, is 27 l. 9s. 9d. annually, and at the same time the
entire earnings of the agricultural laborer do not exceed 201.
annually. That is, the man who tries to live by honest
labor, must support himself and wife, and five, six, or eight
children, on three-fourths of what it costs to support a single
criminal. º
At the Liskeard workhouse, the expense of supporting
each inmate is about four shillings a week. At that rate,
the expense of supporting a laborer's family of ten persons,
would be 32s, a week; but he only gets a fourth part of it
in wages.
In a parish in Cambridgeshire, a wealthy farmer actually
took three. families (numbering thirty in all) home from the
work-house, and employed the men at eight shillings a
40 THE MUD CABIN.
week, because in so doing it would cost him less than half
what his own share of the expense of keeping them there
amounted to, and only one-fourth of the entire workhouse
charge on their account.
Is it not plain, then, that this is a system of mutual rob-
bery—that the landlord (the tenant being but a tool in his
hands) robs the laborer of the just reward of his toil, and
that the laborer in turn robs him in self-defence, and by way
of reprisal 3 Can any thing be more demoralizing both to
the oppressor and his victim
And look at the poor famished being in contrast with his
landlord—the one a mere shadow of a man, a forlorn and
pitiable object, and the other full-faced, stout, and robust.
Of the hundreds, and, I may say, thousands of agricultural
laborers I have met with, I do not remember to have seen
one who was not a mere skeleton of a man, presenting the
gaunt aspect of want, without the slightest inclination to
corpulency, the whole man, physical, intellectual, and moral,
being apparently in a state of collapse. On the other hand,
it is remarkable to meet with a well-fed Englishman, who
has not a full and florid countenance, and a vigorous frame,
often corpulent.
Is it wonderful, then, that this famished wretch should
be a thief, schooled to it as he is by the robbery practised
upon himself, and goaded to it by the pinchings of hunger?
But though that be his name, and though, to expiate his
offence, he be sent to Botany Bay, he has cleaner hands,
and a lighter load of guilt on his soul, than the landlord
who stays behind to riot upon the fruit of his earnings.
‘TIll., . FARM LABORER. 41
Do you say, that these things are regulated upon the
principle of supply and demand, and that labor is cheap
because the supply exceeds the demand 7 And to what
does such a plea amount but to this, that landlords and
tenants have taken the earnings of the poor laboring man,
reduced him to privation, rags, and suffering, to starvation
and death—because he was in their power ?
In Berkshire, a little excursion over hill and dale intro-
duced me into new scenes of rural life, and brought me
acquainted with some new phases in the forbidding aspects
of want. It was in a rural village (lovely name !) which, a
little way off, seemed a place where comfort might have
dwelt. But as I approached, all its enchantments fled
away, just as they had always done in approaching an Arab
village in the East, and, so far, a rural village in England.
In approaching it, I had to encounter the same reeking
accumulations in front, and the same stench, and there was
the same dilapidation before me. Upon entering one of the
hovels, the first object which arrested my attention was an
old man with white locks, bending under the weight of years,
and sitting upon a stool. After some preliminaries, I asked
him his age, to which he replied with a shake of his head.
I said to him that he must have seen a great deal of trouble
in his day. “Yes,” said he, “I’ve seed trouble enough, but
it’ll soon be over with me now. I’ve been in the king's sar-
vice, and was in the hottest of the fight at Waterloo, under
Wellington, and I’ve sarved master here I don't know how
long, and here I am, a poor old body. I gets somethin'
from the parish, or I don't know what I should do. I was in
42 THE MUD CABIN.
the workhouse last winter, but I cum out this spring, it was
so hard.”
But was you not comfortably provided for there? “O
yes,” said he, “but it isn't like hum, you know, where I's
born, and my old father afore me. There's no place like
here; I wouldn't give it up for the queen's palace, that I
wouldn't. I suffers sometimes, but it's not like bein’ away
there—human natur can't bear it, it goes agin one so.”
“And you'd be 'nuff better off in the workhouse,”
growled out a sour-looking object in female attire, as she
sat botching an old smock frock, whom I took to be his
daughter-in-law. “I’s but a little while to live,” replied the
old man, “and I wants to live here while I does live;” draw-
ing a deep sigh as he paused. “And we not wants you here,”
replied the shrew, “and the sooner you gets off the better.”
A slight groan betrayed his agony, as he sat in silent
reverie, apparently absorbed in his own bitter reflections.
He clenched his staff with a firmer grip, and the big tear
rolled from its fountain ; his lips began to move, and as I
listened to catch his murmuring accents, I distinctly heard
him pronounce the words, home, King, Waterloo, Welling-
ton; and then, after a sigh which seemed like the giving up
of the ghost, “It’s all cum to this at last.”
I asked him what part he took in that great battle-scene
which covered his country with glory, and made his gene-
ral more than a prince 2 That aroused him. “It was
drea'ful,” he said, “to stand and have 'em shot down on
both sides, and lyin’ a top of one 'nother; but we beat them
French at last; etarnal glory to old England,” his eye
THE FARM LABOR.E.R. 43
brightening, and his countenance lighting up, as he
said it.
Cruel, cruel is the fate of that old man; and yet it is
the common fate of all of his class, in old age. Never do
they see the time when all their earnings are not required to
meet present necessities, and how can they make provision
for the evening of their days? Their children have families,
and cannot support them if they would, and often they
would not, if they could, so utterly has every trace of hu-
manity been obliterated by their oppressions. The explorer
above referred to, speaks of having found in a single work-
house a dozen old men, the average of whose ages was
over eighty years, some of them being reduced to a state of
utter helplessness, and some to imbecility and idiocy; and
all of whom had dragged out a life of faithful service, for a
bare subsistence, only to be shoved off to die in the work-
house, when they could no longer perform their daily task.
Let us pause for a moment over this blackheartedness 3.
of landlordism. It is not enough, that it casts a blight upon
its humble dependents, withering down all their hopes; not
enough, that it rises only as they sink; swells into conse-
quence only as they dwindle into nothingness; faring sump-
tuously only upon their sufferings, and raising louder the
voice of mirth in its banqueting-halls, only as the cry of
distress echoes more and more dismally through their hum-
ble abodes.
All this is not enough; that last and only solace, the priv-
ilege of dying in the hut where he was born, and around
which all his associations cling as with the grasp of death, is
44 THE MUD CABIN,
denied to its victim, and he is rudely uprooted in old age, torn
violently away, and transplanted to a locality where he can
only droop in sadness and sorrow. O, is it not a bitter cup,
held to his lips by cruel hands?
There is a sacredness about the feelings of age that
should be respected, yea, venerated. That old man of toil,
what a venerable object! His gray hairs are a crown, thal
should strike us with awe; and ignorant though he be, and
humble his position, the man who would wantonly trifle
with his feelings shows himself a brute, unworthy the con-
fidence, and deserving the execration of mankind.
And such is the fate of the men to whom England owes
all the greatness and glory of which she can boast; of the
men who have worn their lives away in her fields, in her
mines, in her manufactories, in her workshops, upon the
decks of her vessels, and upon her battle-fields. And who
reaps the reward ' While the victor chief of Waterloo was
idolized as a demi-god, and millions of treasure lavished upon
him, what became of the brave men who encountered the
danger, and won the day? A part of them rotted on the
field, and their bones were transported to England for ma-
nure; and of those who survived, thousands, if not tens of
thousands, within three short months were crowding the
poorhouses of England to suffocation. Had the five mil-
lion pounds lavished upon their leader been distributed
among them, it would have given the snug sum of five
hundred dollars to each man, and sent joy and gladness
through thousands of the habitations of want. But the
cause of good order here would have been outraged by any
such regard to justice and humanity.
THE FARM LABORER. 45
CHAPTER W.
THE FOREGOING STATEMENTS CONFIRMED BY ENGLISH TESTI-
MONY—THE QUESTION OF CAPACITY CONSIDERED.
I AM glad of the opportunity to shift still further the respon-
sibility of these matters from myself to the able correspond-
ent of the London Morning Chronicle, to whose searching
investigations into the condition of the rural population of
the kingdom I have before alluded. After having extended
his researches through the whole southern half of England,
he says of the agricultural laborer in the general, “Educa-
tion has advanced him but little beyond what he was in the
days of William the Conqueror. As he was in generations
gone by, so he is now, a moral enigma, a physical scandal,
an intellectual cataleptic.” -
“As a class,” he says, “they are moody, sullen, and
morose,” that “they are mere human machines, working
only with their hands, and not at all with their minds;" that
“few of them can read, and fewer write,” and that “none can
do more than write their names awkwardly,” that “no one
can see them without being painfully struck with the evi-
dences of their intellectual darkness,” that “there is neither
speculation in the eye, nor any other than the expression of
46 THE MUD CABIN,
the mere animal in their countenances,” that “they are en-
tirely wanting in the independent bearing of the man, are
awkward in their gait, and dress in a garb which belongs to an-
other century than this,” that “they are timid and shrinking,
and seem to wonder when you speak to them,” that “they
are suspicious when you question them, manifestly oppressed
by your presence, and relieved when you leave them,” that
“they know no amusement beyond the indulgence of sense,”
and that “recreation and sensuality are identified in their
minds as one and the same thing,” that “such a thing as
female virtue is scarcely known among them,” that, “in
most cases, all sense of right and wrong, in both sexes, seems
to be obliterated from the mind,” that “self-respect gives
place to recklessness, vice gaining the mastery,” that “their
mud hovels are old, damp, dark, and crumbling, hav-
ing a dangerous and tumble-down look about them,” that
“they swarm with inmates beyond their capacity, and often
expose them to the inclemency of the weather,” that “the
diet of the laborer is far below his wants, consisting of bread
only, for the most part, sometimes potatoes, and sometimes a
little meat, or tea on Sunday,” that “he is often destitute,
and is reduced as low as is compatible with mere existence.”
Say not, then, that I have overdrawn the picture. The
most extravagant dashes of romance could scarcely surpass
the reality. Take the above portraiture, drawn by their own
hands—a portraiture, not of isolated individuals, but of a
whole class, and where, in all the extravagancies of romance,
will you find any thing to surpass it, taking the lowest
class of our own countrymen as the standard of reality ?
THE FARM LABORER, 4?
Gladly would I be spared the task, and give you only
bright and glowing tints instead, overlooking the great exi-
gencies of humanity, if I dared. But though such a bru-
talization of our common humanity be essential to the sta-
bility of the British constitution, I could not say less. And
I can scarcely conceal the fond wish of my heart, that there
may be an upheaval in that low-lying mass, be the conse-
quences what they may.
One prominent feature in the above portraiture, is the al-
most utter obliteration of all traces of humanity in these vic-
tims of oppression. But that does not lessen their value to
their landlords. Hear them. At the great cattle show at
Windsor, Lord A. undertook the ridiculous task of drinking
the health of the agricultural laborers, and his windy
speech upon the occasion was reported in the newspapers.
“The laborer,” he said, “was called ignorant, because he
could not talk; but that was the wrong test to try him
by ; it was the test to try a book man by, but not a laborer.
A laborer was to be tested by his deeds, but not his words.
Go into the fields,” said he, “and see if the laborer is uned-
ucated. Can that man be said to be uneducated who can
turn a furrow as straight as you can draw a line, and scat-
ter seed so evenly over the ground that every part of the
field receives its due proportion?”
This silly flourish was listened to as a most profound and
masterly vindication of the lordship system; although the
simple announcement, that we have such things in Ameri-
ca as “learned pigs,” would have turned the whole thing
into ridicule, and exposed its author to contempt, in the eyes
of every sensible man,
48 THE MUD CABIN.
But it was enough for him, that the English laborer was
not sunk so low as to be incapable of learning his task. That
is all nobility asks of him, or wants of him, and all it will
have.
And here I must say, that never, in all my travels,
whether among the savage tribes of America, or the semi-
barbarous nations of Eastern Africa, Western Asia, and
Eastern Europe, nowhere have I met with a tribe, or a peas-
antry, so utterly devoid of all the elements of character as is
the peasantry of England; no, not even in Egypt, that
“basest of kingdoms.” Not that I have not been among
worse people, but that I have found none in whom the sub-
stratum of character seemed to be so utterly wanting, and
the whole man so shrivelled into nothingness.
And yet, this just suits the nobility of England; for the
poor, degraded creature, can still learn his task, and perform
the part suited to his condition in life. And what is want-
ing in him, is supposed to be vastly more than made up in the
immense consequence of the superiors he serves, although
(speaking softly), it might readily be shown, that they have
nothing to spare from their own stock of merit to supply
the deficiencies of others.
And then the heartless opressor will turn coolly upon his
heel, and tell you, “that it is of no use to try to do anything
for them, that they are incapable of being made any thing
of, and that they will be but brutes pay them what you will,
and do what you will for them;” thus proclaiming his own
brutality in trampling them down, until they have sunk be-
low recovery. But there are some hopeful indications, after
all, peering up from that low-lying stratum of humanity.
THE FARM LABORER, 49
The superintendent of the workhouse at W., an intelli-
gent Scotchman, remarked to me, that there was always a
smothered sense of wrong in these people, and accompany-
ing it, a low brute cunning, a sort of “I’ll cheat you if I
can’’ disposition; characteristics which are common to the
oppressed of all nations, and which show, in a low degree,
that humanity is not extinct, though prostrate. It is hu-
manity vindicating herself against robbery, with the only
means at her disposal, and in her ignorance not knowing
any better, or in her necessity not caring. Take an in-
stance of their ignorance, related to me by this same super-
intendent, and tell me if these characteristics should not be
regarded as hopeful indications. Being in company with a
number of men in 1844, he asked them if any of them
could tell him how old they were. None of them could tell.
He then said to one of them, “I think you was born about
the year 1840,” to which he replied, “Well, I thinks that
was just about the time,” making himself four years old.
Shrouded in intellectual darkness like this, and a moral
darkness which well-nigh obliterates all distinction between
right and wrong, how very little is to be expected of them
Another indication is, that when goaded to desperation
this smothered sense of wrong bursts forth, and is seen blaz-
ing in the hay-ricks, the barns and outhouses of their em-
ployers. Nineteen of these fires occurred recently within a
space of fifteen miles square. As little as possible is said
of them, and they seldom get into the papers, lest the con-
tagion should spread, and the whole country be lighted in a
blaze. .."
3
50 THE MUD CABIN.
Another still, and a proof too, is that when one of them
chances to get out from under these paralyzing influences,
he often shows a decided capacity for improvement. I am
told, that sometimes, though not often, they stray away into
the large towns, where, coming in contact with the busy mul-
titude, they get jostled out of their stagnation, wake up
from their torpor, and often rise to respectability.
And sometimes those in the neighborhood of the coast
are seduced away to join the smuggling and buccaneering
bands which infest it; and here too they often show great
proficiency. I heard of one who became master of a ship
engaged in the smuggling trade, and who attained to great
celebrity for his extraordinary feats as a smuggler and buc-
caneer; and of another who became the terror of the whole
country, but who, after being sent to Botany Bay, and serv-
ing out his time, rose to wealth and respectability, and be-
came a high dignitary in the colony. In another place, I
have given the proof, that convicts sent to those ends of the
earth, after being liberated, often rise to competence, com-
fort, and respectability. I have also spoken of the new life
which is infused into these people upon entering the army.
But I adduce as a still further proof, that the veteran
explorer above quoted speaks of having found one parish
where the laborers talked openly and fearlessly of their
wrongs, and manifested the bitterest hate towards both land-
lords and tenants, boldly avowing Socialistic principles, de-
claring, that they had “a right to live, and live comfortably,
as well as the rest of them;” and that “land should never
be held as property, but in trust for the general use”—an
THE FARM LABORER, 51
extravagance to which the masses in these old countries are
naturally prone, if they get their eyes open, and their aspi-
rations raised at all. So great are the obstacles to their
upward progress, that no other way appears feasible to
them; and hence Socialism, when transplanted to our coun-
try, where these obstacles do not exist, dies down at once,
for want of aliment to feed on.
And nothing exhibits the institutions of these old coun-
tries in a more odious, or ours in a more glorious light, than
this fact, that under the former Socialism takes root, as in a
hot-bed, while, under the latter, it will scarcely germinate at
all, so entirely open to all classes in our country is the high-
way to competence and comfort, to wealth and respectability.
But I adduced this instance as an indication that there
are susceptibilities in this inert, underlying mass, which only
need the play of genial influences upon them, to wake into
activity energies of which the oppressor never dreamed.
CELAPTER WI.
THE RECURRING QUESTION, “ CAN NOTHING BE MADE OF
THEM 3" solvKD BY FACTs.
“CATCH 'em at it,” said an Englishman to me, as I stood
gazing upon Prince Albert's Model Cottages for the Poor.
He had inquired of me what they were for, and, upon my
informing him, he replied tartly, “Catch 'em at it,” and
added, “The landlords can build kennels for their dogs, but
their laborers are not so highly favored 1"
By the way, Prince Albert is a good fellow, and is con-
stantly devising ways and means to improve the condition
of the laboring classes—quite too democratic to suit Eng-
lish aristocrats. But what has struck me with surprise
is, that nobody, not even Prince Albert, seems ever to have
entertained the thought of such a change as to bring it
within the competency of the laboring poor to build their
own cottages. The most that has ever been contemplated
seems to have been to alleviate their sufferings, and make
them comfortable in their destitution. The idea of their
rising to respectability, and possessing property of their own,
seems never to have been entertained.
There is a society in existence, of which Prince Albert is
president, the object of which is to provide and offer pre-
CAN HE BE ANY THING 3 53
miums on improvements among agricultural laborers, and—
will it be believed—the highest stage of improvement speci-
fied for which premiums are to be awarded is, “a clean cot-
tage,” and the lowest for keeping themselves out of the poor-
house / But so debased are the poor creatures, that even
these rewards are lost upon them; and the directors, in
their report, lament the fact, that these inducements have
little or no effect upon them. -
And how often have parliamentary committees sat upon
the grave questions involved in their suffering condition;
and when did they ever go further than to recommend some
temporary expedient for giving them employment, except to
make provision for them in the work-house? Aye, they
have gone further, and appropriations in abundance have
been granted to build prisons, and erect gallowses for them,
and to transport them as nuisances to the other side of
the globe; but nothing to make them good and useful citi-
zens, and thus to save them from such a fate, except the
pittance donated through a private society.
“And it's of no use,” said an individual to me the other
day, “to try to make any thing of them.” And that seems
to be the general sentiment, and this general sentiment
is an incubus upon them to weigh them down—an extin-
guisher to quench every noble aspiration. Being regarded
as of ignoble descent, and worthy only of the place which .
they occupy, how can they feel themselves to be any thing?
And feeling themselves to be nothing, and that, do what
they will, they must still be nothing, what more than
nothing can be-expected of them?
54 THE MUD CABIN.
I have already spoken of the effect of getting them out
from under this paralyzing influence into the large towns.
But I have some facts to show, that the noble sympathies
even of Prince Albert were directed entirely in a wrong
channel, or, at best, did not go to the source of the evil; and
that they may be made something of, even under all the
disadvantages of their position, with the right kind of treat-
ment.
Mr. R. of S., well known on our side the Atlantic, and
one of the best informed men I have found in the kingdom,
said to me, that he had redeemed the parish in which he
lives from pauperism, to a great extent, by raising the wages
of the men in his employ one shilling a week above the com-
mon standard, and, by his example, inducing the farmers
around him to do the same. By this means, he said, pau-
perism had been almost entirely banished from the parish.
And if such an effect was produced by so small an advance
of their wages, what might not be expected from bestowing
upon them the full reward of their toil?
But Mr. R. related another circumstance, which is still
more to the point. He said, that sometimes they were pre-
vailed upon to enter the army; and that when they got
their nice uniforms on they were transformed into a new
order of beings, and seemed to feel and act as though they
had been born into a new world. And when one of them
came home on a furlough to visit his friends, he came back
a new man. Having acquired the independent bearing of a
man, he moved about with his head up, and with the care-
less ease of a man who felt himself to be something.
CAN HE BE ANY THING ! 55
“But,” he said, “when he was finally discharged and he
cad to exchange his fine uniform for the ‘smock frock,' and re-
sume the labors of the field, he became the same thing
he was before—sank down to the same low level, put on the
same doleful looks, and manifested the same incapacity for
improvement.”
Bad as their condition and character are now, how-
ever, it seems to be conceded that quite a perceptible im-
provement has taken place, in consequence of the repeal of
the corn laws, which has placed the cheap loaf within their
reach. A member of the House of Commons (Mr. Labou-
chiere) remarked, in a speech, that “there had been a great
improvement in their physical condition, outward appear-
ance, moral habits, and cleanliness, traceable directly, to the
cheapening of provisions—as all in contact with laborers
knew.”
A writer in the Edinburgh Review says he has been told
by medical men, that the diseases of the laboring classes are
less malignant and more curable since the cheapening of
provisions, and quotes the remark of a popular hospital
surgeon, that “they are more like red-blooded animals than
they used to be.”
Now, that certainly looks like a capacity for improve-
ment. And if so partial a relief from their oppressions, and
so partial a supply of their wants, work such effects, what
would be too much to hope from a relief from all their
oppressions, and a supply of all their wants?
And now that my hand is in, I will adduce an instance
which will show their capacity for improvement in a still
56. THE MUD CABIN.
more striking light, and which will brand with blackest
infamy the oppressions which weigh them down in the land
of their nativity.
When I was in Syria, I met with an English gentleman
from Australia, that far-distant country to which these poor
creatures are transported, by tens of thousands, for crime—
crime to which they are driven by the necessities of their
condition. His father is one of the great wool-growers in
that country, from whose flocks the English market is sup-
plied with fine wool. The flocks and herds there, he said,
were almost uniformly under the charge of liberated con-
victs, as keepers; and, in point of character, industry, and
thrift, they were superior to those who came out from Eng-
land, of their own free will, to seek their fortunes; and they
could always get employment as shepherds and stockmen,
in preference to them. He said they generally saved their
earnings, accumulated property rapidly, and rose to respect-
able positions in society. In their own native country, they
were deprived of all motive to try to be any thing, abandoned
themselves to crime, were ejected as unfit for human society,
and cast, as nuisances, upon a far-distant shore.
And there, after having suffered the full penalty for their
offences, we find them, under the quickening influence of
hope, rising from their degradation, and showing a capacity
for improvement of which they had not been thought to be
capable in their own native land.
And what a tale is it to tell of a government, that the
penalty for crime it inflicts, is the open door of escape from
its oppressions, and the forerunner of prosperity and thrift,
CAN HE BE ANY THING 3 57
But how can their condition be improved—do you ask—
in their own native country? Far more easily than it can
be done by expatriation for crime. That is certainly a hard
way of rising; it is passing through scenes of living death,
for which no subsequent prosperity can compensate.
But how can they rise to competence and comfort in
their own country, constituting as they do, in their present
condition, a component part of the existing order of things?
In reply I would say, do them justice. They have been
robbed of their earnings; and this it is that has kept them
degraded, and driven them to crime. Let oppression loose its
hold, and relinquish to them the just reward of their toil, and
you would see them coming out of their torpid state, “shed-
ding their coats,” and putting on new and higher forms of
existence, quite as readily, to say the least, as in a convict
land.
3*
CHAPTER VII.
REVOLTING FACTS IN REFERENCE TO THE CORRUPTION OF
MoRALs IN THE RURAL DISTRICTs, AS COMPARED WITH
CITIES. {º
AND here stands out a great anomaly, and one which is full
of instruction. Of the fact that vice and crime find conge-
nial abodes in the rural districts of the kingdom, evidence
has already been given.
I can conceive it possible that owing to greater facilities
and temptations, the outbreakings of crime may be more
frequent and numerous at times in the cities and large
towns than in the rural districts, but I am fully satisfied
that the latter are even more thoroughly steeped in moral,
pollution than the former. *
And I find myself sustained in this conclusion by one
of their most authoritative writers. Porter, in his “Pro-
gress of the Nation” (vol. iii. p. 196), makes it appear that
for thirty-six years, ending with 1841, the increase of crime
was thirty-seven per cent greater in the agricultural than
in the manufacturing districts, and he drew the material
for his calculation from the statistics of outbreaking crime.
For this I was prepared from what I had seen, but the
CORRUPTION OF RURAL DISTRICTS. 59
inference drawn from these facts by that profound author,
awakened my surprise; he could only reason, however, from
the data before him. “We see nothing,” says he, “in these
facts to support the assertion so often hazarded, that vice
and crime are fostered by bringing men together in large
masses, while innocence is preserved by rural pursuits.”
How much the rather should he have said, “We see
in these facts the deplorable effects of our social and political
system, which has thus converted the rural districts, those
natural abodes of innocence, into hotbeds of vice, and made
them receptacles of moral as well as natural filth, even to a
greater degree than those natural sinks of pollution, the
large cities.”
And what a pleasing reverse to all this does our country
present, where the offences which swell the criminal calen-
dar, are confined almost entirely to the four million inhabit-
ants of our large cities and towns, and among these, con-
fined to a very great extent to those who have found their
way from these old countries to our shores, while near
twenty millions of our people are quietly engaged in the
peaceful pursuits of agriculture, with “none to molest or
make them afraid!”
If we were asked to point out the class of men in our
country more depraved than any other, where should we
turn our eyes more naturally than to the huts which line
the borders of our fishing grounds ! So far as the influence
of this class might avail with our rural population, would it
not be for evil, and only evil? .
But here, it seems, the case is reversed, and the rural pop-
60 THE MUD CABIN.
ulation corrupt the fishermen. Their fishermen often become
buccaneers, prowling about the coasts, raising false signals to
decoy vessels upon the rocks, and boarding those stranded in
a gale, musket and cutlass in hand, cut to pieces, or com-
pel all on board to walk the plank, and plunder and despoil
the ship. There are many points on the coasts of this island,
where there is no hope of life to the crew of a stranded
vessel, whom the elements may have spared.
The faithful chronicler of the statistics of his country's
shame, to whom I have referred, tells us, that the fishermen
upon the coast become corrupted by being brought in con-
tact with the rural population. As an instance, he says,
that in Cornwall, a rural village was broken up, from dilapi-
dation and other causes, and that the inhabitants were forced
to take refuge in the fishing village of Polperro, a few miles
distant, and that, as a consequence, the morals of the place
suffered a woful decline. What then must be the character
of the rural population ? *
But now that the subject is up, I will relate one of many
instances which have come within the range of my own ob-
servation.
I was on a visit to one of the great landlords of the king-
dom, and a leading member of parliament; and my creden-
tials being satisfactory, I was received with marked civility,
and treated with attention. Never had I met with any thing
before, which came so fully up to my beau ideal of “the old
English gentleman,” or seen so perfect an embodiment of
hospitality and good cheer. Around his venerable mansion
was spread out five thousand acres of as fine land as I ever
CORRUPTION OF RURAL DISTRICTS. 61
saw, a small portion of which (a hundred or two acres) he
cultivated for his own amusement, the rest being rented.
When the time I had fixed for leaving arrived, I found a
carriage waiting at the door to convey me to the railroad
station (three miles distant), from which I had walked when
I came in. There was ample time to reach it in season for
the expected train without hurrying, but the driver put on
all speed, alleging as a reason, that it was getting late
(being about sundown), and he had got to hurry back to
make arrangements for a guard to watch his master's flock
that night, as the laborers stole his sheep; adding, that they
had sent some of them to Botany Bay already, and were in
a fair way to send more.
This excited no surprise in my mind, for if nothing had
transpired before to enlighten me, I had seen enough in
connection with this visit to explain it all.
In proceeding on foot from the station to the mansion of
this worthy landlord, I passed through a rural village, and
took occasion to look into some of the hovels; and there
I saw enough to furnish a key to all these mysteries. There
was pining want sitting upon a stool, and there the cry for
bread was heard from mouths which there was no bread
to satisfy.
As I passed along, with all nature decked in her most
charming attire, on the right and on the left, my attention
was attracted to some laborers who were at work by the
road-side. Approaching one of them, I attempted to draw
him into conversation, and succeeded at last in so far over-
coming his reluctance, as to get answers to my inquiries, and
I lingered to listen to the simple tale I had provoked.
62 THE MUD CABIN.
I told him I was an American, and asked him if he ever
saw one before. “Did you ax me if I ever seed one afore ?”
he replied. Yes, said I. “No,” he rejoined, “but I've hearn
about 'em, and I knowed some poor men went there and got
good farms.”
And why don't the rest of you go, and not stay here
to starve 3
“We can't; we only gets just what'll keep us, and tough
work at that, and how can we get money?”
And what do you live on ?
“Unbolted wheat bread.”
Very good; and what else?
“Nothin'; and not enough of that. We only gets seven
shillin' a week, and now master is agoin' to put us down to
six. One shillin,’ or one shillin' and sixpence of it we has
to pay for rent, and one shillin' for coal.”
But will a shilling's worth of coal keep you warm in
winter?
“No, it'll only do our cookin', and we can't cook much
at that.” .
And how do you keep warm in winter?
“We haves to do as we can, and do without fire; we sits
in the cold evenin's, and we haves but little bed-clothes, and
the cold wind blows in, and we suffers with the cold all night;
but it's the best we can do, and we has to bear it.”
But can you not keep a cow and a pig!
“No, we gets no land to keep a cow on, and we eats up
every thing about the house, and there's nothin’ left for a
3 ... }}
pig
Is it wonderful then, that tenants and landlords should be
CORRUPTION OF RURAL DISTRICTS. 63
necessitated to set sentries to guard their flocks against the
depredations of their laborers, and that far distant lands are
being peopled with the castaway victims of want? Is it
wonderful, that through this open channel moral pollution
should pour in tides over the rural districts of England?
And, if such scenes can transpire under the auspices of
one of the best landlords of which England can boast, and,
I may add, one of her most talented and patriotic sons,
where shall we look for any thing better?
But nothing furnishes a more unerring index to the
moral condition of the rural population of England, or a
more painful one, than the acknowledged debasement of the
female sex, of which I have already given proof.
It was a revolting spectacle to me to see, for the first
time, whole troops of females at work in the fields here, toil-
ing at the spade, the mattock, and the hoe. Driven by ne-
cessity from their household duties, they are necessitated to
put off all the gentler graces of the sex, repair in droves to
the fields, and toil for a few pennies a day, to save themselves
from starvation.
And what an outrage upon humanity! As sacredly as
the priest is consecrated to the altar, so sacredly is woman
consecrated to the sphere of her domestic duties, there to
shine as a light, and there to shed around the domestic
hearth those sweet and precious influences, without which
home loses all its attractions and all its enjoyments.
And the humbler that home, the sweeter and the more
precious are the comforts it has to give; for they are the
only solace of the poor laboring man, and, if deprived of this,
what has he left?
64 THE MUD CABIN.
O ye, who are thus desolating the poor laborer's home,
by striking down woman from her place, that you may
squander your thousands upon your lusts, what have you
done?
If it were only the indurated hands, the sun-burnt face,
the stiffened form, and the uncouth manner—if that were all
—if, in addition to this, it only left the laborer's home to
filth and desolation, from which he turns away in quest of
ale-house enjoyments—if that were all, you might revel on
over your cups. But the saddest of the tale has not been
told, and cannot be. I have given you the key.”
When the rural population of a country becomes thus cor-
rupt, how little is there to hopel And when this corrup-
tion spreads itself to a great extent, through all the working
classes, where in such a sea will the ship of state cast anchor
with safety :
And what a difference in the safeguards of the govern-
ments of the two countries—the one being anchored in the
virtue, the intelligence, and the affections of the people, and
the other held to her moorings by the strong arm of power
alone—not perhaps alone—there is an idolatry of power
here which goes far to strengthen its sinews; but when that
power shall sink to weakness, that idolatry will sink to con-
tempt. -
*I am told that such sights have been seen in some sections of
our own country, transported thither from these old countries, but
I trust old countrymen will get shamed out of it, and learn better
by degrees.
CHAPTER VIII.
ASTOUNDING DISCLOSURES IN REGARD TO THE EDUCATIONAL
AND INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF THE RURAL POPULA-
TION, AND OF THE PEOPLE GENERALLY.
SAYS the British Almanac for 1851, of the rural popula-
tion of England: “ Generation after generation has vegetated
on the soil from time immemorial, without receiving, for the
greater part, any school or book education; just like the
produce of the fields, which grew up, and was cut down in
its season, as they were. They have almost been left as
much alone as though the country had still been in a savage
state. Civilization has, in fact, only been extended to them
by reflection from those above them, whose numbers in pro-
portion to their own is one to four or five.”
This refers to the rural population. Let us now listen
to what they have to say in reference to the educational
condition of the people generally, in city and country. Ac-
cording to returns made by the Registrar General, of the
marriages which transpired in England and Wales, during
the three years, '39, '40, and '41, out of 367,894 couples
united in wedlock, 122,457 men, and 181,378 women, made
their marks in subscribing the marriage register;-that is,
66 THE MUD CABIN,
one third of the men, and about half of the women, embrac-
ing all classes—the high and the low—were unable to write
legibly.
The distinguished writer from whom I take the above
statistics (Porter), accompanies them with the remark, that
there is much opposition among the higher to the education
of the lower classes, on the ground that it would spoil them
for laborers and servants; and he cites the case of a mer-
chant, who gravely remarked to the superintendent of the
poor-law commission, that “an agricultural laborer was very
little above a brute,” and that “to educate him would only
have the effect to render him dissatisfied with his condition
in life.”
He states also, that when Lancaster commenced his sys-
tem of instruction, the alarm was sounded that it would
unsettle the existing order of things; and that the inquiry
came up, “If this man succeeds, what shall we do for ser-
vants to black our boots and tend our horses—for they will
all be getting above their business?”
At Marseilles I met with an English gentleman and lady,
who were on their way to Italy to spend the winter; and as
we were at the same hotel, I soon became somewhat inti-
mate with them, and they seemed much interested in what
I had to say in reply to their inquiries about my country.
Among other things, I spoke of the general diffusion of
education among all classes of the people, and the facilities
enjoyed by the lowest in society to rise to wealth and
respectability; remarking that a poor laboring man, without
family, could, with prudence, save enough in three years'
EDUCATION NOT WANTED, 67
time to buy him a piece of land, and set up for indepen-
dence.
“And what! do you have to change your servants every
three years?” he exclaimed, and added, “I could never stand
such a state of things as that; when I get a good, faithful
servant, I want him for life.”
Those were excellent people, and I became much at-
tached to them. Their views and feelings on this subject
were those to which they were born; and they seemed alto-
gether at a loss to know how such a state of things as I
described could possibly be consistent with stability and good
order.
Here, then, we have the fact, and the reason of it, all
written out by themselves, and freely confessed.
I am well aware that a great deal is said of late about
what is doing to repair the mischief; and, to hear them
talk, one would suppose the country was getting into a
pretty good way, as it regards educational facilities. They
will tell you about the National schools, the British schools,
the parochial schools, the endowed schools, the private
schools, the Sunday schools, &c., &c.; and many of them
are thus charmed into the idea that the country has some-
thing to boast of in this line.
These are high-sounding names, National, British, Paro-
chial, &c., &c.; and to a person green enough to be deceived
by names, they carry a tremendous import. What, then, are
the National schools? They are simply schools established
by a private society which takes the name of National, and
the term British is taken by another private society. The
parochial schools are nothing but workhouse schools.
68 * THE MUD CABIN.
That these Societies have been established, and made an
onset upon the dark domain of ignorance here, is certainly
to be hailed as an omen for good; but all which has yet
been accomplished is small indeed in comparison with what
remains to be done. According to a report recently made
to the House of Commons, the entire number of children
connected with all the day schools of every description in the
kingdom, stands only as one to every eight and a half of the
population.
The government has never yet taken a step toward the
establishment of a national system of education. I have
often asked the reason why, and for lack of a better, have
been told in reply, that the great multiplicity of sects makes
it impracticable. And yet we have more sects than they,
and have no difficulty on the subject. The truth is, the
government has no heart for it; that is the true secret of the
matter. -
They can build workhouses, and jails, and hospitals,
that vie in magnificence with palaces, and I have been often
asked if our country could show any thing equal to them;
as though these things not only atoned the nation's guilt, and
covered its shame in this matter, but were proud monuments
to its glory. But to what do they all amount but this; that
the poor laboring man is robbed of his earnings, and thus
reduced to pauperism and crime, and that out of the avails
of this robbery, a portion is appropriated to build work-
houses and jails for him, and to transport him as a felon to
the other side of the globel !
And then I have been pointed to the efforts of individual
How To BENEFIT THEM By EDUCATION. 69
and associated philanthropy, and Christian charity, as an
offset to all this ignorance, pauperism, and crime. Far be it
from me to disparage such efforts; but it should go far to
abate our admiration, that most of what is thus given is the
poor victim's own hard earnings, kept back from him of
fraud, till he has sunk to pauperism and crime, and then
bestowed upon him when it is too late.
And what did even the philanthropy of a Howard ever
accomplish for suffering humanity, but to spread attractions
around the jail, which have caused it to be coveted as a
refuge from the great prison-house of labor, privation, and
suffering, in which millions of “free-born Englishmen” are
chained to a life of thankless toill
How vain the attempt thus to purify the streams while
this great fountain is thus pouring them forth ! How can
Christian philanthropy ever hope to get so much as a foot-
hold against the overwhelming tideº
Till the people are educated and enlightened, there can
be no remedy. Nor can they ever be educated and enlight-
ened so long as they are robbed of their earnings, their self-
respect, and their manhood, and doomed to destitution and
want. Though the country were all covered over with school
districts, and supplied with competent teachers, it would be
useless in such a state of things. It is the testimony of the
able investigator to whom I have before referred, that the
few schools already established by the Societies I have
named, are doing little or no good in the rural districts; and
that children and youth are growing up as ignorant and
degraded as the generation now upon the stage, most of the
70 THE MUD CABIN,
children being driven to the fields at an early age, and never
entering them at all; and of the few who do, rarely, he says,
does one make proficiency enough to do him any good.
The very entering wedge, the first great lever to be em-
ployed in elevating the working man of England, then, must
be compensation and domestic comfort; and when that comes,
then will he be accessible to the benefits of education; and
then, and not till then, will he rise up from his degradation.
But that would never do ; it would unsettle the founda-
tions of stability and good order, raise a commotion in the
elements, and endanger the very existence of the institutions
of the country, to the dismay of privilege and power.
And so they will keep on bragging of their poor-houses
and jails, and of the rigorous execution of justice upon the
criminals they are making out of honest men, while private
charity is thus busy at work to provide a salvo to the con-
science and a covering to the shame of the nation, without,
in fact, accomplishing any thing for the working men of
England, or the slightest hope of accomplishing any thing.
The Good Samaritan has not yet appeared to bind up the
wounds of the poor laboring man, prostrate and “ lying
among thieves.”
And there they will let him lie; and though it cost the
nation four times as much in workhouses, and jails, and
transportation, as it would cost to make good and useful
citizens of these ruined people, it heeds not the expenditure,
for the victims themselves have to foot the bill.
To show how little a system of national education, if
adopted, would accomplish for the working man, while
HOW TO BENEFIT THEM BY EDUCATION. 71
robbed of his earnings, we have Scotland before us, as an
example. There the reformation was followed by the estab-
lishment of a system of national education, sustained by the
state; a system providing for instruction, not only in the
elementary branches, but in Latin and Greek; and to it the
middle classes in Scotland owe their superiority to the corres-
ponding classes in England, insomuch that every where in
the latter country are to be found Scotch teachers, Scotch
gardeners, Scotch superintendents of workhouses and railway
stations, and throughout England they are engrossing offices
of trust and responsibility.
But though this system, at the same time, extends educa-
tional facilities to all classes alike, from the highest to the
lowest, and though it has done so much for those who are
in a situation to enjoy the fruits of their labors, how little
has it done for the poor working man | He is not as stupid
as the English farm laborer, but the “little glooming light”
he gets, is of little use to him. Doomed to subsist on the
same starvation wages, and to be the victim of the same
destitution and want, he presents a spectacle little less for-
lorn and distressing than that which we have been con-
templating.
Whatever efforts may be made then to educate these peo-
ple, no appeal can ever reach their hearts, until robbery has
ceased to prey upon their earnings. But privilege will relin-
quish none of those extravagancies which feed upon that
robbery, and it will riot on at the expense of the ruin, the
sufferings, and the death-groans of humanity.
And privilege has its world-renowned universities, and
72 THE MUD CABIN.
on them the eye of the government and of the country
proudly rests, as the monuments of national fame.
When at Cambridge and Oxford, I took some pains to
inquire into the character of these universities, and I learned,
to my surprise, that they are little more than genteel places
of resort, where the sons of the nobility and gentry, while
away their seven years in drinking, gambling, and serving their
master generally; while but few of them ever profit by the
course. Being in company with a landlord in Ayrshire, I
asked him the botanical name of a plant we were examining,
which I could not call to mind, to which he replied, that I
must not ask him, for he left all his botany at the university.
And this I apprehend to be a fair specimen of the usual
standard of acquirement with those who graduate at these
famous institutions. But they come out with all the honors
of Cambridge or Oxford upon them, and with this capital,
many of them are enabled to play the charlatan with toler-
able success in after life. From all I can learn, I am fully
satisfied that our colleges, generally, send out a far greater
proportion of thorough scholars, than these universities. The
factitious consequence which has been bestowed upon them,
is of a piece with that which has exalted the nobility of this
kingdom to the position of demi-gods; stripped of this, the
shame of their nakedness appears. They have a thorough
course, and those who choose, take it, and occasionally there
comes out a ripe scholar, but so strong is the current he has
to stem, that he may be said, emphatically, to be a self-made
II.1311.
And thus enough is wasted, absolutely thrown away, I
whAT ARE A NATION's JEw ELS 3 73
had almost said, to sustain a system of universal education
for the people.
Shame, shame upon England, that the mass of her peo-
ple are abandoned to ignorance and brutality, as the only
safeguard to the institutions of the country! Whence but
from the dark abodes below, could such institutions ever have
arisen 3
What, I pray, is a nation's richest treasure, if it be not
mind, educated mind? And what is that government good
for, which does not covet this treasure above silver and gold,
which does not bestir itself for the development of its intel-
lectua .esources, digging out, polishing, and setting these
precious gems, to shine as jewels in its crown of glory?
For what is a government instituted, if it be not for the
benefit of mind? Is it not mind which distinguishes man
from the brute, and makes him capable of being benefited
by government; and if mind lies neglected like the brute,
may there not as well be no government at all? And if in
addition to this neglect, the government imposes burdens
which grind mind into the dust, and dwarf it into a mere
burlesque of humanity, is it not a great deal worse than no
government at all?
CEIAPTER IX.
THE LANDLORD, AND NOT THE LABORER, BENEFITED PRINCI-
PALLY BY THE ABOLITION OF SERFDOM.
At the time of the Great Exhibition of the Works of In-
dustry of all Nations (held here last year) I noted some
things which may be turned to account in these pages.
Of all the wonderful things which were there to be seen,
not one attracted more attention as a curiosity, than the
regimental display of the bone and sinew of England, in the
form of her agricultural laborers. On one occasion, there
were a thousand of them, in their smock frocks, and with
little red ribbons upon their hats, marched two and two into
the Crystal Palace, as though on purpose for a show.
And why should they not be considered as belonging to
the “works of industry,” as much as agricultural imple-
ments, and as fit subjects for exhibition? They are only ma-
chines. I have already given authority on that subject, and
I notice, that a writer in the London Farmers' Magazine,
speaks of them as “those human machines,” and suggests
various improvements in them. And they are machines;
aside from the particular kind of work to which they have
been drilled by long continued care, they are like a wheel
out of gear, and only break and destroy at every move.
ANCIENT AND MODERN SERFDOM, 75
They use tools, to be sure, but very much as one mechan-
ical power is made to operate upon another, both together
constituting but the one machine in the hands of the operator.
And it must be confessed, that in this species of mechanism,
as in some others, England has distanced all nations.
Stepping up to one of them, I asked him if he was a
farm laborer, to which he replied, “Yes; I belongs to Esq.
—, a fust rate mon he is too; he's a parliament mon, and
don't you think he's a gen’lemon to pay our 'spenses to the
Great Exhibition ?”
At that instant, a voice bawled out in the crowd, “Esq.
has brought these fellows here to get paraded in the
newspapers, for the show he can make of them.” But they
did not seem to heed it any more than so many cattle, and,
continuing my inquiries, I asked him if the laborers were
prospering, to which he replied “No, we're haying now.”
Addressing myself to another, I asked him if he be:
longed to Esq. , to which he replied, “No, I belongs to
the Earl of R., and he's bro’t us all five hundred here at his
own 'spense.”
Of another I inquired, if he knew any thing about Ame-
rica. He said he had “hearn tell of it, and he once -
petitioned his master to let him go there, but his petition
was refused;” meaning, I suppose, that his master declined
fitting him out; for I am sure I cannot conceive what else
he could mean.
Seeing an intelligent looking Englishman standing by,
I asked him how it was that these men talked of having
masters, and spoke of their relations to them just as though
they were slaves.
76 THE MUD CABIN.
“Why,” said he, “they belong to the soil, as much as
the serfs of Russia, and although not named in the bond,
they are actually transferred with it from master to master.”
Do you wonder how this can be I will tell you how;
but first go with me a little way back toward the dark ages,
and let us see what changes serfdom has undergone in this
island. -
No more than three centuries ago, the forefathers of these
people were serfs, which is but another name for slaves.
They were bought and sold, not only with the soil, but with-
out the soil (See Hallam, vol. ii. p. 90), and were subject to
the lash. Between the landlord and the serfs stood the
vassal, who sustained much the same relation to each as
the tenant farmer does now, that is, the landlord let out the
land and serfs to the vassal, as he does now the land to the
tenant farmer, the laborers (though not actually stipulated
for) continuing to sustain much the same relation to both as
the serfs did before. The appearance, the legal forms of
serfdom have been abolished—and abolished, I am bold to
say, the better to enjoy the reality.
The old system bound the landlord up to rigors which
entailed a life of trouble upon him. It bound him to fur-
nish a certain number of men with supplies to sustain them
forty days in each year, to be mown down in battle in the
military expeditions of the sovereign. After a while, a sub-
stitute was found for this in taxation, which became very op-
pressive. And then, if the landlord refused compliance, or his
loyalty were suspected in the least, the royal vengeance was
sure to be visited upon him; and a very common method of
ANCIENT AND MODERN SERFDOM. 77
inflicting it, was to stir up the spirit of revolt among his de-
pendants, by which means, he was always liable to be
butchered in cold blood.
And this very game was played by the Emperor of
Austria with the landlords of Austrian-Poland, in 1848,
where the feudal system remains in full force to this day.
Suspecting their loyalty, and jealous of their power, he made
a demand upon them for subsidies to be drawn from their
peasantry, of a most oppressive character. At the same
time, he sent agents among the latter, to sympathize with
them, listen to their complaints, and stir them up to resist-
ance, and, as a consequence, they rose upon the landlords,
and butchered them by thousands. There are only the two
orders there, however, landlords and serfs, there being no
vassals between them.
These landlords had prayed for deliverance from the
system, but the emperor sternly refused to allow them to
emancipate their serfs, holding them to all the respon-
sibilities, rigors, and perils §f the system, as the surest
means of keeping them under his control. In Hungary, the
landlords, about the same time, took the matter into their
own hands, and not only emancipated their serfs, but con-
sented to divide their lands with them, as I learned when
there.
What a God-send to the landlords of England, then, was
deliverance from a system which imposed such burdens,
responsibilities and horrors, and which besides subjected them
to the burden of supporting their own poor; and then, they
absolutely get the labor of “the free-born Englishman” now
78 THE MUD CABIN.
for less than it would cost them to support him as a slave, as
I have already shown. -
And what have the peasantry of England gained by the
change? We often see paraded before the public a scale of
wages, showing an increase, from century to century, in the
compensation allowed them, and forthwith the conclusion is
deduced, that they have been gradually improving in
the comforts of life. But I have already given the most
undisputable proof, that they are subjected to the utmost
privation and suffering upon the wages they now receive.
Of course wages must vary with the cost of living, and as
the starvation point rises or sinks. There was a time, when
that point stood at two pence a day—now it stands at one
shilling a day. It has ever been the study of both landlords
and tenants to ascertain exactly where it stands for the time
being, and to regulate the laborer's pay accordingly. And
so far from his being better off now, than formerly, we have
evidence to show that the reverse is the fact. The corres-
pondent of the London Morning Chronicle, speaking of the
scenes of destitution he had witnessed among this class, ex-
presses himself convinced, that they were much better off
formerly than now, and quotes Fortescue to show, that, in
his day (when they were serfs, 400 years ago), meat was
their principal food.
Wherein then have the peasantry been the gainers by
the change? Do you say they are not subject to the lash,
and are not liable to be bought and sold 2
True, they are not subject to the lash, and, as I said, the
legal forms of sale and purchase have been abolished. But
ANCIENT AND MODERN SERFDOM. 79
let us see what has been gained to the poor peasant by these
concessions. As an offset to the first, let us turn our eyes
to the evils he now suffers as “a free-born Englishman,”
from which, as a serf, he was exempt.
As a serf, he was provided for in sickness and old age,
and was permitted to live and die in the hut where he was
born; a privilege so sacred and so dear to these poor creatures,
that they would cheerfully bare their backs to the lash
rather than forego it. Their local attachments seem to be
strong in proportion as they are concentrated. Shut out from
all that range of objects which engross the regards of those
in the higher walks of life, from long habit, their very ex-
istence seems to become identified with their locality, with
the stool on which they have sat, the board from which they
have eaten, and the pallet where they have slept; and to
tear them away and hurry them off to the workhouse, is an
infliction scarcely less dreaded than death itself.
And then, there is the merciless rending of family ties
at the workhouse. Parents and children, husbands and
wives, are not indeed torn asunder to be sold into a distant
market (nor were they as serfs), but they are torn asunder
and confined to separate apartments at the workhouse. It
is thus at their option, to suffer and die of destitution at their
homes, or have all their family ties broken up by an entire
separation, and seclusion from each other; and this is the
reason why they will suffer every thing but death, before
they will accept of parish relief. It is true, their social en-
joyments are coarse, but they are all they know, and of
course are all the world to them.
80 THE MUD CABIN.
How, then, has the condition of the peasantry been im-
proved by the abolition of serfdom º Have they been
relieved from destitution ? Have they risen from their degra-
dation ? Nay; are they not more liable to destitution than
before, and are they not equally degraded ? And in place of
the lash, are not still greater cruelties inflicted upon them
But how does it appear that they are still transferred
with the soil from master to master? As “free-born English-
men,” are they not at liberty to go where they choose?
I have taken pains to inform myself on this subject, and
as the result, I am fully satisfied that my informant was in
the right when he said, that they are still transferred with
the soil, as much as the serfs of Russia. And I have derived
my information from the most reliable authority, from super-
intendents of workhouses, such as the intelligent Scotchman
at W., of whom I havé spoken, as well as from various other
SOUITCéS.
In the first place, there is a general understanding among
the farmers of a parish, that they will not employ each
other's laborers, an understanding most religiously ob-
served; and, in fact, such has always been the redund-
ance of laborers, that there has been no temptation to
violate it.
Let us suppose that one of these forlorn creatures, goaded
to desperation by privation and abuse, takes his little bundle
in his hand, tears himself from the spot to which he has
grown fast, and sets out in quest of employment. With
eyes upon the ground, he moves awkwardly along, seeing
nothing and hearing nothing, his thoughts all brooding upon
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ANCIENT AND MODERN , SERFDOM. 81
his troubles. He passes farm-house after farm-house, without
having the heart to call, for he has as little hope of finding
sympathy from any human being, as the man who has
escaped from a sinking wreck, only to fall into the hands of
barbarians. Onward he goes, till he comes to the limit of
the parish, and here he pauses, sits himself down, and buries
his soul in bitter reflection. “If I pass this limit,” he says,
“I forfeit the privilege of parish relief, until I gain it by the
required residence, or return. And then, I have no ‘charac-
ter’ to show from my old master, and without it they will
take me for a vagrant and a thief! What shall I do—go
back and submit to my fate, or go forward and run the risk?
Pressed on by the horrors which rise upon him from behind,
he picks up his little bundle and proceeds on his way. At
length, weary and hungry, at the close of the day, he turns
up at a farm gate, and, presenting himself a candidate for
employment, timidly asks for work. And then comes down
upon him the withering interrogatory, “Why did you leave
your master 3" And that ends the matter, for he has no
“character” to show, and no reason to give which would be
deemed satisfactory. Again and again he applies for work,
but with the same result. The cold repulse enters like iron
into his soul, and under the pinchings of want, he is nerved up
to the resolution to retrace his steps, and throw himself upon
the mercy of his old master, or take refuge in the workhouse.
And thus it is, that the peasantry here are transferred
with the soil from master to master, as effectually as they
were centuries ago; and thus it is, that they suffer even more
cruel privations, than when they were serfs.
4%
CHAPTER X.
IRELAND, ITs oppreSSIONS, WoRS, HEART-BREAKINGs, YEARN.
INGS, AND SUSCEPTIBILITIES.
I HAVE crossed the Irish sea, and set foot upon the land of
song and of sorrow, of merriment and tears, of hope and
despair, of smothered fires and burning volcanoes.
Ireland is a problem which is yet to be solved. Up to
this hour she has continued in an embryo state, and yet she
is an enigma. What resources, what gems she has locked
up within her, none can tell. Only an occasional lightning
gleam shoots across her darkness.
Never was a more beautiful country spread out beneath
the canopy of heaven, or one more prolific in the means of
enjoyment; and never in any people was the human heart
better attuned for enjoyment. Why then should they not
live comfortably and happily upon this highly-favored por-
tion of the globe
Their neighbors over the channel say it is because they
are so lazy. But who ever hears of their laziness when they
get thousands of miles away? In our own country, where
there are hundreds of thousands of them, who ever hears of
their laziness? When did they ever refuse to do our dirtiest
work for pay ?
WOES OF IRELAND, 83
This then cannot be the reason—it is but the swagger
of bloated idleness itself, to cover its own shame in treading
them down. The Irish may be lazy here for aught I
know, but if they are, how manifest is it that it comes of the
lack of motive to exertion. Pray tell me, who is not lazy
when all such motive is removed Who does not droop
and languish, and become idle and vagrant, when all motive
to try to be any thing is taken away?
Take this issue then, if you prefer it—why are the Irish
lazy in their own beautiful country, and there alone? Why
do their energies droop and languish under so genial a sky?
Why does gaunt poverty meet you at every step? Why
does anarchy utter her screams, and run riot through the
land, and murder stalk forth at noonday !
These are grave questions, and should be gravely con-
sidered. And I undertake to say, that these evils are all
traceable directly to the landlord system, the failure of the
potato crop serving only as a temporary aggravation.
Nor am I disposed to cast the reproach that some have
upon the tything branch of this system—an adjunct by the
way which I by no means regard with favor. The tything
system comes in for its share of the blame, as part and parcel
of the landlord system, and nothing more. For instance;
here is a parish with not more than half a dozen members
of the established church in it, and yet a clergyman is Sup-.
ported by the tythes collected for the most part from those
who have their own clergyman to support besides, which
seems, at first view, to be shockingly oppressive upon the
tillers of the soil. -
84 THE MUD CABIN.
But the truth is, the tythes are paid by the tillers of the
soil as a part of their rent. Every cultivator of the soil pays
rent to two landlords, one of which is the lord of the manor,
who holds but a part of the proprietorship (the greater part
to be sure), and the other is the Established Church (or the
person or persons to whom her interests have been transfer-
red), which holds the remaining portion of the proprietorship,
the tythes being the rent of it, fixed by law.
The tything system then is chargeable with blame no
further than as it comes in as a component part of the gene-
ral landlord system. Upon this subject I have taken special
pains to inform myself. It is the landlord system as a
whole which sheds down such blighting influences upon the
working classes, nipping in the bud every noble aspiration,
and spreading desolation over the whole field of rural in-
dustry.
The peasantry here are very differently situated, for
the most part, from those of England. There are tenant
farmers here who employ them as laborers, as in England;
but the greater part of them live upon and work pieces of
land rented directly from the landlord. Their leases gene-
rally extend through several generations; and each succeed-
ing generation of children, have subdivided among them-
selves the lands they inherited by means of these long leases,
... until an Irish farm has come to be, in most instances, a
rather diminutive affair, often consisting of no more than
one, two, three, five, or ten acres in extent, surrounded and
cut up by huge, unsightly open ditches, and set with mud
hovels. But if fringed and bordered with gold, and set with
WOES OF IRELAND. 85
jewels, it could not be dearer to the heart of the Irish
peasant.
These people have always been put to all they could do
to pay their rent; and of late years they have found it dif-
ficult to pay them at all—so difficult that they have to re-
pair, in vast numbers, to England and Scotland, in harvest
time, to raise a little money for the purpose. In both Eng-
land and Scotland I have met troops of them, consisting
of men, women and children, toiling the long summer day
in the harvest field for so paltry a pittance as one shilling to
one shilling and three pence a day to the men, and half
price to the women. On one occasion, fifty of them sat by
the road-side eating their dinners as I passed, which consisted
only of sixteen ounces of poor bread each ; and I learned
from them that they were allowed nothing but oatmeal por-
ridge for their breakfast, while they were left to provide
their own suppers and lodging out of the above-named pit-
tance. And yet I have heard their employers brand them as
thieves because they made free with their turnips in the fields
to satisfy their hunger.
On one occasion I was passing with a landlord over a
portion of his premises, which brought us in view of some
sixty or seventy of these poor Irish laborers, consisting of
men and women, boys and girls, all bending to their task;
and as we paused to admire the magnificent sweep they were
making through the golden harvest-field, the grain falling
before them to the breadth of half a quarter of a mile, he
remarked to me with a jeer, “These are Irish farmers, who
“are working for money to pay their rent.”
86 THE MUD CABIN.
But what has aggravated the evils of the landlord sys-
tem far more than the failure of the potato crop, has been
the non-residence of the landlords. Almost to a man, they
have forsaken the country, to lead a dashing life in England,
swarming about the metropolis. Of course the entire land
rent of the country has been drawn away from it, to be ex-
pended there upon their extravagances, and this has contri-
buted to increase the general distress here.
But their enormous rents did not suffice—to meet their
profligate expenditures they had to mortgage their lands, and
to aggravate their distress thus entailed, just as far as the po
tato crop failed, their rents were not paid at all, and that
brought on the crisis—a law had to be passed authorizing
the sale of the incumbered estates of the mobility and gentry
of Ireland, and they have been going off under the hammer
ever since I have been in the country; and, in most instan-
ces, they have been sold for no more than was barely suffi-
cient to pay incumbrances.
What will be the remoter consequences of the breaking
up of an agricultural system whose sole dependence was
upon “one single, lazy root,” remains to be seen; but the
immediate consequences have been calamitous enough to
these poor people. Every where they have been ousted from
homes which they and their forefathers have occupied for
many generations, only to perish by thousands. Even those
who have fled to the workhouses seem not to have found a
refuge from death. According to a parliamentary report,
eighteen hundred of them died in two workhouses alone in
the course of a few months; and the Dublin News Letter
WOFS OF IRELAND, 87
says, that “a vast majority of all who have been ejected have
perished.”
I believe it will be found a principle of human nature,
that the heart clings to its accustomed locality, and the few
objects it embraces, with a fondness of grasp about in pro-
portion to the greatness of its remove from those refinements
which we are apt to think make up the sum total of life's
happiness. The wider the range of enjoyments, the more
divided the affections seem to become, and the less intense.
The Irish peasant's home, though humble and lowly,
and to our eye forbidding, and though his paternal do-
main be but a small spot, is all the world to him, and around
it cluster all his earthly hopes. He dreads removal as he
dreads death; as though, having vegetated there, he feared,
as the effect of transplanting, that he would be certain to die
down and perish.
And it is almost enough to reconcile one to wretched-
ness and filth, to see Pat sitting upon the manure heap which
looms up directly in front of his lowly hut, calmly smoking
his pipe, as he looks abroad with ineffable self-complacency
over a luxuriant potato-patch; or as he sits at his frugal
board, with the humble esculent before him, while the
pig (the gintlemin what pays the rint), is domiciled in a
recess of the same, and squeals out a craving desire for a
participation in the banquet.
And I am almost prepared to say, that were it not for
the sad contingencies which so often overtake him, and sub-
ject him to suffering, starvation and death, with his ideas of
comfort, he would be a happier man than the lord, who, with
88 THE MUD CABIN.
his ideas of comfort, looks from the balcony of his palace over
his broad domain, swarming with dependents, with discon-
tent sitting personified upon his brow; or as he sits at his
loaded tables, and fairly groans that he has but a single stom-
ach to gratify—and upon whose ear the strains of the
guitar pour less grateful melody, than does the music of the
stye upon that of his humble dependent.
Humble indeed is the lot of the Irish peasant, small are
his wants, modest and lowly his aspirations—despised by the
great ones and the little ones above him, are the objects
around which his heart dances with delight, the chiefest
among them all being the spot which he calls his home.
Co-existent with this attachment to his humble home,
there is in him a total want of versatility of character—an
utter incapacity, for the time being, to adapt himself to the
necessities of change. Jostled out of the little sphere in which
he is accustomed to move round and round, he becomes be-
wildered and lost, and knows not what to do, or which way
to turn. In the present emergency, those few who can, are
crowding their way to our shores, and upon those who can-
not, despair is fast doing its work.
“What shall be done with Ireland?” is the standing in-
terrogatory on the other side, especially just before the meet-
ing of parliament, and various measures have been set on
foot for “the regeneration of Ireland,” but all to no purpose,
and for the good and sufficient reason, that they have no
applicability to the case.
At this moment, it is gravely proposed to take advantage
of the breaking up the hitherto existing landlord system
WOES OF IRELAND, 89
here, to substitute another on the English basis of large
farms, on which the Irish peasantry may be employed as la-
borers at stated wages, and many English and Scotch far-
mers have already emigrated and taken farms; the favora-
ble terms offered by the new proprietors (on account of the
supposed insecurity of life and property here) holding out
great inducements, and all the English and Scotch papers
are cheering them on, and raising hallelujahs for Ireland, as
though the time of her redemption were drawing near.
And what is to be gained to the poor Irish by this impor-
tation of hated task-masters from over the channel? All
that these devout friends of Ireland hope or expect from this
measure, is that the Irish peasantry will be reduced to the
condition of the English farm laborer, such as I have de-
scribed it, that thus, as they say, the poor creatures may be
saved from liability to starvation, by an occasional failure of
the potato crop. - -
Astonishing exhibition of philanthropyl Dazzling orb
of hope to rise upon benighted Ireland l Far rather would
I be a wild Irishman among the bogs, with rags and inde-
pendence, than to be such an embodiment of ignorance,
stupidity, and brutality—nay, I would sooner turn up an
untamed Indian in his native wilds, a Bedouin in the desert,
a Hottentot, any thing, than such a shrivelled anomaly, such
a deformed lump of humanity, such a reproach to christianity
and civilization, such a plague spot upon the creation of God.
If any think I am dealing in hyperbole, I have only to
say, come and see. You have no data on which to form an
opinion upon the other side of the Atlantic, nor upon this,
90 THE MUD CABIN.
unless you go out of the beaten track. There you see one
side of the matter, in the tens of thousands of the Irish poor
who are flocking to our shores, but you see not the other,
for the English farm laborer has hitherto neither had the
manhood and spirit to think of such a thing as crossing the
sea, to escape from his oppressions, nor the means to accom-
plish it. What sort of an estimate is to be put upon a
people who can be made to believe that a steeple, whose top
has been blown off, will shoot up again upon being manured
well at the root? Do you say the story must be false?
Then, I ask what sort of an estimate is to be put upon a
people, concerning whom such things are said, whether true
or false?
With all their degradation, all their poverty and rags,
and laziness and crime even, there is a vivacity and spirit,
and, in one direction or another, a degree of intelligence
which raise the Irish peasant many degrees above the English
farm-laborer, in his mulishness, his stolidity, and his
brutality.
And, as I said, their capabilities of improvement are
demonstrated by what they have accomplished when set
free upon our shores. The wonder is not that the Irish
laborer accomplishes no more, and makes no larger figure
when he comes amongst us, but that he accomplishes so
much, and makes so large a figure, emerging as he does
from beneath the chilly and paralyzing influence which
makes him what he is here. And coming as he does, galled,
chafed, bleeding and smarting, we have only to take him by
the hand, speak words of kindness to him, and throw around
WOES OF IRELAND, 91
him the plastic influences at our command, to make a man
of him—and he is capable of it, he is.
There is an openness and a warmth of temperament, a
galloping flow of the spirits, and an open-armed hospitality
about the Irish which I like, and which shows off in repul-
sive contrast, the barricaded selfishness, the measured
formality, and heartless show, which too often characterize
their neighbors over the way. There is no truer heart than
throbs in the bosom of an Irishman, when every thing is
right within him and without him, and there are no nobler
specimens of humanity than have risen up, from time to
time, among the Irish people.
They have been accused of duplicity, and, for aught I
know, the charge may be founded in truth. But if it be,
think you, that they are sinners above all other men 2
Think you, that the Irish peasant is born with a lie in his
mouth, any more than the rest of mankind? I tell you may,
they are just what oppression makes every people under
heaven. Go, hunt the world over, take the circuit of the
globe, and explore it from pole to pole, and where will you
find an oppressed people that are not both liars and thieves,
in self-defence, and, I had almost said, by necessity ? I have
found quite as much duplicity and thievishness among the
farm laborers of England, as among the peasantry of Ireland.
I have found the same cause to produce the same effects
every where, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as
among the Fellahs of Egypt, and other oppressed countries
of the old world. Every where oppression casts a blight
upon every virtue, and quickens into life the seeds of vice
which lie dormant in every heart.
92 THE MUD CABIN.
How little then is to be hoped from this plan of trans-
porting English landlordism to Ireland, as a contrivance for
letting down the Irish peasant to the level of the English
farm laborer!
But another response has been made by the government
itself to the interrogatory, “What shall be done to regener-
ate Ireland?” and made too at an enormous expense, but it
is of a piece with the bright attempt above recorded, and
worthy its paternity, and of course it has proved barren of
useful results—English landlordism and English brutalization
of the working classes, forming the beau ideal after which
the government always shapes its measures.
I refer to the establishment of what are called the Queen's
Colleges, three enormous structures, located at Belfast, Gal-
way, and Cork, built and endowed by the government at an
enormous outlay, to furnish educational facilities for the
higher orders, and thus to arm them with still greater power
to trample down the people, who are left in ignorance at their
feet. The same outlay would have extended the facilities of
common school education to every mud hovel in the island;
but that would never do, it would defeat the great ends of
government here, and so they will tell you with great com-
placency what the national schools, with 500,000 pupils,
are doing for the people; that is, the schools of a private
society, embracing one in 13 of the population, to which
£120,000 are doled out by the government.
This is the way the government goes to work to “re-
generate Ireland,” and it is but another exemplification of
of the knavery which for ages has been so successfully played
WOES OF IRELAND. 93
off upon the English working-classes, to swindle them out of
their earnings and their humanity alike.
The fact, that these colleges have been laid under the
ban by the Pope, so far as the Catholics are concerned,
does not affect the question at all. It is better, far better,
that they should stand empty, monuments of government
folly, with their troops of professors feeding upon the govern-
ment pap, without the footsteps of a student to break their
solitude, if the people are to be left in ignorance.
There is a way to regenerate Ireland; nor is it necessary
to empty its people upon some other portion of the globe
to accomplish it. Hitherto they have received only inso-
lence from their masters over the channel, and they have
returned only undying hate. They cannot succumb to
power as the English peasantry can, for they never were so
enslaved and degraded in the feudal ages. They were
bound to their feudal chiefs by the ties of kindred, and the
authority exercised over them was paternal. And so it was
in the highlands of Scotland, and hence the mistake that
they can be cowed into submission with the same appliances
which are so effectual in crushing the peasantry of England,
who were slaves de facto in the feudal ages, and have virtu-
ally continued so to this day. (See Hallam, vol. ii. p. 90)
There is a way to regenerate Ireland: give the Irish
peasantry a chance to live, try the effect of kind and gentle
treatment upon them, and see if they do not rise from their
degradation. No people are more susceptible, more tract-
able and docile, or show a greater aptitude for improvement
than the Irish, when approached in the right way. One of
94 THE MUD CABIN.
the great woollen manufacturers of England, was formerly
extensively engaged in manufacturing in Dublin, and he
seemed to be well acquainted with the character and condi-
tion of the Irish people. I asked him if they were the in-
tractable, remorseless, and Savage beings the English generally
represented them to be ; to which he replied, that they were
very far from it, and that they only required suitable treat-
ment to make them as tractable and docile a people as exists
upon earth. Often, he said, when, goaded to desperation by
their oppressions, they collected in mobs, he had rode into
the midst of them, and, when vengeance breathed from every
lip, and murder flashed from every eye, had laid the tempest
in a moment, by calling out to them in tones of gentle
rebuke, tempered with words of kindness, and soon they
would drop away, one after another, quietly to their homes,
until all were gone. -
And what a spectacle we have here, in the mutual ruin of
landlords and tenants, ruin as deep and radical in the one
case as in the other. Nay, I hesitate not to say, that desola-
tion has done its work more fully upon the former than upon
the latter. There is an elasticity in the poor crushed laborer,
which, when his burden is removed, will bring him up to
the level of hope and of stirring motives, and these, acting
upon his dormant energies, quicken them into activity, and
often lead to developments of character which astonish the
world. But there is no such burden to be removed from
the sinking landlord, no such elasticity to bring him up, no
such dormant energies to be developed. Nay, the effect is
reversed with him; enervated by a life of profligacy, and
WOES OF IRELAND, 95
chagrined by the loss of position, his relaxed and flabby
energies sink to dormancy, and he is left a prey to his morti-
fication, his regrets, and his vices—vices which shone
resplendent when gilded by the sun of prosperity, but which,
shorn of that lustre, only excite pity and contempt.
Such is the two-fold ruin which the landlord system has
wrought out in this island, and which it is fast working out
through the kingdom. Local circumstances have but hast-
ened the crisis here, which is fast approaching upon the other
side of the Channel, and it is the opinion of some of the wisest
heads in England, that the closing catastrophe cannot be
kept off many years longer; and the breaking up of the great
landed interest there, will overthrow the feudal despotism
which has governed the country from the days of the
Norman. ;
CHAPTER XI.
VISIT TO THE SILK WEAVERS OF BIFTHNAL GREEN.
To the hand-loom silk weavers of Bethnal Green, in Spital-
fields, (London,) I next directed my steps. There are said
to be twenty thousand of these weavers at Bethnal Green;
but their comparative intelligence and vivacity contrast
strikingly with the ignorance and stupidity of the agricul-
tural laborer. And their sensitiveness under their wrongs,
and their spirit of vindictiveness toward their oppressors,
present an equally striking contrast to the moping insensi-
bility and spiritless cowing down under oppression every
where witnessed in the rural districts.
In this part of London the houses are low, old, and
dingy, many of them being in a very dilapidated condition.
At the first house I called, after ascending a rickety pair
of stairs, I entered an apartment about twelve feet square
where was a weaver at the loom, and a boy at the quill
wheel, while upon a tattered couch in one corner, apparently
far-gone with consumption, lay the emaciated wife of the
Weaver.
“Lor bless you!” said the weaver, “what could brought
you to such a place as this?” I replied that I came from
WOES OF THE Si.L.K WEAVERS, 97
curiosity, to see the operations of his trade, and the life he
was living. “The life we're living /* he rejoined, “we
don't live, we're not human, we're cattle, and dead cattle
at that. Do you see this piece of silk I'm weaving—how
nice and beautiful it is! It will be worn by her ladyship; and
how proudly it will sail in the dance, while I, a poor weaver
of Bethnal Green, must starve on four shillings and nine
pence a week, which is the utmost I can earn by keeping
the shüttle flying fourteen hours a day. Yes, fourteen hours
a day I must work, work, work, sick or well, until I sink
under it, and my poor body is laid under the turf. Two of
my children the Lord has mercifully taken away from a life of
suffering; and there is my poor wife just agoin', and nothing
for her comfort—no physician, no medicine, no help, and no
suitable food; and it'll be a mercy to her when she's gone.
And so it is, this infernal government gives the rich all the
advantage, while we, poor devils, who support them all, must
suffer, suffer, suffer, and there's no end to it—and is that liv-
ing? I tell you it isn't ; it's a mockery of living, and the
sooner we're over it the better.”
Here he paused, and in lowered, mellowed tones, resumed,
“Excuse me, master; I could not keep it; it's here (putting
his hand to his heart); I feel it, I feel it; O, I do, I dol
we're cattle—I tell you we're cattle, and nothing else!” Smit-
ing with his fist as he said it. -
Shocked by such an unexpected outburst, I made no
reply ; but while the weaver adjusted the bobbin which he
had held in his hand, and resumed the operations of the
loom, I turned to the dying w man, whose low moans and
5
98 THE MUD CABIN.
muttering accents had attracted my attention. She could
scarcely speak by reason of her cough, and I did not attempt
to understand her; but that ghastly, imploring look will never
be effaced from my memory. I slipped a shilling into her
hand, and the change which came over her was almost as if
the ashes of the sepulchre had begun to stir. With uplifted,
withered arms, she blessed me, and then buried her face in
her pillow.
At the second house I found two looms, and quill-wheels,
ragged beds, and children to match, the room being a trifle
larger than the one I had just left.
The man seemed at first disinclined to conversation, and
only made the shortest answers to my inquiries; but I suc-
ceeded at last in touching the right string. Having learned
from him that his earnings were about six shillings a week,
I asked him how he could support his family of seven chil-
dren on even double that amount, to which he replied, “God
knows;” and after a little pause, he thus delivered himself:
“Eight and thirty years I have labored at this loom, often
suffering for the necessaries of life; and it's all come to this
at last, gray hairs, a broken constitution, rags and want. It
didn't use to be so bad; but the slaughter-house men [em-
ployers] have done it (Smiting with his fist)—they have
cut under, and cut under, striving to undersell each other
and foreigners, to get the trade and become rich, until they
have brought us down to this—taking the bread from our
mouths, and the clothes from our backs, to make up the de-
ficiency of profit to themselves; and the cut-throats say they
must do it, for they are making nothing; and yet they are
WOES OF THE SILK WEAVERS. 99
building splendid country-seats, and have their hounds, and
their hunting-horses, and what not! But they'll catch it
some day, they will; I tell you they'll catch it. Human
natur can't bear every thing; and when we become des-
p'rate by suffering, what do we care for their jails, where we
can be better supported than at honest labor; or for trans-
portation, so long as it takes us away from this accursed
country? It is my native country, and I have tried to love
it, but all the love I ever had for it has been burnt out by
suffering, and now I only hate it, and hate the home of sor-
row and of suffering it has given me, and hate every thing
about it, and will hate as long as God gives me breath.
God knows I owe nothing but hate, hate, hate, to a country
which has given me nothing but slavery and rags, privation
and suffering, in return for a life of hard labor at this
loom.”
Interrupting him here, I said to him, there was such a
thing as duty to one's country, bad as we might think it,
and great as might be its oppressions.
“Duty!” said he, “it’s a duty to hate what God hates;
and I wouldn't b'lieve in a God that wouldn't hate such a
damnable country as this. If he's good and just, he hates it,
and I’ll hate it too.”
At the third house, I ascended a pair of stairs, which I
feared at every step would give way, and entered a low,
small, and comfortless apartment, close and stifling, with a
single loom, and other things to correspond; but as the man
at the loom only answered in monosyllables, and seemed re-
ºduced to sullen despair, I left him to brood over his misery,
and proceeded to a fourth.
:
e
:
:
tº
*
:
:
ſº
100 THE MUD CADIN,
:
:
;
:
And here I was received with a torrent of garrulousness
from the little man of the shuttle, which seemed to burst
forth as from a safety valve.
“And you're come to see one of the sights of London, I
s'pose—the rags and misery of the poor weavers of Bethnal
Green,” said he. “Please to pay your admission fee, for
we're nothing but a caravan of wild beasts, kept here for
show. Lor' bless me, if I shouldn't like to be caged up, and
carried about the country; and, dear me, what good picking
I would have.”
But you must hope for better times, said I.
“Hope /* he resumed; “I hope only for death. My
poor wife and two of the children are gone, thank God, and
I hope and pray that the rest of us may soon follow, and get
out of our misery.” -
But surely you are not glad your wife and children are
dead? -
“ Glad /* indeed I am. I shouldn't be fit to live or die if
I wasn't glad. Poor things, how they suffered But, thanks
be to God, it's all over with them now. And what a wretch
I should be if I didn't rejoice that they are dead! And
these children, it would be a mercy if they were taken away;
and I hope they will die, for I know it would be better for
them than to live.”
But you are crazy : no man in his senses would talk
so; and besides, have you no natural affection ?
“Natural affection /* What's the use of natural affec-
tion under such a horrid government as this, where we can
get nothing to make the poor creatures comfortable. It
º:
i
©
;
WOES OF THE SILK WEAVERS. - 101
would only add misery to misery. No, no, my natural af.
fection runs all the other way. I don’t want them to stay
here to be miserable; and I hope they will die, and go
where they will be better off, thanks be to God.”
I learn that these people are mostly Chartists, that they
hold political meetings, discuss freely the policy and measures
of government, and are ready, many of them, to shoulder
their muskets and take the field in defence of their rights—
the right of labor as well as wealth to be represented in the
national councils.
It is proper to add, however, that the hand-loom weavers,
the stocking weavers, and the lace makers are the most
depressed portion of the manufacturing operatives.
It should further be added, that these weavers have seen
better days than these. Their descent and early history are
of a highly interesting character. Their forefathers were
French refugee Protestants, who fled to this country for
protection, upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz, by the
fourth Henry, which exposed all the Protestants in France
to butchery. They were famous for the cultivation and love of
flowers, their houses then being apart, so as to give scope for
the indulgence of this favorite propensity, which, to this day,
characterizes them as a people. Pots of flowers are to be
seen upon the window-sills of nearly all the weavers, while
every little patch is devoted to their culture; and, one would
think, that a people thus prone could not be very bad. They
are equally famous for the rearing of pigeons, vast numbers
of which may always be seen ranging through the air, in the
neighborhood of Spitalfields.
102 THE MUD CABIN.
To my astonishment, their predilection for these innocent
amusements has been gravely alleged by a profound political
economist as one reason of their sufferings, and in balancing
matters between them and their employers, he comes to the
sage conclusion, that operatives should not concern them-
selves about such things. But he has not a word to say about
the palaces and parks, the hounds, hunting horses, &c., &c.,
which their employers enjoy at the expense of their toil and
their sufferings. The operative must not enjoy the luxury
even of a flower, lest it should interfere with the debauchery
of his superiors. Such is the financial calculation of one of
the best writers of which England can boast. There seems
to be something in the very atmosphere of the country which
deadens all feeling for the poor man, as a creature invested
with rights and capabilities of progress.
This love of flowers formerly had so deep a root that
these people became famous for botanical researches. They
had a flourishing botanical society, and also a mathematical
society, a historical society, libraries, &c., and from among
them arose such men as Dolland, the inventor of the
acromatic telescope, Simpson and Edwards, afterwards re-
nowned mathematical professors, and that only about a half
century ago.
But pitiable is the spectacle they present now in the
ranks of pauper labor, to which the wealth and splendor of
this kingdom owe their origin, and fearful indeed is the con-
tribution they make to the explosive material which under-
lies the government, there being not less than 100,000 of this
class of weavers in the kingdom, all nearly equally depressed.
CHAPTER XII.
INTERVIEW WITH A DISTINGUISHED POLITICAL CHARACTER OF
THE LIBERAL SCHool—HIs VIEws of THE DIFFERENT
CLASSES, OF THE GovKRNMENT, ETC. -
DESIROUs of being thoroughly posted up in government
matters, I sought an interview with a member of parliament,
to whom, as a statesman, the country owes more perhaps
than to any other living man. I was cordially received, and
full and definite answers were given to all my inquiries.
Upon my remarking to him that while I had been filled
with admiration at many things I had seen in England, the
conviction was every where forced upon me, that the gov-
ernment of the country was instituted and upheld for the
benefit of the few, at the expense of the many, he replied,
that the British government was essentially aristocratic in
its character, and that the people generally gloried in it as
such; that whenever it became unendurable by reason of its
oppressions, in any particular, the people became restive,
and there would be a popular ebullition, and the clamor
could only be appeased by granting relief, and then the
masses would settle back again into a quiescent state, per-
featly satisfied as before, and thus they would remain until
104 THE MUD CABIN.
some other form of oppression became equally unendu-
rable, when there would be another ebullition, another con-
cession, and another relapse; such a thing as a revolution
in the government not being entertained or desired.
Few indeed, he said, was the number who desired a radi-
cal change in the government. Having been schooled from
infancy to look upon the higher orders with great veneration,
they would hardly know what to do with themselves if de
prived of them by a revolution of the government; all their
ideas of order and good government would be set afloat.
This was the general feeling.
In reply to the question as to the estimated number of
landholders in the kingdom, he said, Lord Fitz William
reckoned the number at thirty to forty thousand, say thirty-
five thousand, which would make only about one in eight
hundred of the inhabitants of the united kingdom a land-
holder, and leave the remaining eight hundred to one, land-
less, and they loved to have it so, and seemed to have no de-
sire that it should be otherwise.
The farmers, he said, did not want to own the land they
cultivated, but seemed to prefer renting it from those above
them, and the laborers they employed were just as well sat-
isfied on their seven or eight shillings a week, or what was
barely sufficient to satisfy their little wants, and had no
higher aspirations. The English, he added, are a singular
people, doggedly attached to their old ways, and delight to
walk in the steps of their forefathers from generation to gen-
eration, without change, and without deviation.
I remarked to him that it looked very curious to me as
VIEWS OF A BRITISH STATES MAN. 105
an American, to see those farm laborers marched into the
Crystal Palace by hundreds, with little bits of red ribbon
on their hats, like so many puppets, and I went on and rela-
ted to him the conversation I had with them ; and when I
spoke of the reply one of them made to me, that they
were not prospering, but were haying then, he burst into a
laugh, and then said to me with emphasis, “Don’t you tell
that in America, don't you tell it, but I will tell it in the
House of Commons.”
He seemed to admit that that was a fair enough illustra-
tion of the intellectual condition of the agricultural laborers
of this kingdom. In the particular kinds of work to which
they were set, and to which they had been trained, they were
great adepts, and were as nearly perfect as they well could be.
A plowman was a plowman indeed, and no other man could
turn such a furrow; a ditcher was thoroughly accomplished in
his art, and if even a wythe was wanted, the man to whom it
belonged to furnish it, would soon present one almost as nicely
twisted as a rope. At the same time, he said, if they were
asked who lived in yonder mansion, in full view from their
own village, the short reply would probably be, “don’t
know.” Beyond the particular duties to which they had been
drilled, their minds seemed to be a blank.
Speaking of the desirableness of a subdivision of land,
and of a distribution of proprietorship, I remarked to him,
that my impression was that originally the land was par-
celled out among his chiefs by William the Conqueror, and
that from them it had been entailed from generation to gene-
ration. That, he said, was the beginning of the system, but
5%
106 THE MUD CABIN.
the nobility had managed in one way and another to get
hold of large tracts since, until they had arrived at their
present gigantic monopoly.
Ihere said to him, more to hear what he would say than for
any other reason, that as these lands were originally parcelled
out in this manner among favorites, without any equivalent
having been given for them, it would seem as though the gov-
ernment would be justified, in view of the monstrous evils
which have grown out of the system, in taking them back into
its own possession, as a national domain, to be disposed
of as it might think most conducive to the interests of the
community. Here he laughed again, and said, it might
look rather plausible, but it was to be considered, that there
had been so many transferences, that very few of the pre-
sent entail occupants were the lineal descendants of the ori-
ginal ones; and besides, they would be entitled to them by
right of possession.
Having witnessed so many evils resulting from land mono-
poly here, and being aware that a bill making it illegal for any
one person to hold more than five hundred acres of land, came
within a single vote of passing the legislature of Wisconsin,
the winter before I left the United States, I asked him what
he thought would be the effect of such a law; to which he
replied, that it must be, to a great extent, inoperative. In
the first place, it would be very difficult to know how much
land a person possessed in different localities; and then there
would be numerous other ways of evading the law, such as
deeding it to different members of the family, &c. And
then, he said, he did not think America had much to appre-
VIEWS OF A BRITISH STATESMAN. I07
hend from land monopoly, certainly not any such monopoly
as exists here, so different were the feelings, habits, and
general character of the people, and, he might have added,
the institutions of the country.
I asked him if there was no possibility of breaking up the
entail system, which had been the fruitful source of so much
evil to the country. He said, that Sir Robert Peel fully in-
tended to abolish the hereditary peerage, and expressed the
conviction that, had he lived, he would have accomplished
the object. He said, moreover, that vast numbers of the
entail occupants themselves were getting to be heartily sick
of the system; and the time was not distant when they
would pray for deliverance from its trammels, for it often
straitened and pinched them to the last degree. They had
to keep up, at vast expense, a great establishment for parade
and show, to support the dignity of the nation, and gratify
the people. They were regarded in the light of patrons and
examples in the counties in which they respectively lived,
and were expected, and in a manner necessitated, to lead
with a heavy amount all subscriptions for improvements and
entertainments, such as church-building, horse-racing, &c.
And then, there were the younger members of the family to
be provided for, annuities to be paid to them, &c. These
things, together with the reckless extravagance of many, had
so embarrassed them, that great numbers of them were
driven to such straits that they hardly knew which way to
turn ; and, he added, that there would yet, at no distant
day, have to be some sort of a law passed providing for the
sale of the encumbered estates of the nobility of England, as
there had been in reference to those in Ireland.
108 THE MUD CABIN.
I remarked to him, that I understood the British Gov-
ernment to consist of three co-ordinate branches, the mon-
arch, the lords and the commons, each having separate, dis-
tinct, and antagonistic interests to maintain, the one check-
ing and balancing the other; and that in this view of the
subject, I had been surprised to find a great number of lords
in the House of Commons, the popular branch of the govern-
ment. -
He replied, that they were only lords by courtesy, that is,
the younger sons of lords. Still, I remarked, they did not
consider themselves as a part of the common people; they
were “sprigs of nobility”—all their sympathies were with the
nobility, and they appeared to be entirely out of place in ap-
pearing as the representatives of the people.
“Very true,” said he, “but two causes have operated to
place them there. In the first place, their fathers and
friends own so much land, and have so many dependent
upon them, that they manage to get multitudes of votes for
them; and then the foolish deference the people have for
rank, operates largely in their favor.
I asked him if the Reform Bill of '32 (“the rotten bor-
ough act”) did not sweep out many of this class of members.
He said it did, and added, but we must have another sweep.
I told him I had noticed that the Ministers made their
appearance in the House of Commons, and even had seats
there, and took part in the discussions, and that bills before
the House were called the Ministers' bills, as Lord John
Russell's bill, Lord Stanley's bill, &c., and that it seemed to
me to be incompatible with the dignity and independence
VIEWS OF A BRITISIH STATESMAN. 109
of the House—no such thing being allowed in the American
Congress.
He replied, that it was getting to be understood of late that
no man could be Minister, who did not harmonize in sentiment
with the majority of the House, and who would not give his
whole influence to carry out the views of that majority; and
this being so, it was getting to be more and more the cus-
tom to let the Minister take charge of important bills, on
account of the influence he would carry along with him.
This is a consideration which our people will be scarcely
prepared to appreciate, with whom reason generally com-
mands more deference than titles. Mr. Cobden was thus
robbed of half the credit which was his due in carrying
the great measure of corn law repeal. It was “Sir Robert
Peel's bill,” and the multitude were ready to shout it as his
triumph; but that great and good man rebuked the injustice
by publicly declaring that he took no credit to himself for
the passage of that bill, and that the entire honor of it was
due “to one Richard Cobden.”
His views of the tythe system corresponded with those of
a dissenting clergyman with whom I conversed, upon which
subject some of our people have very erroneous impressions.
It seems that the claim of the church to one tenth of the
produce of the soil arises from the ownership of a proportion
of the land which is vested in her. No injustice is done to
the tenant farmer, for he only pays rent to two landlords
instead of one, as he agreed to when he rented the land.
In regard to titles, which exert such an omnipotent sway
upon this island, conferring unearthly consequence upon
110 THE MUD CABIN.
mortal man, I was curious to know how they were made, and
drew from him this important piece of information—that the
monarch, through the minister, creates them out of nothing.
“Let there be light, and there was light.” This, he said, had
ever been the prerogative of the monarch, and it had been
effectually employed to gratify the propensities of the people.
He said he thought I must have been vastly interested in
the parade made of such things in the papers, and especially
in the country papers, whose columns were half filled up in
describing the dresses, pastimes, &c., of the nobility, remark-
ing that he thought the American papers, filled with accounts
of railroad and other improvements, read quite as well.
He remarked, that I visited England under circumstances
which would prevent my seeing the darkest shade of the
picture, for nearly all classes were just then in a prosperous
condition, or what they considered prosperous, bad as it must
seem to me. By and by there would come round another
periodical revulsion, and content would give place to restive-
ness and clamor, and parliament would again have to listen
and succumb.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE POWER OF CASTE.
As nothing is so depressing, enervating, and corrupting, as
the power of caste in this kingdom, I will give some illus-
trations of it which have fallen under my own observation.
At the hotel in London where I put up, there came in a
man of quite respectable appearance, and called for refresh-
ments for himself and two friends. The viands were soon
smoking upon the table, and as I sat reading the Times,
waiting my own turn, I could not but be interested in the
social glee with which the little company enjoyed their
repast.
But reckoning time came, and the bill so far exceeded
the man's expectations, that he hesitated about paying it.
By some blunder, he had gotten into a house of a higher
order than belonged to his rank, and the bill so much ex-
ceeded what he had been accustomed to pay, that it seemed
extravagant. -
After some words, the master of the house charged him
with being a chop-house customer, as he contended for chop-
house prices, and told him he wanted nothing to do with
him, and he had no business at his house.
112 THE MUD CAEIN.
That was a hard one, and the man seemed stunned by
the blow, for he sat mute for a considerable time, and not a
word was exchanged either between him and his friends, or
the landlord. To be charged with being a chop-house cus-
tomer, and to be convicted on his own testimony, and to
have the evidence of it thrown in his face in the pre-
sence of his two friends, how could he hold up his head or
utter a word?
At length he rallied himself, reluctantly drew forth his
purse, paid the amount, and walked moodily away.
Chop-house ! chop-house! thought I; and what is a
chop-house 2 I had often seen the sign as I passed along
the street, and stimulated by this queer colloquy, I deter-
mined, if possible, to find out, and so forth I sallied upon a
tour of discovery, that is to say, as soon as I found it con-
venient.
Coming to a sign, and walking straight in, said I, Is this a
chop-house? “Yes, sir,” said a plump little specimen of
humanity, as she came tripping along, “and please, sir.”
said she, “what will you have?” A good rump steak, said
I, and a cup of coffee. “Please, sir, be seated, and here is
the Times, and the Morning Chronicle, and the Daily
News,”—“and here is Punch too,” added she, with a leer.
Well, well, thought I, this is not so bad after all, as I
sat “bolt upright” in one of the stalls, “rummaging” the
newspapers. These stalls, by the way (slips for a single per-
son, separated by high partitions), are common to hotels of the
ordinary grade, as well as chop-houses.
But here comes the steak hissing hot, and the coffee
POWER OF CASTE. 113
steaming from the pot; and not being an Englishman, I
throw aside the newspaper (I will explain this another day)
and apply myself to the subject matter before me. The
steak is as fine as I ever tasted, and the coffee as good as
can be got in England, (though that is not saying much, I
confess,) and on the whole, I enjoy my repast; it is quite as
good as I get at my hotel for three times the money.
Being ready for my departure, I threw down the price
demanded, but as I turned to pass out, I noticed a shade of
sadness upon the countenance of the damsel, in place of the
smiles which had previously lit it up. What ailed her? I
bethought me in a moment what it was, and threw her a
penny, and instantly she was herself again. These little
gratuities are all the poor things get, and it does one's soul
good to see how thankful they are over them.
As I wended my way back to the hotel, I could not,
for the life of me, feel myself degraded in the least. It re-
quired no more effort to hold up my head than it did before;
and I strolled along, and looked around with the same care-
less ease, and on the whole I concluded that my dignity was
not damaged at all.
But it so happened, and queerly enough, that while I was
carrying on this investigation, I heard the term “tap-room
customer” bandied. Tap-room | tap-room ' and what could
that be? I confess to a sort of squeamishness here which
deterred me from bringing the merit of the thing to a simi-
lar test. But, from the inquiries I instituted, I learned that
it was also an eating and drinking house, only lower down
in the scale, with prices to correspond, designed, of course,
for persons a peg lower in respectability.
114 THE MUD CABIN.
And so it is; there is nothing to be heard here but class,
class, class. The railroads have their first, second, third, and
fourth classes of cars, but they do not begin to meet the
case. In one instance I noticed the inscription, “Working-
man's carriage,” and turning to a gentleman standing by, said
I, putting on a serious look, and pointing to it, I suppose
that is the place for me, as I call myself a working man
“You a working man 3” he exclaimed. To be sure, I am
nothing else, said I.
And what crowns the climax in this matter, and turns
the laugh against the whole thing, is that the stiffest of the
aristocracy here find themselves eclipsed by an edition of
their own system, which has been copied—who would have
believed it—and carried into effect to a punctilio, by the poor
working men themselves. Nowhere in this kingdom is the
spirit of caste rifer or more jealous of its prerogatives, than
it is away down among the Cornish miners. There are three
orders of them, consisting, first, of those who work above
ground, second, of those who sink the shaft, and third, of
those who work the mines after the shafts have been sunk.
The first are called surface laborers, the second, tutmen, and
the third, tributers; and such power has the spirit of caste
among them, that the highest class will have no social inter-
course with the second, nor the second with the third. And
what is singular, the high dignitaries among them are the
tributers, the class that are buried for the greater part of
their time in the bowels of the earth, while next in rank come
the tutmen, who for a portion of their time are but partially
buried from the light of day, leaving the poor surface labor-
ers at the fag-end.
PoweR OF CASTE. 115
But do not be in haste to consider this an unnatural
arrangement of classes. It is strictly in accordance with the
established rules of caste. The tributers (who work the
mines) earn the highest wages, the tutmen the next highest,
and the poor surface laborers the least of all. All alike spend
their entire earnings, but the higher orders among them are
able to dress better, drink more, and play a higher game
than the lower, whom they treat with the most Supercilious
contempt. The surface laborer may be seen crawling about
under a becoming sense of his inferiority, while the tutman
struts past him, without bestowing upon him the slightest
notice, he, in his turn, being looked down upon with equal
contempt by the passing tributer.
But let us ascend to the great exemplars of all this,
the big tutmen, and tributers of the realm, who are divided
off among themselves into clans about equally distinct; but
the great gulf which separates all these idlers from the in-
dustrial classes, is the widest and deepest of all—a gulf
across which the latter look with reverential awe. •
This gulf, in all its depth and breadth, was one of the
curiosities at the Great Exhibition. When the Exhibition
first opened, the terms were such as to exclude the working
classes—then, for a week or so, all were admitted on the
same terms, but the nobility staid away. The “Times”
said it was because the weather was cold, and added, that
“the great numbers who attended were not so sensitive to the
changes in the barometer as their superiors”—rather cool.
After that, the admission fee was put at a crown on Satur-
days, to exclude the working classes, that the idlers might
116 THE MUD CABIN,
not be annoyed by their presence; and reduced to a shil-
ling the other five days of the week, to draw them in, the
idlers staying away. -
But this arrangement was like to work calamitous
results to the exhibition, by diminishing the attendance on
the five days; not that any exception was taken to it, but
because the lions were not there to be gazed at, as the chief
attraction.
In view of this sad result, the “Times” and other dailies
expostulated with the higher orders upon the subject, and
entreated them, as they desired the success of the exhibi-
tion, to give their attendance on the other five days, how-
ever unpleasant and disgusting it might be to them to mingle
with the people in the same building. They urged the con-
sideration, that such an act of condescension and grace
would have the effect to bind the hearts of the people still
more closely to them—a matter in which they were them-
selves deeply interested. No attention was paid to this ap-
peal.
And thus the big tutmen and the little tutmen play off
this silly game, each after their own fashion, both alike
making themselves a laughing-stock to all sensible men.
In giving these facts, it has been no part of my design to
heap odium upon the time-honored institutions of this king-
dom. The aristocracy here constitute a branch of the gov-
ernment, and there is something venerable about them as
the representatives of by-gone ages. As a curiosity, they
are as deserving of consideration as the disentombed re-
mains of Pompeii and Herculaneum. If they could be pre-
POWER OF CASTE. 117
served in a glass case, or by any other contrivance, as me-
mentoes of the past, it were well, and edifying; but the idea
of their having the privilege of playing off the same game
upon the people now as in the dark centuries of the past, is
rather preposterous.
Like the aged oak, which has weathered the storms of
centuries, they are venerable objects; but unfortunately,
like the Upas, they have stood only to shed a blight upon
every thing beneath.
And what have they done? They have taken from
labor its reward; they have erected barriers to the upward
progress of the race; they have crushed aspiring energy, and
they have pauperized a kingdom.
Progress is the law of our being—progress upward or
downward; and when the upward progress of the race is
hedged up, what remains for them but to sink, and stagnate,
and fester in their own corruption ?
Another law of our being is imitation, and another still
is, that we more readily imitate the vices than the virtues
of those above us. “Put this and that together,” and what
wonder is it that the working classes of England are what
they are ? Whatever may be the virtues of the high aris-
tocrats of the land, the poor tutman only imitates their ex-
clusiveness, their profligacy and their vices. Nor does it
help the matter, that there are a dozen different orders be-
tween these extremes, and that the lowest in the scale takes
pattern from the next above, but rather aggravates it. Sad
indeed is the spectacle, to see this mighty influence for evil
sweeping down from order to order, until it has overwhelm-
ed them all.
CHAPTER XIV.
EFFECT OF CASTE UPON THE CHARACTER OF DIFFERENT
CLASSES.
THERE is a profound lesson to be learned in studying the
effect of caste here upon the characters of the different orders.
From this governmental machine, as many distinctly marked
varieties of character are turned out as there are classes; and
all as diverse from the American stamp, as they are from
each other.
First, take the case of the privileged orders, and what an
advantage it would seem to be, in the cultivation of the
social and amiable virtues, to be exempt from the harassing
vexations of business, and from all the cares and perplexities
of lifel What multitudes have their tempers soured and
spoiled by these things! How often is a peevish and fret-
ful spirit, the bane of all peace, thus nursed into being ! and
how often, too, does the chafed spirit, wrapped in morose
and sullen seclusion, look with contempt upon the amenities
of life
It is very true, that these things should have the whole-
some disciplinary effect to train us all to a confirmed and
habitual amiability, and the practice of every private and
EEFECT OF CASTE. 119
social virtue; and thus improved, the trials of this proba-
tionary state are an inestimable blessing to humanity; but,
alas ! to how few are they ever made to yield these “peace-
able fruits,” and to what multitudes do they bring forth only
“briars and thorns !” -
But these favored ones seem to be delivered from the effects
of the curse. Raised above the necessity of labor, above
the vexations of business, and above all the ordinary cares and
perplexities of life, their amiable and social virtues are
exempt from that severe probationary ordeal, to which those
of ordinary mortals must ever be subjected. The consequence
is, that though they can produce no examples of the moral
sublime in character, such as results only from successful
conflict with trials and difficulties, it would be strange,
indeed, if they were not characterized for the more passive
virtues of which I am speaking, beyond the average of the
race. And the cultivation of these virtues is, at the same
time, entirely consistent with indulgence in some of the most
debasing vices. Indeed, social virtues and social vices are
inseparably connected, and form strong points in all such
characters, their whole time being given to their joint culti-
vation. -
If we descend to the middle classes, (those who are not
raised above the necessities and vexations of business, but yet
enjoy a competence,) we shall find them enjoying equal
advantages over our own people, in the cultivation of the
amiable and social virtues.
In the first place, their easy, dog-trot way of doing things, is
favorable to such a result. The same cause which depresses
120 THE MUD CABIN,
the working classes in the dust, keeps the middle in a state
of comparative inertness, by reason of the barriers it raises to
their upward progress, and this is conducive to the develop-
ment of these virtues.
What an impulse is given to the energies of our people
by the opening prospects created by their facilities to rise!
What a restlessness, turmoil, and chafing of spirit are thus
begotten! What a concentration of the thoughts and affections
upon the one engrossing object, and in the hot pursuit, what
clouds of dust often arise to obscure the moral vision; and
how often are the social and amiable virtues left to die of
neglect, or to be choked out by antagonistic vices which at
the same time are nursed into being ! And what a hot-bed
of envy, malice, and the whole kindred tribe is thus created
But under such a system as this, which puts a damper
upon all this ſeverish excitement, and keeps down aspiring
energy, there is little chance for the development of this
class of evil passions. Envy and its kindred train, cannot
even germinate where there is no competition and no pro-
gress, for not only must its object be exalted above it, but
the way upward to the same level, must be open to it; other-
wise there are no elements to keep it alive, or to quicken it
into being, for, in the nature of things, it can find no object
upon its own level, and none upon a higher, to which there
is no hope of rising.
One would suppose, that there might be some degree of
this emulation with its attending evils among persons of the
same class, but the truth is, that there are so many sub-
divisions of rank among those of the same general class, as to
operate as a pretty effectual check.
FFFECT OF U ASTE, 121
The same remark might have been made in reference to
the higher orders themselves. There are so many subdivi-
sions among them, and there is so much of a gulf between
each, that not much play is given to the class of vices of
which I am speaking. ©
Under these circumstances, it might be expected that the
amiable and social virtues should find ample development
here, and so it is in fact. With the higher orders, this is all
that makes life tolerable, and saves them from dying of
ennui. Nor are the middle classes at all behind them in
social enjoyment, while they are comparatively free from
their social vices. It is their delight to drop in, without
form or ceremony, to spend an evening in chit-chat with a
neighbor, over “the social glass;”
and generally, when one
goes out for the purpose, he calls upon one or two other
neighbors, which may be in his way, to go along with him.
England is full of these little circles every evening, and thus
an intimate and endearing social relation, is kept up among
persons of the same class, at the same time that there is little
to interrupt the even tenor of a good understanding.
And, unfortunately, the same social customs prevail
among the working classes, to the utmost extent of their
humble means, especially among the operatives in the manu-
factories, journeymen mechanics, &c., which drains off all the
little surplus which the more expert workmen might other-
wise have, and subjects all, to a greater or less extent, to
privation and want, no inconsiderable proportion of their
earnings being thus expended.
Of the effect of this system upon the characters of the
6
122 THE MUD CABIN.
agricultural laborers as a class, I have spoken at large in
another place.
I will now refer to some additional national peculiarities
which grow out of this social conformation.
It is no wonder at all, in view of these things, that wo
eat so fast, and they so slow. We eat as we do every thing
else, and so do they. It would be quite as much out of cha.
racter for us to eat slow, as it would be for them to eat fast.
And besides, slow eating is a part of their social system,
and slow drinking too. Their hour-and-a-half dinners are
designed as much for the gratification of the social, as of the
animal nature. In both eating and drinking, it is wonderful
what a moderation they observe, with all their excess.
In speaking of my visit to the chop-house, I said, that,
not being an Englishman, I threw aside the newspaper, and
sat myself down to my repast. An Englishman would have
kept on reading at least two or three minutes before he
would have stirred, and then, instead of throwing the paper
aside, he would have taken it to the table with him to read
and eat, read and eat, read and eat, until the time came to
adjourn, which would be far from coming in a hurry.
Or, if he calls for a bottle of ale, or wine, or a glass of
brandy, presently a rosy-cheeked maid makes her appear-
ance, and sets it down before him. But does he seize hold
of it at once, and gulp it all down at a lift? Neither the
One nor the other; he is reading the newspaper, or convers-
ing with a friend, and he continues to read or talk on for
the space of about five minutes, as though he did not care a
fig about it. He then turns himself leisurely around, lifts
EFFECT OF CASTE. 123
the beverage to his lips, takes a sip, returns it to its place,
and again he is reading the newspaper, or conversing with
his friend, as the case may be. Another five or ten minutes
elapses, and he takes another sip, and thus he goes on until
the whole is sipped up. What a contrast this to the cataract
impetuosity of our drinkers, who would seem to be intent
upon swallowing both tumbler and contents at a “ swig.”
But we drink, when we drink at all, as we do other things,
and so do they.
Hence, notwithstanding what we call loose habits are
much more common here than with us, they are not near as
apt to end in confirmed drunkenness. There is no such
headlong rush to ruin among the sons of the wealthy in
London, and Liverpool, and Birmingham, and Manchester,
and Leeds, as there is in New-York, and Boston, and Phila-
delphia, and Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, and
New-Orleans. Ruin enough there is here, in all conscience,
and far more than with us; but there is no such headlong
ruin. It is a slow, widely-diffused, regularly measured-off ruin.
It is equally wonderful with what deliberation and com-
posure these people will go about to divide up their time
between business and pleasure, and how they will hold the
one at bay, while they give their attention to the other, no
more suffering business hours to interfere with those of pleasure
than they do pleasure hours to intrude upon those of business.
And what a contrast is here too, to the character of our
own people, who are either all business, or all pleasure, either
climbing their way up in the scale of wealth and respecta-
bility, or plunging headlong to ruin.
124 THE MUD CABIN.
And the same distinctive characteristics are observable in
conversation. It is true the case seems to be reversed in our
slow and their fast talking; but not so; their fast talking is
but the natural result of the rising tides of social feeling,
which set the organs of speech a-going with tremendous
power, while the low stage of social feeling in our people
acts but feebly upon the speaking organs.
But the true test here is to be seen in the manner of
replying to an argument. When beaten in argument, these
people are not near as apt as our own to rally themselves
afresh, strike a higher key, and come down upon you with
an increased torrent of words without meaning. There are
exceptions, it is true; and I have known Englishmen who
were perfect Hotspurs in argument, especially in relation to
any matter which affected the national renown. But as a
general thing, the better bred classes are very courteous in
argument, and when beaten, seldom do more than put in a
query. And when, on the other hand, they know you to be
in the wrong, and have a full argument in hand to set you
right, they do not draw themselves up and come down upon
you with annihilating power, as our go-ahead people are apt
to do, but far oftener preface the coming thunderbolt which
is to lay you prostrate at their feet, with “Please excuse me,
sir,”—and that's the way.
CHAPTER XV.
PHILOSOPHY OF IDOLATRY AS HERE EXEMPLIFIED — ALSO
OF THE POWER OF THE HIGHER, ORDERS FOR, EVIL,
IN the remarks in the preceding chapter on the effects of
caste upon the character of the different classes here, we are
furnished with a clue to the entire secret of the idolatrous
regard bestowed by the lower upon the higher orders. We
often wonder how it can be, knowing that our own people,
similarly circumstanced, would be inspired with feelings of a
directly opposite character. But the true reason is that above
given, that envy and its kindred passions can have no exist-
ence toward those who are regarded as for ever unapproach-
able. The privileged orders are more than heaven-high
above the orders below, for heaven is far more accessible
than the lofty positions they occupy. Hence the aspiring
passions of those below, find nothing in them, their position,
or trappings, on which to fasten, and retire from the field, or
are killed down, giving full scope to idolatrous regard, which
takes exclusive possession. If the way were as open to their
upward progress as it is to our own people, idolatry would
soon give place to those passions, and the whole system be
tumbled into ruin. It is a shrewd contrivance. This is the
126 THE MUD CABIN.
reason that the Grand Lama of Thibet, who is the most unap-
proachable of all the despots of earth, is actually worshipped
as a god, and the reason too of all the superstitious regards
which are bestowed upon the tyrants of the earth, both great
and small.
And this feeling thus monopolizing the hearts of the
people here, to the exclusion of the aspiring passions, and of
all personal considerations, comes nearer to absolute worship
than I had supposed it possible. In illustration of this, I will
relate some facts which have fallen under my observation,
and the circumstance that one or two of them relate to the
queen, does not render them the less applicable, for what the
queen is to the kingdom, every nobleman is in his own
county, and indeed the influence of some noblemen is
scarcely less widely diffused than that of the queen.
When at Cheltenham, (a great watering place,) I was
expressing my admiration of the rural beauties of the place
to the landlord of the hotel where I put up, to which he, of
course, agreed in full; but with a deep sigh and sorrowful
look, he remarked, that the place had been almost forsaken
of late, and added, with emphasis, “If the queen would only
make us one visit, it would set the place right up.” And so
it would; and it would be nothing but Cheltenham, Chelten-
ham, Cheltenham, from one end of the kingdom to the other,
and from year's end to year's end.
Another fact I have, fully justifies this conclusion. When
I was at Glasgow, I attended church a part of the day on
the Sabbath, at the old cathedral occupied by Dr. McFarlane
of the established church (Presbyterian), which was well
PHILOSOPHY OF IDOLATRY 127
filled; but the gentleman who accompanied me remarked,
that for years it had been well migh deserted, the secession
from the establishment having drawn away the greater part
of the congregation, until, about a year previous, when the
queen passed a Sabbath at Glasgow, and attended this
church, and from that time the church had been thronged
every Sabbath.
If that be not divine worship, it would be difficult to
show what is.
And that is the kind of influence which radiates from
every nobleman in the land upon all around him. Each one
is regarded as the “father of the county" in which he resides.
There is no computing the extent of the influence which is
thus shed down upon the people. Indeed it is not going
too far to say, that this nation is morally what that influence
has made it. The nobility and gentry have but to patronize
a virtue to give it favor with all classes of the people; or
frown upon a vice, and all are in equal readiness to join them in
hunting it from the land. They have but to fix an opprobrious
name to the object of their dislike, whether it be good, bad,
or indifferent, and it is echoed and re-echoed down through
every gradation of society, to the lowest rabble in the street.
The term Chartist formerly commanded respect, and men of
character were not ashamed of the title; but by a simple
curl of the lip, an accent, and a nod, these high and com-
placent ones have converted it into a term of reproach, in-
somuch that even liberals, for the most part, have cast it from
them as a disreputable thing; the only reason assigned for
attaching to it special obloquy being that it implies the em-
128 THE MUD CABIN.
*
ployment of physical force in the last extremity, if reforms
cannot be effected without; and yet, who believes that a
single step has ever yet been taken in the slow march of
reform, or ever will be, but from fear of physical force 3’.
And so it is; public sentiment throughout all its ramifi-.
cations, is squared to meet their high approval. As an
instance of the influence they are capable of exerting for
good, take the case of profane swearing, the practice of
which has been scouted from all respectable society, solely
because they have expunged it from the vocabulary of a
gentleman. -
And here I cannot but pause for a moment over the
Iudicrous mistakes of some of our own swearing gentlemen in
making their debut upon this side the water. I know not
when or where I have been ashamed of my country, or felt
the slightest mortification, except when I have come in con-
tact with this low tribe. Amid all the abominations of the
Old World, none have struck me with a profounder disgust
than the spectacle of one of my own starched-up country-
men, claiming to be the embodiment of American refine-
ment, in the attitude of delivering himself of the Almighty
oath, and casting about with a look which seemed to say,
“Now I have settled my claims to the highest consideration
in the Old World,” when, in fact, he was only regarded as
having displayed the attributes of a vulgar fool. This de-
* Since the above was written, Chartism is beginning to hold
up its head again. Two hundred thousand persons are said to
have attended the funeral of a Chartist leader recently in York-
shire.
THE ASSIMILATING PROCESS. 129
grading, unprovoked, gratuitous, bootless, and swaggering
vice is so common with us, so accustomed are we to the
sound of stupid oaths, that we cease to be affected by the
monstrous impropriety. And I am sure, if our people gen-
erally (our nobility) were to give their ears an eighteen
months' repose from the vulgar din, as I have done, a public
sentiment would soon arise in their midst, before which it
would slink away from among us.
But to return, how forcibly is the almost unlimited power
of the nobility and gentry to give shape to public sentiment,
thus exemplified ? But unfortunately for this kingdom, that
power has been but too effectually employed for evil. This
may be said to have been a necessary, at all events, an inev-
itable consequence of the system.
It has often been said, that the moral character of a people
can never rise higher than that of the gods they worship, and
never was a sounder doctrine promulgated. What but volup-
tuousness is expected of the worshippers of a voluptuous
deity? Who but bacchanalians can ever be worshippers of
Bacchus? And what but blood-thirstiness can characterize
the worshippers of a blood-thirsty god?
It is the law of all rational existences, not only in our
world, but in all worlds, that the character of the worship-
per assimilates itself to that of the Deity worshipped. Nor
are the people of England an exception. I do not say that
they absolutely worship the nobility, but their reverence for
them is so near akin to downright worship, that the assimi-
lating process is continually going on, insomuch that it may
be affirmed in the general, that what the nobility are in
6*
130 THE MUD CABIN.
moral character, the people of England are. This, of course,
admits of exceptions. .
What the character of the nobility actually is, may be
learned from facts which I have given in another place. In-
deed it were scarcely necessary to give facts at all, to estab-
lish the proof of their almost universal moral corruption. A
reference to the nature of the case is quite sufficient for that
purpose. It is almost as if a set of men had been set apart
and supported at the public charge, on purpose to deluge
the nation with moral pollution.
That there are some good and exemplary people among
the nobility and gentry, in spite of the disadvantages of
their position, is not to be questioned, and the more credit is
to be awarded to them, in consideration of their singularity.
They are rare exceptions. The mass of them are morally
just what we are authorized to expect of human nature under
such circumstances. They are naturally no worse than other
people; it is the fault of the system; no set of men on earth
could sustain a reputable moral character under it. It is at
war with the laws of nature and of revelation alike.
I have often conversed with persons in the middle classes
about their vices, and their calamitous influence upon the
people, and they always admit the facts. When they speak
of their vices, however, it is generally in a sort of half sup-
pressed under-tone, as though they thought they were com-
mitting a sin, and had a sort of apprehension that some ter-
rible evil might overtake them by way of retribution. I
have been amazed at the tender reserve they often manifest
upon the subject.
DIGNiTY AND DISGRACE. 131
At the same time, they seem to think the nation would
be irretrievably disgraced by the loss of its dignity, if these
persons were necessitated to curtail their extravagances in the
least, even though half the kingdom were starving for bread
as the consequence. Absolutely, I have heard tenant farmers
plead lustily in favor of the restoration of the corn laws,
(which would take bread from the mouths of starving mil-
lions) because they considered it essential to the dignity of
the nation, that their landlords should not be necessitated to
reduce their style of living,
To keep up the dignity of the nation then, it is necessary
that the landlords should be profligates, for nothing else, as a
general thing, can they be, with such a style of living. To
keep up the dignity of the nation too, the people must be
subject to their debauching influences. And, if need be, to
keep up the dignity of the nation, the people must suffer
hunger and cold, starvation and death.
CEIAPTER XVI.
“THE GREAT GULF" BETWEEN THE HIGH AND THE Low.
THE Times, in speaking of the popular demonstration of loyal-
ty to the queen, on the occasion of her visit to Manchester, says
of the assembled multitude, that “there were many among
them cursed with an education, and instincts above their con-
dition,” and adds, that “all alike were charmed by the spell
of her presence, although she was exalted above them out of
sight, and separated from them by a gulf which nothing
short of the most romantic sentiment could pass.”
And again, “They saw the proudest and wealthiest of
the land, whom they had been wont to regard as a Superio,
order of beings, paying a still greater homage to one above
them all, the sovereign of twenty-six millions of British sub-
jects, and of one eighth part of the population of the
globe.” -
Here then we have it—“many of them were cursed
with education and instincts above their condition.” To un-
derstand this, it is necessary to call to mind the fact, that the
large manufacturing towns have ever been the hot-bed of
liberalism; that many of the operatives are educated, and
that all of them have been stirred by the spirit of inquiry,
THE GREAT GULF. 133
which originated with the more intelligent and better educa-
ted, and that in the agitation all have become more or less
aroused through the reflected light which has fallen upon
them, insomuch that they are many degrees above the stu-
pid masses who toil in the fields, in point of intelligence and
spirit. Here all discontent under the oppressive measures of
government, has uniformly originated, and here all meas-
ures of reform have found their principal champions and sup-
porters. The “education and instincts” of many of them,
make them feel that they are men and have rights, and that
seems to obliterate that awful gulf which nothing short of
“the most romantic sentiment” can pass. Hence their com
parative enlightenment is deemed a curse to the country;
and what is this but another open and shameless avowal
that the government is based upon the ignorance and degra-
dation of the people? .
And that great gulf, and that romantic sentiment, so un-
blushingly acknowledged; how strikingly do they illus-
trate the idolatrous regard of the masses here for those
above them, of which I have spoken, as being the basis of
their loyalty, leading them to look up to those “wealthiest
and proudest of the land, as a superior order of beings.”
That is it; for ages upon ages, this game has been played
off upon the stupid multitude. Their very hearts' blood has
been wrung from them, and all the energies of life worn
away, to furnish this “superior order of beings” with the
means of decking themselves with the trappings of pomp
and pride, and then they have bowed submissively down, to
be crushed by the Juggernaut which they themselves have
ated.
134 THE MUD CABIN.
“The sovereign of twenty-six millions of British sub-
jects,” and some of them, forsooth, are cursed with an edu-
cation, and know how to read and write, and have instincts
too, which belong to humanity; “and of one eighth of
the population of the globe,” including the plundered and
beggared millions of India. Truly, what a halo of glory radi-
ates from the crowned head of “the great Queen Victorial”
Seriously, I am at a loss to know whether the editor of
the Times is in sober earnest, or whether he covertly designs
to make a burlesque of British royalty. The truth of the
matter is, disguise it as they will, that if the “brutal” part
of the population are taken into the account, Queen Victoria
is the sovereign of a nation of paupers. A careful estimate
will show, that the proportion who are liable to be sent to
the poor-house at any time when they get sick, or become
infirm, amounts to three-fourths of the whole population of
the kingdom. I have presented this view of the subject here
again and again, without fear of contradiction. Only the
other day, I was in company with a whole room-full of manu-
facturers from Manchester, when, as they were congratulating
themselves upon the prosperous state of the country, I said
to them, Gentlemen, how can that country be called prosper-
ous, three-fourths of whose population are paupers, and liable
to be sent to the poor-house at any time? Can that country
be called prosperous, in which there is only here and there
a man who has any thing on which to subsist beyond the
present hour? It came like a thunderbolt upon them, but
they received it all in kindness, nor did they attempt to dis-
pute the position.
THE GREAT GULF. 135
Such are some of the gems which sparkle in the diadem
of the British Queen, and such the great gulf which separates
her from the mass of her subjects. But unfortunately the
romantic sentiment required in the latter to cross it, will not
satisfy their hunger nor clothe their nakedness. And al-
though they might have thrown up their caps at sight of
“the royal pair,” and enjoyed a sort of animal ecstasy in so
doing, which made them forgetful of their miseries for the
time being, yet those miseries remained a stern reality not-
withstanding; and when the pageant that bewildered them
passed away, a forgetfulness of their woes passed with it,
and the lightness of their hearts must have changed to hea-
viness as they wended their way to their destitute homes.
And if we cross the Irish Sea, what do we see there ?
Thousands, and tens of thousands, flying from their country
to escape the miseries of starvation—flying from country,
home, friends, and every thing, to take refuge in a strange
land, thousands of miles away—flying as for their lives, and
with all the energy of despair. They cannot live upon “ro-
mantic sentiment;” for if they could, half a million now in
their graves might have been saved from the miseries of
starvation. No, no, that is not the food to satisfy their wants;
and there are multitudes in these Islands who feel more and
more deeply every day the necessity of something more sub-
stantial to live on.
At this same Manchester there has been another great
gathering lately, to hear a reformer discourse upon the evil
to which I have alluded in another place, viz., filling up the
House of Commons with titled personages, who, though
136 THE MUD CABIN.
they do not actually belong to the nobility, technically so
called, are offshoots from it, and are identified with it in
sympathy and interest, and even wear its titles by courtesy.
He was willing that they should have a representation in the
Commons, in proportion to their numbers, but no more.
His speech was received with great applause by the mul-
titude; but for his presumption, the “Times” comes out upon
him in great wrath, and thinking to turn his own weapons
against him, exclaims, “And so the House of Commons
must be composed chiefly of men who cannot write, who
cannot even read, according to this plan of filling it up with
a proportionate number from each class.”
What a humiliating confession, and yet, how coolly im-
pudent! But such are the beauties of this government; it
consigns the multitude to barbaric ignorance, and then
makes that ignorance a reason for excluding them from all
participation in the government; and all this, we are told,
with equal coolness, because that “government is based upon
the supposition of such difference of classes.”
But notwithstanding these humiliating admissions in re-
ference to the necessary workings of the system, there is
much said here about the country being overstocked with
inhabitants. They do not contend, that if it were other-
wise, the condition of the laboring classes would be much
improved, but only that there would be fewer paupers in the
workhouse, and beggars in the street.
It is all twaddle to talk about the country being over-
stocked with inhabitants as an excuse for these things. If
the country were emptied of half its inhabitants, the same
Is THE country over:STOCKED 3 137
vicious system would produce the same vicious results. Nay,
how much better was it half a century ago, when the popu-
lation of the kingdom was not more than half what it is at
present 3 Away then with such nonsense; the country is
not overstocked with inhabitants. It is capable of demon-
stration in figures, that there are no more people upon these
islands than could live here comfortably, independently, and
happily, if the country were well governed, and each class
were allowed to enjoy the fruit of their own labors, and there
were no corrupting and enervating influences to work their
way downward among the masses. Easily could it be de-
monstrated, that double the present population of the king-
dom could be supported here in competence and comfort
under a different system of things. But, that the few may
revel in idleness, and steep themselves in debauchery, the
many must be doomed to toil and to suffering to furnish the
means, and to ignorance and degradation to make them
content.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE CONFORMABLE TO THE MODELS
BEFORE THEM. -
To the fact that there are a great many excellent people in
England, I have already borne cheerful testimony. I have
also given a good degree of credit to the institutions of the
country, as being favorable to the cultivation of the amiable
and social virtues. But unfortunately they are equally, and
even more favorable to the prevalence of social vices, and of
a general corruption of character. I have shown this to be
a necessary result of the barriers which are interposed to
upward progress, and of the idolatrous regard of the lower
for the higher orders, prone as men naturally are to imitate
the vices rather than the virtues of those above them. And
when these model characters, to use their own language, are
regarded as “a superior order of beings,” who can set bounds
to the evil influences they must shed down upon all beneath
This must be an extraordinary people to pass the ordeal
unscathed. Let us look a little into the matter.
To begin with the journeymen mechanics, I learn that
it is a universal custom with them to spend Monday and
Tuesday of each week in dissipating upon the earnings of
CONFORMITY TO THE MODEL. 139
the other four; and that their employers never expect them
at their work, as a general thing, until Wednesday follow-
ing. This is every where spoken of as an established custom
throughout the kingdom. It is the nearest approximation
they can make to the life of idle and profligate ease, which
constitutes the earthly paradise of those to whom they look up
“as a superior order of beings.” To enjoy this heaven three
days of the week (including Sabbath), they starve themselves
the other four, and thus squander every thing as they go
along, having the comfortable hope of a home in the work-
house at the last end.
It seems to be regarded as a mark of aristrocatio distinc-
tion with this class thus to play the lord three days in the
week, and an indication of inferior instincts in the man
who should submit to delve at his task during the whole six
days.
They are prepared to appreciate the privilege the more from
the fact, that during their apprenticeship state, they are kept
to a very rigorous servitude, and on very inadequate food;
and that notwithstanding the parent or guardian has to pay
a considerable sum to the master, thirty pounds being the
first year's instalment.
To rise from such a state of slavery to the enjoyment of
a three days’ weekly exemption from labor, with its accom-
panying indulgencies, opens as proud an area to the un-
fledged journeyman, as does the accession to a lordship to the
young candidate for ancestral honors.
The same practice prevails among the many myriads,
who burrow in the bowels of the earth, and who only
140 THE MUD CABIN.
emerge to the light of day to give themselves up to beastly
excess until their earnings are exhausted. At Kilbirnie,
Scotland, where there are four thousand of these miserable
beings employed, one of the proprietors gave me a most
revolting description of their character and condition. In
the first place, he said, none but those of desperate character
could be induced to enter the mines at all, and so depraved
were they, that they were regarded as being beyond the
reach of all reclaiming influences, and nobody thought of
trying to do any thing for them. They had always been in
the habit of paying them weekly, as was the general custom,
but they never expected them to re-enter the mines until
they had squandered all in drunken carousal. To obviate
this evil to some extent, they adopted the practice of paying
them only once in two weeks, and now they pay them monthly,
so that a monthly spree has to suffice. This, he thought,
was a fair specimen of the character and condition of miners
generally throughout the kingdom, whose number he esti-
mated at a million.
The operatives in the manufactories are kept to their
task five days and a half in the week, being let out on
Saturday afternoon, but they seem resolved to indemnify
themselves for the long confinement, by throwing the reins
upon the neck of indulgence, when relieved from their toil,
and by Monday morning they have expended a large portion
of their weekly pay. The more expert workmen might save
something every week, but very few indeed think of such a
thing. I have expostulated with them on the subject, and
the one only reply has been, that they “want to enjoy life
as they go along.”
CONFORMITY TO THE MODEL. 141
And then, consider how many hundreds of thousands of
this class there are, insomuch that large cities are but great
hives which swarm with them. In the city of Bradford,
which you may never have heard of (where there are tens of
thousands of them) there assembled, on a late occasion,
twelve men, and those twelve men were the employers of
thirty thousand workmen. And then, think of the thousands
whose operatives, though less numerous, are yet in the ag-
gregate, almost “like the sands of the sea-shore for multitude,”
and you may form some conception of the amount of misery
which such habits entail upon them. The very few * who
deposit their little surplus in the “Savings Bank,” are
exceptions. The mass never trouble themselves about the
future until they feel its woes.
Some conception of the amount of money expended in
ale-house enjoyments by the laboring poor from their little
earnings, may be formed from the fact, that nearly one-fourth
of all the tillable land in the kingdom is devoted to barley
culture, and that still the demand for barley for brewing pur-
* According to the published account of the Savings Bank of
Manchester and Salford (the great manufacturing metropolis of
England), for 1842, it appears that only one in nine of the deposi-
tors were operatives in the manufactories, or in any way connected
with them, either as spinners, weavers, and their assistants, or as
printers, bleachers, dyers, packers, engravers, and designers. Very
far the largest class were female domestic servants. I have more-
over learned from the most unquestionable source, that among the
one million or more depositors in the Savings Banks of the kingdom,
the working classes, distinctively so called, make but a sorry
figure. -
142 THE MUD CABIN.
poses is so great, that it bears about the same price as
wheat. Nor is the fact, recently stated by Mr. Cobden,
that the annual duty on malt alone amounts to between
5 and £6,000,000, or from 25 to $30,000,000, at all less
significant. And that other little fact, published in the papers
the other day, that the single establishment of Barclay &
Co., London, turned out 25,000 barrels of beer in three days,
is not without import.
And what a story is it to tell, that the proprietors of
these great establishments, are, to a great extent, the pro-
prietors of the low beer-shops to which the poor laborer is
lured to spend his weekly pay, and that from this source
mainly their princely revenues are derived. In these cluster-
ing dens which bloated wealth has established for the sordid
purpose, the laborer is not only despoiled of his hard earnings,
but converted into a thief and a highwayman, and turned
out to prey upon the community, while the spoiler rises high
in wealth and respectability—sometimes to a lordship.
Go where you will in the towns here, (and there is little
else but towns,) and you are surrounded with beer-shops and
beer-topers. From morning till night, and from night till
morning almost, nothing is to be heard but beer, beer, beer.
Water, why they will stare with amazement if you ask for
it. What can the man want of water ? Often have I been
asked, whether I would have hot water or cold, when I have
inquired for the article, it being taken for granted that some-
thing stronger was to come along with it. Absolutely, I have
not seen a drop of clear water drank, to my recollection, since
I have been in the kingdom, except what I have drank myself.
DRINKING CLUBS, 143
I have incidentally been let into some of the deeper
mysteries of beer-drinking in this kingdom. I refer to the
discovery I have made of the fact, that there are regularly
organized drinking clubs all over the kingdom, a clue to
which I obtained as follows: being desirous of seeing an ex-
tensive farmer in the neighborhood of York, and learning
that he had a son who kept a hotel in the city, I called upon
the latter, and was informed by him, that his father would
be in that day, to meet with the Chickory Club. Chickory
Club said I, what is that? “O, nothing,” said he, “only
to meet and take a glass.”
In due time, the old gentleman made his appearance,
and after some conversation with him, I asked him about
the Chickory Club, but he affected not to understand me,
and turned the conversation upon the culture of chickory,
which, by the way, is a root extensively grown here, and
used all over the kingdom as a substitute for coffee, their
best coffee here being adulterated and spoiled with it.
But a day or two after, I arrived at Stockton-on-Tees,
just in the dusk of evening, and, upon entering one of the
principal hotels, I found it full of gabbling beer-drinkers,
whose visages could be but dimly seen through clouds of
tobacco smoke. I was about to beat a retreat, when the
lady of the house advanced, and apologized by saying, that
two clubs met there that night, but that, after supper, I
could go to the top of the house (the upper story) and lock
myself in, and I would be safe. And so to the top of the
house I went, locked myself in for the night, and found all
safe in the morning.
144 THE MUD CABIN.
I afterwards found that these clubs exist everywhere, and
among all classes; London is full of them. “Dr. Johnson's
Tavern,” the same where the great moralist used to meet
with the drinking-club, of which himself, Dean Swift, &c.,
were members, is a perfect haunt for drinking-clubs to this
day. I went, one evening, in company with an esteemed
friend (a Leeds manufacturer), to a Chartist meeting in
London, and although many noble sentiments were broached,
I found it to be little more than a drinking-club.
The above allusion to “Dr. Johnson's Tavern,” reminds
me of another appliance made use of to draw the multitude
into the vortex. I refer to the getting up of standing con-
certs, embracing the choicest vocal and instrumental music,
which are given free of charge, to draw in drinking customers.
The performances at “Dr. Johnson's Tavern” particularly,
are said to be of surpassing excellence; those who attend are
expected to indemnify the proprietor by the liberal patronage
they bestow upon the bar. From regard to the Doctor, Ivisited
the establishment in the daytime, and found it to be richly
furnished, and adorned with marble statues.
Some of these establishments employ from twelve to
twenty musical performers, on salaries varying from two to
nine or ten dollars a week, and among them are pianists,
violinists, &c. &c. At Liverpool, and indeed in all the large
towns they are common. Many establishments have dra-
matic performances too, of the most licentious character, con-
nected with these concerts. I was told of a concern in
Liverpool, which had procured an expensive organ to satisfy
Sunday customers, who may be a little piously inclined, and
DRINKING, SMoRING, ETC. 145
who meet, listen to the solemn tones of the organ, sing
sacred hymns, drink beer and smoke, until they get worked
up to a pretty high key.
There is another initiatory institution to be met with in
the large towns, from which the most spotless innocence
cannot emerge without harm. It embraces a collection of
wax figures, representing the most noted criminals in the
act of committing the crimes of which they were convicted.
Connected with it is an apartment called “the chamber of
horrors,” into which admission is gained for a higher fee,
and where various horrid things in reference to the perpetra-
tion of the crimes are shown and commented on in a strain
of most revolting detail, and thus the mind familiarizes
itself with ideas of suicide, murder, and pollution.
A few years ago a play, of which murder and romance
were the staple, was performed in the theatres of this coun-
try, and so popular was it that its repetition was called
for in various parts of the kingdom ; but so frequent did
murders of the same romantic character become, evidently
from its influence, that it was suppressed by the public au-
thorities, when they at once became much less frequent.
A beer drinker is always a smoker, and a smoker is
always a beer drinker. Most of the hotels have what they
call “the smoking room,” with the tables always replenished
with piles of clay pipes, with stems two feet long, ready for
use. We have been taunted as a people with being greatly
defiled by the use of the weed, and a sneer has been raised
against us on account of the filthy vulgarity of a few. I am
not their apologizer; I would not lift a finger to save their
7
146 THE MUD CABIN.
backs from the scourge; but I must say, that these flings
come with an ill grace from a people who will puff a cloud of
tobacco smoke right in your face, without seeming to feel
guilty of the slightest impropriety. The Turk will not do
that, as I can testify from experience, but I have yet to meet
the first Englishman who has hesitated to do it, when
allowed by higher authority. Whether it is from the fact,
that smoking is so universal a thing, that they do not dream
that it can be offensive to any one, or from what cause their
ill manners arise in this respect, I am not able to say.
But smoking is universal among the people, and it is a
burdensome luxury to the poor beer-drinking laborer, for
tobacco costs three times as much here as with us. I have
been importuned by beggars in the street for money to buy
tobacco, and also beer. The poor souls would make up a
most dismal face, and say they had not had a pipe of tobacco,
or a glass of beer that day.
And now, in view of the portraiture I have drawn of the
working classes generally, and of the portraiture I have
heretofore drawn of the character and habits of the agricul-
tural laborers as a class, are we not prepared to read under-
standingly the following brief quotation from a leader in the
London Times. Says that spokesman of the conscience of
the world, as it claims to be, “We fear, that whatever may
be their merits, a considerable abatement must be made in
any estimate which may be formed of the national character,
in consideration of a very considerable quantity of brutality.”
Well said, Mr. Times, that will do. But surely that
must be a mere slip of the pen. The admission, that
“BRUTALITY”—who's RESPONSIBLE% 147
the laboring classes are to be taken into the account, in
forming an estimate of the national character, is certainly a
new idea, and, if gravely entertained, furnishes food for
reflection, inasmuch as but a small portion of the population
have been allowed to form an element in estimates of the
kind heretofore. Surely, the “brutal” part of the population
must consider themselves rising in the market. But will
not the national character, by such an infusion of brutality
(three parts to one), suffer a corresponding depreciation?
And where does the responsibility of all this brutality
rest? With whom, and upon whose heads, if not upon those
to whom these lowly ones look up, “as to a superior order
of beings,” the influence of whose example, in combination
with the depressing power of caste and the robbery of their
earnings, has made them what they are ?
And what a contrast to all this does our own country
present Our seaports must ever be exposed to inundations
from the same source, to a greater or less extent, but in the
mass of our population there is only contrast.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PERFECTION OF THE PolicE SYSTEM, AN INDEx To THE
MORAL CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE.
I HAD as a fellow passenger across the Atlantic, an English
gentleman who had a great deal to say about the law and .
order which prevail in England, and about its admirable sys-
tem of police, with some pretty broad hints that all this
showed well for the moral character of the people.
The thought arose in my mind, however, that laws are
for the lawless, and that morality is by no means the kind
of soil for a rigid police system to spring out of And thus
I kept turning the subject over occasionally in my mind, and
upon my arrival, I set myself to investigating the matter, and
found that the police system of England was all that my
friend had represented it to be, and far more perfect in its
mechanism than I had conceived it possible. And this awa-
kened my suspicions still more in reference to the character
of the moral elements which lay beneath this placid exterior,
and out of which that system had grown to such a state of
perfection.
With these unpleasant reflections forced upon me, I un-
fortunately blundered upon a case of lynch law, executed in
POLICE SYSTEM. 149
fine style, within a short time after my arrival. As I was
passing along the street adjacent to the river, a rather
out of the way place, I noticed a well dressed man who had
a bit of rope in his hand, with a knot in the end, which he
commenced applying without mercy to a young man in his
shirt sleeves, a lad of some sixteen, and evidently of the
mud-hovel order, who writhed and screamed most piteously
under the infliction, while two or three others were aiding
and abetting in the operation. Taking pity on the poor fel-
low, I stepped up to the man who had him in hand, and
told him to desist, or I would have the police down upon
him. In an instant he ceased applying the rope, and turn-
ing around in alarm, apologized by saying, that the boy had
been very troublesome about his premises, and there seemed
to be no other way to manage him. I told him that was a
very poor way, and at the same time I gave the boy liberty
to go home, and he bounded off in quick time.
Well, this was no impeachment of the averment of my
English friend, that this is a land of law and order, and that
its police system is the best in the world, but was rather con-
firmatory, for the man trembled in every nerve at the men-
tion of the police. But, although I was not disposed to
make any capital out of the affair, it might fairly enough
have been thrown in his face, and in the faces of this whole
people, as an offset to their chucklings over American lynch
law, coupled with grave prognostications of the downfall of
the American Republic. And I may remark in passing, that
it would be by no means a difficult task to make it appear,
that, with all their law and order, and the most perfect police
150 THE MUD CABIN.
system the world has to show, popular outbreaks have been
far more frequent and alarming, in this country, than in ours.
But my business just now, is with the police system of
England, and to present it to you as the key with which to
unlock the moral mysteries of this kingdom, is the task be-
fore me. The reader will please to bear in mind, as he goes
along, that this system, in connection with the jail, the gal-
lows, and transportation, is a substitute for the education of
the people.
As I said, I commenced investigating the character and
merits of the system, from the first hour of my arrival, and
then, though I had not asked a question, evidences enough
of its perfection were obtruded upon my observation at every
step. At every corner of the streets were to be seen men
dressed in uniform, or passing from corner to corner, each
one in his own “beat.” It is just so through all the cities
of England, and, to my astonishment I learn, through all
her rural districts; yes, even through all the farming neigh-
borhoods of the kingdom, policemen are constantly going
their rounds.
And yet, all this is only the outside of the matter. There
is another body called “The Detectives,” who wear no badge,
and are known only to the authorities. These have also re-
ceived the appropriate appellation of “blood hounds of the
police,” so unerringly do they scent out, and so fiercely do
they pursue their prey, and woe to the offender who has
them upon his track! To accomplish their ends, they ap-
pear in all sorts of disguises, and penetrate every haunt of
vice, without suspicion of their object. And when not in
PERFECTION OF POLICE. 151
pursuit of their victims, they are employed in making them-
selves acquainted with suspicious characters, keeping an eye
upon them, and collecting such information as may be made
available for their purposes.
And both these divisions are drilled to their duties with
all the rigor of military discipline. They are not indeed a
military body, and Englishmen make their boast, that
the people are so orderly and quiet with nothing but an un-
armed civil police to restrain them, pointing us with an air
of triumph, to the bayoneted police across the channel.
But the difference is more in name than in reality. The
police of this country, though they pass for a civil body, are
in fact equivalent to a military band. When likely to be
overmatched upon any emergency, they spring a rattle with
which they are provided, and which brings all the policemen
in the neighborhood instantly to the spot, and if all together
are insufficient, they are empowered to call the military at
once to their aid, so that if they were 'actually armed as a
military body, they could not be a greater “terror to evil
doers,” than they are as now constituted.
Great precaution is used in selecting the men, candidates
for the office of policeman being required to present them-
selves with a “five years' character” in their pockets.
And how could any thing be more admirably contrived?
As a system adapted to the emergency, it exhibits a symme-
try and perfection of parts, worthy of the great mind that
conceived it. And what an unerring index have we here to
the moral condition of this people!
The system originated some fifteen years ago, or more,
I52 THE MUD CABIN.
under the auspices of Sir Robert Peel, and originated in ne-
cessity. The system previously in operation, was fal more
rigid than any thing to be found in our American cities, but
crime ran riot notwithstanding, and had run riot for centu-
ries. Says one of their most distinguished modern writers,
“In the early part of the last century, it was no uncommon
thing for persons to be knocked down and robbed at noon-
day, in the public thoroughfares of London, while the roads
in every direction were infested by robbers on foot and on
horseback.” And in reference to a later day, he adds, “The
author has been told by persons now living, that in repairing
to their houses in the neighborhood of London, after busi-
ness hours, it was the practice of business men to meet at
some place of rendezvous, and proceed homeward in a body,
for mutual protection.” He also speaks of a London physi-
cian, who said that he was often necessitated to shoot down
men who beset his carriage at night as he was proceeding to
visit his patients. $º
And from the same high authority it appears, that lynch
law was in full vogue up to that time, which must have
been about the close of the last century, or the beginning of
the present. “Many offences,” he says, “were summarily
dealt with by the populace. The pickpocket, for example,
who should be detected in the commission of his offence, was
dragged by the mob to the nearest pump, half drowned,
and then permitted to depart.” And he adds, “the chief
means of suppression have been our improved system of
police.” [See Porter's Progress of the Nation, Vol. 3
page 176. I
2
JPERFECTION OF POLICE. 153
Here, then, we have it from the highest authority of
which England can boast, that her admirable police system is
the natural-born offspring of the low moral condition and
lawless character of the mass of the people, and that, but for
the restraints it imposes, order would give place to confusion,
and the voice of authority be drowned in the screamings of
anarchy. *
That is just what I suspected from the moment my Eng-
lish friend directed my attention to the subject; for I could
not conceive what other cause could have operated to bring
such a system into being. So far from being a fit subject for
national boasting, or national self-complacency, this system
stands as a monument to humble the national pride. Far
distant be the day when the rural districts of my country
shall reach that point of moral degradation which shall make
it necessary to rear a monument like this to her shame!
With such a system in operation, subjecting every man,
woman, and child to a constant watch, it would be strange
indeed if their records of crime did not compare favorably
with those of our own cities. But this furnishes no clue to
the actual state of morals. What the records of crime would
show if the system were not in force, is made to appear in
the above extract. It is to be hoped that our cities, exposed
as they are to a constant influx of thieves and robbers from
the Old World, will adopt the same rigid system.
And what sort of a sight would that be, to see a vast
army of police spread all over our farming districts, each
performing his circuit on horseback, incessantly from day to
day, to see—what? Nothing but honest toil quietly pur.
7% §
154 THE MUD CABIN.
suing its labors, and looking up amazed at the passing spec-
tacle.
What necessity there is for a police at all with us, is
confined to our cities, whose aggregate population, according
to the last census, is only about four millions, while the rural
population of our country is some eighteen or nineteen mil-
lions. But here the case is far otherwise. The greater portion
of the population of the kingdom is crowded into cities and
large towns; but the marvel is, that in these cities and large
towns there is no more necessity for stringent police regula-
tions than in the rural districts. This is the greatest marvel
of all, and shows, to my mind, a fundamental error, both in
the structure and the administration of this government—
an error upon which I design to expend some attention as I
go along.
The expense of sustaining this gigantic system is immense,
and in addition to the crushing burdens which previously
bowed down the necks of the people, must be severely felt;
and yet it is cheerfully submitted to by all classes of the
people, for the sake of the security it affords.
I will here remark, to the credit of this people, that the
laws are executed with a good deal of impartiality, upon the
high as well as the low, for outbreaking crimes. Just as I
arrived in England, a sprig of nobility, son of Lord B., (a
captain in the army,) was sentenced to the tread-mill for ten
days for striking a police officer when in the discharge of
his duty. This, of course, clothes the system with terror
and gives it efficiency.
CHAPTER XIX. .
ANOTHER TEST OF cºm.
I HAVE shown in the chapter on the police system of Eng-
land, how liable a stranger here is to be misled by appear-
ances in reference to the moral character of the people; and
how the clock-work governmental machinery to which I was
pointed in triumph, as an incontestable evidence of a high
moral tone in the community, rightly interpreted, proves the
very reverse, and sets a bad mark upon the very forehead of
the nation. - - .
There are other appearances here which are equally cal-
culated to mislead. For instance, at first sight, what can
be better calculated to give one a favorable impression in
reference to the general moral character of the people, than
the universal practice of requiring all persons seeking em-
ployment to present themselves with a due array of testi-
monialsº -
To this practice I was also pointed in testimony of the
general good character of the people, and, without reflection,
I was disposed to accord to it all the weight which was
claimed for it. That an applicant for ordinary service must
156 THE MUD CABIN.
present himself or herself with a “character,” and the candi-
date for the office of policeman, with “a five years' charac-
ter” in hand, as the first essential preliminary, and that
strangers from abroad must come with a great show of “char-
acter,” seemed to indicate a high degree of moral purity here,
and a public sensibility which recoiled from the approaches
of immorality.
And it is calculated to help this idea mightily, to ob-
serve “characters” flaring from the sign-boards of the trades-
men in the large towns. “Established twenty-five years,” or
“thirty years,” or “forty years,” as the case may be, is
frequently the testimonial of character inscribed over the
shop-door; and in one instance, I observed an “eighty years’ ”
character upon a sign, which was itself well on in years.
All this seems to show a most scrupulous regard to
character, and with those who are content with appearances
passes current for the reality itself. I confess that the first
impression made upon me by these appearances was a
delusion I loved to cherish. -
It would be a very pleasant task to record these things
as an evidence of general good character, but unfortunately
common sense steps in here with her verdict. “How is it,”
she asks, “that all this precaution and particularity are
necessary, if there be not a superabundance of rogues in the
country 3 Does not all this parade about character show
upon the face of it, that it is scarce?”
The necessity of this regard to character was signally
tested during the late world's exhibition in London. At that
time, there were said to be over twenty thousand night and
TESTS OF CHARACTER, 157
day omnibus and cab drivers, and notwithstanding all the strin-
gency of the laws, and all the vigilance of a police, as perfect
as I have described it, so numerous and flagrant were the im-
positions and abuses they perpetrated upon passengers, that
resort was had to special legislation, and a law was passed,
forbidding the proprietors of these vehicles to employ any
driver who could not bring a certificate of good character
from at least two responsible persons, instead of one as pre-
viously required, and forbidding the owners to drive their
own cabs, without complying with the same requisition.
And what was marvellous to me, the editor of the Times, in
commending this salutary provision for the public safety,
stigmatizes these tens of thousands of drivers as “a set of
desperadoes, with very limited exceptions.” And yet they
were probably as good as the generality of the class from
which they were taken; nay, better, for they were picked
men, each having been required to present himself with one
respectable endorser /
The same testimony in regard to the desperate character
of these drivers, is borne by the Great Western Railway Co.
Such were the villanies they practised upon passengers, that
that Company found it necessary to pass a by-law, providing
for a selection of a hundred and fifty of the best of them,
who alone were allowed to take passengers from their Lon-
don station.
My fellow passenger across the Atlantic, who commended
so highly the police system of England as indicating a high
tone of morals in the country, also said to me, that I need
not stand in much fear from humbugs, for they did not
158 THE MUD CABIN.
abound here as in the United States—that, as a general
thing, I might depend on what was said to me, with little
danger of imposition. And accordingly, partly from the
lessons I thus received, and partly from a desire to avoid the
stigma of meanness from an honorable people, I resolved to
act upon the principle, that a high moral standard prevails
here, concluding, in my own mind, that it would be better
to be bitten a little occasionally, than to harbor a general
distrust. Unfortunately, however, almost every thing went
wrong with me in the experiment, and I was reluctantly
compelled, in self-defence, to adopt a more wary system of
action.
But not to obtrude the results of my own sad experi-
ence, I will rest the case with their own testimony. And
first, I will adduce that of my highly esteemed friend, H. R.,
Esq., a heavy partner in one of the largest manufactories in
the kingdom. As a matter of necessary precaution, he
advised me, in traversing the kingdom, never to stop at a
hotel for the night, without first settling upon the terms,
assuring me that it was his invariable practice to do it, and
that otherwise he would be subject to great extortion. And
how does this compare with the standard of hotel morality
in our own country Why, our hotel-keepers would take it
as an insult to be thus catechised, and how seldom do we
hear of a case of extortion from this quarter, by transcending
the ordinary rates of charging?
Again, upon my remarking to him, that he must have
realized an enormous amount as the aggregate profit upon
so large a business, prosecuted for such a length of time, he
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER. 1.59
replied, that he should have done so, but for the fact, that in
the course of thirty years' business, his losses had amounted
to quite as much as all he had saved. His sales had been
mostly to the London merchants, and dealers in other parts
of the kingdom, and his losses had been from failing firms,
who made a dishonest shift of their property to swindle their
creditors. I must not omit to say, however, that he was
subjected to a loss of £2000 sterling ($10,000), from a
swindling firm in our own country, at Richmond, Virginia.
I said to him, that, as they imprisoned for debt here, I
should suppose the terrors thus suspended over fraudulent
debtors, would operate, to a great extent, as a safeguard; to
which he replied, that if a man was disposed to be dishonest,
he had little to fear from that source, as the creditor was not
very apt to subject himself to the certain additional loss
accruing to him from such a resort.
Another manufacturer with whom I conversed, made
very nearly the same remarks in reference to the amount of
his losses, the dishonest shifts of his customers, and the diff-
culty of recovering from fraudulent debtors.
And have they no Swartwouts of their own here? Why,
there is a fellow now living at Bordeaux, almost in sight of
England, who ran away with an immense sum of public
money while an officer of the government, and is now luxu-
riating at his ease, in a style of princely magnificence, and
setting the British lion at defiance.
And no bank swindling? Considerably on this side the
beginning of the present century, there sprang up a system
of banking here, which, for legislative folly, and the reckless
160 THE MUD CABIN,
knavery to which it gave rise, with all our banking folly and
banking villany, never had a parallel in our country. By the
provisions of a general law, not only were private companies
allowed to establish banks to any extent without being held
to any adequate responsibilities, but manufacturers and busi-
ness men generally, were authorized to issue paper (shin-
plasters) to any amount, on their own individual responsi-
bility, with which they paid off the workmen in their employ.
Under this system, matters went on swimmingly for a time,
but about the year 1825, the reaction came, and these
private banks, and individual bankers, were all swept by the
board, and little or nothing was to be found to redeem their
worthless paper, much of it being in the hands of poor labor-
ing men, who were thus reduced to extreme destitution and
want, while multitudes of tradesmen and others were broken
up and ruined. -
And when did ever a parallel to the following occur in
our country : At the time the railroad mania was at its
height in this country, there rose up a man here by the name
of Hudson, who managed to get the charge of all the princi-
pal roads in the kingdom, and by fraudulent entries, was
enabled to make low purchases and high sales of stock, until
he came to be considered the wealthiest man in the kingdom,
and was honored with the title of “railroad king.” As a
consequence, he walked right into the first society in England,
and the proudest peers of the realm were seen hanging upon
his arm. But the day of reckoning came, his frauds were
discovered, and he was kicked out of the paradise which he
had thus created for himself, his kickers themselves becom-
laughing-stock by the operation.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER, I61
Says the London Despatch of that monston which rules
the money world, the London Stock Exchange: “Our Stock
Exchange is a great assembly of rogues, to job honest folks
out of their money, to sell stock they do not possess, and can-
not deliver, to decry and cry up shares as suits their book.”
But nothing shows a deeper moral obliquity than the
public perversion of funds bequeathed for the education of
the poor. It were enough, one would think, to raise a blush
upon this people, that the masses have been suffered to re-
main in ignorance, without any attempt to establish a system
of national education. But how should that blush of shame
deepen into crimson, in view of the monstrous perversion of
funds left by private bequests for this purpose?
In the city of London alone there are funds, the interest
upon which, I am told, amounts to ten millions of dollars
annually—a sum sufficient to extend the facilities of educa-
tion to every child in that vast metropolis, and yet this im-
mense sum is squandered annually upon consequential idlers,
and the myriads of children, for whose benefit it was design-
ed, are left to grow up in ignorance and vice, candidates for
transportation to a convict land. It is enough to make the
very pavements of the streets cry, shamel shame !
In this same London, there is a most magnificent struc-
ture, covering acres of ground, right in the heart of the city,
which was founded by the sixth Edward, and richly endow-
ed, for the education of the poor. In that institution, are
boarded, clothed, and taught, free, one thousand young men,
all sons of the wealthy, and not a poor man's child can
gain admittance. A similar institution, equally extensive,
162 THE MUD CABIN.
founded and endowed by the same Edward, for the same
purpose, and perverted in the same manner, is to be found at
Birmingham, another at Winchester, another at Westmin,
ster, and others still, I believe, in other large towns.
I tried to ascertain how it was possible that these mon-
strous perversions could thus transpire in a country of law;
and I received this explanation, that the managers had al-
ways been the millionaires, of the kingdom, and that they
made it a point so to fix the conditions of admission, that
no poor man could comply with them—conditions relating
to circumstantials which were left discretionary with them.
Thus has justice been outraged, and barefaced robbery
been perpetrated by insolent wealth upon the helpless poor,
from generation to generation. It was not enough that they
had been left in brutal ignorance by the government; it was
not enough that their hard earnings had gone to swell the
coffers, and minister to the voluptuousness of their lordly
masters, the offerings of the sleeping dead must be snatched
from the very altar on which they had been consecrated to
the instruction of the poor, and sacrilegiously devoted to the
strengthening of the hands of their oppressors.
These things are not done in a corner, nor is there any
attempt to conceal them. They are admitted and talked
about freely in London and elsewhere, and nobody denies
the facts, or dreams that there is any help for them.
What wonder is it then that, abandoned to brutal igno-
rance, such multitudes should grow up in heathenism, under
the very eaves of the sanctuary 2 What wonder that out of
a population of two and a half millions in this metropolis of
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER. 163
the world, only two hundred thousand, less than a twelfth
part, pass the threshold of a Christian Church on the Sab-
bath? What wonder that a system of police should be
called into requisition, so perfect that every man, woman and
child, are kept constantly under its eye 3
Not far from the institution above mentioned, is an im-
mense hospital, covering some acres of ground, established
and endowed long since, by the bequest of a wealthy indi-
vidual, at his decease, for the benefit of unfortunate trades-
men, designed as a refuge for them in distress. But its
funds are nearly all squandered upon officials, some of whom
receive ten thousand dollars a year, while its doors are clos-
ed against the needy applicants for which it was intended,
or opened only to bestow some paltry pittance, which will
afford no substantial relief.
Is it matter of surprise then that there should be all this
particularity about character—that there should be a total
want of confidence between man and man, where there is
not a long-established reputation ?
I have sometimes been half-inclined to exonerate the
higher orders here from the charge of exclusiveness on ac-
count of rank, especially so far as foreigners are concerned,
and to attribute their shyness to strangers to this cause.
Indeed I have no doubt that lack of confidence, based on
their experience with their own countrymen, and their know-
ledge of themselves, operates largely in the matter, though
probably only as an auxiliary to their hereditary exclusive-
116SS.
These things certainly do not afford much ground for
national congratulation.
CHAPTER XX.
THE COAL DISTRICT-EXTRAORDINARY MONOPOLY AND EX-
TORTION.
THE modernized cities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and of
Sunderland, at the mouth of the Wear, the former with
150,000, and the latter with 100,000 inhabitants, have
risen up under the auspices of the coal and fishing trades,
principally the former. All this portion of the kingdom
seems to be one vast coal-field, insomuch that in traversing
a district embracing several counties, the smoke of the pits is
every where visible, and in some localities, it occasions a hazi-
ness in the atmosphere which fairly obstructs the vision.
Nearly all the coal which makes its way coastwise to
London and other home markets, or is exported to foreign
countries, is the product of these pits, and finds its outlets by
the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees, all within a distance of
forty miles upon the coast.
Under the auspices of this trade too, there has risen up
and flourished, for three quarters of a century, the most ex-
traordinary monopoly, involving the most extended and re-
morseless system of oppression, which probably ever existed
in any civilized country on the globe.
EXTRAORDINARY EXTORTION, 165
This has been accomplished through what is called
“The limitation of the vend,” which consists of a permanent
organization among the owners of the pits throughout this
extended region, by which the price of all the coal shipped
at these ports coastwise to London and other domestic mar-
kets, has been vastly increased to the consumers. A com-
mittee, or Board of Trade, meet regularly once a fortnight
at Newcastle, to fix the prices for the next fortnight, of coal
to be shipped from the three ports above named, and also to
prescribe the quantity allowed to be shipped in that time,
making it more or less, according as the supply in London
is greater or smaller, taking care that it never becomes a
drug there. And some conception may be formed of the
extent of the monopoly, and of the amount of extortionary
proceeds, from the fact that, in 1836, there were 8,162 ships
engaged in conveying coal from these ports to London
alone.
This arrangement had no reference to coal exported to
foreign countries, (on account, I suppose, of competition from
other sources against which they were protected at home,)
and, as a consequence, at one time, coal could be bought in
St. Petersburgh for about half its price in London. This,
however, was not the exact measure of the extortion, as there
was at that time a domestic duty upon coal here of some 25
per cent., while it was duty free at the Russian port. -
There is another circumstance which shows up this mat-
ter in a still more revolting light. When new pits were to
be opened any where within the limits of this vast area, for
the establishment of an additional colliery, a committee was
166 THE MUD CABIN.
appointed to visit it, and fix the proportionate quantity of
coal it should be allowed to furnish during each fortnight,
as a partner in the general concern, that quantity to be de-
termined by the extent of the coal-field purchased, the num-
ber and size of the pits, and the number of cottages erected
for workmen.
Very well, the new aspirants for a share in the monopoly
have taken the precaution to secure four or five times as large
a coal-field as they intend to occupy, to sink twice as many
pits as they intend to work, and to erect double the number
of cottages they will ever have occasion for, and upon this
“basis” they get their apportionment irrevocably fixed; and
then, of the four or five, or half a dozen acres they had pur-
chased, they never occupy more than one or two, nor work
more than half the number of pits they have sunk, nor
occupy with workmen more than half the cottages they have
erected. - -
And yet, with all this outlay of capital to lie idle, such
is the enormous profit by this arrangement, on the small
quantity of coal raised, as to justify it, although that quan-
tity has not been more than one-fourth what the pits were
capable of producing. Three-quarters of a million of dol-
lars have often been thus expended upon collieries, where one-
fourth the amount would have been amply sufficient to make
preparations, and raise all the coal allowed to be shipped,
and yet with a vast profit.
And this extraordinary game has been played for seventy-
five years; many of the operators have been made million-
EXTRAORDINARY EXTORTION, 167
naires, while hundreds of thousands of poor famished beings
were taxed with the extortion, and had to foot the bill, and
after all, could only procure a very partial supply of fuel, be-
ing subjected to great suffering as the consequence.
And it is by no means matter of wonder, that those who
could thus take advantage of suffering humanity, should be
disposed to overreach and defraud each other, in the man-
ner above described.
I believe, however, the numerous railroad facilities for
transporting coal to London, and other domestic markets,
have of late had the effect to render this gigantic monopoly
comparatively inoperative, and the consumer is in a measure
delivered from the burdens it had so long imposed for its
own aggrandizement.
And what is most extraordinary, the government, to se-
cure the London market, as far as possible, from imposition,
passed an act as far back as the reign of Queen Ann, requir-
ing the price paid by the shippers of each cargo, at the
above ports, to be recorded in the public register, immedi-
ately on its arrival in London, and, in 1831, abolished the
coal duty altogether; and yet this game was still kept up be-
hind the scene, subjecting the people to this unheard of ex-
tortion, and nobody seemed to know any thing about it, until
recent disclosures brought it to light.
And this is but a specimen of the dark labyrinths in
which business men here, with capital at their command, are
very apt to involve all their proceedings, to monopolize, to
overreach, and to oppress. I could give illustrations enough,
168 THE MUD CABIN.
to the same import, but I have not done with these coal
mines.
Only a part of the gains of this vast army of extortion-
ers came from the above source, the rest being wrung from
the earnings of the hundreds of thousands of poor wretches,
who, for the greater part of their lives, are kept buried in the
bowels of the earth, some of them to the depth of eighteen
hundred feet below the surface, only occasionally emerging
into the light of day, to spend a few delirious hours in drunk-
en carousal, and then slinking away to burrow like wild
beasts in the earth. And they are as much secluded from
the light of civilization and christianity, as from the genial
light of day. Nay, they have a substitute for the latter, in
the dim twilight of the lamp; but in respect to the former,
they are in as utter darkness as the savage in the wilderness,
most of them having never entered a church or a school-
house in their lives. And those who are heaping up for-
tunes from their earnings, not only do nothing to improve
their condition, but congratulate themselves that they have
such swarms of human beings at their command, who are
degraded enough to be content with such a life. According
to the authority I have quoted, there are nearly a million of
human beings in the kingdom in this condition, and they
husbands and fathers, to a great extent. -
And their lives; what are they considered worth ? Mines
are continually blowing up and sending them into eternity,
the safety lamp notwithstanding. Only the other day, fifty .
of them were destroyed by a single explosion, near New
Castle, and every few days, explosions attended with fearful
IIFE IN THE COAL MINES, 169
loss of life, are chronicled in the papers, serving no other
purpose than to amuse news-gossipers.”
* Since the above was written, the government, in view of the
alarming frequency of explosions, has appointed three inspec-
tors, whose duty it is to go the rounds, examine the mines, and
order such precautionary measures as they may think best.
8
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LONDON BARRISTERS– THE TALE OF OPPRESSION CON
TINUED.
No class of men overtops the London barristers, not even the
nobility. Until lately, they had every thing their own way,
and the cry of their victims filled the land.
A poor man informed me, that to get the papers made
out for the lease-hold of only four acres of land, on which
he wished to commence a nursery, after suffering a long
delay, he was saddled with a bill of cost to the tune of £80
sterling, ($400,) and had it fo pay. And it is no uncommon
thing for suits involving many thousands of pounds, to be
kept along from one court to another, year after year, until
the entire amount is absorbed in costs, and the poor client
comes out penniless.
A great blow, however, has been struck at these enor-
mities by the recent passage of a law reform bill, which is to
the barristers what the corn law repeal bill is to the land-
lords; and both unite in the loud wail of complaint. The
reform consists in transferring a large proportion of the cases
which came under the jurisdiction of the Westminster Hall
Courts, where the barristers alone are allowed to practice, to
LONDON BARRISTERS. 171
the County Courts, from which they are excluded, and where
the expense of a suit is but trifling in comparison.
Previously to this, the Westminster Hall Courts took
cognizance of all important suits throughout the kingdom,
and there was no law to restrain the barristers from the most
exorbitant charges. As a consequence, they have, in pro-
cess of time, grown into the wealthiest and most arrogant
aristocracy in the kingdom. Springing originally from aristo-
cratic families, and having these advantages, there have been
no bounds to the wealth many of them have accumulated
at the expense of their suffering clients, and the pitch of
exclusiveness and insolence to which they have attained.
Some idea may be formed of their opportunities for ex-
tortion, from the fact that no application can be made to
parliament for corporate privileges, as railroad charters, &c.,
without the employment of barristers on both sides, who
charge thousands of pounds, at their own discretion; and
that is only among the incidentals.
The barrister never sees his clients. His nice carpets are
never soiled by their vulgar footsteps, nor do they ever feel
the warm grip of his hand, or hear his oily words. That low
work is left to his attorney, who is an underling to look to
the testimony, &c., while he manages the suit, appearing
in court, &c.
The barristers, with their attornies, are settled by them-
selves, or rather, in three different localities, occupying a
considerable space in the very heart of London, christened
respectively, Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, and Temple Inn.
The barristers are very devout, and have a church all to
172 THE MUD CABIN.
themselves, formerly the “Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”
occupied, I think, by the Knights of St. John, before the
Crusades, but modernized and fitted up by them in a style
of elegance which is not surpassed by that of any church in
Europe. No Oratorio can surpass its music.
Whether it is to aid their devotion, or for what reason, I
know not, the barristers are all seated by themselves at
church, their wives and families by themselves, and their
attornies and clerks by themselves. Nor is any woman ad-
mitted, unless she goes with a barrister.
And now that my hand is in, I can hardly resist the
temptation to detail the sublime process of making a bar-
rister. You may laugh, but it is true nevertheless, that all that
is required of the candidate, is that he eat a certain number
of dinners at the old dining-hall. This is part and parcel of
the common law of England, it being taken for granted, that
if he has eaten the prescribed number of dinners at the hall,
he has gone through with the prescribed course.
I will pause to say something of these dinners. At five
o'clock, P.M., certain mysterious-looking personages are seen
wending their way to the old dining-hall. But see, they
enter first another room opposite, from which, after remaining
a little while, they emerge metamorphosed; it is the robe-
room, all being required to appear at the dinner-table in
flowing robes.
And now they saunter in and throw themselves upon
the Sofa, awaiting the approach of their superiors. Soon a
loud rap is heard at the door; it swings upon its hinges, and
in march the benchers, passing between the bowing files, who
MAKING A BARRISTER. 173
have risen spontaneously to their feet to receive them, and
proceeding to seat themselves at their own aristocratic tables
apart.
All being seated, another loud rap summons them to
silence, and grace is said, when all with one accord make
onset upon the loaded tables, there being four at a table,
which makes a mess. Dinner ended, and champagne dis-
patched, they march out in the same order in which they
entered, and with the same demonstrations.
Having swallowed the requisite number of dinners, the
candidate (who I believe is an attorney) is next to be initi-
ated, to which end a wig costing five guineas, and a gown
costing three, are indispensable. A notification of the inten-
tion of the party to become a barrister, is posted in the hall,
and objections, friends, and guests are invited. At the sound
of the well-known rap, the benchers are ushered in, and being
seated in awful dignity, in wigs, gowns, &c., proceed to
administer the oaths of abjuration and supremacy, and the
oath of allegiance to the trembling candidate, which, being
finished, make him a full-fledged barrister, in full com-
munion with the most aristocratic body of men on the earth,
and entitled to all the privileges, emoluments, immunities,
and honors of the order.
And then follows a rare scene at the festive board. At
first they sit in grave dignity, and little is said; but soon
pop, pop, pop goes the champagne, and now all is life and
animation. Toasts, witticisms, puns, flash from every lip,
each in its turn eagerly. Another foaming bumper, an-
other, and another are lifted, toasts multiply, wit sparkles;
174 THE MUD CABIN .
and of the four who sit around one table, instead of one
talker and three listeners, as at first, every one is a talker
with no listeners, each endeavoring to raise his voice above
those of all three of his companions in vain; and so at all
the tables in the spacious hall, the whole constituting a scene
of rare confusion and uproar.
For the above particulars I am mainly indebted to an
esteemed friend, who has been initiated into the secrets of
the order.
Of the swarms of this class, some conception may be
formed from a statement made recently in the papers, that
three thousand barristers, and as many of their attornies, had
returned to London (in September) from their month's annual
pastime among the moors of the North, to which moors all
the nobility and gentry in the kingdom repair annually in
flocks, to spend three or four weeks in shooting grouse.
All the Lord Chancellors, Judges of the King's Bench,
&c., are taken from among them, so that in fact they over-
ride every other class in the kingdom.
CHAPTER XXII.
STILL ANOTHER WHEEL IN THE SocIAL MACHINE.
THERE is a class of men who play an important part in
the mechanism of society here, of whom little is known in
our country. -
This class consists of those who have risen to great
wealth in private business, as bankers, brokers, shippers,
wholesale dealers, &c., the men who, in fact, possess more
capital than any other class in England, far more indeed
than the landed aristocracy.
There are some very remarkable traits of character per-
taining to this class of persons. Although wealthier than
the landed aristocracy, they make not the slightest show,
but seem to avoid it as much as possible. And why The
titled aristocrats are all show, and do nothing but spend
money, and why, upon the principle of imitation, do not
these men follow the example of those they reverence so
much, when they are so abundantly able, and when it would
be so natural, one would think, for them to do it?
The only, and the true reply to this question is, that
they dare not. The cry of parvenu / (upstartſ) would be
raised against them at once, and that would blast for ever
176 * THE MUD CABIN,
the secret hopes they entertain, that by carrying themselves
lowly, they will eventually, by reason of their immense
wealth, be able, as I have said in another place, “to wriggle
as joints in the tail of the aristocracy.”
That is the paradise on which all their hopes centre, and
for which they sacrifice what to them would otherwise be
the sum total of life's enjoyments; and, after all, they gene-
rally go down to their graves without reaching the prize—
so omnipotent is the power of titled show upon these isl-
ands. l
Another prominent characteristic of these men is, that
with all their self-denial and humility of deportment lord-
ward, they are to the rest of mankind the stiffest and most
exclusive set in the whole kingdom, not excepting the lords
themselves, as though they thought their blood were under-
going a process of purification from the vulgar elements in-
fused into it by popular intercourse, preparatory to taking
their places among a higher order of beings. And thus
while these individuals are cut off from all substantial
intercourse with the beings among whom they so much covet
a place, they cut themselves off, for the most part, from the
rest of the world, and drag out a pitiful existence of fruitless
struggle, to be crowned in the end, most likely, with disap-
pointed hope. *.
And they leave the same cup of bitterness for their
children, separating them entirely from those around them,
and educating them solely with the hope at least that they
will be admitted into the Elysium, though themselves have
been thrust out; and this cup their children have to drink
EFFORTS TO PUT ON NOBILITY. 177
to the dregs. Occasionally one succeeds at last; but so for-
lorn is the hope, that it is astonishing it can have such
power over them. Theirs is a wonderful faith—if the Chris-
tian's heaven, which is far more accessible, had half the
power over him, it were well with him.
I will now give an illustration of the exclusiveness of this
class of persons, which has fallen under my own observation.
Being in a certain city, I took the notion to stroll out two or
three miles to the seat of one of this class of characters; and
having got there, I had just mischief enough in me to try an
experiment upon him. I turned in at the gate which led to
his mansion, and meeting a person whom I took to be him,
I inquired if he was the man, calling him by name,
to which he replied dryly, that he was, at the same time
putting on a forbidding aspect, and turning a little to one
side. I introduced myself as civilly as I could, saying to
him that I was an American, had come out for a walk, and
wished a few moments' conversation with him on one or two
particular subjects, if it would not be deemed obtrusive—
upon which he stepped right away from me, and passing
through a gate, strained his eyes at me, and said, “Have you
got a letter?” still “sheering off,” as though he thought
either his purse or his dignity were in danger. I told him I
had no letter, and that I was not in the habit of troubling
myself with letters unless I called on persons of conse-
quence, and that was the last I saw of Mr. Sheepshanks.
No class of persons in the kingdom are so haughty, cruel,
and overbearing to their dependants as this very class. Com-
8%
178 THE MUD CABIN.
mercial agents in their employ abroad, have spoken to me
of the savage treatment they sometimes receive from them;
and their hearts are said to be steeled against the most
touching appeals of humanity, and their ears deaf to its
most moving cry of distress.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE NATIONAL DEBT—GOVERNMENT TRICKS AND JOCKEYING
–THE ARTS OF DIPLOMACY CHARACTERIZING EQUALLY
THE GOVERNMENT, BUSINESS FIRMS, AND INDIVIDUALS.
THE deep-laid and crooked financial schemes to which this
government has had to resort from time to time to keep up
its dignity, and keep down the people, are worthy a passing
notice. #
And the question here meets us at the outset, How is it
possible that any government should be able to contrive
ways and means to get trusted to the enormous sum of
$4,425,931,615, the amount of the British national debt, in
the way of a fair and honorable business transaction ? How
is it possible that a government already hundreds of mil-
lions in debt, as this government was at the beginning of
“the French war,” in 1793, should, without any thing at
command to pay what it already owed, be able to avail itself
of honest expedients to increase that debt thousands of mil-
lions more during the fifteen years' continuance of those
... wars? This, as one of the wonders of the age, is deserving
attention.
It is true, that the character of the debt was such that
180 THE MUD CABIN.
only the interest could be called for, most of it for ever,
another portion for life, and another still for a term of years.
And as long as money was a drug, and the government
had a reasonable prospect of paying the interest, it might be
Supposed that lenders would be found. But there must be
a limit to the prospective ability of the government to pay
even the interest; and who is so reckless of his money as to
run that limit up to the sum of $160,000,000, which was
the amount of annual interest upon the national debt at its
highest point %
And how is this grand anomaly in the financial annals
of the world, to be accounted for ? How was it possible to
induce the people, in a fair and open-handed way, to loan
money to the government to such an extent, that even the
interest on it could not be paid without increasing the bur-
dens of taxation so as to endanger the existence of the gov-
ernment itself? . -
Impossible!—it could not be done as an open daylight
transaction; and to accomplish it, the following game of de-
ception, dignified as a master-stroke of state policy, had to
be played off upon the people, at their own cost.
In the early stages of the affair, the loans were multiplied
far beyond the wants of the government, with a view to con-
vert the surplus into a Sinking Fund, that is, a fund whose
avails should be applied to the extinguishment of the public
debt, the idea being held out to the people, that the means
of finally liquidating all the debts of the government had
thus been provided, when, in fact, this was a ruse which only
aggravated the evil.
GOVERNMENT TRICKS, 181
The surplus loans appropriated to this object, and to
be redeemed in fourteen years, amounted to $1,129,000,000,
and this sinking fund stock was created as follows: for £57,
7s, 6d. of money loaned to the government, £100 of stock
bearing three per cent. interest was given, (that is, for the eight
years following 1801,) and the average market value of the
£100 of stock, was £61, 17s, 6d., so that the government
actually had to lose four and a half pounds sterling on
every £100 of stock it had issued, in redeeming it, that is,
there was so much loss on every £57, 7s.6d, which had
been borrowed to create the fund, insomuch, that the entire
loss entailed upon the government by this sham operation,
during twenty-one years from 1793, amounted to $33,194,-
155. [See Porter's Progress of the Nation, Vol. 2, page
193.)
“By reason of this juggle,” adds that author, “the gov-
ernment is now actually burdened with an additional eleven
millions of public debt in outstanding stock, which need oth-
erwise have had no existence.”
And yet this fraudulent and losing game has been gravely
defended as a master-piece of financial wisdom. Great rea-
sons of state, overriding all considerations of morality, have
been alleged in justification of a transaction which would
condemn a private individual to a convict cell, as a felon.
Great reasons of state made it necessary to lay this burden
upon the people, to create a humbug to deceive themselves
with, and we are coolly told how like a charm it operated,
to quiet apprehension, and move the people to come for-
ward with their loans, until the indebtedness of the govern-
ment figured up to the above enormous amount.
182 THE MUD CABIN.
Another great reason of state alleged in behalf of this
govermental duplicity and fraud, was, that the confidence it
would inspire in reference to the financial resources of the
government, and its ability to finally work out the extin-
guishment of the public debt, would have the effect to recon-
cile the people to the additional burdens of taxation which
must follow in the train, and which they would thus be led to
look upon as a matter only of temporary necessity.
But the trickery of the government did not end here.
After the close of the long continental wars, which ended in
the final overthrow of Napoleon, and the peace of Amiens
had given tranquillity to Europe, the government was left to
reflect at its leisure upon the horrors of its financial condi-
tion, which were scarcely less terrific than the arms of
Napoleon.
The loans had been effected at a high rate of interest, to
meet the exigencies of the government, and the great point
” was to reduce this
to be gained, “by hook or by crook,
high rate of interest, so as to bring its annual payment with-
in the competency of the government, with the appliances it
had at command.
The creditors of the government, (most of them perpet-
ual,) numbering 284,127 British subjects, could not demand
the payment of the principal, nor did they wish to, as they
were realizing a high rate of interest, and the government
stock in their hands was transferable like bank or railroad
stock, and was in demand, owing to the additional security to
government paper which peace had brought along with it.
But the outstanding paper of the government, though
GOVERNMENT TRICKS. 183
most of it was eternally uncollectable, was redeemable, and
might be called in at its own pleasure. The plan was to
call it in, and re-issue at a lower rate of interest than was ob-
tained for ordinary paper, as the rate of interest was then
high.
In this emergency, recourse was had to the following un-
scrupulous expedient. Arrangement was entered into by the
government with the Bank of England, by which the latter
was to flood the country with money at a low rate of inter-
est, with a view to reduce the general rate of interest to the
lowest possible ebb, as the standard by which to regulate
the interest on the proposed government re-issues. Says one
of their best financial writers, (speaking in reference to this
subject.) “The directors extended their circulation to the
greatest possible extent, by proffering facilities to every class
of the community, loaning money on mortgages, deposits of
stock, and any security, however unavailable.”
By this means, the ordinary rate of interest was reduced
very low ; the holders of government paper were in ecstasies,
(as it rose to a high premium on their hands,) little dreaming
that they were thus elevated only to be cast down. But they
were soon given to understand, that they must give up their
government stock, and take it back at a reduction of one to
one and a half per cent, or see it pass into other hands. And
by this operation the annual interest was reduced to the
amount of $7,500,000.
If the ill effects of this movement had been confined to
the holders of government paper, the moral obliquity in-
volved in it, would not have been so great. But it affected
184 THE MUD CABIN.
the value of all other kinds of paper, as well as that of the
government, and gave rise to a spirit of wild speculation,
which scarcely found a parallel in the extravagances of '36,
in our own country. Terrible was the reaction which fol-
lowed; confidence gave way, a run was made upon the
banks, and nearly all the banks in city and country were
broken up, the Bank of England alone weathering the storm
by reversing its policy.
So great was the commercial distress at this fearful crisis,
as to draw from Mr. Huskisson the remark, that “the coun-
try was within twenty-four hours of a state of barter,” and
multitudes sank to ruin.
This is a shrewd people. With all our “Yankee
scheming,” they fairly “take the shine out of us.” The
government is almost necessarily a jockey. Being a manu-
facturing people, the great business of the government is to
find markets for the products of their manufactories, and this
it does by driving shrewd bargains with the nations of the
earth, agreeing to take one thing from this country, and an-
other from that, in return for the wares it has to sell, and to
this end all the wily arts of diplomacy are called into requisi-
tion, to overreach and get all the advantage which the most
consummate management can secure, and the more since
other nations are getting into the way of supplying their
own necessities. One great reason of their holding on with
such tenacity to their colonies is, that, to the extent of their
wants, an exclusive market is thus secured for their manufac-
tured goods.
And the same strategic policy runs down through all the
SCHEMING OF BUSINESS FIRMS. 185
ramifications of private business, each manufacturing compa-
ny, and each business firm, finding as formidable competi-
tion around them, as does the government among the na-
tions. Every company, and every firm of any importance,
have agents constantly traversing the kingdom to make sales.
Swarms of them are to be met with on all the great tho-
roughfares of the land, each endeavoring to forestall the other.
The shrewdest men in the kingdom are selected for the pur-
pose, and they are generally allowed a guinea a day for ex-
penses, to enable them to make a show of consequence, when
they are not worth a penny, and to drink freely with those
whose custom they solicit, and thus they generally ruin them-
selves and beggar their families by the dissipated habits
they necessarily acquire in the service of masters who are
rising to wealth, at such a fearful cost to themselves.
CEIAPTER XXIV.
THE SPELL OF THE PAST.
A DISTINGUISHED British reviewer flings it in our face as an
irredeemable literary defect, that we “have nothing to fall
back upon in history, no golden age, no venerated traditions,
no fabulous antiquity, no fairy land.”
And thanks be to heaven that it is so—that we are at an
ocean-wide remove from all those influences which come
down from the dark centuries of the past, only to mislead
and to enslave. Let the nations of the old world quail
beneath them; we envy them not, we want no literature
imbued with the fell spirit of a semi-barbarous age.
It is a real misfortune to be born under such influences,
to have them gathering around us, entwining themselves into
our every feeling, and holding us bound, victims to despotism,
from our infancy up. Nor do I wonder at their power, for
they are adapted, with Satanic skill, to the weaknesses of
humanity. Shorn of all influence from this source, Jugger-
naut himself would be powerless for harm.
Illustrations of the power of this influence upon the
people of this island are constantly falling under my obser-
vation, to some of which I will refer.
THE STORY OF BILADUD. 187
- At that delightful watering place, Bath, I lingered a few
days, being chained to the spot by its rural enchantments.
The town (now of 60,000 inhabitants) is a very ancient one,
and both fancy and fable have been busy in assigning its
origin. According to these authorities, there reigned in
Britain, 863 years before the Christian era, aking named Lud
who had a son (heir-apparent) who was badly affected with
leprosy, and whom in consequence he drove from his pre-
sence as unclean, and therefore unfit to belong to the royal
family.
Bladud, (for that was the young man's name,) after
wandering about from place to place, finally came here and
took up his abode. Partaking freely of the mineral waters
of the place, he became completely cured of his leprosy, and,
returning to his father, was joyfully welcomed. In due
time, he ascended the throne, when, from the benefit he had
received, he was moved to build a city here.
These people delight in giving credence to this story,
and in doing honor to the name of Bladud. They have
“Bladud buildings,” “Bladud baths,” &c, &c. And as I was
entering one of these magnificent baths, behold, there stood,
perched upon a pedestal, Bladud himself, looking as
though he had stood there from the time he made the great
discovery. And close by, was this inscription upon a
marble slab : “Bladud, son of Lud, Hudibras, who was the
eighth king of the Britons, a great philosopher, was the dis-
coverer of these baths, 863 years before Christ, dated A. D.
1699.”
And perhaps I ought to acknowledge my own obligations
188 TEIE MUD CABIN.
to Bladud, for I certainly never enjoyed a greater luxury than
to swim or float in that honored bath (65 feet by 75), and
feel the warm bubbling waters playing like delicate fingers
around me, or in climbing my way to those charming
rural retreats, the crescents, perched upon the cliffs, where I
was made a child of, and my eyes became “fountains of
tears,” as a band of music poured its melody upon my ear,
and the scene before and below me, embracing the town and
valley of the Avon, with its receding acclivities, opened its
enchantments upon my vision.
Sabbath came, and as the bells of the city were pouring
forth their volumes of sound upon the stillness of the sacred
morning, I proceeded on my way to church, “the old Abbey
Church,” one of those time-honored cathedrals, built by the
Catholics, away back in the middle ages, and transferred by
the eighth Henry to the Church of England, at the Reforma-
tion. Venerable pile ! How did the spirit of the past seem
to hover around its consecrated walls |
Just before reaching it, a procession of boys, dressed in
blue uniform, with military buttons, and knobs upon their
caps, passed, on their way to the Sanctuary, and following
them a procession of girls, also in uniform. They belonged
to a Sunday school.
In entering the church, a large unoccupied apartment
had to be passed through before reaching the one appropri-
ated to divine worship. In passing this unoccupied apart-
ment, I was fairly startled at seeing what seemed two ghosts,
as much as any thing else, stationed, one upon each side,
as I passed along. They were two men, tall, slender, and
TOM, DICK, AND HARRY. 189
pale, in black robes, and standing motionless, each with one
hand clenched to a tall staff, which might have been mis-
taken for a spear handle, on which they gently leaned, and
both with eyes immovably fixed upon the entrance door-
way.
I immediately asked an explanation of this strange
phenomenon, and was told that they were awaiting the ap-
proach of the high functionaries of the corporation. And
soon they made their appearance, in grand procession, all in
their quaint official costume, with cocked hats, the Mayor
at their head, and the mace-bearer with uplifted insignia of
authority. They marched up the broad aisle, and seated
themselves, in awful dignity, directly in front of the pulpit;
during which operation, a feeling of reverential awe seemed
to pervade the congregation.
This scene, I confess, came near upsetting all my gravity,
and I felt an inclination to levity, which neither the solemnity
of the day, nor of the occasion, nor the imposing grandeur
of the temple of God, nor a sense of the divine presence even,
could fully suppress.
Returning from church, I mentioned the circumstance
to a “commercial man” from London, whom I found at my
hotel, and said to him, that we had no necessity for any
such mummery in my country; to which he replied smartly,
“O yes, I know you are all Tom, Dick, and Harry there.”
I afterwards learned, that the officers of every paltry
town corporation had their official costume and their
pageants.
But it was in London that I witnessed the most ridicu-
190 THE MUD CABIN.
lous scenes of this character. Right in the heart of the vast
metropolis, is a little spot, embracing less than 150,000
inhabitants, which constitutes “the city of London ;” while
the two million and a quarter of inhabitants around it, are
outsiders, and are formed into separate corporations, so that
the Lord Mayor of London we read of, is, in fact, only the
lord mayor of this paltry municipality; and yet, he is the
personage to whom, as a matter of feudal etiquette, on
certain occasions, the occupant of the throne does homage.
The city charter was granted away back in feudal times, and
the functionaries who hold life-leases of their places under it,
still cling to the exclusive privileges it granted, and sturdily
refuse to abate one iota from their claim to the fantastic
feudal honors which have descended upon them.
At the western limit of this ancient corporation, is an old
gate, called “Temple Bar,” which I believe is a relic of the
wall which once surrounded the town. The Queen's palace,
although far within the precincts of the metropolis, is located
at a considerable distance from this gate, making her an out-
sider, which she is, I believe, by the laws of the corporation.
And, by the same laws, she is never permitted to enter the
city without asking leave of the Lord Mayor, and being held
at bay until the following ridiculous farce has been played.
The old Temple Bar gate is never closed, except when it
is announced that the Queen is about to visit the city. As
she approaches, it swings upon its ponderous hinges, and is
shut against her. She pauses to await the pleasure of the
lord mayor, and now a trumpet is blown, the old gate swings
back to its place, and the Queen with her suite passes. And
GOVERNMENT PAGEANTS, 191
this ludicrous scene has to be gone through every time
she enters the city, which I am told she never does, except
to attend the levees of the lord mayor, which vie in magni-
ficence with those of the occupant of the throne.
And then the pageant of the Queen, passing in and out,
decked off in state, with the troop of nobility which constitute
her suite, presents a spectacle which moves this vast population
like the waves of the sea, while beggary and rags slink away
before it into the dark lanes and recesses of the city.
A somewhat similar farce has to be played every time
the lord mayor visits the courts of Westminster Hall, on
which occasions the members of the court and of the bar are
required to appear in Scarlet robes, and play the monkey in
various acts of homage.
It is these little fantastics of the feudal ages, and these
only, which have given the chief officer of this little munici-
pality a renown little less illustrious than that of the incum-
bent of the throne. -
I shall not attempt to describe the Solemn trumpery which
attends the assembling and sitting of the courts themselves,
the flourish of trumpets, the wigs, the robes, the ermine, &c.
&c. All of which, and a thousand times more, are effectually
employed to awe, and at the same time to gratify the people
at their own expense, their passion for such things having
been pampered from their infancy up, and all their ideas of
dignity, authority, and order, being associated with parade
and show, insomuch that they would lose all respect for the
government if they were dispensed with, and the strong
cords which now hold it together would become as tow.
192 THE MUD CABIN.
“You must see Edinburgh, you must see Edinburgh,”
every where saluted my ears as I advanced northward. And
when I arrived at Edinburgh, “You must see the crown-
room, you must see the crown-room,” was about the first salu-
tation I met. Well, thought I to myself, Edinburgh must
be the gem of Scotland, and the crown-room the gem of Edin-
burgh—a gem within a gem. -
And so to Castle Hill I hastened in quest of the crown-
room. Entering within the castle walls, in rear of the town,
I ascended from one gallery of guns to another, until I ar-
rived at the top, when a most enchanting rural prospect
opened upon me; but it had no charms for me just then,
for the attractions of the crown-room had fully pre-possessed
all my regards, and to the crown-room I turned my eager
steps. On arriving at the door, I found a crowd there wait-
ing for admission, the room then being full.
Very soon the time was up, and those within made their
exit, when another company was admitted, among whom I
had the good luck to be one, the admission fee being six-
pence sterling. In the centre of the room was an elevated
platform or table, upon which was placed a large glass case,
and within that lay the precious relics. There were just
enough in the room to form a circle around the platform,
standing close—and there stood that circle of human beings,
as silent and motionless as though they had been corpses,
and that room had been their sepulchre, so awe-struck were
they at sight of the objects before them.
And what were those objects that so absorbed their at-
tention, and attracted their admiring gaze, do you ask? They
THE CROWN-ROGM. 193
were such as do not meet one's eye every day, and indeed
such as it is the privilege of few in this world of ours ever to
set eyes on. I was told they had been lost for ages, and had
been found in a great iron chest, some fifty years back, con-
cealed in a recess in the castle, and that the people's regards
were drawn out the more upon them for that.
At last the deep, strong tides of emotion rose so high in.
some of the little circle, or rather, I should say, receded so
low, as to set the organs of speech a-going, and the half-sup-
pressed ejaculations, “O how beautiful!”—“Did you ever
see the like?” broke from those marble lips.
They now began to breathe easier, or they would soon
have been in reality what they seemed—a little more inten-
sity of feeling apparently would have snapped the attenuated
cord, and set the spirit free, and that room would indeed
have been their sepulchre.
And now you hear them making remarks to each other,
and by and by you see a smile, and even hear a laugh—but
do not wonder at this, for you know it is a law of our being
that familiarity breeds, first, cosiness, then indifference, and
finally contempt. It is on this principle that we Americans
entertain such a contempt for crowned heads. As we are
all sovereigns, and are constantly surrounded by them on
every hand, we come to think very little of them, whether at
the plough-tail in our own country, or upon a throne in the
old world.
But what were those wonderful things, do you reiterate }
Aye, as I said, being all sovereigns in our country, we re-
gard them as very cheap things; that is our standard, and
9
194 THE MUD CABIN.
we know of no other to try sovereigns by any where. But
here the case is directly reversed. Among the millions of
people who constitute a nation, there is but one sovereign;
and as it is also a law of our being, that we value things
higher or lower according to their scarcity or abundance,
sovereigns here are valued, on this principle, many millions
of times higher than with us.
Again, these scarce sovereigns may make themselves
still scarcer than legitimacy ever made them, by secluding
themselves from observation, and only appearing at distant
intervals; aided by the trappings of pomp, they thus inspire
the multitude with an awful sense of their sacredness. In
some countries, as in Thibet, the game has been so success-
fully played, that the sovereign actually receives divine
honors, and is worshipped as a God. And even in many of
the dark countries of Europe they talk about “the divine
right of kings.”
Are you impatient for an answer? I was going to say,
that it is another law of our being that men make much
more parade about those assumed rights, which do not be-
long to them, than about those real, bond fide rights, con-
cerning which there can be no question. Hence the sove-
reigns of the old world, through their minions, are eternally
harping about their “divine rights,” while from our sove-
reigns you never hear a word about them. The reason is,
that those wily gamesters know very well that they are
playing off a farce upon the people, while our sovereigns,
under the full consciousness that no question can be raised
as to the validity of their God-given rights, put themselves
to no trouble about the matter.
REGALIA OF SCOTLAND, 195
And now for the engrossing objects in the crown-room,
but I must first bespeak from you a seriousness appropriate
to the occasion. The first object which attracted attention
then, was what they call a crown, tinselled, bejewelled a lit-
tle, and serrated, but not half so pretty as some little boys'
caps I have seen at the shops. Then there lay a clumsy
thing they call “the sword of state,” and by it a thing de-
nominated “a sceptre,” also a mace and some jewels, the
whole constituting what they call “the Regalia of the Kings
of Scotland,” who, take them all in all, were as profligate
and worthless a set of men as ever cursed a country.
I do not set these things down to the disparagement of
the Scots—not at all: they are a noble race of men, and true
men, too; whether they be royalists or republicans, they
play no false game.
These things teach a great practical lesson, which is vital
to the interests of the race, and should be graven on the me-
mory and on the heart of every child in our republic.
Blessed are the children who are beyond the sweep of all
such influences as these, and blessed is the country which
spurns them from her borders.
The question here forces itself upon me, how was it pos-
sible for Cromwell to break in upon and control such an in-
fluence as this? And how does it exalt our conceptions
of him, that he was able to do it—to override all opposition,
and hush the elements into submission.
At Dunbar, I was upon the ground where the battle-
scene which gave Scotland to Cromwell transpired; and as
the events connected with it illustrate the insane devotion
196 - THE MUD CABIN.
of even good men to the “divine right” of profligates to
butcher them, I will rehearse the circumstances here.
Cromwell had penetrated as far as Edinburgh ; but, with-
out having accomplished any thing of consequence, he set
out on his return, apparently with the design of retracing
his steps to England. The Scots, who had fled to the Pent-
land hills on his approach to Edinburgh, followed him in
what they regarded as his retreat, and to their utmost har-
assed his rear.
At Dunbar he came to a stand, and took up his position
upon a rising ground in front of the town, while the Scots
took up theirs upon an opposite height. Leslie was the com-
mander of the Scottish army, and the Covenanter ministers
were his counsellors, the latter controlling every thing, and
infusing into the whole army their own religious fanaticism;
and many of them took their places in the ranks.
Nor was Cromwell at all behind them in stirring up and
fortifying his men by religious appeal. At length, by the
aid of his glass, he discovered a movement in the Scottish
ranks, and immediately he exclaimed, in accents which
nerved the whole army to the conflict, “They are coming;
the Lord hath delivered them into our hands.” Both armies
rushed to the contest, and fought with desperation; but after
an hour or two, the Scottish army gave way and fled, leaving
four thousand dead upon the field, and ten thousand prison-
ers, a number within one thousand of Cromwell's entire army;
and among the dead were found many Covenanter ministers.
And now all Scotland submitted to Cromwell.
And it was in behalf of one whom they considered “the
OLIVER, CROMWELL, 197
Lord's anointed,” the profligate Charles the Second, that
these fanatics fought so desperately. They regarded the
government as having been brought to the block in the
person of the first Charles, and as having lain headless and
bleeding ever since, and they were ready to move heaven
and earth to effect a resurrection; and all this, though the
government of Cromwell was mild and just, and proffered
them full security and protection as a religious sect.
Upon the death of Cromwell, Charles ascended the
throne; and, as though in judgment upon them, these same
Covenanters, who had faced the cannon's mouth in his be-
half, were immediately subjected to a most cruel persecution—
were driven from their churches, imprisoned, many suffered
martyrdom, and others fled to the mountains, and took
refuge in the caves and dens of the earth.
Wonderful man, that he should have been able to break
the spell, and not only hold at abeyance the constitutional
claimant to the throne, but the most powerful aristocracy the
world ever saw ; and—more than all—that he should be
able to overcome and to cow that servile devotion to royalty,
which was so deeply seated in the hearts of the people, and
which led them to return, “like the dog to his vomit,” after
his death !
Nor is the power of that influence which his giant
strength overcame, less strikingly attested in the combined
effort of the whole pack of British historians to hunt and
despoil his memory. True to their instincts, these panders
to royalty have so far succeeded in their dirty work, as to :
neutralize the influence of his great achievements over privi-
198 THE MUD CABIN.
lege and power, in the minds of the people, insomuch that
few have any higher conceptions of him than as a mighty
moral monster, the Usurper and the Regicide, who laid his
sacrilegious hand upon the sacred prerogatives of legiti-
macy.” -
And sorry am I to say, that so far-reaching is the
* Mr. McGregor, the learned M. P. from Glasgow, and editor
of a late edition of De Lolme's work on the British constitution,
rebukes that professed Swiss republican for passing in silence the
important epoch of Cromwell's administration. He speaks of it as
“the most important legislative period in English history,” and as
being characterized for men of extraordinary energy and abilities.
Civil war in England was put down, Scotland and Ireland were
reduced to obedience, and above all, it was then that the British
navy, the great bulwark of the country, took its rise. Previously
thirteen ships were all that could be mustered, and it had not a
man that had ever seen a sea-fight, unless with a pirate. Under
Blake, Cromwell's naval commander, the navy rose to become the
terror of all Europe, and from that time it had been the right arm
of the national strength. There was no impressment then, no one
was forced to serve, either in the army or navy, and yet neither
soldiers nor seaman were wanting. “With some intolerant ex-
ceptions,” he adds, “the affairs of the country were adminis-
tered with a strict regard to justice.”
When it was announced that Charles the Second was to be re-
stored, Mr. McG. says the people seemed to be entirely carried
away like little children, so overjoyed were they. His words are,
that “the nation seemed to be mentally drunk, insomuch that no
conditions were made with that profligate monarch.”
In the expulsion of the successor of this Charles, James II., the
British people boast of having broken away from the restraints
of legitimacy, but the spell is in reality as powerful as ever.
OLIVER CROMWELL. 199
mighty influence of which I am speaking, that the yell
which has been raised against this wonderful man by the
creatures of legitimacy here, has found an echo even upon
our own side of the Atlantic. How often has a single taunt
about the “psalm-singing administration of Cromwell”
brought a dark shadow over this the brightest epoch in
English history, in the estimation of multitudes of my
countrymen, and placed them in the false attitude of panders
to legitimacy, and enemies to the progress of the racel
Beit admitted that Cromwell was a religious enthusiast—
and I am not disposed to deny it—sift out all his religion if
you will, and give it to the winds as chaff, and how does
that affect the character of his administration? With all his
religious enthusiasm, and even frenzy, if you please, never
before, since England had a name, had justice and equity
borne such sway in the island. And the annals of British
vituperation and abuse may be searched in vain for any act
of his life which casts a stain upon his high moral integrity,
or convicts him either of being actuated by motives of
personal aggrandizement, or of insincerity in his religious
belief.
And, viewed in its true light, his very enthusiasm in
religion, false though it be admitted to have been, only adds
a lustre to his name; for with all his religious frenzy, he was
so far raised above the common level of the race, that he
could grant free toleration and protection to other sects, and
those too, who had sought his life, and that at an era of
the world when such an idea had never been born. Won-
derful man, that he was thus raised above all the ordinary
weaknesses of humanity!
200 THE MUD CABIN.
Such and so great was this extraordinary man, and such
and so great the power of that influence which was rolled back,
like an ocean-tide, at his bidding, and held at abeyance
while he lived. Let the minions of privilege and power
prowl about his memory; but O, my countrymen, do not
you bring dishonor upon the sacred cause of freedom, by
joining the pack!
Still another illustration occurs. At Falkirk, in Scot-
land, I met with a most extraordinary document. It was an
address to George the Third, by “The old men of Falkirk.”
of his day, and was designed as a solace to him in the afflic-
tions brought upon him by the rebellion in the American
colonies. It breathed a most dutiful, and even affectionate
spirit of allegiance, deprecated the rebellion as a most pesti-
lent affair, got up by factious and turbulent spirits, out of
which nothing but unmixed evil could arise to those con-
cerned in it; but deprecated it more especially as a most
grievous annoyance to his majesty's peace, and concluded
by expressing the hope that quiet would speedily be restored,
and his majesty soon again be permitted to rejoice in the
dutiful allegiance of his subjects throughout all his do-
IIlllllOIAS. -
The thought struck me, that if these old men of Falkirk
could arise out of their graves, alight upon our shores, and
See what the factious colonies had come to, whose auda-
cious misbehavior had so aroused their sympathies for their
royal master, and whose speedy subjection they so much
desired to see; that if they could look abroad over our
country, and contrast the indications of comfort and enjoy-
OLD MEN OF FALKIRK. 201
ment every where to be seen, with the misery and rags with
which they were surrounded in the dominions of old King
George, possibly they might breathe some regrets over the
past. And poor old King George he has gone where he
can no longer receive the homage of “The old men of Fal-
kirk.”
Honest souls | Fidelity to their king was a part of their
religion, while they regarded rebellion against his authority
as a sin against high heaven, second only to that which cast
out the rebel angels. Had a planet broken loose from the
control of those laws which held it in its orbit, and rushed
wildly through the immensity of space, it could scarcely have
presented a more appalling spectacle to these “old men of
Falkirk,” than did the swinging loose of these colonies from
their allegiance to the British throne.
Like the poor widow, they “did what they could.”
Standing as they were, upon the crumbling brink of the
grave, they could not testify their fidelity to their royal
master by seizing the weapons of death and rushing to the
conflict. And probably the exactions of the government
had so robbed them of their available means, that they neither
had the disposition nor the ability to do any thing more in
that direction. But they could pour the oil of consolation
upon that royal heart, now beating low under the oppression
of its grief, and anon throbbing tumultuously under the im-
pulses of vengeance. And I have no doubt the remembrance
of that act diffused a serene joy over the evening of their
days, as refreshing as the breezes of paradise. *-
To be able to appreciate the feelings of these “old men
9*
202 THE MUD CABIN.
of Falkirk,” we must rid ourselves of all those new-born
ideas of self-government, which have sprung into existence
in the free atmosphere of the new world. We must con-
sider into what a state of hopeless anarchy a people were
supposed to have plunged themselves in those days, in break-
ing away from the paternal restraints of legitimacy, and
what a talismanic power there was in the words legitimacy,
loyalty, and allegiance, connecting all that is noble and praise-
worthy in human aspirations, with fidelity to the sovereign,
and all that is execrable in the outbursts of human depravity,
with rebellion against his authority. All this must be
taken into account in order to a due appreciation of the
merits of this act of these “old men of Falkirk,” and of the
amount of consolation which they were able to appropriate
to themselves from its performance, and which must have
“flowed as a river.”
Justice to “the old men of Falkirk,” perhaps, requires
me to add, that their geographical position subjected them,
in a pre-eminent degree, to the influences of which I am
speaking, as the battle-field of Falkirk, where Wallace, the
idol of their hearts, was finally overthrown by the first
Edward, lay spread out before them from the cradle to the
grave; and they recognize the descendants of Wallace in
the present race of British kings. Of the power of this local
influence, I was able to form some conception from the
lively emotion which played upon the countenance and
moved the eloquence of an “old man of Falkirk” of the
present day, as he pointed out to me the various objects of
interest upon that field, and recounted the incidents of the
OLD MEN OF FALKIRK. 203
battle scene, taking care to add, that “Wallace lost the day
through the treachery of some of his generals.”
Such then, and so great is the spell of the past, and such
its power over the destinies of this people, insomuch, that
the occupants of the palace and of the hovel, sustain sub-
stantially the same relation to each other now that they did
centuries ago.
CHAPTER XXV.
PASTIMEs of THE HIGHER orDERS–THEIR INFLUENCE, ETC.
SUCH as I have described being the power of the influences
which have descended upon this people from the centuries
of the past, it is not so strange, that they should prostrate
themselves very low before rank and title, nor is it so strange,
that one of the most eminent of modern historians (Hallam)
should defile his illustrious pages with the remark, that
“there is something in loyalty (to the king) as elevating
and purifying as patriotism itself;” that is, that devotion to
a sovereign is as noble a virtue as devotion to the country.
In England, the term loyalty has, in fact, quite as much
reference to the nobility as to the crown, for they have ever
been the rulers of the country.
In illustration of the kind of moral influence which goes
down among the people from the venerated orders above, I
will give a few, out of the innumerable facts which have
fallen under my own observation.
And, as a significant preliminary, it may well be con-
jectured what must be the influence of a class of men, thus
venerated, whose chief end of life is to kill time by throwing
the reins upon the neck of indulgence. Who does not
INFLUENCES FOR, EVIL. 205
know, that, always and every where, individuals and com-
munities are distinguished for good morals about in propor-
tion to their devotion to some useful employment—that is,
where industry is allowed to reap its reward, and that prof.
ligacy and vice keep even pace with habits of idleness and
the means of indulgence ; So well understood is this matter
in our own country, that a man's character is justly sus-
pected, if he has no employment upon his hands to keep him
out of mischief; nor is it strange that it should be so, when
we consider the natural preferences of the human heart, in
connection with the fact, that temptations hang in clusters
around the idle.
And here comes up a preliminary illustration, which I
had not thought to introduce, but it is so directly in point,
that I cannot deny it a place. Without a word of allusion
to the subject, it might readily be conceived what would be
the effect of the sons of the nobility and gentry gaining
admission to families a little below them in rank, drawn
thither perhaps by the attractions of a beautiful daughter.
The parents, who know wellenough that no such alliance would
be tolerated, even if meditated, yet too often feel flattered
by the attentions of the young man, and only when it is
too late, have discovered the sad mistake. Often do all their
domestic hopes wither down beneath the hand of the
spoiler.
These are cases of frequent occurrence, and even where
the parents have the sense and discretion to discounte-
nance all approaches of the sort, they are often powerless to
prevent the catastrophe. From my esteemed friend, H. R.,
206 THE MUD CABIN.
Esq., I have learned some most affecting details upon this
subject. Among the families, he said, who were liable to
suffer were those of the clergy, and here it was that the
young expectant of ancestral honors, the eldest son, some-
times found his victims. The clergy being composed, to a
great extent, of the younger sons of the nobility, are so far
considered as a sort of offshoot from the order, and as such
are rather high up in the descending scale. But yet, they
are often poor, and dependent for a living upon some pat-
ron lord. Here is one who has a lovely daughter; she
attracts the attention of the embryo lord, and with such a
halo of glory radiating from his brow, he readily wins her
regards. The parents may be distressed, may weep in an-
guish, but they cannot help it. They have submitted to
privation to bestow every advantage upon their daughter,
and she comes out of her educational course with a highly
cultivated intellect, and adorned with every accomplishment,
a blooming and beautiful girl, the pride and solace of the
parents' heart, and the admiration of all. The young man
is perhaps sincere in his attachment, but he knows he can-
not make her his own, and the parents know it, and the
daughter knows it, but still the intimacy goes on ; the pa-
rents, in their anguish, dare not remonstrate lest they should
offend the patron lord, upon whose pleasure they are depend-
ent for their bread, and the consequence too often is the de-
solation of all their hopes in the fall of the loved one.
Sad, indeed, are the traces of desolation and despair
which these depredators have thus left upon some of the
best families in England 1
PASTIMES-THE CHASE. 207
But I commenced with the design of referring to some
of the pastimes with which the nobility and gentry contrive
to wear away their time, and of the necessary effect upon
the orders below. And nothing more strikingly shows the
obsequious devotion of the lower to the higher orders, and
the power of the influence for evil which thus goes down
among the masses, than the pictorial representations of these
pastimes and sports which are paraded in public places for
the special entertainment of plebeian eyes. The sitting-
rooms of hotels are generally all hung around with them,
while the signs of the same are of a character to cor-
respond, such as “Greyhound Inn,” “The Spotted Dog,”
“Nag's Head Inn,” or “Duke” such a one's “coat of
arms,” &c., &c.
Let us commence with the chase, which is a favorite
amusement here. Scarcely can a man be considered a
gentleman, who has not a pack of hounds, and a stud of
four or more hunting horses, and a groom to every two
horses. Let us take the hunting statistics of a single county
as a specimen. Says a London paper, “There are in York-
shire a thousand hunting men, averaging four horses and
two grooms each, at an annual expense of £500,000. Add
another £100,000 for the hounds and their keep, and we
have £600,000,” or $3,000,000 for that single county alone.
Now let us follow them to the chase, arrayed in hunting
costume, (scarlet) and mounted upon their hunting-horses,
with their hounds, grooms, and servants in attendance. Is
it the animal's skin they are after, his fur, or his flesh
Ha! what would they do with them Do they hie them-
208 THE MUD CABIN.
selves away to a point in the mountain to lie in wait for
their prey ! No, they are above all that. With true
aristocratic magnanimity, they give the animal every possi-
ble advantage, first allowing him to bound off, then, in due
time, letting slip the hounds, themselves starting at the
signal in pursuit, at the top of their speed; dashing away,
under whip and spur, over rough places and smooth, leap-
ing fences and ditches and whatever comes in their way,
each struggling for the mastery, as though his eternity
depended upon it: these grown-up children are chasing a
hare to kill time—that is all.
No ; that is not all. “There lives a man,” said Mr. N.,
of Spital-on-the-Tweed, as he was driving me in his carriage
past a rather aristocratic-looking mansion—“there lives a
man who was ruined by his red-coat sons. The mother,”
he continued, “was ambitious to have her sons associate
with young men of the high hunting order, as it was a great
honor, they being only wealthy farmers. And thus by
attaching themselves, as a sort of fag-end, to their ‘supe-
riors, the family was reduced from wealth to poverty in a
short time. But for that,” he added, “the father would
at this moment have been worth £100,000,” or half a mil-
lion of dollars.
And who pays the three millions of dollars expended
annually in that county alone upon this amusement? Well,
the landlords get it from their attorneys, the attorneys get it
from the tenant-farmers, and the tenant-farmers get it from
the poor laborers, leaving them to destitution and rags.
Nor is the horse-racing mania, which pervades all the
HORSE-R.A.C.E.S. 209
higher orders, at all less prolific in burdensome expenditure,
or in corrupting moral influence. From the opening of spring
till the setting in of winter, the races, the races, the races
form one continued din, from one end of the kingdom to
another; the excursion trains of all the railroads are set in
motion at less than half price, to carry persons to and from
the races; and so great is the rush, that the income from
this source contributes largely to swell the aggregate of
receipts.
In traversing the kingdom, I am frequently thrown into
the midst of these disgusting scenes. Arriving in a town at
the dusk of evening, I often find it in a state of perfect
uproar; and it is generally a three days' siege, during which
people move about warily, with their hands upon their
purses. The din is kept up through the live-long night, and
it is in vain to think of seeking repose. The gangs of
gamblers, jugglers, mountebanks, thimble-riggers, whirligigs,
pickpockets, and swindlers of every description, who follow
the races, and grace the grounds during the day, come
pouring into town during the night, and together with the
accompanying rabble, both noble and ignoble, constitute a
medley over which Satan himself might be well pleased.
Some conception may be formed of the scenes which
transpire upon these occasions, from the fact published in
the papers here, that during the late races at Newcastle, a
hundred and sixty gold watches were picked from the pock-
ets of the nobility and gentry present. This may have been
an unusual number, for aught I know, or it may not; but
certain it is that no occasion of the kind transpires without
210 THE MUD CABIN.
drawing together whole platoons of thieves and swindlers,
who claim the privilege of indulging in their favorite sports
as well as their superiors; and, for aught I know, they may
undertake to justify themselves by their example. When
they see those whom they have been taught to reverence,
taking thousands from each other's pockets without return-
ing an equivalent, by which many are reduced to penury,
it is natural enough that they should regard it as quite a
venial offence to take so small a perquisite as a gold watch,
by which no one is probably injured.
But the wealthy and the great must have some way of
murdering time, and the humbler classes some way of giving
expression to their reverence and their admiration, if it be
only to stand at a respectful distance to see their horses
I'll [l, -
And who will undertake to say, that these are not neces-
sary evils, inseparable from such an order of things, and as
such, essential to the completeness of the system
I reason the case on this wise; you cannot break up the
standing amusements of the nobility and gentry, without
breaking up the order, and you cannot do that without break-
ing down the constitution of the country. Without these
amusements there could be no such thing as a nobility—
what would they do with themselves?—they would die of
ennui. If these evils then are the consequence, should they
not be regarded as sustaining a highly honorable relation,
inasmuch as the entire system of government must stand or
fall with them 3
You may call this burlesque, or call it what you will,
TOURNAMENT AND STEEPLE-CHASE. 211
there is something in it to be reverenced after all, and
that is truth. Such a system of government as this presup-
poses just such a state of things, nor can it exist without it
until the laws of our being have been changed.
I have spoken of the tournament, which disgraced the
dark ages of chivalry in Europe—even this relic of a semi-
barous age is still in vogue in the island. Its exercises con-
sist of feats of horsemanship, with a dexterous use of the
spear, requiring great agility and skill, and involving great
danger. I saw the ground where Lord Eggleton (Ayreshire)
recently had his, at an expense to himself of a million and a
half of dollars. And after drawing together the nobility and
gentry of the kingdom, and many from different countries
on the Continent, the fun was all spoiled by a long-con-
tinued rain, which broke up the whole thing; and this covey
of noble birds were all dispersed, with drooping wing, to
their homes.
But the steeple-chase, the steeple-chase ! Well, go with -
me along Cheapside; there is the picture at the shop-win-
dow, and it is a good representation, and not a pictorial
monstrosity, as you might at first glance suppose.
It is designed as a fac-simile of the scenes which actu-
ally transpire every year upon different parts of this island,
for the special entertainment of “my lords and gentlemen,”
and as gala days for all classes. As an amusement, it is the
same in kind with the gladiatorial and other inhuman shows
of heathen Rome, at which men and wild beasts were slaugh-
tered for the gratification of excited myriads, who feasted
their eyes upon the scene.
212 THE MUD CABIN.
You see the horses, how they lay themselves to the
ground, while the riders are urging them forward with all the
energy at their command. You see them leaping high fences,
clearing broad and deep ditches, and descending hideous
precipices under whip and spur—but lo! there go horse and
rider, dashed headlong against the rocks, while others are
flitting past with almost lightning speed, as though nothing
had occurred. The more fortunate succeed in reaching the
goal; and then, what a triumph to enjoy, with their comrades
dead and dying on the track! But the groans of the dying
are drowned in the deafening shouts which rise from the
neighboring hills.
Let us now approach and survey the scene itself. The
track, three or four miles around, lies over precipitous heights,
and intervening ravines, fences and hedges, seven and eight
feet high, with wide and deep ditches running close by them
on the opposite side, so that they cannot be seen by horse
or rider, and both fence and ditch have to be cleared at a
single leap. And to increase the horrors of the scene,
neither horse nor rider are allowed to pass over the ground,
or know any thing about the obstructions they are to meet
with beforehand.
We will suppose that, by almost a miracle, they had all
had the good luck to pass the precipices in safety—onward
they come, leaping fences and hedges, and clearing ditches;
but seeſ one of the foremost fails to clear both fence and
ditch at the single leap, and comes down in the ditch, and,
in an instant, two or three others, which were close behind,
are down upon them, crushing horses and riders to death,
while the more fortunate are far away.
*
s
.
*
º
;



STEEPLE-CHASE. 213
Perched upon the most prominent look-out, upon the
neighboring heights, are to be seen the nobility and gentry,
enjoying the sport, while at a respectful distance the accli-
vities swarm with human beings of the plebeian stamp, who,
as a humble offering to their superiors, as well as from their
native impulses, rend the heavens with their shouts.
The horses which survive, come out dripping with gore,
the spurs of their riders having been buried in their sides to
urge them to their desperate leaps; and the poor creatures,
if they survive the ordeal, are often rendered unfit for further
service; and not unfrequently horses valued at thousands of
pounds are killed with their riders.
Can any thing be more savage and demoralizing? Is not
this a refinement of barbarism, at which American sensibility
would revolt? Even with the most fortunate result the case
admits of, which is, that all have escaped with their lives,
what less can be said of it?
And thus it is that the whole kingdom is subjected to
the most demoralizing influences to make sport for these
men. Shame! shame upon a country professing civiliza-
tion, of which such things can be said | Shame upon its
profligate rulers, and shame upon its obsequious masses
And here I had thought to stop; but now that the mat-
ter is in hand, I will add a scene which I witnessed in the
Highlands of Scotland, consisting of the Highland Games,
which are celebrated annually at the seat of the Duke of
Athol, for the special entertainment of himself and the gen-
try around. These Highlanders claim to be the descendants
of the ancient Fingalian race, of which Ossian was the last.
214 THE MUD CABIN.
On my way, I passed through those wildly romantic
scenes, from which Ossian is said to have drawn his inspira-
tions, and where his departed heroes flitted from mountain
top to mountain top, wrapped in the mists of the morning;
and mists there were at the time I passed, wreathed in grace-
ful folds around the brows of the mountains, and lit up into
a glow by the bright beams of the morning sun. Beautiful
drapery, thought I, to fold around a departed spirit! And
then the hills and mountains were thrown up in such glori-
ous confusion, and all covered over with that most graceful
of all the trees of the forest, the mountain larch—what could
they more ?
Onward we drove, through mountain gorge after moun-
tain gorge, along the Tay, the Tummel, the Garry, and
Bruar, which came gurgling down their rocky beds; passing
the battle-field of Killikrankie, where King William, of
England, was overwhelmed by the Highland clans, which
came pouring down the mountain side, and also the rock on
which stood the castle of Macbeth.
And now we are at Blair Athol, and upon the play-
ground, a level area surrounded by mountains, of every gro-
tesque form, alternating and contrasting with magical effect,
while a little way distant, the wild, dashing waters of the
Bruar come tumbling down their precipitous bed; “the
Falls of the Bruar” constituting one of the attractions of the
Highlands.
The steep hill-side, back of the plain, matted with grass,
served as a gallery, which swarmed with human beings, who
looked as though they would come down in an avalanche.
HIGHLAND GAMEs. 215
Twenty-one salutes with cannon were fired, to begin with,
which echoed and reverberated among the hills and moun-
tains, like distant thunder, for a long, long time, and finally
died away in the distance. It was the romance of sound
running wild, and galloping about among the hills, and was
entrancing to the soul.
But, hark! the blast of the bag-pipe, the natural-born
music of these wilds, announces the approach of the cavaliers,
a band of picked men, with the Duke at their head, uni-
formed in the highest style of Highland military costume,
which is in harmony with the wildness of their own
mountains.
Silver buckles graced their shoes, diamond-plaided stock-
ings, of brilliant colors, covered the calves of their legs, no
pants, nor breeches even, and nothing but a skirt instead,
and that so short as to leave six or eight inches, embracing
the knee, entirely bare. This skirt was overlaid in front
with a small apron of long horse-hair, over which hung
silken knobs, or tassels, of a color to contrast with the hair.
A blue broad-cloth coatee, ornamented with military buttons,
was buttoned up to the chin, and over this was a sash, or
long plaid shawl, which was passed at the middle, under the
right arm, and the fringed ends thrown in opposite directions,
over the left shoulder, hanging gracefully down three or four
feet before and behind, and floating in the breeze. Upon
their heads were low cloth caps, ornamented with evergreens,
instead of feathers, and in one hand was held a rotund
brazen shield, about eighteen inches in diameter, and a mus-
ket in the other, with swords by their sides—all fine looking
IIléIl.
216 THE MUD CABIN.
And now, all things ready, the games commence, and
these stalwart sons of Fingal display prodigies of strength.
First came “the pudding-stone” game, which consists in
throwing with one hand a stone weighing twenty-two pounds,
and the one brawny arm propelled it 22 to 24 feet.
Throwing the hammer came next, which missile consisted
of a cannon-ball, weighing sixteen pounds, with a hole drilled
through it and a handle inserted, by which it was thrown to
a distance of about 90 feet. -
Next came the extraordinary feat of “turning the cabar.”
The cabar consists of a pole, fifteen or twenty feet long, some
five or six inches through at the base, and tapering gradually
to the other end, where it was two or three inches through.
By the strength of three men, this pole was raised to a per-
pendicular, with the big end upward, and the little end
resting upon the ground. The operator bends over, puts one
shoulder against the pole, and, with both hands under it, raises
it alone, balances it, and allowing it to incline a little for-
ward, runs with it thus balanced a rod or two, and then,
with almost superhuman effort, gives it such a toss, that, as
the big end touches the earth, the little end reaches a per-
pendicular, and falls over in a direction opposite from the
performer.
The jumping, which came next, evinced great muscular
power. And then followed the sword dance, which was per-
formed by a single person, and consisted in “tripping the light
fantastic toe” around and over two swords, which lay across
each other, bounding from one side to the other, and touch-
ing them with the toe at various points, which was done
with much agility.
HIGHLAND GAMES. 217
And finally, the performances terminated with the foot-
race, in which seven engaged. The distance ran was one mile
and forty rods, which was passed over in four minutes and
fifty seconds, making about fourteen miles and a half to the
hour, a fast trotting horse being put to the top of his speed
to keep up with them.
The prizes were awarded, and the company dispersed, a
part of them to their mountain glens, and a part of them to
repair, I was told, to scenes of carousal and debauch, with
which these occasions are always followed.
Hitherto, all has been romance, fun, and enjoyment.
The darker shades of the picture are yet to be brought out.
I was credibly informed, that seldom an occasion of the
kind transpired without some of the performers being
destroyed by the rupture of blood-vessels. And how could
it well be otherwise? It would seem to be almost a miracle,
if they escaped. And yet, knowing these consequences to
be inevitable, the Duke and the minor landlords around
him keep up these games for their own special amusement
from year to year, and thus they have come down from
remote antiquity. These landlords subscribe liberally to
raise money to be distributed to the victors, and make the
necessary preparations; and on special occasions, the Duke
takes his Highlanders to London, and other parts of the
kingdom, where they perform for the entertainment of “my
lords and gentlemen.”
But this is not all, the poor peasantry were not there.
Whether they had not the means to get there, or whether
their presence would have “derogated from the respectability
10
218 THE MUD CABIN.
of the occasion,” I do not know. But “here hangs a tale,”
which must be told, though it spoil all the romance of the
Highlands. The condition of the peasantry here, is even
more precarious and wretched than in other parts of the
island, and, secluded as they are, but little is ever heard or
known of their sufferings. Not a case of perishing by hunger
can occur in Ireland, but it is soon trumpeted upon our side
of the Atlantic; but multitudes perish in these Highlands in
every season of scarcity, shut out as they are from ready
sources of relief, and no tidings of the event ever reaches our
shores. A spirited article lately appeared in the London
Daily News, depicting, in doleful colors, these periodical and
frequently recurring scenes of starvation and death, and
calling aloud for some remedy for the evil. And from the
opportunities I have had of seeing for myself, I am satisfied
it was no exaggerated account of the matter.
And thus, while one man here can luxuriate in posses-
sions so extensive, that he has three or four magnificent and
richly ornamented parks, twenty or thirty miles asunder, and
can expend immense treasures upon his extravagances, the
poor laborers, from whose toil all his income arises, sink in
death, for lack of bread to satisfy their hunger.
I have said nothing of cock-fights; nothing of the an-
nual migration to the moors of the North in summer, and to
the sunny South in winter; nothing of levees, feasting, gam-
bling, and nameless other things to which idlers are neces-
sarily subject.
And then, think of the millions upon millions of money
which are drawn into this vortex—drawn from the homest
PROFI,IGACY AND BANKRUPTCY. 219
earnings of the poor laboring man, who is turned away pen-
miless to suffer and die; and think too of the streams of
moral pollution which must necessarily flow down and dif.
fuse themselves abroad among the masses.
Nor is this all; with all the vast sums they receive, by
means of these extravagances their expenditures, in most
cases, far transcend their incomes, and most of them have
become deeply involved in debt, and they are put to the
greatest straits to get along. I am credibly informed, that
they often go in debt to tailors and other tradesmen in Lon-
don, and pay a hundred per cent. above the market price to
be waited on a term of years; and honest people complain,
that advantage is taken of this by tradesmen to charge
prompt pay customers from twenty-five to fifty per cent.
more for it.
Their estates they cannot alienate, as they have only a
life interest in them; but that life interest they often mort-
gage, and if they chance to die soon after, the mortgagee
loses every thing, as the successor takes immediate posses-
sion. And if they continue to live on, they themselves often
lose every thing, and are turned out of their possessions,
and then, with the odds and ends they pick up, they embark
for the continent, where they can live pretty much at their
ease for a fourth part of what it costs them to keep up the
style considered essential to their rank in England, without
which, they lose all consideration with the people. De-
bauched and broken down noblemen, who have not the
means of living in England, are to be met with in every part
of the continent, and they contrive to pass current with the
continentals, who have nothing to compare with them.
220 THE MUD CABIN.
Extravagance and debauchery, then, seem to be doing
their work upon the oppressor himself, as well as upon his
victim; and who knows but this is one of the ways in which
the evil is to be cured ? *
And what will the country do? What will become of it,
should this, its right arm, rot off at the shoulder-blade? Al-
ready the alarm has been sounded in the public journals, that
the nobility are in danger of being blotted out, by reason of
families becoming extinct. With wakeful solicitude, public
attention has been called to the fact, that thirty peerages are
now extinct from this cause, and that fifty more will be when
the present incumbents are dead.
But the beauty of it is, that what is thus deprecated as
a calamity, is the hope of England; and never, till this incu-
bus has been removed, will her prostrate masses rise up from
their degradation. There are other causes which are co-ope-
rating to the same end, of which I shall speak in another
place, and which bid fair to put a new aspect upon the af.
fairs of this island.
* A
CHAPTER XXVI.
How PLEBEIANS ARE “BROUGHT ouT,” AND what For. our
OWN INSTITUTIONS AN ANOMALY.
TWELVE miles up the Thames from London is that delightful
place of resort, Richmond Park, consisting of an area of
more than two thousand acres, upon an elevated platform
which overlooks the romantic valley of the Thames.
There stood the tyrant Henry the Eighth, watching for
the signal-rocket which was to be sent up as the axe fell upon
the neck of Anne Boleyn, his repudiated queen.
But chopping off heads has given place to other appli-
ances more in accordance with the spirit of the times, though
not less effectual in accomplishing the great ends of govern-
ment here. The people of England are now ruled, not ex-
aetly as a ship is kept a-going after the sails have been taken
down, nor exactly as a certain animal is decoyed to the
slaughter by a few kernels of corn, after all attempts to drive
him with clubs and stones have proved unavailing—and yet
something after that sort.
Formerly, as now, the strength of the government lay in
those mysterious influences illustrated in a preceding chap-
ter. There is still a lingering veneration for ancient forms
222 THE MUD CABIN.
and ceremonies, rank and title, which, though it would be
weak as tow in enforcing the edicts of the eighth Henry
now, nevertheless is as omnipotent as ever, with the new
adaptations to which it has been adjusted. The people seem
to be, for the most part, as willing as ever to go staggering
along under the burdens of government, only the latter must
appeal a little more to the principle of idolatry, and a little
less to that of fear, and tickle them occasionally with some
trifling concession.
And as a piece of mechanism adapted to the weaknesses
of humanity, this government stands a proud monument to
human genius and human forecast. The character of the
people is so formed under the various influences of which I
have spoken, that they meekly bow their necks to the yoke
prepared for them. A large proportion of them appear never
to have dreamed that they were born for any higher end than
to live for “their superiors.” Each class has a little world of its
own, all to itself, it is true, and each individual of it can figure
there, after some sort; but he is so cramped, and burdened,
and hedged in, that it is of little use for him to try to be
any thing else than what he is. If ever one rises from the
rank in which he was born, it is from a pure act of grace.
In illustration of this, take the following conversation which
I had with a gentleman at the above-named park the other
day.
As I was emerging from the green-house of “The Kew
Gardens,” (a mile and a half distant from the park) with
two friends, the structure itself, which was of iron and glass,
attracted attention. One question after another led to the
PLE BEIANS BROUGHT OUT. 223
disclosure of the fact by the person I was conversing with,
that Paxton, the projector of the Crystal Palace, is head
gardener to the Duke of Devonshire.
Ah, then, said I, the Duke of Devonshire's gardener is a
bigger man than himself, is he? “Why, no,” said the man,
(looking up amazed that such a thing should be hinted.)
and added, “how do you make that out 2 Paxton,” he con-
tinued, “could never have been any thing at all if the duke
had not brought him out.”
And how did he bring him out? said I. “Well, Paxton,”
he said, “told him the plan he had thought of, which was
little more than to apply the principle upon which he had
constructed a glass house for the duke himself, and the
latter encouraged him to go and throw it in.”
Well, well, thought I, how is this? “Paxton could never
have been any thing if the duke had not brought him out !”
These words kept haunting me all day, and when I returned
to my lodgings, I repeated them to a number of gentlemen,
and asked them how it was that so much credit was to be
given to the Duke of Devonshire as fairly to eclipse poor
Paxton ? and they all appeared to understand the matter
just as the gentleman above alluded to did, and seemed
surprised that I could not see how it was. “No man,” they
said, “could come into notice without being brought out.”
They even instanced Sir Robert Peel, and said, “that with
all his immense wealth, he never could have risen if he had
not first bowed to and served the great ones of the land, and
been lifted by them into power—though he afterwards
took the notion to set up for independence.
*
224 THE MUD CABIN.
So, then, said I, none of you can be any thing unless
some great one puts his little finger under you, and lifts you
up? “No,” said one of them, in great simplicity; “how can
we?” He then inquired, in all gravity, how people got
brought out in my country. Brought out ! said I; they
bring themselves out ! / This seemed to be a new idea to
them, and they wondered how it could be.
This brought to mind those sycophantic dedications of
books to some great lord, which I used to read with disgust
when a child.
This conversation I have detailed solely in illustration of
the mechanism of society here, and the illustration is equally
forcible whether the facts in the case mentioned are authentic
or otherwise. I have, however, no reason to doubt their
authenticity.
And it shows truthfully how passive the lower orders are
under the influences which fall upon them from above—how
they are led along by those influences, and kept down or
elevated by them at pleasure.
Those are exceedingly gentle influences, and yet how
omnipotent in the skilful hand 1 They create and they
destroy; they give omnipotence to caste, and yet, when
occasion requires that certain plebeians should be brought
out and brought up, they destroy that very omnipotence to
make way for them ; and what is wonderful, it remains in
full force after all, as though no breach had been made.
Those who are so fortunate as to be brought out, regard
themselves as having been created anew, and rise to the en-
joyment of their new life with hearts full of devotion to their
creators; and that is what it is for, their services are wanted.
WHY PLEBEIANS ARE BROUGHT OUT. 225
Peel was an illustrious exception. After having been brought
out himself, he did what he could to bring out his fellow-
plebeians, by delivering them from all the burdens which he
had strength to remove, regardless alike of the favor and the
frowns of the mighty ones who had lifted him up; for he
became mightier than all of them put together. But one
such man is enough for an age. .
Occasionally there comes up one from the common
ranks under these patronizing influences, upon whose head,
as a reward for his fidelity to his masters, titles are shed
down; and such sometimes find their way even into the
peerage; and to them I have often been proudly pointed as
an evidence that British institutions, after all, are not so
very depressing in their influences upon the people.
The following considerations will enable us duly to ap-
preciate this matter. In the first place, as I have shown,
those who thus rise are necessarily the creatures of the digni-
taries by whose “gracious” assistance they have crawled up,
and to whose interests they are regarded as forever chained.
In the next place, it is to be considered that the titled
ranks above are constantly being thinned by the extinction
of families, as I have shown. This extinction of families re-
sults, undoubtedly, from the general profligacy of the higher
orders; but the vacancies thus made must be filled up, or the
whole system of government will come to an end. And
whence but from the orders below can the material for this
purpose be drawn 2 And how admirably fitted to chime in
with such a system of things, and to shine as gems in it, are
those who have thus been “brought out !”
10%
226 THE MUD CABIN.
Almost all the talent in the House of Lords is confined
to those who have been “brought out,” and lifted up, or
to their immediate descendants. And thus while the number
in it is kept good, it is preserved from absolute contempt for
its imbecility. - w
There are none among the English aristocracy so tyran-
nical and oppressive, none so exclusive, none who have so
much iron in their backs, and are so unapproachable, and
none who set themselves so resolutely against every move-
ment of reform, as this very class. When the proposition
was made for abolishing in part the general hanging system,
who were among the stoutest defenders of this more than
barbarous outrage upon humanity and common sense?
They were such men as Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor
and Lord Chief Justice of England, who had himself been
“brought out” and made what he was by the process I have
described. And who were so bitter in their opposition to
“the Rotten-borough Act,” and to the repeal of the corn-
laws, as those who had themselves been thus brought out,
and created anew. }
And the fact, that such is the effect upon poor English
human nature, shows conclusively the rarity of the thing.
So wonderful a thing is it for the common people to rise to
conspicuous stations here, that when they are lifted to such
positions, and crowned with titles, which they have regarded
from their infancy up, as reserved for “a superior order of
beings,” the effect is precisely what, under the same circum-
stances, may be predicated of our common humanity—they
are spoiled. -
ARGUMENT FOR, ROYALTY AND NOBILITY. 227
But, as I said, the effect proves that the thing is rare;
and why is it that no such effect follows from the elevation
of our own people to high and honorable positions ? I say
no such effect; sudden elevations, it is true, sometimes make
people a little giddy in our country, but they are soon
laughed out of it, so that no evil results to our people.
So entirely accessible to every class in our country are
the most honorable positions in society, so broad is the way
that leads to them, and so constantly is it thronged by those
who are pressing their way up from below, that the very com-
monness of the thing operates as an antidote to the evil
which would otherwise result.
And this is one of the arguments for hereditary royalty
and a hereditary aristocracy here, that those who are born
to such stations are not near as apt to run into the extremes
of a rigorous despotism, as those who have had their brains
turned by being elevated from the masses.
And this is the very thing which gives stability to our
republic, that our people are born to the high prerogatives
of sovereigns, that they are educated with a special view to
their responsibilities as such, and that they grow up in the
full expectation that they will hold the reins of government,
either personally or by proxy—a thought which required a
new world to give it birth, and afford scope for its exempli-
fication. -
Nothing more forcibly shows the power of the influence
I am speaking of, upon all the orders below, than the effect it
has had upon most of the reformers, who, from time to time,
have lifted up their voices against the abuses of the government,
228 THE MUD CABIN.
and in behalf of the rights of the people. With few excep-
tions, those voices have been silenced by bribes, in the form
of place or an empty title. It was but lately announced in
the government organ, that a new batch of Baronets was
about to be created, and that among them were to be includ-
ed “several leading liberals who had supported important
measures of government”—rather barefaced, I should think.
To be able to appreciate the power of appliances like
these, and the moral strength necessary to resist them, one
must come here and witness the idolatrous regard of this
people for such things, and the almost unearthly conse-
quence thus bestowed upon the favored ones in their eyes.
The heaven which Mohammed offered his followers was
not half so tempting, for it was hid from mortal vision;
but this hangs out its clustering sweets in full view; and true
as the needle to the pole, must be the man to his princi-
ples, who can resist the temptation.
Suppose a reformer appears in parliament, and lifts up
his voice against the abuses of the government; limited and
feeble is the appreciation he gets from the people, so sub-
missive and spiritless have most of them become under
their burdens; and he has no common interest in their ele-
vation, nor have they any rewards to give, while, on the
other hand, that most tempting of all earthly delights, viz.,
“to wriggle as a joint in the tail of the aristocracy,” thrusts
its enchantments upon him, and he yields to the spell.
Is it not manifest then, that this government is a prodigy
of wisdom and skill, as a piece of mechanism adapted to the
weaknesses of humanity, appealing in the one case to the
OUR INSTITUTIONS AN AN OMALY. 229
idolatrous regard of the multitude, and in the other, casting
its meshes around the man who should attempt to break
the spell that holds them?
When we pause and reflect, that such substantially
had been the character of every government, whether nomi-
mally republican or monarchical, which had ever existed on
the globe previously to the establishment of our own, how
almost like a miracle does it seem, that our forefathers should
have been preserved from the same fatal error? What a
wonderful elevation of character above the common weak-
nesses, and I may add, obliquities of humanity, do they
present? -
How little do our people, generally, appreciate their own
institutions? Little do they know how highly they are fa-
vored over the people of every other country under heaven!
It is not that the scattered rays from all the centuries of the
past, had converged to illuminate our ancestors, and guide
them to the great result; it is not that they had gathered a
fragment here, and a fragment there, from the ruins of by-
gone ages, or copied from the modern governments of the
earth the features most unexceptionable in each, after which
to form a model to work by, and in accordance with which
our government arose in all its majesty, beauty, and propor-
tion. No; there was nothing in all the centuries of the past
to be culled, no ray of light from its darkness, save from the
rocks on which all pre-existing governments had split; and,
thanks be to Heaven, the modern tyrannies of earth were
not asked for their contributions.
There seems something almost supernatural and divine
230 THE MUD CABIN.
in the origination of such a government as this, at such an
era of the world, springing into existence as it did, not the
slow growth of centuries, but the work of yesterday, standing
forth in all its perfection at once, and in glorious contrariety to
any thing the world had ever seen before. Was it not won-
derful? And does it not exhibit traces of a higher wisdom,
and a higher purpose than man's?
And how do our thoughts revert to the little company in
a frail bark, weighing anchor, and taking their departure
from these shores; committing themselves, “at an inclement
season of the year,” to the protection of Him “who holds the
winds in His fist,” and directing their course, amid danger,
to an inhospitable land ' What if they had been lost? What
if they had been foundered upon the banks? What if they
had been dashed upon breakers, or gone to the bottom in a
storm 3 O, what if they had : Then such a wonder as our
government presents—such a spectacle as that of a free and
happy people, sitting under its shadow, secure from the gall-
ing burdens of the oppressor, might never have arisen upon
the race, and darkness, tyranny and oppression, have still
borne sway over all the earth.
Thanks to that providence which guided the little band in
safety to our shores; precious was the burden with which the
honored little craft arrived at Plymouth rock. What seeds
were planted by them in the virgin soil of the new world;
and what a harvest has sprung up! And where did they
get them to plant? In what country In no country on
the globe, for in none had such fruits ever been borne.
OUR INSTITUTIONS AN ANOMALY. 231
Where then did they come from ? Fruitless question 1
Depth without a bottoml Mystery without a key !”
Struck into existence, almost as the earth rolled from the
forming hand of the Creator, our government stands a great
anomaly, a beacon light to the oppressed of all nations, and
a terror to the tyrants of the earth.
*England's great historian, Hume, has these remarkable words:
“The precious sparks of liberty had been kindled and preserved
by the Puritans alone; to this sect, whose principles were so frivo-
lous, and habits so ridiculous, the English owe the whole freedom
of their constitution.”
To that same sect, so “frivolous in principle, and ridiculous in
habit,” to whom England is thus acknowledged to be indebted for
the semblance of liberty she enjoys, we are indebted for the reality.
But this does not unlock the mystery.
:
;
s
CHAPTER XXVII.
INDICATIONS OF CHANGE — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS
GOVERNMENT AND THE contin.ENTAL GOVERNMENTS-
DIFFERENCE IN THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
As I said, chopping off heads has given place to other appli-
ances, more in accordance with the spirit of the times, and
this shows that there has been progress.
A committee of the House of Commons, recently put the
following question to the distinguished political economist,
John Stuart Mill, viz.: “Do you think there is any thing in
the present tone and temper of the working classes, which
would make it now desirable to give attention to this sub-
ject?”
To which Mr. Mill replies, “I think there is at this
moment, more than ever before, and there is likely to be
more and more a feeling, on their part, against all the
inequalities which exist in society. There is a growing feel-
ing of that kind, and the only way to mitigate it, is to
remove all the inequalities that can be removed, without
creating preponderating disadvantages.”
And more than this, an intelligent commoner remarked
to me the other day, that it was his opinion, and that of
many others, that Queen Victoria was the last sovereign
NEW APPLIANCES. 233
England would ever have, adding, that she belonged to a
long-lived family, which would probably put off the new era
for some time, but that the way would be fully prepared in
the mean time. -
I am convinced, however, that these sentiments are con-
fined to comparatively few, and that, although there is pro-
gress, it is too slow to authorize any such expectation as that,
and besides, it is a kind of progress which does not, to any
great extent, impair the reverence of the masses for titled
show—and that it is, which has always kept them in
bondage. -
Formerly, this titled show accomplished its objects, as I
have said, in part by terror; but now, almost entirely by
blandishments. Were the nobility here to stiffen themselves
up in defiance, as formerly, it would set the whole kingdom
in a blaze, and the government would be revolutionized at
once. This they know very well, and hence they have set
themselves to a new game, and they have learned to play it
to perfection. They make it a point to study the character
and temper of the people, and take care not to let their
restiveness under their burdens, and their fear of starvation,
get the better of their veneration for, and their love of show
in their “superiors.” And they know too, that very small
favors, “graciously” bestowed, suffice to reconcile the people
to very grievous burdens which remain untouched; and that
such is their hold upon their superstitious regards, that when
they have galled and chafed them to desperation by their
oppressions, they have only to hold up a little, or shift the
burden from one shoulder to the other, to quiet all uneasiness,
234 THE MUD CABIN.
conciliate all ill feeling, heal all differences, and restore all
harmonies. -
And they are constantly watching the indications of
feeling in the masses below, with a view to adapt themselves
to coming emergencies, by concessions in advance—conces-
sions, it may be, of so trifling a character, as not to deserve
the name of relief, but, nevertheless, showing such a vast
amount of “gracious condescension,” as to be remembered
for half a century as an act of most paternal regard.
It is after this fashion, and at this pace, that revolution
is going on here at present. It is by letting out the cable,
inch by inch, that the ship of state is held to its anchorage,
and there is cordage enough yet to spare, to put off the final
catastrophe, “at the end of the rope,” a long time to come.
But after how different a fashion do they do things
across the channel, where they can set “the revolutionary
cauldron” to boiling any time in ten minutes, and they do
not ask more than half an hour to kick the government out
of doors. .
There, little regard is had to the temper of the people,
and no concessions are made to conciliate them. The
clamor of the multitude, on the one hand, only begets stern
resistance on the other, and the consequence is, violent out-
breaks, bloodshed, scampering of kings, and revolution, which
generally maintains its position only till the next flow of the
tide.
The reason of this difference is to be found in the fact I
have already mentioned, that no country in Europe can boast
of such a powerful aristocracy as England. Upon the con-
DIFFERENCE OF GOVERNMENTS. 235
tinent, the aristocracy are, for the most part, shorn of all
political power, their titles being little more than an empty
name; and besides, they are generally in moderate circum-
stances, and can make but little figure in the way of parade
and show. I have often heard Englishmen speak of them
with contempt, as compared with their own powerful
nobility. The consequence is, that there is no such stupid
veneration among the masses for the higher orders upon the
continent, as is to be found in England, nor is it to them
that they look for relief from their burdens. There, the
contest is with the reigning dynasty, which regards every
concession as a step towards its downfall, and guards its pre-
rogatives with an ever-wakeful eye.
But that the agricultural laborers upon the Continent are
many pegs above the corresponding class in England, is suf-
ficiently manifest from the general prevalence of socialism
among them—which, though it savors of wildness and extrav.
agance, such as flits upon indistinct vision, nevertheless,
shows wakefulness and spirit, which you may look for in
vain among the stupid beings of the same class here—the
instance of it I mentioned, being the only one I have heard
of in the kingdom.
This then is the difference, that upon the Continent,
there is more wakefulness and spirit among the people, but a
sterner resistance, and that resistance from the great central
power; while here, there is less wakefulness, and very little
resistance, and that little from the paltry chiefs, whose ances-
tors were inaugurated into their places by William the Con-
queror, and who have borrowed the magic spell with which
236 THE MUD CABIN.
they hold this people to their fealty, from the dark ages of
history. Superadded to it, however, is the appliance of
which I am speaking, which is only a new adaptation.
I am not going to contend, that the continental nations
are in advance of England, but I beg leave to suggest some
considerations, which should go far to modify the views of
some of our people. y
All will agree, that the breaking up of the paltry feudal
dynasties, which converted all Europe into one vast scene of
petty strife, robbery and blood, in the dark ages, and their
consolidation into the large kingdoms which arose upon their
ruins was a great step in the earth's progress,
But while in the more enlightened continental nations
scarcely a vestige of the feudal despotism was left, in Eng-
land it remains under a modified form, but in all its power
to this day. What are its modifications, and new adapta-
tions, and how fatally the same are its effects upon the
masses, I have already shown.
It is true that England has a constitution, and that scenes
of feudal carnage and blood have ceased. But that consti-
tution is such as I have described, altogether feudal in its
character; and those scenes of carnage and blood have been
followed by an inertnesss among the masses, which prepares
them to submit, if possible, still more tamely to the oppres-
sions which are heaped upon them. -
But does not every Englishman enjoy the protection of
law, the privilege of habeas corpus, and of trial by jury {
Yes; but what signifies the protection of law to the man
who has nothing and can get nothing to protect –or the
THE CITADEL OF ENGLISH LIBERTY. 237
habeas corpus act to him who fares better in prison than as
“a free-born Englishman” out of it? or the privilege of trial
by jury, when transportation at the government charge is a
desirable event to him # *
These questions involve no figments of the imagination
—would to Heaven they did, and that the scenes which have
come under my own observation, and out of which they have
arisen, had no existence. Would that I could forget them
all, and that, seeing nothing but justice, equal rights, com-
fort and enjoyment here, I could report the joyful tidings to
my countrymen. But fidelity to truth, to conscience, to hu-
manity, and to God, forbids.
To what then does the boasted triumph of the feudal
barons over old King John amount ? To what does the
famous Magna Charta, which was the fruit of that triumph,
and about which British historians have made such a flou-
rish, as the citadel of the rights of Englishmen, under which
the humblest and most down-trodden of them all may claim
the protection of law, the privilege of habeas corpus, and the
right of trial by jury—to what does it all amount, so far as
the masses are concerned, as a remedy for the evils which
are vital in the organic structure of the government, and
which press them into the earth now, as they did centuries
ago ?
* It is true, indeed, that Englishmen are exempt from liability to
those secret imprisonments which are sometimes resorted to by
some of the continental governments, which is certainly so far an
advantage. It is also true that the liberty of the press and of
speech is more fully enjoyed in England than in most countries
upon the Continent.
238 THE MUD CABIN,
That was a noble triumph, and might have been a proud
feather in England's cap, but for the fact, that it is an ad-
junct of a system which, as a whole, is so vicious that even
its salutary provisions are nearly powerless for good to the
great mass of the people. Little credit indeed is due to the
barons of England—O how little !—when it is considered,
that they have managed, even under the broad provisions of
Magna Charta, to keep the whole loaf to themselves, and
have left the people to the mere crumbs which fall from their
table !
Such are the conservators of this government; and, as I
have shown, they maintain their power as some wise women
do over their husbands, by only seeming to yield—idolatry
does the rest.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ol,AIM. To “SIMILARITY of INSTITUTIONs” PREMATURE.
I HAVE spoken of the regimental display of English farm-
laborers as constituting one of the chief wonders at the Crys-
tal Palace, at the time of the Great Exhibition here last year,
and have given an instance of it.
Another demonstration of the same kind transpired
which is deserving of notice. I had just been poring over
the cogitations of a London pamphleteer, who had taken it
in hand to set forth the things which he had seen and heard,
and which he verily believed; and foremost among them
loomed up the averment, that “the United States of Amer-
ica is a vigorous young England, with similar habits, cus-
toms, and institutions.”
Well, thought I, as I looked upon the regimental dis-
play before me, here is a poser to that. How to reconcile
this spectacle with the idea of similarity in the institutions
of the two countries, was a puzzler to me.
But as I love to have them tell their own story when
they will, instead of giving my own version of the matter, I
will cheerfully step aside and let the “Times” speak.
Says that Oracle, in giving an account of the demonstra-
240 THE MUD CABIN.
tion in question: “A most interesting spectacle was witness-
ed at the Grand Exhibition yesterday. Nearly eight hun-
dred laborers and country folks, from the neighborhood of
Godstone, Savoy, made their appearance at the Crystal Pal-
ace, in marching order, like a regiment of soldiers, under
their leader, the clergyman of the parish. The men paid
one shilling and sixpence towards the expenses of the trip,
the remainder being paid by the gentry in the neighbor-
hood. They were as perfect a specimen of rustic attire,
rustic manners, and rustic faces, as could be found in Eng
land, and bore the marks of a laborious life, little relieved by
intelligence and education. As they were about to leave, the
town folks gathered around them, and from curiosity, not un-
mingled with pity, asked them many questions;–how they
liked the Exhibition ? whether they wanted to come again :
and whether they had understood what they had seen 2°
Here are three distinct classes of persons introduced upon
the stage, separated as widely from each other socially, as
though they were inhabitants of different planets, and quite
as widely in condition, viz., “the town folks,” “the gentry,”
and “the farm laborers.” Let us see whether the institu-
tions of our country have produced any such parallel to
either, as to justify the above claim to similarity of institu-
tions. -
The first thing that strikes us, is the simplicity of “the
town folks,” and their ignorance of every thing outside their
own particular employments. Had these “country folks”
alighted upon Hyde Park from some other orb, they could
not have been objects of greater curiosity; for these Lon-
I, ACK OF GENERAL INFORMATION. 241
doners had not the slightest conception that such beings ex-
isted in the kingdom. The appearance of a company of
Ojibways, or Blackfoots, or Flat-heads even, in our cities,
would not draw forth such expressions of wonder from our
people. And where is the class of men in all our broad
country who would be gazed upon with the slightest feeling
of curiosity by any of our people?
And so it is; the shopkeepers and others in the towns,
too generally, just understand their own business, and nothing
else. I have often travelled from shop to shop in London
in vain, to get information upon subjects upon which every
school-boy in our country would be supposed to be familiar;
and they would fairly stare at me with surprise that I should
expect them to understand such things.
In his own particular sphere, each one is an adept, and
as perfect as he can be made, whether he be laborer, ser-
want, tradesman, mechanic, professional man, gentleman, or
statesman. At home in their own particular calling, they
can be taught nothing which is known in the kingdom.
But outside of that, as a general thing, the mind is a blank.
Exceptions there are in every department; but they are not
numerous enough to invalidate the general rule. And what
parallel to this can be found in our country, where every
man is supposed to be possessed of a stock of general infor-
mation ? Not that we have no dark minds on general sub-
jects; but with us these are the exceptions, and do not im-
pair the general fact. -
And what parallel can be found in our country to “the
gentry,” who so graciously paid the expenses of these poor
1 1
242 THE MUD CABIN.
creatures to the Exhibition? We have, it is true, a class
which bear some marks of resemblance to them. Do your
thoughts recur to the wealthy among us as furnishing the
parallel? No, no, they are not the ones—there is no paral-
lel here. A life of idleness and pleasure, and a contempt of
both toil and the toiler, are the great distinctive features of
the class. But our wealthiest men are generally our busiest,
and are the very first to put honor upon labor, both by pre-
cept and example. So entirely is labor in the ascendant
in our country, that if here and there one fancies himself
rich enough to withdraw from the field to enjoy himself in
retiracy, she places him under the ban, and he loses all con-
sideration in society; and generally he rushes back into busi-
ness again for relief, in part from the penalty thus imposed,
and in part to escape from his ennui. But how different
from all this is the case with these idlers. Labor / Why, it
is a stench in their nostrils; and besides, they could take no
readier way to forfeit the respect, and lose their hold upon
the reverence of the orders below, than to put their hands to
some useful employment.
And furthermore, it is essential to the parallel, that the
class in question should exert a depressing influence upon
all below; should erect impassable barriers to rising progress,
and keep down aspiring energy. But so far from this, the
entire influence of the wealthy among us, is to elevate rather
than depress, to nerve honest industry, and quicken its efforts
to rise, both by its example, and by the rewards it bestows.
Local exceptions there may be, and are; but, as a general
thing, the class of whom I am speaking, so divide the profits
CASTE IN THE TWO COUNTRIES. 243
of every enterprise, as to enable those in their employment
to rise to competence and comfort, and from that they often
mount to wealth and distinction.
I have sometimes been told by those who crawl at the
feet of their superiors here, that we have about the same dis-
tinctions in our own country, only there is not quite so much
formality about them; and I doubt not there are some of our
own people who would be inclined to sympathize with this
view of the subject; but if we have any such among us,
they have only to come here to get cured of all that.
That we have upstarts in our country, whose heads are
turned by a sudden flush of prosperity, is true enough; but
that has no bearing upon the case. Suppose they barricade
themselves to the utmost, and stiffen themselves as with a
crowbar in their backs, to what does it all amount? What
are all their defences around about but a spider's web, which
the first breath of adversity may blow away, and which is
constantly being brushed aside by those who are pushing
their way up from below % -
What resemblance is there in all this, to the castes here,
fortified and shielded against assault by the constitution of the
country—by the laws of entail and primogeniture? Why,
a man may forfeit character, and every thing he has power
to sacrifice, and sink himself in the brute, and not be able to
sacrifice the dignity of rank; and the defences of privilege
now, are the same they were centuries ago. So long then as
the British constitution stands, so long will British caste
maintain its power.
I have often said to them here, that we have no more
244 THE MUD CABIN.
distinctions in society among us, than are necessary to keep
up a wholesome spirit of emulation, and of progress. Tak-
ing the world as it is, and not as it should be, I hesitate not
to affirm, that, if there were no distinctions in society, we
should all sink to pretty nearly one common level of inactiv-
ity, with a strong proclivity to listlessness and vice, just as
certainly as though pressed down by the incubus of a super-
incumbent aristocracy; those who doubt it, have yet to take
their first lessons in human nature.
Again, it is essential to the parallel, that the order in ques-
tion should exert, not only a depressing, but a corrupting
influence, upon all below. I do not mean the corruption to
which the lower orders would naturally be prone, from list-
less inactivity; but that overwhelming tide which titled
idleness, and titled profligacy, pour down upon all below.
Who so unskilled in human nature, as not to know that idle-
ness is prone to profligacy and to mischief, as the sparks to fly
upwards; and when the idler is invested with the spell of
rank, and is reverenced as a demi-god, even in his profligacy,
who can set bounds to the mischief he is capable of perpe-
trating? As an instance, a “noble Lord” was recently pros-
ecuted by another “noble Lord,” for affixing his name to dis-
reputable letters, sent to ladies of distinction throughout the
kingdom, fifty of these letters having been deposited in the
post-office at a single time, as proved. But I am opening a
sluice here which I did not intend, and will shut the gate
where I am, for there would be no end to the deluge of pol-
lution to come through it. Suffice it to say, that our wealthy
men, as a general thing, have other matters to occupy their
attention.
SYSTEMATIC RUIN. 245
No, no, the wealthy among us are not the ones to furnish
the parallel to the labor despising gentry of this kingdom;
nor do I know that any parallel can be found. We have
but one order of men in our country who despise labor, and
live upon the sweat and toil of the million; I refer to the
gentry who are found at our hotels, and who have the reputa-
tion of “living by their wits.” But they are hardly numer-
ous enough to constitute a class, nor do they furnish points
of resemblauce enough to the strolling orders here, to consti-
tute a fair parallel.
But this much may be said, that idlers of all nations, of
whatever name, character, or standing, are a curse to their
country. They add nothing to the public resources, consum-
ing only what others produce, and that without rendering
an equivalent; they exert a corrupting influence upon all
around them, and are a burden alike to community, and to
themselves. All the industrial classes have their spheres of
usefulness, some greater, and some smaller; but all, like the
wheels of a machine, work in harmony, each being equally
necessary to the perfection of the whole. But in all this,
there is no place for the idler; and so far as he finds place, he
is only a clog, and throws every thing into confusion and
ruin; no, not always both confusion and ruin, for here they
have the ruin without the confusion; systematic ruin; ven-
erable ruin; ruin baptized in the name of the constitution of
the country, and hoary with age, by reason of their having
originally introduced this useless order of beings into the very
mechanism of the government.
What similarity then is there here in the institutions of
the two countries }
246 THE MUD CABIN.
And thanks be to that overruling Providence which
guided the pilgrim fathers to our shores, neither have we any
class in our country, which furnishes a parallel to the famous
regiment of eight hundred above spoken of Laboring men
of my country! what say you to these things? Is there any
parallel here? What would you think of having your expen-
ses paid for you to a Great Exhibition of the Works of Indus-
try of all Nations, there to appear in marching order, with lit-
tle bits of red ribbon upon your hats—for a show 2 And what
would you think to have “the town folks crowding around
you, and staring at you as a spectacle of curiosity; looking
upon you with feelings of “pity,” and asking you, “whether
Syou wanted to come again 3’” What say you to such catechiz-
ing as that—catechizing which a child eight years old in our
country would resent?
Is it not the pride, the glory, and the strength of our in-
stitutions, that they rest for support upon the working men
of our country, and especially upon our rural population;
who are a lifeguard around about them; while these people
are quite content to be relieved of all such burdens?
Tell me, then, where is the parallel to be found ! Does
not like produce like? And if there be likeness in the in-
stitutions of the two countries, would there not be likeness
in the fruits they bear, in the results they work out?
CHAPTER XXIX.
CONTRAST IN THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE TWO COUNTRIES.
“Ho! there is very little difference in the institutions of
the two countries; you have your President, and we our .
Queen; you a Senate, and we a House of Lords; you a
House of Representatives, and we a House of Commons,”
said an intelligent Englishman to me the other day; and
there are not wanting those in our own country who are
inclined to sympathize with this view of the subject.
How far this claim to similarity of institutions is founded
in truth, may be judged of, to some extent, from facts which
I have already given. It were quite sufficient, one would
think, to point to the opposite effects produced by the insti-
tutions of the two countries, to settle the question.
But let us draw near and examine the structure of this
government a little; let us explore the sources whence all
this misery flows, and see if we can find any thing in our
own government which corresponds to it.
And let us commence with the great ruling branch of
the government, the aristocratic, and what analogy do we
find here? Originally, a greater part of the lands in the
kingdom were parcelled out among a few military chiefs by
248 THE MUE) CABIN,
a victorious adventurer; those chiefs were made lords, and
erected into a branch of the government for the protection
of their own separate and independent interests thus ac-
quired—interests which rise up in monstrous antagonism to
the rights of the people. And what analogy is there in all
this to the American Senate? Have our senators any distinct
and independent interest of their own to assert and main-
tain : Nay, are they not ultimately as much the representa-
tives and servants of the people as the members of the lower
House?
Is it said, that while the House of Lords are thus ele-
vated into a branch of the government to look to their own
independent interests, they are also designed to subserve the
interests of the people, as a barrier to the encroachments of
the crown. And what advantage is it to the people, pray,
to be trampled into the dust by the lords, to save them from
being thus trampled down by the monarch?
And here I undertake to affirm, that a degraded peas
antry is as much a part of the constitution of the country,
and belong as much to the aristocratic branch of it, as that
branch does to the government itself, and is as necessary to
its existence; and that, notwithstanding all that is said about
their being “free-born Englishmen,” in the full enjoyment
of their rights, “under the broad shield of Magna Charta.”
“The Times,” in an able editorial, appealing to the lords
in behalf of the peasantry, tells them that the comfortable
subsistence of the latter is identified with their own interests,
and adds, “a lord without a peasantry is a contradiction in
terms.”
CONTRAST IN THE TWO GOVERNMENTS. 249
Again, in an equally able editorial, it says, “The British
government is based upon the supposition of three distinct
classes—an upper, wealthy, exclusive, and powerful; a lower,
numerous, ignorant, degraded, and manageable; and a
middle, struggling to detach itself from the latter, and attach
itself to the former.”
And never was more truth uttered in as many words.
And what is this but an open avowal that a degraded
peasantry is an essential element in the constitution of the
country? To what does it amount to tell us that there is no
law to keep them where they are, admitted as it is, and must
be, that, law or no law, they cannot rise from their degraded
condition without upsetting the constitution of the country,
and that so long as the British constitution stands, so long
they must remain where they are ?
There is nothing then but contrast here. Nor is the
House of Commons scarcely less a contrast to our House of
Representatives. The members of both Houses of Parlia-
ment are alike the great landholders and millionaires of the
kingdom.* The only difference between them is, that those
* Says Porter, (vol. 3, p. 30,) “Every member of the House of
Lords, with scarcely an exception, draws his revenue from land,
and an overwhelming majority of the House of Commons are
similarly circumstanced.”
Mr. McGregor, a prominent member of Parliament, from Glas-
gow, and author of the great statistical work on England and Amer-
ica, says, that, previous to the passage of the Reform Act in '82, the
oppressive measures of government had generally been carried by
the corruption of the House of Commons; but it is not easily seen
11 *
250 THE MUD CABIN.
of the upper House are titled as peers, and their seats are
hereditary, while those of the lower are not thus titled, and
they are elected once in seven years; but to be eligible, they
must have an annual income from landed estate of $3000,
and they are voted into their places only by the few who
have the required property qualification. Labor, with its
millions, has never yet had a representative in the British
Parliament; overgrown wealth alone has found place there,
while labor has been left alone in its want, voiceless in re-
spect to its own rights, a mere appendage to those whose
interests are represented and cared for.
how they needed any special corruption, since their interests and
those of the lords are, in a manner, identical.
Speaking of the representation in the Commons previous to the
Reform Act of '32, Mr. McG. says, “Sixty-five rotten boroughs
sent 130 members, to vote generally for the minister of the day,
which now, from their insignificance and former corruption, de-
servedly send none.” He adds, that “twenty-two which now
send two each, (including Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield,) were
unrepresented,” and that “Scotland was one great rotten borough,
entirely at the disposal of the ministers of the crown.”
But he does not tell us that from all this reform the mass of
the people have gained nothing. Far better is it to have rotten
borough members who will vote with “the minister of the day,”
than to have their places filled by those who are certain to array
themselves against all reform; for that “minister of the day”
may chance to be a Sir Robert Peel, while at the worst, he
could only be a scourge to wake up the sleeping masses, and bring
them out for reform.
Mr. McGregor says further, that there are still remaining sixty-
seven rotten boroughs represented, acknowledged to be such by
the Premier, Lord John Russell.
CONTRAST IN THE TWO GOVERNMENTS. 251
But did not the people have a House of Commons that
passed “the rotten borough act” of '32, by which a large
number of members elected, each by the influence of the
Minister, were thrown out, and a House of Commons that
repealed the Corn-laws? No more than they had a House
of Lords that did, for both alike stood out against those
measures to the last extremity, and both alike yielded only
because they must. It must sound strange in the ears of
our people, to be told, that both of those greatmeasures were
carried by a House of Commons, elected expressly to uphold
them. But such was the fact nevertheless, as I learn from
the best authority here. It was the clamor of the starving mil-
lions which carried those great measures through Parliament;
a clamor which came up into the ears of the two Houses
with such terrifying effect, that they dared not resist.
And what a spectacle is here ! What an anomaly in
legislation, to see those to whom the constitution of the
country allows no political existence, actually governing the
kingdom, that is, “by fits and starts,” or when goaded by
hunger, they “take the notion,” while the two Houses of
Parliament, for the time being, give up their hostility, and
enter upon the work of reform at their bidding, the one with
the same reluctance as the other.
The clamor being appeased by an acquiescence in all
that is asked, these political nullities settle back again into
their torpid state; and Parliament, true to its old instincts,
goes on with its work, characterized by the same hostility to
reform as before, and that in the one House as much as in
the other.
252 THE MUD CABIN.
“The rotten borough act,” although it swept out of Par-
liament a hundred and thirty members elected to the House
of Commons by small boroughs, under the influence of the
Minister, (some even from extinct boroughs), did little for the
cause of reform after all, for their places were supplied by
wealthy aristocrats, many of them of “the tucked up” order,
who are still further removed in sympathy from the people,
than the Lords themselves. And to this day, no inconsider-
able proportion of the House of Commons is composed of
“Lords by courtesy;” that is, the younger sons of Lords,
whose sympathies have no tendency downward among the
people, and the remainder are mostly landlords.
And to crown the climax, the House of Commons must
have a government leader, who is either the Prime Minis-
ter, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
And what analogy is there here? Nay, is there any
thing but contrast in our House of Representatives to all
this?
Another strange anomaly is presented in their basis of
representation, which was adjusted in some other age than
this, and remains unaltered; the consequence being, that
some large cities have either no representatives at all, or but
a single one in the House of Commons; while some little,
unimportant boroughs, of a few thousand inhabitants, have
two. These unrepresented, or but very partially represented
cities, are manufacturing towns, which have grown up, to a
great extent, within the present century; and I doubt not
that the reluctance to readjust the basis of representation, is
to be ascribed to the fact, that in these towns the spirit of re-
CONTRAST IN THE TWO GOVERNMENTS. 253
form is much more prevalent than in any other part of the
kingdom.
Where then is the parallel to be found? Is it between
the Monarch and our President? Here, too, there is only
contrast. What parallel is there between a plain man, with a
salary barely sufficient to support him, and little more than
advisory powers, (except the negative,) and that for the short
term of four years, and the monarch of this realm, born to the
sceptre, and surrounded with the “pomp and circumstance”
of royalty, having a salary to the amount of two millions
of dollars; clothed with power to call and prorogue Parlia-
ment at pleasure, to create a batch of peers sufficient to
carry any measure, and to dispense titles generally, which are
more potent than fleets and armies with this people, who bow
down in low worship to the spectres which are thus struck
into being at the pleasure of the Sovereign; in whom is also
vested the exclusive power of appointment to all offices of
trust, civil, judicial and military, without the concurrence of
Parliament; in whose name, as the proprietor of the king-
dom, all suits are prosecuted, and who is at the same time
the chief of all the courts of law, the judges being only his
substitutes; who, as generalissimo of army and navy, has
power to levy troops, equip fleets, build fortresses, &c., with-
out let or hindrance, the only check upon him being that of
withholding supplies, an expedient which cannot be resorted
to without endangering the very existence of the govern-
ment; and who is the head of the church, and appoints its
bishops and archbishops?
What analogy then is there in the fundamentals of the two
254 THE MUD CABIN.
governments? We have seen how heaven-wide asunder they
are in respect to the fruits they bear, the effects they produce
upon human character, and destiny; and we now see
how inevitably it must be so, from the fundamental differen-
ces in their very structure.
Wonderful is the influence of a government, for good or
for evil; it can create, and it can destroy character—devel-
ope it into fair and beautiful proportions, or dwarf it into a
mere burlesque of humanity; and when it does the latter,
fearful indeed is the account which stands over against it for
final adjudication. Sentence may not be speedily executed,
but those laws by which nations rise and fall, will not always
sleep.
CHAPTER XXX.
ELECTION SCENES IN ENGLAND, A STILL FURTHER INDEx To
THE CHARACTER OF THE GOVERNMENT.
I HAVE passed through an election scene in England, and
such a scene! Had the broils and outrages which attended
it, characterized an election in our country, the death knell
of the republic would have been sounded throughout Europe.
Indeed, a London daily had the ingenuousness to say, that
“all the disturbances which had attended the general elec-
tions of the United States, from the foundation of the govern-
ment, were not equal to those which had often characterized
a single election scene in England.”
I used to think we had disgraceful scenes enough at our
elections in all conscience, but they have dwindled into little
improprieties, since I have witnessed the election outrages
here. -
I have spoken of the monstrous impropriety of filling up
the House of Commons with lords “by courtesy,” and of
the two reasons assigned by a distinguished statesman here
for it. Another reason still, I find, is money. I learn, on
good authority, that one of this class of candidates expended
£97,000, or $485,000, almost half a million, to secure a
256 THE MUD CABIN.
seat in the House of Commons. Do you ask how it was
possible? In the first place, all the public-houses, spirit and
ale-houses of the district, thousands perhaps in number, are
chartered for the occasion, their doors thrown open, and the
foaming bumpers freely distributed. The extent of this
enormity may be judged of from a remark of the Times,
that it mattered little whether the property qualification act
in reference to the candidate were abolished or not, as the
first question asked, invariably was, “will he bleed 3” That
is the great secret, the one that will bleed most, stands the
best chance of success, and in order to that a man must be
possessed of an enormous income. And thus it is, that the
few who are entitled to a vote, under the enchantments of
the flowing bowl, fill up what passes under the false cog-
nomen of a House of Commons, with wealthy aristocrats,
whose first and great business it is look to their own
Interests, and trample down the rights of the people.
There are various other ways in which money is spent
upon these occasions, as employing a small army of speakers
and agents to traverse the district in every direction, buying
up votes, &c., &c. Charges of bribery and corruption are
bandied in the newspapers, implicating the highest digni-
taries in the land, and what is marvellous to me, to the
astonishment of nobody.”
* Since this was written, thirty of the newly elected members
of Parliament, it is stated, have been unseated, mostly for bribery,
which was proved to have been of the most flagrant character,
implicating both parties, and persons of the highest standing. In
addition to these, there are stated to be a great number of other
ELECTION BROILS, 257
I will give one or two instances of the rough-and-tumble
scenes in which the canvassing candidates play their part.
Sir James Graham, one of the most distinguished political
characters in the kingdom, presented himself to make a
speech as a candidate, before an assembled multitude in Cum-
berland, but was interrupted at the very outset, by a lawyer
who stood directly before him, and who bawled out, “Knock
that man down (referring to Sir James), knock him down,
he shall not say such things here.”
Major Beresford, a sprig of nobility, I believe, rose to
address a mixed multitude as a candidate, when, upon hear-
ing some expressions of dissatisfaction in the crowd, he drew
himself up, and looking down upon them with ineffable scorn,
exclaimed, “You are the vilest rabble I ever saw /* And
yet, after all, such was the spell which radiated from his
title and rank upon the servile multitude, that they actually
cowed under it.
These are but gentler specimens. Time would fail me
to enumerate all the scenes of uproar, of bullying, violence,
and blood (to say nothing of the wholesale slaughter in
Ireland), which disgraced this single election, in a country
which boasts of its free institutions as the model of our own.
There are two causes which operate to aggravate these
evils. First, the unfrequency of the elections operates largely
in this direction, the elections being Seven years asunder. It is
partly upon the principle that the prize is valued in proportion
cases, which had to be passed over for want of definite testimony,
although there was no reasonable doubt, that they involved
similar corruption.
258 THE MUD CABIN.
to its rarity, and is striven for with corresponding desperation,
and partly from a disposition in the multitude to indemnify
themselves for so long an interval of political stagnation,
associated with the idea of the extraordinary uncommonness of
the occasion, that much of this turmoil is to be accounted for.
But a still more fruitful cause of it, I apprehend, is the
exclusion of the great mass of the people from the privilege
of voting. It was stated at a public meeting here, that there
are over five millions of adult males in the kingdom who are
denied the right of suffrage because they are poor. Here
then are five million men lying passively down under a
grievance, which stirred the blood and nerved the arms of
our revolutionary fathers, viz., “taxation without represen-
tation,” the tax on what they consume being five-fold greater
than was ever imposed upon the patriots of '76.
There cannot be, according to census returns, over six
millions of adult males in the kingdom, so that there are
about five of these political nullities to one political man,
and what wonder is it, that when they get collected in
masses about the speaker's stump, or the polls, they should
participate in the excitement of the occasion, and make their
power felt in the only form at their command? I have
said in another connection, that the terrors they inspire have
carried all the great measures of reform through Parliament,
ciphers as they are, exhibiting, as I have said, the anomaly
of a kingdom governed by those of whose political existence
it otherwise knows nothing.” -
* “And why should they want to vote? They have no
interest at stake,” said a wealthy aristocrat to me lately. Indeed,
HOUSE OF COMMONS A SHAM. 259
It requires but a glance at the mechanism of society
here, and the manner of its operation at these septennial
elections, to initiate one pretty fully into the mysteries of
that sham concern called the House of Commons. I have,
in another place, spoken of the great moneyed interest of
which it is made up, and for whose defence it is set. Let
us now see how the claims of rival candidates are sustained
at the polls; between whom, by the way, there is very little
choice, so far as the rights of the people are concerned.
Take two facts: first, that the votes are given in vive
voce, so that it may readily be known how every man votes;
and, second, that nearly all the voters in the kingdom are
pecuniarily dependent upon some great one above them,
and that all have besides a vast amount of reverence for
“ their superiors ; ” and how manifest is it, that all the votes
in the kingdom must be controlled by a few men 3
The farmer is a mere appendage to the landlord, so far
as his political existence is concerned, and he is always ex-
pected to follow in his lead. Such a thing as an indepen-
dent yeomanry, jealous of encroachment upon their rights,
said I, is it nothing to them, that the tax on what they consume
deprives them of the means of comfortable subsistence? And, I
might have added, is it nothing to them, that the way upward to
competence and comfort is effectually closed against them? Is it
nothing to them, that while they are the protectors of the country
over whose dead bodies a foreign foe must pass to get a foothold
in its borders, and while they earn all the wealth of the country,
—is it nothing to them, that others reap all the. benefit of the
protection they afford, and the wealth they earn?
260 THE MUD CABIN.
and who know how to defend them, is not known in Eng-
land, nor does a farmer, whatever be his wealth and intelli-
gence, ever aspire to political honors. Fidelity to his liege
lord is the great point of honor with him, and, in his exces-
sive amiableness, he only needs to know his will to be
prompt to fulfil it. Nor is this a spurious matter; he is
sincere in his devotion. Exceptions there may be, but I
have never heard of one.
The great manufacturers of the kingdom equally control
all their dependents, or the few of them who are entitled to
the right of suffrage. The operative dare not/vote contrary
to the wishes of his employer, for he knows the loss of
his place would be the forfeit. And the same with those
dependent upon the commercial and other interests.
And these in turn, the great manufacturers, the leading
commercial classes, &c., are subjected to the overruling influ-
ence of the few greater ones above them all. Take, for exam-
ple, the great firm of “Minturn & Co.” of Stoke, the greatest
China ware manufacturers in the world. In passing by
steamer from Antwerp to Rotterdam, upon the Scheldt, I
met with a minor partner of that concern, and the conversa-
tion turning upon politics, an Englishman standing by re-
marked to him, that he supposed Minturn to be a tory, as
the Duchess of Sutherland was a great patroness of his ; to
which he replied in the affirmative.
Thus it is that one class bows tamely down to another,
and all bow down together to the few who contrºl the des-
tinies of the kingdom; and no movement can be made in the
direction of reform until the down-trodden masses have been
REMAINS OF FEUDALISM. 261
aroused by the stirring appeals of some master-spirit, to de-
mand a redress of their wrongs in some particular, when
something has to be done to pacify them, and they settle
back into as profound a slumber as before.
And here I cannot but remark how striking a resem-
blance, in every essential feature, the existing order of things
bears to that of the feudal ages—the mechanism is the .
same, appliances only being different. Under that ancient
system, first stood the lord, then the vassal, whose relative
position is now occupied by the tenant farmer; and then the
serfs, to whom now correspond the farm laborers; all just as
much in subordination the one to the other now, as they were
then—all working just as harmoniously as the great wheels
and the little wheels of the same piece of mechanism, and
all conspiring equally to the one result, and that result the
aggrandizement of the few at the expense of the many, only,
as I said, the appliances being different. The substance, and
the very form of the thing they retain, and that form ani-
mated by the same spirit of servility.
And the same form has been copied into the large towns,
with the same spirit infused into it. I speak only in general
terms, the exceptions not being numerous enough to detract
much from their force.
CHAPTER XXXI.
LAW AND JUSTICE IN ENGLAND ILLUSTRATED.
THAT the civil code of English law, is, in its main features, in
accordance with the principles of justice, is not to be denied,
crooked and labyrynthine as are the highways which lead to
the true result, and numerous as are the by-ways which
lead off, at every point, into the vast fields of error in which
the great interests of justice are too often swamped.
This just and righteous code of English civil law, with cer-
tain rather uncomely appendices, has answered its purpose
very well in this kingdom, which is to give the color of right
to the most abominable system of oppression the world ever
saw, the sturdy pillars of justice every where rising upon
the view, to garnish the fabric.
But it is like stealing the livery of heaven—to cover an
ulcerous carcass, the shame of whose nakedness would other-
wise excite loathing and disgust. Under the broad shield of
the law, every man, as “a free-born Englishman,” is secure
against the invasion of his rights. The tenant of the lowly
hovel can eat his crust with as much security as the proudest
peer can revel in his banqueting halls, Justice standing over
them both alike with uplifted shield to protect.
NO LAW AND JUSTICE FOR THE POOR. 263
It is not for Justice to trouble herself about matters of
state—not for her to pry into the secrets of an organic struc-
ture of society, which has operated to throw the different
classes of society heaven-wide asunder, and to subject the
lower to the necessity of a standing destitution—all this is
supposed to be far without the range of her optics, and to be
separated from her jurisdiction by an impassable gulf.
The limits of her jurisdiction are all mapped out before
her, and she is forbidden, under pain of expulsion from the
kingdom, to overstep them. She is to take things as Wil-
liam the Conqueror left them in a semi-barbarous age, and
keep them so. To this end she has been empowered to ex-
tend just protection enough to the humble poor, to keep
them from being starved out and becoming extinct, which
would be as great a calamity as to have them rise to circum-
stances of comfort and respectability; for, in either case, the
foundations of society and of the government would be equally
taken away, and the entire fabric come down with a crash.
And, after all, what benefit does the working man de-
rive from the protection of law In all the annals of British
oppression, when and where was such a thing ever heard of
as that a poor farm laborer availed himself of the law to re-
cover his rights or avenge his wrongs? Never, and no-
where. Generally the paltry pittance allowed for his labor
is promptly paid; but I have heard of cases where it was
withheld, and the poor suffering wretches, instead of turning
their eyes to the law for protection, only turned them to the
work-house for refuge.
The reason is twofold; in the first place, they are en-
264 THE MUD CABIN.
tirely destitute of the means to prosecute their rights, and they
are thus met at the threshold with a physical impossibility.
In the next place, they have not the spirit to do it, if they
had the means, which amounts to a moral impossibility.
What ' a farm-laborer standing up in a court of law to
vindicate his rights against his oppressor Why, it would
be a spectacle, I had almost said, which would fill all Eng-
land with alarm for the safety of the institutions of the
country. - I-
And these are the “free-born Englishmen” who tread
the soil of England, under the broad shield of Magna Char-
ta—who cannot be hung or transported without a trial by
jury, nor be cast into jail (where they would grow fat) with-
out being entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus.
But I spoke of certain uncomely appendices to the com-
mon law of England, in a way which conveyed a hint, that
we need not even penetrate beneath the surface to discover
very hideous things. Nor need we. It was not enough that
the law was powerless for good to the poor starving laborer,
and only efficient in protection to his oppressor; special pro-
visions must be appended to it, to place the former still more
at the mercy of the latter—provisions which would disgrace
a barbarous age. -
Take the game-laws for one example. By the provisions
of these laws the landlord's game may overrun and destroy
the crops of his tenant, and he not only has no remedy at
law, but if he attempts to protect himself by destroying the
game, he is liable to imprisonment, and, under certain cir-
cumstances, to transportation. Nor have these laws remained
GAME LAWS. 265
a dead letter upon the statute-book; they have been rigor-
ously enforced, and as the penalty, many an industrious
farmer has been sent to Botany Bay, and his family con-
signed to the workhouse.
Hear them tell their own story. Says a writer in the
London Farmers' Magazine, “Well may the Americans, in
their exultation on acquiring true liberty, point the finger of
scorn to the cultivator of land in England, who dares not de-
stroy the spoilers of his harvest, for the act of coercing them
from their depredations, is construed into an offence against
the game laws, and the free-born Englishman is cast into a
loathsome prison, and his family sent to the workhouse; and
thus thousands of families sink to ruin.”
The following tragical case, which is only an illustration
and confirmation of the above, was related to me on the most
undoubted authority. In the near neighborhood of one of
those magnificent parks, through which I have rambled with
so much delight, a small farmer, who was entirely dependent
upon the avails of his crops for the payment of his rent, and
the support of his family, established himself. No sooner
had his first crop made its appearance above the surface, than
it was eaten down and totally destroyed by hundreds of rab-
bits from the park. He complained and entreated, but in
vain. He planted his ground the second time, determined,
if possible, to protect himself. He set snares, and thus
catight many of the rabbits, but not enough to save his crop.
In the mean time, the gamekeeper “got wind” of what
was going on, prosecuted the humble tenant farmer, convict-
ed and cast him into prison. And when the poor man had
12
266 THE MUD CABIN.
thus paid the penalty for his offence, and was set at liberty,
he was prosecuted again by the inhuman landlord, for the
rent of the very land on which his own rabbits had de-
stroyed the crops, and again he was cast into prison, and his
family sent to the workhouse. Where, in all the oppressions
of earth, can be found greater atrocities than that %
You may call it an extreme case, or call it what you
will, it is an example of the atrocities to which every tenant
farmer in England is liable, and to which, according to the
above authority, thousands of them fall victims.
But the other day, it was stated in the papers, that two
fine boys, aged twelve and thirteen, were innocently divert-
ing themselves, by putting their hands under the stones in
the tail of a mill race, to feel after fish, and enjoying the
sport of following them from one retreat to another; and
while they were thus engaged in their merry pastime in
“merrie England,” they were pounced upon by the game-
keeper, hurried before the magistrate, and condemned to a
month's imprisonment for an infraction of the game laws.
All over the kingdom there is constant trouble from this
source. And then, think of the ship loads who are trans-
ported to a convict shore, (after the second or third offence,)
for no higher crime than shooting a rabbit, to save them-
selves and families from starvation; or, it may be, to have a
little sport, as well as “their superiors.”
If it were not for these things—if, in traversing the
country, you could only see stately palaces, and extended
pleasure-grounds, variegated and beautified with gardens and
parks, running streams and verdant groves, while the wild
IDEAS OF ORDER. 267
game were starting up and flitting away from before you at
every step, the whole being rendered doubly attractive by
hospitality and good cheer; and if, under the influence of
some mysterious spell, the conviction could be wrought,
that all these lovely and beautiful things were productive
only of comfort and enjoyment, how changed would be the
aspect of things upon this island, and what a charm would
rest down upon it! But, alas! there breaks unbidden upon
the pleasant reverie, the saddening thought, that it is the
price of tears and blood; that to support one man in a style
of princely ease, hundreds must suffer privation and want,
and be liable to be cast into prison, and transported, with
the brand of infamy upon them, to the other side of the
globe, if they attempt to defend themselves against oppres-
sions that would destroy them.
Often have I paused in silent wonder at these things.
Often has the inquiry sat upon my lips, how long can such
a state of things continue? No answer to that question has
ever yet been uttered by human lips, or entered into the
calculations of any human mind.
What seems to us the stupidity of this people in sub-
mitting to such things, strikes us with wonder; but the
secret of it is, that all their ideas of order, from their infancy
up, have been associated with such a state of things. The
first idea of order which breaks upon the opening mind of
childhood and youth, as it comes echoing down from the
powers above, is that the nobility and gentry are the corner-
stone on which it rests, and that there could be no such
thing as order, if there were no such corner-stone to uphold
268 THE MUD CABIN,
it. That is the plain English of the matter. This great first
idea “grows with their growth and strengthens with their
strength,” until they come to look upon the poverty, wretch-
edness and woe, which follow in the train, as a necessary
component part of the most perfect system of order the
world ever saw. And if one gets his eyes a little open to
the absurdity and folly of this idea, it is as much as his repu-
tation and his peacé are worth to avow it, for he is branded
at once as an enemy to all order, and a promoter of discord,
anarchy, and ruin.
But let us turn our eyes for a moment to the poor victim
of the press-gang. See him as he is taking a careless stroll
with a lover or sister, pounced upon by the merciless gang,
ironed, and forced away, amid screams of agony which
should move a heart of stone to sympathy. I have been
told of instances of distress thus occasioned of the most
heart-rending character—of the terrified victim being torn
away, with a sister, lover, brother, father, or mother hanging
in frenzy to his arm, screaming in vain for pity, and then
sinking senseless to the earth.
And this “free-born Englishman,” what had he done?
Why was he thus forced away and doomed to years of im-
prisonment upon a man-of-war, when no crime was laid to
his charge 2
They say the impressment laws have been modified; but
have they been repealed? who will say that ? And how can
they be modified so as essentially to change their character,
without an absolute repeal? Let common sense answer that
question. Let the next war answer it.
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SEIZURE AND SINECURE. 269
Take the laws of seizure, as another instance, or rather
the setting aside of all law by a special dispensation in favor
of the landlord, to enable him to seize the effects of the ten-
ant, and sacrifice them to the highest bidder, to get his rent,
without going through the ordinary process of law. That is
taking the pound of flesh in good earnest. The more unfor-
tunate the poor tenant is, the more liable of course he is to
be pounced on; and the very implements, or stock, which
he has purchased on credit, and not paid for, may be
taken, and are often taken, to pay the landlord's rent, which
is almost the same thing as taking them from an innocent
third party. The enforcement of this landlord's law has con-
tributed not a little to aggravate the distress, and stir up dis-
turbance in Ireland.
A full chapter might have been devoted to the abomina-
tions of the sinecure system, by which salaries to the amount
of many millions of dollars are paid to officials, most of
whom render no service at all, and the remainder only a
nominal one. Offices long since abolished, are settled upon
persons for life, with salaries of thousands of pounds, the in-
cumbents being sprigs of nobility. And such a scramble is
there among them for these places, that often they are be-
stowed upon expectants one or two lives in advance, leaving
the hindermost one to the forlorn hope of coming into pos-
session only upon the contingency of the death of two
incumbents before him—one in possession, and another
awaiting his death.
I heard it stated in a speech in Exeter Hall, by a liberal
member of Parliament, that the Marlborough family is now
270 THE MUD CABIN.
in the annual receipt of half a million pounds sterling
($2,500,000) from the post-office revenue—a family which
has no connection with that of the great Duke of Marl-
borough to whom the annuity was originally granted, and
which has no claim to it whatever, except the ridiculous one
that it occupies the same manor.
The London “Times” stated not long since, that there
were a hundred and fifty admirals in the British navy, not
fifteen of whom could be made available in case of war, and
called upon the government, from regard to the public safety,
to look to the matter. And it is just so in the subordinate
offices of the navy. Midshipmen have often been created
before they were a month old, with regular salaries.
And then, to keep up the dignity of the nation, the petty
sovereigns on the continent, who happen to have English
royal blood in their veins, must have annuities settled upon
them by the government. The King of Belgium receives
£50,000 annually, the King of Hanover, 30,000, and the
Dukes of Schomberg, Mecklenberg, and of the Palatine of
Hesse, each a considerable sum. I spoke of this matter to
an English gentleman at Marseilles, saying to him, that it
looked very strange to me; to which he replied, that he
“trusted there was loyalty enough in the British people to
pay those annuities without grudging.” And so it is; loy-
alty, honor, requires that the mass of the British people
should submit to burdens which weigh them to the earth, to
support this pensioned tribe.
I have only given an inkling of the iniquity of this sys-
tem; its abominations cry to heaven against the oppressor,
where Is JUSTICE 3 271
and fearful is the account which stands over against him for
final adjustment.
And now, in view of all these things, in the name
of humanity, I ask, what has justice to do in England?
what has her (so called) matchless civil code to do, so far
as the working classes are concerned, but to uphold, as I
said before, one of the most odious systems of oppression
the world ever saw 3 Elude the real point at issue as we
will, it comes to this, that the common law of England is
not only powerless of protection to the poor man, but is
absolutely armed again & him, for the special benefit of his
oppressors.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE PUBLIC PRESS USED BY THE ARISTOCRACY TO BLIND
THE PEOPLE IN REGARD TO OUR INSTITUTIONS.
THE public press here has been made to do good ser-
vice for the oppressor, the whole periodical press of the
country, with few exceptions, bowing itself down to the low
and dirty work. This power has been effectually wielded to
disparage our country, its institutions, its history, and its
people. As a consequence, the grossest ignorance and the
most bigoted prejudices pervade large masses of the people
here in respect to us.
No falsehoods have been too gross, no caricatures too
extravagant to be perpetrated against us by a servile press,
insomuch that authors and editors have vied with each other
in playing off the foul game upon the people at the bidding
of the masters they serve.
And multitudes here have received it all in childlike con-
fidence, as the most undoubted truth. I have been amazed
at the ignorance of many of them in relation to our country,
and have sometimes smiled in their faces at the ludicrous
ideas they entertained. Often have I been asked by other-
wise intelligent persons, which was the greatest and most
SERVILITY OF THE PRESS. 273
prosperous country, Canada or the United States ? And
multitudes suppose that mob-law, bowie-knives, and steam-
boat explosions are so much the order of the day in our
country, that it is as much as one's life is worth to venture
amongst us.
And what a vulgar and outlandish set we are Take
the following out of innumerable instances under this head,
which have fallen under my observation. Looking into a
number of Blackwood's Magazine, I noticed a long article
devoted to the review of two books, the contents of which
embraced the sage observations of their respective authors,
as they passed through our country.
Author number one is a French gentleman. He takes
passage on a North River boat, promenades the deck, until
at length he brings himself up standing, when a crowd
gather around him, and one of them remarks abruptly,
“Why, you have got a French hat! I should have known
that to be a French hat ten rods off,” at the same time
stepping up to him, taking the hat unceremoniously from
his head, and after examining it, handing it to the next man,
and he to the next, and so on till it had passed around the
entire circle before it came back to him, he in the mean time
standing with the cold wind blowing upon his bare head.
Having recovered his hat, he is next approached by one
of the company, who steps close up to him, takes hold of
his watch-chain, and after “fumbling” it over awhile, walks
leisurely away, without having uttered a word. Another
still pursued him to get a trade out of him for his wallet.
Number two is a German lady, a countess, forsooth, and
12*
274 THE MUD CABIN.
she too takes passage on a North River steamer, and seating
herself quietly upon deck, is presently approached by an
American lady, who expresses admiration of her scarf, takes
hold of it, pulls it off her, and hurries down into the cabin
with it. Well, the countess began to be alarmed for her
scarf, and while she was cogitating the matter in her own
mind, whether it was best to send a messenger after the
vanished woman, lo, up she came, scarf in hand, with her
husband by her side, and giving her back the scarf, seated
her husband right down before her, where he sat and eyed
her all over from head to foot, “as though she had been
some curious bird.”
Who does not see that these are just such exemplifica-
tions of manners as One expects to meet with in travelling
among savage tribes? And yet such trash is paraded before
the British public in that world-renowned magazine, as fur-
nishing a fair example of American manners, and my lords
and gentlemen make merry over it, while multitudes in the
lower ranks receive it all as law and gospel, and are struck
with wonder that we should have been so little affected by
the civilizing influences of the Old World.
In the same article is reviewed another book, containing
the results of an Englishman's observations in our country
(a Mr. Taylor); and from all I could gather, he seems to
have acquitted himself well as a discriminating and impartial
tourist, and to my surprise, he awarded to our country and
its institutions the tribute of his admiration. But, in the
eyes of the reviewer, he was evidently a man greatly want-
ing in judgment and discrimination, and not to be relied on.
SERVILITY OF THE PRESS. 275
After awhile another book of travels came out by a Mr.
Casey, embracing the results of his observations during a
tour through our country; and equally wonderful to tell, it
contained most lucid, candid, and discriminating views of
our institutions, and of their bearing upon human weal,
together with a true and faithful account of American society
and manners, written in a style of great force and beauty.
And what did these slanderers of our country say to
that? Well, they said, “Mr. Casey has undertaken to
write a book: he has mistaken his calling altogether, and
would have appeared much more in character, had he con-
tented himself with some employment which would not have
brought him thus prominently before the public.”
And this single fling of contempt from these lofty ones,
(through a servile press,) will be sufficient to condemn the
book in view of nine-tenths of the people of England, and,
so far as they are concerned, might just as well never have
been written.
Another branch of the profession and calling of the Savans
of the press, is to rake the kennels of vulgarity among our
backwoodsmen, to hunt up expressions which may serve
the purpose of raising the laugh against us as an illiterate
people. “As the Americans say,” is the sweeping generality
which they use, and with which they make merry at our ex-
pense.
These are very modest people; they can taunt us with
improprieties of language with wonderful self-complacency,
while the fact is notorious, that there are hundreds in
these islands who fairly murder “the king's English,” where
276 THE MUD CABIN.
there is one in our country. Of the 26,000,000 who in-
habit these islands, there are not, I am confident, one million
who speak the English language with as much propriety as
do our commonest people, and the vast majority speak it
most barbarously. I have been amazed at the gross impro-
prieties of language which every where grate upon my ear;
and all this, to say nothing of the three millions of agricul-
tural laborers, specimens of whose barbarisms I have ahready
given. - -
The few who are educated, generally speak a uniform
language, and, for the most part, with propriety; but when
you get below them, there is a perfect jargon of barbarous
dialects, insomuch that I often find it difficult to make out
their meaning. And what is surprising, the people of ad.
joining counties often have barbarisms so peculiarly their
own that they find it difficult to converse intelligibly with
each other, and I have often given up in despair all effort
to understand them. For instance, reet for right, neet for
night, hy for hay, cowld for cold, howld for hold, owld for
old, us for we, we for us, coom for come, soon for sun, nor
for than, sin for since, lile for little—these are but a few of
the barbarisms constantly to be met with in traversing the
country.
These corruptions are confined mostly to the uneducated
masses; but all classes agree in taking the letter h from the
beginning of a word to which it belongs, and affixing it to a
word to which it does not belong; as, the 'osts of Hengland,
and so on to the end of the chapter. -
There is another species of corruption of language going
BARBARISMS IN LANGUAGE. 277
on, in which the educated classes take part. I refer to the
practice of clipping words. They talk much faster than we
do, but that is not sufficient; in galloping to their conclu-
sions, they cut and carve their way with terrible slaughter,
sometimes chopping off two-thirds of a word, as, for in-
stance, omnibus, they call bus, &c.
There is the word Spital, which has been thus clipped,
and no mortal could conjecture what it originally was, unless
informed. It is vastly easier to let drop the word Spital,
than to go about to say Hospital, as people used to be com-
pelled to do—Spital Fields, now constituting a part of Lon-
don, used to be Hospital Fields, outside the town.
And thus, while this people, in action, go around the
corners, as their fathers did centuries ago, and at the same
pace, they contrive, in this cross-cutting and galloping way,
to outstrip us equally in conversation, at whatever expense
of the language.
There are three causes which have contributed to this
almost universal corruption of the language (except in the
case last named), viz., the general neglect of education,
the power of caste, and the local instincts of the people.
In the absence of education, the masses are totally inac-
cessible to a common literature, which, among a reading
people, diffuses itself through every class, and acts as a com-
mon instructor, and as the conservator of a common lan-
guage.
Nor is the power of caste a scarcely less powerful cause
of this deplorable result. In our own country, where the
way upward in society is so entirely open to all, the orders
278 THE MUD CABIN.
below are ambitious to qualify themselves for higher spheres,
and have thus a most powerful motive to cultivate the pro-
prieties of speech. But not so here, where ordinarily the
lower orders have no hope of rising above the condition
in which they were born, and no aspirations to do so ever
disturb the even tenor of their humble career; and being
cut off from all intercourse with “their superiors,” they very
naturally fall into these barbarous local dialects.
And to help the matter, they are mostly confined to one
locality through life, so that they have little opportunity of
comparing notes with each other, though but little removed.
I have found more difference in the dialects of two adjoining
counties in England, than is to be found in the whole dis-
tance from Maine to Florida, and, I may add, from the At-
lantic to the Pacific Oceans, in our country; and it is all
owing to the operation of these causes.
And yet, with all these gross improprieties of speech,
pouring in ceaseless jargon upon their ears, they have the
face to taunt us as an illiterate people, on account of the
few vulgarisms they have been able to rake up. Shame,
shame upon them
Highly intelligent men are to be found among both the
higher and middle classes in England, but ignorance also has
a wide dominion, especially among the latter. As I have be-
fore said, I have been amazed at the amount of ignorance
among a large proportion of the shopkeepers in London, and
throughout England. The truth is, that whatever a boy is
put to as an occupation, to that, and nothing else, his atten-
tion is kept, as though his very life depended on his devo-
LACK OF GENERAL INFORMATION. 279
tion to that one thing alone. It is amazing to see how igno-
rant the mass of the people are of the history of their own
country, and even of things pertaining to their own locali-
ty. When I was in Bristol, I tried in vain to find out
something about Hannah More. I could not even find an
individual that had ever heard of her. Of course there must
be some people there who knew her personally ; but the
mass of the people absolutely did not know that one of the
most distinguished literary characters in modern times had
had her home in the neighborhood. Of course there is a
pertness and a species of smartness about shopkeepers every
where, but I am now speaking in reference to general infor-
mation. And so it is, to a greater or less extent, among all
the industrial classes. As a people, a whole people, they are
many, very many degrees below us in the scale of intelli-
gence.
- Under the tuition above noticed, many here have come
to regard us as in a rude, uncultivated, rough-and-tumble
state, and as but little advanced in the arts of civilization,
although they are ready to admit, that a hundred years
hence we will begin to be something, if nothing happens to
us—that is, provided we can be content to remain in lead-
ing-strings to the mother country, and should not be so fro-
ward and self-confident as to discard her friendly teachings,
and refuse to follow in her wake.
There is a class of petty vulgarities to which some of our
people are subject, and which are indiscriminately charged
upon us all, to the infinite merriment of these scribblers and
their readers. While they maintain a sullen silence on the
280 THE MUD CABIN,
subject of the general enlightenment of our people, and the
circumstances of comfort with which they are surrounded,
they never cease to harp upon these little blemishes, as though
they were more than an offset to all the good things we
have to show. And what are they? Well, they say our
people eat too fast and talk too slow, that they sometimes
put their feet upon stoves and mantel-pieces, and squirt
tobacco juice where they ought not to squirt it, and then
what a shout of triumph they raise, as though they had thus
proved that the education of the people is a bad thing, and
the elevation of the race a bad thing, and ignorance, and
poverty, and rags, and wretchedness, are good things—not
good in themselves, perhaps, but good as the foundation of a
system of politeness for the few, of slow-eating and fast-
talking, of rightly disposing of the legs, and of the juice of
the weed.
God forbid that I should apologize for the tobacco
chewer; they may jeer him as much as they please, and
they may make all the fun and all the capital they can out
of these naughty little practices of our people, and then I
will turn upon them, and demand of them in a tone of equal
triumph: Gentlemen, is this all you have to say in disparage-
ment of our institutions Laugh on, then, while misery
weeps and wails around you—laugh on, if it will do you
any good, for with all these glorious advantages on our part,
we can afford to be laughed at. With a prosperous and
happy country, where honest toil reaps its reward, and com-
petence and comfort are the common lot, we can well afford
to be laughed at Pick up these crumbs of comfort then, if
CRUMBS OF COMFORT. s. 281
such they are to you, we will not begrudge them; feed upon
them as your daily bread—but this, be it remembered, will
not stop the onward march of our country in its career of
glory, nor prevent the tides of its influence from surging up
upon your shores.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CORN-LAws, THEIR REPEAL A TERRIBLE
BLOW TO LANDLORDISM-POWER PASSING OVER, TO OTHER
INTERESTS. -
THE landed interest governed England previous to the
repeal of the corn-laws, and still governs it in the main, it
only having been impelled to that step by a spasmodic fit
of resistance from the usually passive masses.
A little history of this corn-law protection bill, for the
special benefit of the landlords of England, at the expense of
the laboring poor, may not be uninteresting, or inappropriate
to my design.
That famous bill, usually termed the sliding scale, was
enacted in 1815, and continued in operation till 1845, a
period of thirty years. Its effect was to exclude importations
of foreign breadstuffs till they had risen to 80s. per quarter,
by which means their price was usually doubled in England.
Previous to the enactment of this bill, England had been
engaged in an almost uninterrupted succession of wars,
usually termed “the French wars,” which terminated with
the overthrow of Napoleon, embracing a period of 21 years,
commencing with 1793.
EFFECT OF THE FRENCH WARS. 283
It was during these wars that the national debt was run
up to such an appalling figure. But while they brought
financial ruin upon the kingdom, and spread mourning and
sorrow, destitution and want, through the habitations of the
poor, they brought joy and gladness to the landlords. The
products of the soil were doubled in value by the increased
demand occasioned by these wars, while the increased bur-
dens they imposed were but an inconsiderable drawback in
comparison. Says one of their most distinguished modern
writers, “Land rents had risen in a far greater degree than
the necessary expenditures of the landlords, notwithstanding
the additional burdens of taxation, while the mere laborer
still continued to be an eager competitor for employment at
the same, or nearly the same wages, as had been given
before the wars.” And thus matters went on with the land-
lords and their laborers, during the 21 years continuance of
“ the French wars.”
At the close of the wars, in 1815, or rather, as they
were supposed to have been closed, in 1814, the decreased
demand for the products of the soil, conspiring with
increased production and foreign importation, reduced the
price of breadstuffs about one-half, and what a wail of dis-
tress then went up from the landlords of England How
could they submit to a corresponding reduction of land
rents How could they brook the idea of reducing their
establishments, and adopting a humbler style of living?
So loud and incessant was the cry of distress which they
poured upon the ear of Parliament, that in the next year,
1815, the corn-laws were enacted to restore them to the
284 THE MUD CABIN.
footing of luxurious living they had enjoyed during the wars,
while the gleam of hope which thus momentarily broke
upon the poor laborer, was again extinguished.
And thus, for another thirty years, the landlords of Eng-
land were enabled to riot in extravagance, while the laboring
man was compelled by law to pay double for the bread
which constituted almost his entire living, without any material
change of wages. Occasionally, a deficient harvest would
raise the price of breadstuffs so high as to render the corn-
laws inoperative, even to 90s, or 100s. per quarter, when his
only alternative was to do double work, and that sad expe-
dient only had the effect to lessen the demand for labor, and
by reaction to depreciate its reward.
For more than half a century previous to the repeal of
the corn-laws then, were the revenues of the landed aristo-
cracy of England thus kept a hundred per cent. above their
natural level, to the cost of the laboring man, as well as of
all other classes of the community.
Previous to the commencement of the period of which I
am speaking, land rents were more than one hundred per cent.
lower than during that period. In 1790, says Porter, farms
in Essex county, which rented at 108, an acre, have never
rented since for less than 20s. an acre, and, during the wars,
sometimes rose to 50s. per acre. In Berkshire and Wilt-
shire, farms which at that time rented for 14s, per acre,
have never fallen below 30s. per acre since, and have risen
as high as 708, the lowest amount being 114 per cent.
advance. In Staffordshire, rents were previously only 8s.,
the lowest since 20s, being a hundred and fifty per cent.
A NEW CRY OF DISTRESS, 285
advance,—and these are but specimens of the advance in the
whole kingdom.
And while the landlords have thus realized more than a
hundred per cent. advance of rent during this period, they
have had fifty to one hundred per cent. less to pay for all
manufactured goods, while the advantage to the laborer
from this latter source has been but small, as he only puts
on clothing to cover his nakedness, nearly all his wages
being absorbed in bread, house rent, shoes, and fuel.
Upon the repeal of the corn-laws in 1845, a new era
opened upon the country, a new cry had to be raised, and
some new measure adopted to meet the exigency. The
country was proclaimed ruined, and in many instances
laborers were refused employment, and sent to the poor-
house, to make out a case against free-trade. Landlords
and tenants united in one vigorous effort to effect a re-enact-
ment of the corn-laws. To this end, meetings were held all
over the kingdom; and O what faces were made up, and
what touching appeals were made by the landlords to the
better feelings of the people in behalf of their suffering COIl-
dition, deprived as they were of a portion of the means they
before enjoyed of making themselves nuisances ! The suffer-
ings of the laborer in being deprived of the cheap loaf, O
that was nothing, he was used to it, and had no more feel-
ing about it than a beast ! . But how could they, with the
habits and style of living to which they had been born, and
in which they had always indulged, submit to such a cur-
tailment 2 And then the dignity of the nation was at stake,
and how would its honor trail in the dust, if they were
286 THE MUD CABIN,
necessitated to reduce their establishments, and set bounds
to their profligacy? And the tenant-farmers, like so many
dolts, instead of standing up like men, and demanding a
reduction of rent, with few exceptions, whined out their
sympathies for their masters, with as servile a devotion as
though they had still been vassals, and liable to be knocked
down by them with impunity, as in the feudal ages.
At some of the meetings, the landlord would not only
whine and entreat, but would try what virtue there was in
threats. One of these scenes, as related to me on good
authority, was ludicrous enough. The Duke of R. arose,
and after the customary tender appeals, said, that if, after
all, the free-traders persisted in the ground they had taken,
and the corn-laws were not reinstated, he for one should
leave the country, and go where he could have his rights
protected. True to his instincts, a tenant-farmer arose after
him, and said the Duke had 'spressed his mind exactly, and
he should leave the country too. Upon which a poor
laborer (who seems to have been an exception to the gener-
ality of his class) arose and said, “Wall, I 'spose if you all
goes and leaves the country, you won't takes the land with
you.” I only give the story as it was told to me in all
seriousness by a respectable man, and it is certainly a good
one, and significant.
The tug of war came in 1852, (and I was in the midst
of it,) the momentous question, big with the fate of the land-
lords of England, was now to be settled, by a septennial
election of the House of Commons. And never was I in
such a “hubbub" before. The kingdom, from one end to
THROWING OFF THE YOKE. 287
the other, thundered and reverberated with inflammatory
appeal, heart-moving appeal, and all sorts of appeal; the
doors of spirit and ale houses were thrown wide open, and
the candidates footed the bills without asking a question,
while money by the cart-load was forthcoming to buy votes;
fisticuffs, knocking down and dragging out, shoutings,
groans and blood, all contributed their share to make up
the horrid features of that election scene. But, alas! alas !
all would not do, protection was declared dead, the poor,
starving wretch held on to his cheap loaf, while landlords
and tenants went moodily to their homes—but they did not
leave the country.
So astonishing has been the increase of the manufactur
ing and commercial interests of the kingdom, especially of
the former, within the last thirty years, that the landlords
and their dependants find themselves in a very small mi-
nority, not constituting probably more than one-fourth the
population of the kingdom at this time. And I suppose it
must be admitted, that the manufacturers of the kingdom
went for free-trade in both corn and manufactured goods,
not so much from sympathy for the workingman, as from
self-interest, hoping in cheapening provisions to cheapen
labor; and as they had no longer any thing to fear from for-
eign competition, they could safely make a show of liberality
in admitting foreign fabrics.
And what a spectacle is here ! The landlords of the
kingdom, compared to the whole population, stand as 1 to
800; and yet, this small number of persons have had the
power, for so long a time, to subject the millions of their
288 THE MUD CABIN.
fellow-citizens to a most galling tribute, to enable them to
carry out their extravagances. It was not enough that they
had fallen into indolent possession of estates, which, at half
the rents demanded, would support them in independent
ease. To increase their princely revenues, and furnish them
the means of unrestrained indulgence, government aid must
be invoked, and as they themselves have constituted the
government, government aid was very readily granted.
And no thanks to any redeeming spirit abroad in the
land, that the yoke was thrown off. A great counteracting
moneyed interest had risen up in the large commercial and
manufacturing towns, and to this the landed interest had to
bow. It was this great antagonistic interest which led the
way, and under whose banners the hungry masses beneath
them, political ciphers as they were, carried terror to the
very doors of Parliament. :
These hungry masses were used to hunt down the land-
lords, by the great moneyed interests of the large towns, for
their own benefit, just as their own greyhounds are used
to hunt down the game.
The repeal of the corn-laws then, as a triumph of the
humbler classes, must be received with very many abate-
ments. It was capital which repealed the corn-laws, the
capital which has accumulated in the manufacturing and
commercial towns, and it was a mere piece of good luck
with the poor starving laborer, that his cry for bread was
made available in the contest, to the triumph of repeal.
This result shows that power is centering in the large
towns, because capital is centering there; but, after all, it
SOME GOOD TO THE LABORER. 289
has been but sparingly used—no farther, in fact, than was
necessary to relieve town capitalists from the tribute to
which they were subjected. In the general, it may be
said, that their interest is so far identified with that of the
landlord, that the poor laborer has little to hope from that
SOU!I'C62.
After all, good will come out of these mighty movements.
The workingman has had a taste of the cheap loaf; some-
thing has been done to make him sensible of his power,
and possibly, to some extent, to infuse into him the elements
of self-respect, and it may be, that by slow degrees he will
come to feel himself a man.
13
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE PLEA THAT THE LANDLORD's RENTS ARE SCARCELY
SUFFICIENT TO PAY HIM A FAIR INTEREST, CONSIDERED.
TRL, the landlord that he is taking from the laborer his just
earnings, and he will very complacently say to you, that he
does not get a fair rate of interest on the value of his land.
The tenant-farmer will say the same thing in his behalf;
and in fact, the whole British Empire will consider that
a good and solid argument for starving the poor working-
Iman. .
But let us look into the philosophy, the ethics, and the
christianity of this matter a little. In the first place, here is
an arbitrary value fixed upon the land, and then an arbi-
trary rate of interest is fixed upon that arbitrary value, the
whole being adjusted to the landlord's arbitrary style of
living. To raise this arbitrary rate of interest, the landlord
must impose an arbitrary rent to correspond; but the
tenant-farmer cannot pay it, and support his own style of
living, unless he takes all the laborer's earnings, leaving him
but a half-starved existence. According to English ideas,
all this is necessary to give the man his interest, and enable
him to support his style of living. But suppose the laborer
THE LABORER FED, so ARE THE HOGS. 291
refuses to work at all, who is to pay the landlord's interest
in that case? Do you say he must work or die? Very
good; but suppose he chooses death as the least of the two
evils, can the landlord interpose and compel him to live on,
that he may grind his interest out of him :
No, no, that is not the way; there are several parties to
the affair, all equally “free-born Englishmen,” and it would
be no greater piece of insolence in the laborer than in the
landlord, to claim the whole loaf, nor, in some aspects of the
matter, would it look so bad.
Something like this I conceive to be a just view of the
matter. Here is a branch of industry, which, according to
English ideas, requires three parties to carry it on, the land-
lord, the tenant-farmer, and the laborer. The bones, sinews,
and muscles of the latter, are the capital he puts into the
concern, while the tenant-farmer supplies stock, implements,
superintendence, etc. But without the laborer's capital, that
of both the landlord and tenant-farmer would be worthless.
The laborer then, in some sense, is the most important man
in the concern, and yet he is turned off with nothing—
nothing but his board, and such board | He toils for less
than he would receive as a slave.
How manifest is it, that as one of the high contracting
parties in this matter, the laborer should come in for his
share of the profits' His coarse and scanty food, and the
rags which cover him, are nothing. Hogs have to be fed,
horses blanketed, and wheels have to be oiled; and so does
the laborer have to be fed and clad, after some sort, to make
his labor available to the landlord and tenant-farmer-that
*.
292 THE MUD CABIN,
is all. Emphatically then may it be said, that the entire
dividend of the concern goes to the landlord and tenant-
farmer, while the poor laborer is deprived of his entire
earnings, and he the most important man in the concern,
the man who creates all.
If either party is to fix a specified value upon the capital
he puts in, it should be the laborer first of all. The question
then to begin with is, not what land in England is worth,
upon the supposition that laborers work for nothing, but
what is it worth after putting a fair value upon the labor
necessary to work it? The dividend, in that case, would
show what would be a fair rate of interest on the landlord's
capital; that is, the dividend which results to the landlord
after allowing to both the tenant and the laborer a fair profit
upon their investments. That would determine what his
land is worth, and what would be an equitable rate of
interest. -
But that does not suit British ethics, and British chris-
tianity, and is an outrage upon British order. All these
require that the laborer should be a nullity in the trans-
action, and that the landlord's style of living should be the
standard by which to estimate the value of his land, and the
amount of rent to which he is entitled, though the laborer
starve, and the tenant-farmer become bankrupt, and the
whole British empire bows down and says, Amen /
For thirty years, as I have shown, the nation was sub-
jected to a most degrading tribute by the imposition of the
corn-laws, to pay the interest money of these eight hundred
landholders. But this was not enough; to make out the
THE GREATEST GOOD. 293
necessary amount, not only must the whole nation be laid
under tribute, but the entire capital of the laborer must be
pressed into the service of the landlord, leaving him to des-
titution and want, and often the capital of the tenant-farmer
was absorbed too.
In the organization of civil society, it has always been
admitted as a fundamental principle, that, in return for the
protection it affords, all those individual natural rights which
conflict with the greatest good of the whole, should be sur-
rendered. I know not but it is upon this principle, that the
landlords claim, and the nation awards them, the privilege
of taking the entire earnings of the laborer. They may, for
aught I know, contend, that it is essential to the dignity of
the nation, and therefore for its good, that the landlord be
enabled to keep up his style of living, though the laborer
starve, and the tenant-farmer come out penniless—and, for
aught I know, the poor stultified laborer, and the submissive
and very amiable tenant-farmer, may subscribe to the doc-
trine. And, I may say, there are multitudes of them who
do subscribe to it in full.
What a strange obliquity of vision Though the nation
has thrown off the yoke, and refuses to pay tribute longer,
yet all seem to concede the right of the landlord to the laborer's
entire earnings, as essential to the general good, and, if need
be, to the use of the entire capital of the tenant-farmer.
According to our republican ideas, this is rather a “hard
row to hoe,” rather an exorbitant demand in return for the
protection of society. Such ideas of the greatest good of
the whole, do not harmonize with our notions of things.
294 THE MUD CABIN.
The first object of inquiry with our people would be, not
what was necessary to support a landlord in a certain speci-
fied style of idle and luxurious living—not what amount of
interest a landlord ought to receive, according to any stand-
ard established among men of any country; but what is
he justly entitled to as an equitable share in the joint con-
cern—a question which, so far as my information extends,
has never yet been asked in England.
No, no; the landlord must have his pound of flesh, and
both tenant and laborer agree to the claim, whatever may
become of themselves, and all the people bow to the verdict.
But the tenant-farmer is in a very different situation
from the poor laboring man. In the first place, it is optional
with him whether to engage in the business or not, and, as a
general thing, if he is sharp enough to look out for himself,
he has as fair a prospect of a profitable investment, as he would
have in any other branch of business, provided he does
not undertake to play the lord too much himself. Large
amounts are often vested in tenant-farming, as a matter of
speculation, and with good management and good luck, it
often proves a profitable one: but with bad management
and a little bad luck, it frequently results in ruin. Success
depends very much on the judgment and good sense exer-
cised in converting manure into crops. -
The repeal of the corn-laws was designed as a blow to
the landlords only, and had not the tenant-farmers been so
foolish as to take their part, they would not have suffered at
all, for their rents would have come down with the price of
grain.
NO OPTION WITH LABOR.E.R. 295
But with all the alleged distress among tenant-farmers,
still, such is the demand for farms, that no sooner is it
known that there is one to rent, than there are numbers of
applicants for it, sometimes scores of them. I have known cases
where there were 50 or 60 applicants for a single farm, since
the repeal of the corn-laws, many of them occupying two or
three farms already, their entire object being speculation.
And yet these same persons were joining in the cry of dis-
tress raised by the landlords.”
Although, then, there are many cases of real distress among".
the tenant-farmers, from high rents and from bad management,
they are not the ones that feel the woes of the landlord system
principally. It is from the poor working man alone, as a
general thing, that all is taken. Corn-laws, or no corn-laws,
high rents or low rents, it is all the same to him. It is no
matter of speculation with him, nor is it optional with him,
whether to engage with his master or not; he must do it or die.
* There are various causes besides those above mentioned,
which have contributed to the distress of many tenant-farmers.
Multitudes of them are so confiding, that they will expend a good
portion of their fortune.in the improvement of the soil, leaving it
in the power of the landlord to raise the rent in proportion, or
turn them off, and take the whole advantage of the improvement.
And in cases where the landlord is perfectly honorable, his death
often leaves the tenant-farmer in the hands of a successor, who
claims the entire benefit of the improvement. I have known
some cases of great hardship of that kind.
CHAPTER XXXV.
HOPE FOR, EN &LAND.
IN the evolutions of Providence, a train of causes has been
put in operation, which bids fair to drive the ploughshare of
reform, deep and radical, right through the rotten institu-
tions of this island.
I have already quoted high authority here to the effect,
that the entire structure of society and of the government,
according to the views of their most enlightened statesmen,
rests upon the “ignorance, degradation, and manageableness
of the masses;” and the entire prosperity of the country de-
pends upon a system of cheap labor, which, in turn, depends
upon a large surplus in the working classes; a condition of
things, which, through the long centuries of the past, has
never yet failed them.
But the wonderful breaking up now going on from the
emigration movements, is foreshadowing results, of which
the most far-reaching sagacity had never dreamed. The
flight of Ireland to our shores, was rather chuckled over
than lamented, but now that the stagnant masses in England
have at last been aroused by the attractions from the gold-
fields of Australia, and thousands in consequence are taking
EFFECT OF EMIG RATION. 297
their weekly departure, with almost a certainty that the
mania will continue for years to come, a new face is put upon
the affairs of this kingdom.
Hope has at last glimmered from the other side of the globe
upon the vision of England's down-trodden masses; and under
the quickening influence they begin to stir, and show signs of
a higher consciousness than they had seemed to possess. The
wages of the laborer are rising, rising, rising in England's
market, and the effect will put all her great political econo-
mists to their wit’s end, and nonplus all the far-reaching
wisdom of her political chiefs.
And not only is the Australian movement thus unsettling
the old foundations by lessening the supply of labor, and
elevating it in the scale at home, but it is setting in opera-
tion causes in those ends of the earth, which send back a
reacting influence equally hostile to the great moneyed
interests of the kingdom, and equally subversive of the exist-
ing order of things.
From that region comes the immense quantities of fine
wool, which supply the manufactories of England. But the
gold mania is enticing away all the shepherds, so that instead
of tending their flocks, they only add their own to the multi-
tudes of hungry mouths that are consuming them. The cry
of the ravenous miner for meat, enforced by the attractions
of the glittering dust, will be sure to prevail over that of the
British manufacturer for wool, and has already prevailed.
And who can set bounds to the results destined to be
wrought out through the operation of these twin causes,
generated one at each end of the emigrating movement,
13%
298 THE MUD CABIN.
greatly enhancing the cost of the raw material to the manu-
facturer, and of the labor to work it up, and equally affecting
the price of labor in every other department? In the year 1851,
when the Australian movement first commenced, I presented
this view of the subject to an esteemed friend heavily inter-
ested in the manufacture of fine wool, and pointed out to
him what seemed to me must be the result, which was pre-
cisely what is now following in the train; but he did not
seem to be at all alarmed. The truth is, that these people
have always been so accustomed to a standing order of things,
from century to century, that they can scarcely perceive the
possibility of any very radical change.
And now I will make bold to predict another sad conse-
quence to the mother country from this movement. It will
not be many years before the myriad hosts of Australia will
throw off the yoke, and set up for independence, indications
of which are not wanting even now. And when that is
done, it will be another blow to British manufactures, by the
loss of a free market to that extent, which would by no
means be inconsiderable. *
There is another cause co-operating just now at home, of
scarcely less potency in elevating the price of labor. I refer
to the fact, that since I have been in the country (1851 and
1852), money has been a drug, and that there has been little
chance of employing it at all, except in some way to task
human sinews, and turn human labor to account. The de-
mand for capital created by the opening fields of enterprise
every where presented in our rising country, is unknown in
England; and where human labor is employed by capitalists
INCREASE OF MANUFACTORIES. 299
with us, it is not ordinarily so much from the expectation of
making a profit by robbing it of its reward, as from the in-
ducements presented by the legitimate gains of the enter-
prise, after allowing labor its full reward.
As I said, in these years, money has been a drug; and
as labor had always been a drug, and these two drugs
brought together in manufactories, have appeared to convert
the former into something better, an immense amount of
capital has taken that direction, and hundreds of new estab-
lishments have sprung up in the manufacturing districts. I
was surprised to see the number of new buildings going up
for manufacturing purposes, in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and
other manufacturing districts, and at every stage in the pro-
cess of erection, from the laying of the foundations to the
finishing-touch of the trowel. In passing from Liverpool to
Leeds, scores of them are to be seen, on the right hand and
on the left. Multitudes of them are now in operation, and
the increased demand thus occasioned for labor, acting in
conjunction with the diminished supply from emigration, is
producing quite a rise in the labor market, and throwing
into derangement all the calculations of these shrewd finan-
ciers. -
The consequence is as certain as the operation of those
laws by which nations rise and fall. On the one hand, there
follows a corresponding rise in the manufactured fabric,
then the loss of a market, or greatly reduced profits to the
manufacturer, and on the other, a growing feeling of self-
respect and independence on the part of the laborer, together
with longings for something better.
300 THE MUD CABIN.
And to help the matter, the government, at this late
hour, is likely to be shamed into some step for the education
of the people, and an educated people would hardly submit
to such enormities.
There is still another instrumentality which promises
large results. It originated with the “anti-corn-law league.”
for the purpose of multiplying liberal votes, and is still in-
creasing in power for good. I refer to the formation of
associations for the purchase of lands, to be parcelled out
among those who choose to become members, with a view
to make themselves freeholders, entitled to a vote. Here-
tofore there seems to have been no possibility for a poor
man to possess himself of a home he could call his own,
from the fact that land could not be bought at all in small
parcels, and if it could, the price would have exceeded the
means at his command; whereas, these associations, pur-
chasing it in large tracts, divide it out among the members
in small lots, at the purchase price, which puts it in the
power of almost any industrious and economical artisan, with
a little self-denial, to procure a home, and thus entitle him.
self at the same time to the right of suffrage.
And the inducements thus held out to the humbler
classes in the large towns to husband their resources, and
put forth efforts to increase them, is having its effect. In
the single town of Birmingham alone six hundred freeholds
are reported thus to have been created.
The associations have extended far and wide over the
kingdom, and, according to a report recently made, number
more than one hundred, estimated to be capable of increas-
MAKING WOTERS. 301
ing the number of votes 6000 annually, and still they are
constantly multiplying and extending operations, so that
scarcely a limit can be set to their achievements. And they
have work enough before them, with five million outsiders,
who are of no more account politically than the cattle.
At the same time, there is infused into the new-born
freeholders a feeling of self-respect, and they are prepared to
stand up like men in defence of their rights. The reckless
and prodigal are thus drawn from the vortex of dissipation
which is ingulfing their little earnings while their families
are left to suffer, and are made to feel the invigorating and
regenerating influence of hope.
And I see not why this instrumentality alone may not,
in time, overturn entirely the existing order of things. The
only difficulty that seems to be in the way, is the getting
hold of sufficient land to accomplish it, as the landholders,
of course, are in the opposite interest. But that can be done,
and I suppose is done, wilder cover, so as not to excite sus-
picion in reference to the object.
The number of voters now cannot exceed a million, and
among them are a goodly number of free men; and it seems
to me that the prospect of increasing that number by means
of this instrumentality, so as to give the liberal cause a pre-
ponderating influence at the polls, is rather encouraging.
To these considerations it may be added, that the influ-
ence of our institutions is exerting increasing power here,
from year to year. Already their stability and value have
been tested by an experience of more than three-quarters of
a century, and every year which passes over our heads
302 THE MUD CABIN.
brings along with it its contribution to the stock of our influ-
ence. The tone of ridicule and contempt, and I may add,
of coarse ribaldry, which has heretofore characterized the
Tory publications towards us, has abated, and to some
extent it has been awed into manifestations of respect; while
the liberal papers are becoming bolder, and more and more
deeply imbued with the spirit of our institutions. A vast
luminary has arisen upon the other side of the Atlantic,
which is shedding its mild and benignant, its cheering and
inspiring rays upon these distant countries, and the darkness
of ages is fleeing away before it.
It is very true, that they have all so much to unlearn, so
many old associations to fling to the winds, such spells to
break away from, and such tides of evil influence setting in
upon them from every quarter to resist and overcome, that
it is by no means strange that the best of them should ap-
pear to us but half awake.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF PEEL–HIS ACHIEVEMENTS OVER
PRIVILEGE AND POWER.
I SHOULD do injustice to the subject of these pages, were I to
pass in silence the achievements over privilege and power of
that extraordinary man, Sir Robert Peel. And indeed I
could scarcely refrain from some notice of the blessings he
bestowed upon his countrymen, after having witnessed the
popular demonstration of regard for him on occasion of the
recent inauguration of a bronze statue to his memory at
Leeds.
And here I take occasion to say, in reference to statues,
pictures, &c., that I have purposely avoided all allusion to
the sculpture galleries and picture galleries I have visited;
high-wrought descriptions of which make so large a figure
in the diaries of many American tourists—not because I did
not admire them as the productions of human genius, and
the noblest triumphs of art (for I could stand all day over a
statue or a painting from the hand of a master), but be-
cause, until now, it has not comported with my design, nor
now, any further than to say, that I have been thoroughly
disgusted with the prostitution of these divine arts in these
304 THE MUD CABIN.
old countries, to the great work of human oppression, inso.
much that it is my humble conviction that they have done
far more to degrade than to elevate and refine mankind.
There is something in the master-pieces of statuary and
painting, which strikes the beholder with awe, and draws
forth his homage, as to objects supernatural and divine. The
greatest oppressors are thus made objects of veneration, and
of almost idolatrous regard to the masses who grovel at
their feet. And how easy a thing it is to transfer the hom-
age due the great God himself to objects from which such a
mysterious spell is shed down. Often have I turned away
in disgust from the great master-pieces of these arts, solely
from the associations thus connected with them.
I confess that I had seen so much prostitution of this
sort in this kingdom, so many “graven images” set up, as
a Leeds journal has it, and especially in the metropolis, that
I could scarcely regard with complacency the movement
made to raise a statue to the memory even of so great a be-
nefactor of his country as Sir Robert Peel-–a man so raised
above the highest level of humanity here, that he cast an
*indignant rebuke upon all such attempts to deify him while
he lived, seeking only to raise a memorial to his fame in
the hearts of his countrymen; and satisfied to leave to those
who had nothing else to rely upon, the fruitless attempt to
borrow immortality from the crumbling marble.
This trait in the man, together with the deep and throb-
bing response of humanity for the good service he had done
it, in defiance of privilege and power, of which this statue was
to be a testimonial, allayed all my disgust, overcame all my
TRIBUTE TO PEEL. 305
antipathies, and inspired me with a reverence as sincere, and
an interest as thrilling, as were so signally manifested by the
humble children of want, as they pressed in countless thou-
sands upon the scene, to gaze upon the features of their great
benefactor, as delineated in the bronze statue before them.
From the pedestal on which it stood, it seemed to look down
upon them in dignified compassion.
When the covering was first withdrawn from it, a deep
sea of emotion seemed to heave the mighty mass, breaking
forth in audible, though subdued, half-suppressed expression,
as though from a sense of reverence. It did me good to
mingle with the crowd, witness the intensity of their feel-
ings, and listen to the expressions of gratitude which broke
from the lips of the humbler classes. One poor woman,
after telling what he had done, exclaimed, with tears in her
eyes, and an emphasis I shall never forget, “And the chil-
dren are yet to be born that you may tell it to "?" -
And what had he done 3 All that was possible to be
done for his oppressed countrymen, he gave the energies of
his great intellect and powerful influence to accomplish. He
revised and modified the whole financial system, so as to
transfer, as far as possible, the burdens of taxation from the
poor to the rich;* and when the fearful crisis came which
*Sir Robert had a storm of obloquy to encounter from the
landlords and capitalists generally, for his efficiency in getting
through the Income Tax Bill, vulgarly called his “Money Bill,”
which levied a tax of sixpence per pound sterling on all income,
from whatever source dervived—a measure of absolute necessity
to save the country from bankruptcy, and the government from
306 THE MUD CABIN.
was to decide the fate of the great measure of corn-law re-
peal, he brought all the power of his mighty influence to
its aid, although he was himself a landholder, and largely
interested to defeat it. At the same time, he very modestly
disclaimed any share in the credit of that triumph, and
awarded it all to Mr. Cobden, although it is hardly possible
that it could have been carried had he taken an attitude of
resistance.
He, as a matter of course, had been a protectionist; so
that in going for the measure he not only abandoned his
own private interests, but had to encounter a storm of ob-
loquy and reproach from his brother landlords, who brand-
ed him as a turn-coat, and a traitor to their interests, and
charged him, at the same time, with the basest ingratitude,
for having deserted them after they had “taken him up” and
hoisted him into power; but he stood firm as the rock amid
the ocean waves. -
And he was equally unmoved by the favors they had to
bestow. Repeatedly he turned his back upon the peerage,
and refused to have it, though pressed upon his acceptance;
and not only so, but he recorded a solemn protest in his will
dissolution. The country was actually bankrupt, and had nothing
to meet the demands of its bondholders for their interest. All
hearts misgave; and the question was upon every lip, What shall
be done to save the country? At this fearful crisis, while all were
“sore afraid” in view of impending ruin, this great man came
boldly forward with his bill, and carried it triumphantly, to the
salvation of the country. The bill was not perfect, but as perfect,
probably, as it could have been made under the circumstances.
MORAL SUBLIMITY. 307
against its acceptance by any of his sons, should it be offered
them.
As the first minister of the crown, he made peers of
others, but withstood the blandishment, and remained a
commoner himself; and what a spectacle, to see the proud
aristocracy of England prostrate at his feet, marquisses begging
to be made dukes, earls begging to be made marquisses, vis-
counts begging to be made earls, baronets begging to be made
viscounts, and esquires begging to be made baronets, while
he himself, by the simple force of his character, rose above
them all, and put all such things away from him as the bau-
bles of children, and that in a country where regard for rank
and title rises to idolatry | Wonderful man! What a spec-
tacle of moral sublimity I See him rejecting and trampling
under his feet as dross what England's proud peers value
themselves upon alone, and what her servile masses bow
down to in low worship, and, at the same time, encountering
the reproaches of those lofty ones, when he might have se-
cured their smiles and their caresses, and have found his
own private interests every way promoted by it besides
How contemptible the fling from these illustrious ones,
that he was ungratefull
Few of this class of persons made their appearance on
that occasion ; it had no attractions for them. Indeed there
is every reason to believe, that the sad event which deprived
the country of this great man, and spread mourning and
sorrow through the habitations of the poor, was hailed with
gladness by them, as bringing deliverance from an influence
which they dreaded, and which they had every reason to
dread; for the reforms he had already effected, were but pre-
308 THE MUD CABIN.
paratory to still greater ones which he contemplated. I
have given, in another place, the remark made to me by a
distinguished member of parliament, that he fully intended
to abolish the hereditary peerage, and his expressed convic.
tion that he would have accomplished it, had his life been
spared a few years longer. Much as he was appreciated by
the middle and lower classes, little did they know the loss
they sustained in his death.
And besides all that is said above of his high-souled
magnanimity, he knew full well, that even if he was suc-
cessful in carrying the corn-law repeal, it would work his
downfall from power. It did work his downfall; but how
small a consideration was that to him | Descending from
his high position as the first minister of the crown, with
calm, unruffled dignity, and retiring to his farm, he devoted
himself to the improvements of agriculture with the same
zeal, ability and success, with which he had guided the
destinies of the nation; and, but for the mysterious provi-
dence which deprived the country of his services, he would
soon again have been called to the helm of state, and have
had the opportunity to carry out his great designs for the
good of his country.
I certainly regard it a privilege to have seen the statue
of such a man,—one which is pronounced true to the great
original. It presents one of the noblest specimens of “the
human face divine” I have ever seen. He is represented as
standing with a scroll in his hand, in the attitude in which
he usually addressed the House of Commons, with a calm,
thoughtful dignity upon his brow, benignity in his counte-
nance, and eloquence upon his lips.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.
ARE these things so? Is such the character, and such the
tendency of British constitutional government? Is it true,
that it is as far from dispensing blessings to the mass of
the people, and as effectual an engine to crush them, as the
most despotic governments of Europe? Does it create the
necessity which dooms the multitude to degrading servitude
and hopeless destitution ? Does the same vicious system
produce the same vicious effects upon the poor working-man,
whether he be a serf, or “a free-born Englishman,” under
the broad protection of Magna Charta—whether the country
be “overstocked with inhabitants,” as they would make us
believe it is now, or understocked, as it was half a century
ago, when there was less than half the present population ?
Is it true, that the education of the people has hitherto been
regarded as dangerous to the institutions of the country, and
ignorance and degradation as their only sure foundations?
Is it true, that the influence of the favored few upon all the
orders below has been for evil, and only evil, and that con-
tinually—and that, so far from there being similarity in
the institutions of the two countries, there is only contrast
in every thing which pertains to the great ends of govern-
ment? -
310 THE MUD CABIN.
Are these things so? Then how little reason have these
people to boast of their institutions as compared with those
of their continental neighbors! What face can they have
to open their mouths about continental despotism, exposed
as they are to the taunt, “What do ye more than others ?”
How much better than despotism is a system whose effects
upon human character and human destiny are not dis-
tinguishable from those produced by despotism itself? And
where, among all the despotisms of Europe, are the people
bowed down under a heavier weight of taxation, and so pau-
perized as in this land of constitutional liberty? Nowhere;
not one single continental state has made such proficiency
in the work of pauperizing its people as this kingdom: she
is in advance of them all. [See Porter's Progress of the
Nation, vol. ii., page 113.]
And yet they would have us admire their free institu-
tions as the model of our own, and talk with wonderful self-
complacency about the oppressions of continental despotism.
God forbid, that I should say any thing to shield continental
despotism from merited reprobation, or to disparage in the
slightest degree the feeblest development of constitutional
liberty—that sort which blesses the people.
If they want us to recognize them as fathers, brothers, or
as the Times has it, cousins; if they would have us, as a
free people, extend to them the hand of fellowship, then let
them show us by their behavior that they are worthy of it.
Let them show us the appropriate fruits of free institutions;
let them point us to what their institutions have done
for the people to entitle them to our regards as kindred to
CONCLUSION. 3 II
our own, and as distinguishing them from those of the
rankest despotism; and in order to this, it is not sufficient
to talk about habeas corpus, by which a poor wretch may
be dragged out of jail, where he has found a refuge from
starvation.
Then will we believe; then will we raise a hallelujah
for old England, and delight to mingle our sympathies with
hers, and do her honor.
Are these things so? Then what a value should we put
upon the institutions of our country? Nor would ours be a
mere empty boast; for there are the evidences, and to them
we can make a triumphant appeal. Previous to the rise of
our own, there was very little choice among the governments
of the earth, judging them by their effects upon the well-
being of the race. All, whether nominal republics, consti-
tutional monarchies, or absolute despotisms, are reduced, by
the application of this test, substantially to one common
level; for all alike had been employed only to degrade,
pauperize, and brutalize the masses, to furnish the means of
luxurious indulgence to the favored few, and all the world
said, Amen /
Favored, happy people! may you prove worthy the
sacred trust, and the distinguished blessings you enjoy be
diffused abroad, through the influence of your high example,
among all the nations of the earth, and perpetuated from
generation to generation, down to the winding up of this
earthly scene!
But to make our influence tell upon the nations of the
earth, we must put away every thing which serves to impede
312 THE MUD CABIN.
the working, or mar the effect of our institutions. To
neutralize their influence, and justify themselves, these people
are keen to discover all such blemishes, and they spare no
pains to make all the capital possible out of them, shutting
their eyes to the broad distinction, that the character and
tendency of their institutions is to produce the evils of which
I have spoken, while the character and tendency of ours is
to destroy the evils with which they taunt us—quite a dif-
ference, truly In the one case, the evils in question are
the spontaneous outgrowth of a vicious system, and in the
other, they are but fungous excresences, which the healthful
development of the system itself will shed off.
This book will be legitimate game for the tory presses of
England, should it ever rise to the dignity of falling into
their hands; and it really has the presumption to cherish
such an expectation, nor does it shrink from the ordeal. It
knows full well with what ferocity it will be assailed, what
charges of stupid ignorance, conceited prejudice, and gross
error, will be heaped upon its hapless author; and it would
not be surprised if minions of the British throne in our own
country should open their batteries upon it. But it is not
afraid; girded in the panoply of truth, and sustained by
“the conscience of the world,” it goes forth upon its mission,
deeply impressed with a sense of the importance of the
message it bears. It throws down no gauntlet, and boasts
of no infallibility, but very respectfully presents itself for a
hearing.
THE END,
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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